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Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Obenieta: Aging of innocence
By Myke U. Obenieta
So to Speak
As muddy as the clouds mirrored down the gutter, there’s no dearth of downbeat examples for the young to gaze at. No need to crunch one’s knuckles; easy does it in priming up premature wrinkles on one’s greenhorn heart.
Delinquency, after all, is not only a juvenile tendency. Go see the epidemic of immaturity wrought by “respectable people” whose hairline has receded with their conscience along with the wearing out of their innocence.
If even priests—who make it a proprietary role to inspire faith, goodness, and transcendence—can hold the candle to the shadowy deeds of our so-called public servants and self-anointed leaders, how naïve to presume that teen-agers are pushovers in acing up some tricks up their sleeves?
While the parish head and another priest of a church in Pardo now get their soutane soiled as their parishioners want them ousted allegedly for “corruption and ineptness,” toilet water seems to have swamped on another bastion from which one would have expected vigor in idealism and dynamism.
No babe in the woods of “negative reports and feedbacks.” That’s how the Regional Development Council (RDC) looks at the Cebu City Sangguniang Kabataan (SK). According to the Development Administration Committee of the RDC, something fishy is up on the neck of the federation supposedly meant as an “ideal training ground to mold future leaders.”
Lead them not into the temptation of following the way of the wily. Or so prays the RDC amidst criticisms against the SK as well as calls against its abolition. Concerns about the “proper utilization” of SK funds have been up in the air, and it could blow up in the face of the young leaders. (Substantial amounts were reportedly provided to the SK in the region from 2002 to 2005 but these “were not matched by substantial accomplishments.” This, explains an RDC official, “might be the reason for the perceived little impact wrought by the SK on the youth.”
In the face of a recommendation for the government to assess the performance and effectiveness of SK, a former president of the federation has come out for its defense. “It is a venue that gives us a chance to commit mistakes early so that when we join the real thing, like the barangay or city we already have gained experience, less likely na ang mistakes,” reasons Anthony Jones Luy.
He’s saying, in effect, that missteps along the way pave the Yellow Brick Road to maturity. Fine, true. But only if jadedness doesn’t jettison them—after the culture of wheeling and dealing gets their gills soggy in the tricky waters of governance and management— to the beaten track of politicking and playing truant with the trust of their fellow youths.
SK is worth saving, yes, but only after its officials take their cue from Dorothy’s three friends en route to the Emerald City, getting by their desiderata of mind, heart, and courage enough to go against the grain of adulthood gone awry.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 18, 2006 issue)
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