As every mom or dad with growing up kids will tell you, parenting is not an easy task, made even more difficult trying to discipline teeners – being obedient, and to conduct themselves properly, like helping out with household chores or making up their own beds.
Parental advice goes in one ear, and out the other, doing things as per whim, or whatever catches their fancy, unmindful that their actions might be displeasing to others.
In sum, they live in a planet all their own, no adults and others allowed.
Today, in the age of the Covid, it is the elderly who are the children of the world, being told on how to live the remainder of their lives.
Stay home, they are told, do not step out of your abodes except for good reason, like seeking urgent medical help, or other matters of importance, which means politics is out, petty as it is.
And just like children, they balk at authority, with claims that being cooped up in their own backyard violates their constitutional rights to freely travel.
Has martial law been declared? And what health protocols is the government talking about? It is their health, not the tracing czar’s, it is their body, not anyone else.
It is the same kind of argument that children use when rebelling against parents and other authority.
Why should an elderly lady be prevented from hearing daily mass, to disallow her from praying the novena and communing with the Almighty, to prepare herself for the final journey, with St. Peter awaiting her coming, to check if she is worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, where the angels will trumpet her arrival at the pearly gates.
And what about the DOMs, as all aging men are? Happiness is going to the mall to ogle all the pretty girls passing by, sitting down with friends to sip coffee and arguing about affairs of the state.
The late strongman Ferdinand Marcos was deposed because he failed to make a queen sacrifice. President Rody Duterte shouldn’t make the same mistake, and he should fire right off all the military generals (save for one) in his administration, and include mouthpieces Harry Roque and Sal Panelo, good lawyers both, but terrible apologists.
And please Mr. President, they are not your soldiers and policemen, they are the people’s protectors from foreign and internal aggression, who owe loyalty to the country rather than from the one who runs it.
What you are doing is giving them a feeling of importance that they are free to run after not only the scumbags but all else who do not see eye to eye with them.
Since when did La Salle and Ateneo students become enamored with the communist movement?
Joma Sison is no Che Guevarra, and neither are the current crop of generals anything like Tirso Fajardo or Fortunato Abat.
How does that PMA motto go again? Courage, integrity…
But enough said.
The latest news is that all the cockpits in Baguio and Benguet are being shut down, which means illegal tupadas will be held daily. No need to wear masks and shields, just bring money.
And how is that possible? Nothing that grease money can’t cure.
At least with regular cockfights, there is a modicum of control.
And poor senior citizens, prisoners in their own homes, while the corrupt and the dishonest are free to go on with their dastardly mischief – what millions are you talking about – billions na.
May all your black souls rot in hell – sooner, not later.
Owing to the new deadline (Thursdays, no longer Fridays), we were unable to convey our condolences in last Sunday’s column to the bereaved loved ones of Mang Erning Santos and lawyer Leoncio “Leonsky” Alangdeo, who have both passed on to the next world.
In my early days as a law practitioner and family man, I would drop by the market to buy meat and fish for lunch and supper, and every time I chanced upon Mang Erning, he would fill my basket (no plastic, no paper bags at that time) with the most expensive items – prawns, lapu-lapu, crabs, and send me on my way while taking care of the costs.
A generous soul, Mang Erning was at his proudest when his son, Eric, passed the Bar exams.
Pablito Sanidad, Rene Cortes, and I will miss his kindness and friendship.
Leonsky and I practically started out together in Law practice, two friends sharing the same vices – card games, cockfights, casino hopping.
When his daughter Eryl married my nephew, David Aragones, I remember that in one tipsy moment (even my late Minda got drunk – her first) from too much champagne, I warbled a song of love and joy to the newlyweds, at the same time wondering if their first born son would take after Leonsky bloodline and I, a centuries-old tradition of the Carantes clan – screaming our lungs out while watching a thrilling cockfight, and like my Lolo Quidno, jumping for joy when our racehorse would win by a nose.
Mang Erning and Leonsky were opposite in character, but both share a common affection in my grieving heart.
Rest gently in paradise, dear old friends.
P.S. I thank the Public and Order Safety Division for returning the license plates of my neighbors’ motorbikes. Maraming salamat po!
A blessed Sunday to all!
