Editorial: Next step: garbage

IT WAS a continuous stream of people going in and out of Davao Memorial Park, early Monday evening. Following the throng while keeping watch of the park chapel, which is the landmark, take the first concrete walkway across the chapel, walk a short distance then look right, the tombstone must be somewhere there. Of course it's more difficult to find on the eve of All Souls Day because there are a lot of people, tents, markers, and stuff. But the tombstone was still found. A candle was lit, a prayer was said, it's time to find friends.

After dinner with friends on their family's gravesite, it was almost impossible to see the walkway across the chapel. A mountain of garbage has already grown where the walkway corner was. There were similar mountains beside most lampposts.

While the mountains of garbage look like there's a system in place, somewhere, somehow, since there are just the mountains of garbage and residual trails. Otherwise the garbage are not scattered everywhere. It's not so in other cemeteries, especially the public ones.

Something has to be done, and we know it can be done. Just a little reminder here, and a few whacks on violators there should do it.

We've somehow stopped the overnight disco cum karaoke parties that All Souls Eves were in the years past. Liquor has been minimized unlike before when the cemeteries become one sprawling overnight drinking parties. And despite the mob, there's a semblance of order. That means there's hope. All we need to do next time is to inculcate the need to dispose of garbage properly. Not just in centralized mountains, but in neat bins or garbage bags. Especially so in the public cemeteries.

We've regulated smoking, we've stopped fireworks and pyrotechnics, we've slowed down traffic. Dealing with garbage during All Souls Eve should be peanuts. Otherwise, authorities can always whack a little.