EDITORIAL – Three things

Three things have emerged from the killing of graduating nursing student Ruby Jade Ruba that need immediate and serious attention from those concerned — the twisted values of people, the proliferation of guns, and the motorcycle as the favorite mode of criminal transport.

Twisted values are the natural result of the failure of society's moral guardians to do their jobs. Priests and nuns spend more time protesting in the streets. Parents spend less time with kids in their formative years. And schools attract teachers passed up by other callings.

Guns are everywhere for three reasons. Law enforcers lack real seriousness in cracking down on them. Guns offer a means of livelihood, either through their sale, or by their criminal use. The Filipino has this attitude that goes: " If others can have them, why can't I? "

Motorcycles are favorite getaway vehicles because of two reasons. One is the traffic. If you need to get away fast, you need a vehicle that can weave in and out of jams and go where larger vehicles can't. Two, it is cheap. You can have it for P2,000 down. And then chuck it.

Obviously, the easier to address is the motorcycles. The government can quickly put in place measures to make it both harder to acquire them and easier to trace them. While waiting for that to happen, all-day checkpoints in more places can be conducted.

Then the government can go after the guns. For a government that makes things so easy if it were just a matter of talking about them, maybe it can start putting its money where its mouth is by doing and meaning what it says.

The hardest thing to address, of course, is the failure of our moral guardians to do their jobs. There is nothing wrong with being concerned about the larger picture, which must necessarily involve politics and the integrity of political leadership.

But before the larger picture must come the smaller details, the basic scenarios that make up everyday life at the heart of society, the family. But families can't be strong without moral stewardship that only priests can give. Yet where are they? And what are they doing?