Here we go again. Yet another shooting, yet another call for “blanket bans” – bans on violent video games, bans on social media use among minors.
To me, these calls for “blanket bans” aren’t just indicative of the Filipino’s predilection for knee-jerk, reactive responses to our social, economic and political problems.
It’s also indicative of a society where “hugas-kamay” has become the norm.
Everybody – from government officials down to ordinary citizens – try to escape their own individual and collective liabilities in creating a society where it is normal for a minor to just walk in with a gun and spray bullets on everybody.
Lahat ng Pilipino, nais maging “hugas-kamay” sa isyung ito.
The government wants to escape its liability for its failure to ensure gun control, failure to promote a safe school environment for the country’s children, failure to curb rampant and blatant corruption that has served to embolden those who wish to take advantage of a state on the verge of failure.
Society wants to escape its liability for promoting, condoning, even hailing violence as the right way to resolve conflicts, for its failure to listen to a youth that has become increasingly becoming vulnerable to exploitation.
Parents want to escape their liability for their failure to provide a home where their children can truthfully express their feelings; for their failure to ensure not only their children’s material but also their emotional and spiritual well-being; for abdicating their responsibility to relatives, friends and even technology, leaving their children exposed without guidance to a world where cruelty has become the standard.
Lahat ng Pilipino, nais maging “hugas-kamay” sa isyung ito.
#Opinyon #WeTakeAStand #Column