Many millennials are into drugs

I spent my Monday evening tuned in to the replay of the Miss Universe pageant that was done in Bangkok, Thailand. And while we’ve already written about this wonderful event, I’m just aback by the comments of certain people who say that Catriona Gray was “romanticizing about poverty” when she said her experience working in the slums of Tondo, Manila taught her to “look in the beauty of the children” and be grateful. Catriona said, “And I will bring this aspect as a Miss Universe to see situations with a silver lining and to assess where I could give something, where I could provide something as a spokesperson.”

Why can’t people simply let pass what our newest Miss Universe said, which I didn’t find offensive at all? That she worked in the slums of Tondo isn’t an experience that everyone has taken, yet she said that the slums of Tondo, Manila taught her to “look in the beauty of the children” and be grateful. That a girl like Catriona finds beauty in children is a remarkable attitude that should never be condemned. Let me leave this issue to people who have become intolerant with good words for the poor. Let’s have less of these criticisms about our poor people. I don’t understand why we need to vilify her and accuse her of using poverty as a drama effect for the crown. People are so quick to fault someone.

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 While 24-year-old Catriona has made millions of Filipinos proud and grateful for her beauty and talent, it is a sad to note that here in Cebu, a 22-year-old beauty queen has been arrested for allegedly peddling Kush weeds and has been charged for the crime, according to the Cebu City Police Office. CCPO chief Royina Garma said cases for drug possession and distribution under Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drug Act of 2002 were lodged against Teri Marina Colmenares, who was arrested in a buy-bust and yielded several packs of Kush weeds amounting to P90,000.

We learned that Colmenares was arrested in a buy-bust activity last Saturday after Nicole Allan Casiño, 24, admitted sourcing his four packs of Kush weeds from Colmenares. Casiño also yielded six Lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD, a kind of party drug which costs approximately P1,800 each in the market.

Garma said the Kush weeds recovered were high-grade and may have been sourced outside the country, based on the pungent smell coming from the drug. This only shows that many millennials are hooked on drugs and their parents probably are unaware about their children’s drug problem.

It is high time that children start learning the bitter lessons in life -- that the issue of drug abuse is destroying the lives of children who end up losing hope for a better future. I’m sure that these millennials do not have a problem looking for jobs because their parents can afford to feed them, so it is really a need for that thrill in life, which attracts them to use illegal drugs. What the arrested beauty queen has done was become an illegal drug pusher, and that means her future is practically gone.

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A recent report revealed that although Southeast Asia is far and away from the United States, an armed conflict in the politically-volatile South China Sea is among the top concerns of US foreign policy experts for 2019. That’s according to a study by the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) Center for Preventative Action published last Tuesday. The survey evaluates ongoing and potential conflicts based on their likelihood of occurring in the coming year and their impact on the US interests, according to the CFR.

The study said that a conflict in the South China Sea has a moderate likelihood of happening but would have a “high” impact, which means the “contingency directly threatens the US homeland, a defense treaty ally, or a vital strategic interest, and thus is likely to trigger a major US military response.” The study adds that a possibility of a similar confrontation in the East China Sea involving China and Japan, however, is considered unlikely in 2019, although it had been a tier 1 concern in previous years. Then it is high time that we consider this potential case a high priority for action.

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