Something cute happened the other night as the kids were about to sleep. My 2 year old son was still finding his rhythm, slowing down and ready to doze off. I hugged my wife, she got tickled by the stubbles of hair starting to grow on my chin as it grazed her shoulder. She had a quick and jerky
reaction, and that triggered this primal reaction in me to push forward and do it again. My son noticed this and immediately sat up asking “Are you ok, Mama?!?”. There was a Clint Eastwood-esque tone in how he delivered the words that made me look at him like a villain. He didn’t back down. He meant it. It’s amazing how these virtues are ingrained in one’s DNA.
In youth, our personal safety is drowned out by the myth of our immortality. I relish in the concept of pursuing freedom and risking life to validate it. To feel alive. Then I get to realize how fragile everything is.
It made me think about how we regard personal safety as highly evolved beings, how we try to extend our reach to affect those who we care about that their safety is as important as ours. It is a universal priority we all feel strongly about. We all want a safe place to live in.
This is why I find it inconsistent that in the social structure we’re part of, safety is not guaranteed for all. We have installed pillars of laws and enforcers that should assure the citizens but when it fails, we’re left to hope that it is solved earnestly and that it’s an isolated case. Very unacceptable.
In a country of rampant criminality, I can attest that I’ve walked various streets of Manila at night unscathed. Petty crimes are said to be
brought upon by the ills of poverty that cripples the people and our relative ignorance. Our ignorance limits the horizons of our choices and leads to desperate actions. I’m not justifying the actions of criminals who are driven by hunger, i just want to highlight a perspective. Especially against criminality rooted in greed.
The few who knows. Knows enough to bend the rules. Those who misrepresent service institutions like NGOs, some call themselves officer, some call themselves honorable and some call themselves cabinet secretary who serve at the pleasure of the President who claims that the people are his boss. It can be frustrating. It should be.
The President himself should be an advocate of public safety since he is a victim himself with a bullet hitting his neck. I believe he goes out there with that motivation. He should. As a father, I find it disconcerting that any of my kids and all of us can be victims stemming from deliberate neglect to maintain the train so one can have ill-gotten wealth.
How ignorant have we become that some of us would rather believe that our darkest hour as a nation is the brightest time for freedom, or as how some people remember martial law. Or how we’d gladly pawn our freedom for discipline and low crime rate. Like one cannot be kept for the other to flourish.
There is nothing more important for me other than the guarantee that my children can go to school safe, get smarter and contribute to the world’s improvement. My personal safety is about my family’s safety.
If we are truly on the moving up, then the threats to our personal safety should muted by the loud thunder of justice.
danDAman 