MikeLigalig.com

By Joe Espiritu
Columnist
Bohol Sunday Post

The novena for the Feast of St. Michael has began. So with the night - nights.

However, preparations for the celebration this year is not as elaborate as last year. Perhaps it would be, some three and a half decades from now. Jagna would be four hundred years old. It is understandable if Exsam will not put up a big bash this time. He is in his third and last term and he has nothing to prove anymore.

Perhaps, he is trying to build up a momentum, which would propel the progress of Jagna when he steps down a few years from now. That would be a noble legacy.

However, despite going through the motions of celebrating just to get things over, the fiesta will still attract expats as usual. It has been a tradition that expats whether of the national or foreign category will come home. There would be no lack of local fiesta goers. Hopefully, after the preparations furor of last year, the fiesta pageantry this year would still be a cause for tourist attraction. The SB Committee on Tourism should see to that.

This year, there will be flies in the ointment or cockroaches on the birthday cake.

Teenage gangs had proliferated. The so-called fraternities are engaging in nightly rumbles. Feria operators are getting annoyed. Street fights drive away bettors and their business grind to a halt. Motorcabs are stoned and drivers are filing charges in the barangays where those hooligans live.

The sad part of the story is; to hale those teenage thugs to court is tricky. The so-called Teenage Law of Sen Kiko Pangilinan had tied the hands of the authorities. If a barangay tanod knocks a few heads of those punks to enforce order, the tanod will be charged will child abuse. If brought to the police, the misbegotten s. o. b. is handled with velvet gloves. If the underage delinquent is haled to court, he is set free under the Pangilinan law.

If there is that teenage law, there should be also a law, which imposes the full penalty on the parent or the guardian of the culprit. If the youthful criminal finds out that his funds had dried up because its source is in prison, the culprit would think several times before embarking on a crime career. Aside from that, the legal minds of the local SB should enact an ordinance imposing a teenage curfew, where all apprehended teenagers would be rounded up and detained for safe keeping until morning. The ordinance would protect those thugs from themselves. If done nightly, those criminals would see no future in loitering around after curfew hours.

There are some Luzon provinces, which do not have problems in teenage hooliganism. They also do not have problems in drug pushing, drug addiction and petty thuggery. They are found lying in rice field or floating in creeks and rivers in mornings. No distinction is made. Men, women teenagers are qualified to depart from this world when the peace of the community is disturbed.

Leftists, rightists, centrists and vigilantes were blamed for their untimely demise.

For a time, funeral parlors were glad until the bodies ran out. Those people are not aware of the Pangilinan law. Even if they know of it, the law is more observed in breach than in observance. Here, vigilantism is unheard of. Yet. However, if those budding criminals hit some hotheads, they would be likely candidates fort Holy Name or St. Peter. They should know that forensic facilities in the local PNP is practically non-existent. They would end up in the unsolved crime list.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=4952.0