Five-Fingered Green Gold

I was admiring my pechay nursery last April 13, 2012 when lo! From the corner of my eye spotted I a different-looking seedling thrusting upwards and seeking out the sun.

Upon closer inspection, it delighted me no end to discern it was a marijuana seedling. Fiendishly smiling, I savored the thought of raising marijuana at my backyard away from the ever- snooping eyes of drug enforcement.

My thoughts raced: After it had grown, I would sell its leaves and earn; I would give them to my friends. My, how popular would I be among my amigos? They would drool over it Girls would flock to me … But then, I paused.

What in tarnation was I thinking? I knew the plant was illegal. I knew its side-effects, having been a health spokesman for so long.

To top it all, my eldest son, Bismarck, happens to be the public information officer of the Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency.

With my dark thoughts, I reconsidered; I would be committing suicide with such plans.

But what titillated my curiosity no end was how that marijuana seeded land among the pechay seeds when I bought them at an agricultural outlet.

Then I recalled how the Cordillera region in northern Philippines was tagged the marijuana-producing area in the country and merchants of the illegal plant devising ingenious ways in transporting it to prospective buyers. Even hiding them among vegetables grown in the Cordillera and trucked to other regions for distribution. There, I got it. Somehow that wayward marijuana seedling growing at my nursery was part of an illegal drug trade utilizing upland vegetables.

A plant lover, I hated to slay the illegal weed. With a trowel, I gently lifted it from the seedbed, hoping to replant it in the wilderness adjacent my home. If it survives on its own, well and good. If it doesn’t, I did the best for it.

Then out of nowhere appeared Ayof, a huge drug-sniffer dog of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency taken into our home as a pet by Bismarck.

True to its calling, Ayof took a sniff at the plant and sat down, an indication he found an illegal drug. I paid our dog no mind and walked towards the forest with the plant.

But Ayof got miffed from my insult and refused to take it. He barreled towards me, knocked the trowel with the marijuana plant to the ground. In an instant, he sat on the fledgling plant, squashed it then yawned satisfactorily. He placed his head on his paws and closed his eyes, but not before he opened one malicious eye of satisfaction at me.

I laughed at Ayof’s antics and rested my case.---Bony Bengwayan