Paying lip service to children

The whole city is in an uproar. And that is because the Cebu City Council, which has never passed anything that would measure up to the city’s standing as the second most important city in the country, has come up with another inanity.

Despite the existence of national laws that already protect children from violence and other forms of abuse, the city council still found it necessary to come up with its own ordinance to that same effect.

Not that children do not need protection from violence and abuse. They do. But the abuse and violence that children are supposed to be protected from should not be mistaken for parental acts that are necessary toward instilling discipline.

This failure to make distinctions has led to the corruption of the intent of the national law such that children are now being used by syndicates in the commission of crimes for which they can not be punished.

Yet, despite knowing how the national law protecting children has gone the opposite way by now working in favor of criminal syndicates, our hapless members of the city council still found it necessary to come up with their own version of that corrupted national law.

In the stunted view of the city councilors, it is now an offense for anyone, including parents, to even scold their children, much less spank them. Not that we should spank and scold children. But to actually put it down in writing in the form of an ordinance?

And what if I scold my children? Will any of the councilors come to arrest me in my own home? I dare any of the councilors to come and arrest me and I will throw him or her out the window! Ha ha. Joke only. I have no more little children to scold.

But that is precisely the point. Even if I am in favor of the ordinance, which I am definitely not, how on earth can it be implemented? Oh, I can see where the bulk of the violators will be — in the poorer sectors where any domestic altercation is anybody’s business.

Yet, as far as the gated communities and fenced off houses are concerned, where I would presume the same things happen since parental anger knows no economic distinctions, I wonder if any law enforcer would dare enforce the selectively enforceable ordinance, if at all.

This is another exercise in futility by a city council that does almost nothing except be on the lookout for national issues to adopt and espouse instead of devoting their precious time on purely local and urgent issues.

I truly cannot understand why both the national and local governments would be so protective of children at a time when they need discipline and yet do almost nothing about the problems that these undisciplined children later become.

Just take a look at the drug problem. Drugs has now become the biggest threat to the country, bigger even than our conflict with China over Scarborough Shoal or our inordinate interest in that loose Jordanian journalist. Yet why is the government failing against drugs.

It is unpardonable for this country to fail in the fight against drugs, which is ravaging our children and their future, especially since it is making so much noise about protecting children.

My take on this whole mess is that hypocrisy rules government policies on the young. Our officials like to strut before the world as great protectors of children, and yet fail in the one thing that we truly need to protect our children from — drugs and the lack of opportunities.

Pamahuway mo diha mga konsehal oy. Pagkawala gyud ninyo’y ayo. Hala kuno, naa man diha’y daghang bata nga nagpakilimos, mga walay kaon. Diha ay, sa kilid sa Fooda, duol sa Redemptorist. Panad-a kuno na sa inyo ug ligo-a. Human pakan-a. Ayaw kasab-i ha, basin mo ikiha.