Our elementary music teacher, decades ago, taught us how to sing a jolly song. It was years ahead of (and therefore it was not the music entitled) I Started A Joke by the Bee Gees, although it could very well be. Its opening line was "(I)n our place along the bay, barrio of San Roque, met four jolly beggars, in a feastful (?) mood, one day." According to the song, the beggars were a crippled who danced, a mute who sang the melody, a blind who liked the sight and a deaf who enjoyed the music.
When I got to be a little bit older, I realized that the song was more than a smack of an insult. The lyrics rubbed proverbial salt into a man's gaping wound in a way only a sick mind could conceive. And I gathered that a mischievous American educator was responsible for inscribing that song into the pages of the book "Music Horizon" It was, in reality, a travesty against the dignity of persons with some disabilities. But, alas, no one seemed to complain then and the young man in me found the cause of the disabled rather lonely and difficult to espouse.I was forced to remain silent.
Time indeed, if Robert Ludlum, were to be believed, has its own way of healing things. So the line, "Time Heals!" was written. The years that passed helped me cope with the insult heaped against my brethren with physical defects (because I felt it was also addressed to me as a Filipino) and forget whoever wrote the wicked lyrics of that song and the music itself. I refused even just to hum it until I could no longer remember how it sounded.
Certain incidents however, whether by accident or by design continue to keep the memory of unpleasant events alive. Such was the case when I heard of the news that differently-abled persons (a euphemism for the disabled ones) were coaxed to dance in public. Yes, I saw them on television. They are the employees of the city government, who, with crutches propping them up, swayed with the music to the delight of those who must have secretly pitied for their physical incapacities. Little did we know that some of them, under the pain of some kind of sanction, were plainly forced to do what they would prefer not to.
The author of this present undertaking may have good concept. God bless his or her soul! He or she probably just wants to entice taxpayers to remit their taxes. But that is a myopic way of attraction. And it is, in all honesty, wrong. Watching the disabled do something their physical incapacities prevent them to can never be an encouragement to do something like paying taxes. This is plain cruelty and cruelty can never be taken as any positive move.
It was not funny to see the disabled grapple with their physical deformities if only dance. Some of them had difficulty standing up. Others had the trouble of walking from one point to another. Why should we want them to sway when with their disabilities considered, they could function for the government in many other ways?
When the ladies and gentlemen in the tax division of the city government were asked to dance, I remembered the crippled in my elementary song dancing, or the mute singing, or the blind seeing, because, that was what precisely they were told to do. Their physical condition did not merit their being directed to dance.
If improving our tax collection is the objective, there certainly, are other available and more humane ways. Vigorous campaign, for instance, can prove its worth. Some of us citizens procrastinate in the payment of our taxes and when confronted with the fact that a late payment courts sanctions, we tend to coil in. So when informed earlier of our tax liabilities, we can be willing payors.
Providing tax incentive rather than imposing penalty is another method and certainly is it a better attraction. The trouble with our government is that we are happy to add to the burden of our taxpayers. We glee in imposing the surcharges and penalties when we can increase the volume of taxpayers if we are lenient in charging penalties.
Let me ask His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama to revisit this dancing program. All sides shall be considered not just the preference of some high profile leaders to hit the dance floor. If mag igat igat man lang gani ta, di nato iapil tong dunay kabilinggan intawon oi, mayor.