Good afternoon to all the people who are gathered here with me today especially to the school

administrators, our dear teacher, Ms. Velasquez. Let me first introduce myself, I am Kyla Divine
E. Gonzales your speaker and it is an honor to be standing in front of you all. I grew up in an
environment in which positivity is always noticeable, but I was also saddened by the fact that
negativity always foster in today’s time and generation. Poverty, war, injustices, and chaos can
be seen in any corners of the world. Unfortunately, our country, Philippines, experienced such
mishaps. One of the most unfortunate yet common misfortune we have is drug addiction.
Addiction, on the other hand, is the total abused of substances and chemical which are known to
be hazardous to human. Drugs as we all know are used in medicine and allied fields but without
moderation, it will certainly lead to abusive used and consume of these substances. The term
abusive, suggests extreme act of using these substances that will obviously lead to damaging
consequences. As humans, we tend to say, “what we are doing will always have it’s
consequences, we only need to prepare ourselves for whatever consequences they are”. But then
again, we are humans. Living, have numerous rights, living a life the way we wanted it to be
lived. We are living in an environment wherein poverty is a major cause why drug addiction
happened. Addiction will always be hindrance to a nation’s growth.
Through the previous years, Philippines have been facing a lot of dilemmas. Drug addiction have
been considered as one of the major problems we are currently dealing with right now. We
cannot deny the fact that this issue has been a major one. It affects a lot of people in our society,
specifically the youths. But what makes them decide to be abusive to these substances? Is it lack
of parental support? Is it lack of education that made them unaware of these toxicities?
Life had been destroyed by drug addiction, it leads to numerous criminal movements like theft
and even killings. Sadly, and unfortunately, I have witnessed an innocent death because he was
blamed for the things he was not even doing. During its pioneer years, war on drugs showed
remarkable and promising effects on our society. It became safe when strolling at night, we tend
to become comfortable about our safety because the number of these drug abusers are lessened
by the oplan katok and tokhang. But in the long run, I guess I should not be glad. Everything
done without moderation is called “abusive”. And that term does not only apply to drug addicts,
but it also applies to those who are sitting on the top of these hierarchical positions who tend to
be abusive of their powers. What is with this “war on drugs?”, Mr. President, if you are listening,
can I ask a favor? Can you not normalized providing justices to those who are on the top of this
what we call “tatsulok”? Can you lessen these injustices, these unreasonable deaths? Can you
diminish the chances of killing the innocent ones?
I am also wanting to have a peaceful nation where negativity could not perish and foster. I am
always longing to reach the cloud’s silver lining. But as human, as a speaker, I am also longing
for justice, I am also wanting to see situations in which lives of my countrymen are not put into
danger. I am also a dreamer. A dreamer who only wants safety in my nation, where lives are not
at stake, where lives matter.