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Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Obenieta: Bracing for a break
By Myke U. Obenieta
So to Speak
No other weather smells like teen spirit as summer does. Never mind if there’s nothing sunny about what’s going on in the country as politics, as usual, leaves us cold and feeling old. What’s youth if not a season to shrug it all off and reclaim ever so recklessly one’s spot under the sun?
Waste time, go headlong into the heydays of being carefree and wring every ounce of fun. So whoops out the young after the long spell of schoolwork and the untidy rehearsals for the ever-impending reality check called maturity — which, come to think of it, is sorely in short supply among many of our politicians who might as well fly kites if only to find better use of their endless resources of hot air or to prove the sky’s the limit for their capacity for playing truant.
If our soi-disant leaders seem perennially on vacation from the drudge of public trust — out on a romp to flee from the restlessness of responsibility — why not the young with angst to burn against anything that smacks of authority?
A few days from now, a television network will water down the tedium of political uncertainty as it momentarily tries to shake off every young-ster’s sense of anomie (spawned partly, surely, by the mess adults make of their world). Come on, if economic considerations render it out of reach to go out on limb for a leisurely break, how about soaking up instead on the drift of reality TV?
Hopefully, the spirited revelations of innocence and its jagged edges in the forthcoming teen edition of Pinoy Big Brother will also make our elders in public office sit up and intuit what’s eating our so-called “hope of the motherland.”
“The youth is the country’s future leaders and they can make or break our country,” stressed Arnel Sacris, head of the provincial family ministries. Mincing no words in describing today’s youth as “confused,” he echoed the call of more than a hundred CFC (Couples for Christ) leaders from all over Cebu, reportedly dressed in military attire, declaring “war against youth’s apathy and vice.” They recently met and vowed to comb the entire province and “lead the youth to the right track” away from peer pressure, smoking, drinking, pre-marital sex, gang wars.
Explaining why CFC advocates for YFC (Youth for Christ) as an alternative organization, Sacris waxes idealistic: “Right now, they are being used as a tool by politicians and we want to change that by making them the CFC partners in nation-building and in restoring the dignity of this country.”
Never mind if the religious leaders are up against a generation wary about elders with good intentions, like politicians. Unfazed goes provincial CFC coordinator Joy Desuyo who “hoped to attract them through music, dances and the arts,” cognizant of the fact that “the youth are dynamic and energetic.”
In the offing is no less an adventure, surmised provincial youth coordinator Danilo Langga. “We want to raise a generation that is participative in helping the poor,” averred Langga, adding CFC is set to mobilize the young in helping Gawad Kalinga, a project that seeks to provide housing for the homeless.
Purpose-driven fun, anyone?
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 4, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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