By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas

Every now and then a person goes through a stage where he is badgered by all sorts of problems from every corner. As soon as one is sorted out, another one attacks from a different direction with a different intensity. Sometimes you could not even gasp for air. Often to the extent one would think if his time has already come to cross the Great Divide.
That stage started in my case about two years ago when I suffered a failure of my kidneys and heart. Then came smaller things like flu, incessant coughing, and this last December, a recalcitrant tummy problem that kept coming back. It was like being fried in your own lard—napiprito sa sariling mantika.
For some people such stage comes in the form of domestic problems often resulting in separation, or family quarrels over property or economic bankruptcy, or finding out your life partner is cheating on you. Etcetera. You lose weight and appetite, and the initiative for anything, etc. Some would commit suicide. Others would kill or commit other crimes.
Psychoanalysts would call the period negrido, the term used by assayists or alchemists when they literally mix substances or metals and smelt them to come up with a better substance– of a higher grade. Perhaps resulting in silver or gold.
Yes, that is the whole cosmic plan. To take care of the evolution of people and other creation and become better. Sorry, it takes going through that crucible of feeling like the whole world or diseases are ganging up on you.
This morning I felt a little bit better. So I walked over to a banana and camote cue stand about two hundred meters away. It was nice to leisurely walk under the mid-morning sun. There was a smile on my face as I said hello to a turo turo operator I had to pass by. Hopefully, my present negrido is waning.
It was great to munch on the hot camote cue downed by hot tea. A piping hot coffee would have been better, but cannot yet . . .
Were I holding office at the Pilando Center, I would have walked the 40 meter distance to the 24/7 pandesalan down the road and get a few pieces of hot pandesal and some peanut butter. Yummy with freshly brewed coffee. More so if you are feeling you are emerging from a dark tunnel of all sorts of problems.
Let us manifest that. Thank you, thank you.
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