Editorial: Disturbing images of a child’s death

WE CAN only wish with all our hearts that the death by stabbing of a 16-year-old second year high school student by a 14-year-old sixth grader inside a public elementary school is but an isolated case.

But we know it’s not.

It may have been the first time that such incident happened inside a school campus and involving children in uniform, but remove those uniforms and bring them out on the streets and you see the nightly riot of hot-blooded youths.

Sit down with them and you will hear stories of thrill killings and, yes, sex.

The same stories have been going on for decades now. Children of the slums who have no other support system except their peers are doing as their peers do, most of the time challenged to do something just for the thrill of it, or, as the police said of the reason why the boy killed another boy, jealousy.

“Uyab-uyab” is often the cause of riots. “Trip” is often the cause of death and injury.

What is disturbing, however, is that the other day’s incident broke the illusion of security of being in school.

Keep the children in school to keep them out of trouble, that’s what we always say, until we see the bloodied body of this very young boy, crumpled just beside the school guardhouse. Around him are several more children, watching, curious, but most likely not fully understanding.

As we try to process the thought of a sixth grader pulling out a knife and stabbing another to death, we also wonder who were there to process what these children saw. Most likely, the elders will just try to sweep this incident under the rug and no longer mention it to the children in the hope that everything will be forgotten. But it won’t, they won’t.

That brings us back to the matter at hand. This is not an isolated case; it is but an alarm sounded so loud, we hope everyone who needs to listen is now listening. There is a problem. Let us solve this as one community.