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Tuesday, October 22, 2002
SIENES: Reminding people of firecracker ban
By Cris G. Sienes
Anyway, celebrating Christmas without firecracker blasts would be in keeping with the first Christmas in the little town of Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. Christ came into this world sans firecracker blasts or the blare of trumpets. He came on a night that was silent and holy.
A BIT earlier Vice-Mayor Luis Bonguyan reminded city residents of the existing ban on firecrackers during the coming Christmas and New Year celebrations. Unless reminded, you see, people tend to forget.
More recently, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte himself reechoed Bonguyan's reminder. He also said that if he had his way, he would ban the use of firecrackers not only during the holidays but also all year round.
No one can blame Duterte or Bonguyan. They merely want to see to it that no one gets hurt during the Christmas and New Year celebrations. Past celebrations of Christmas and the New Year saw many people, including children, hospitalized due to mangled hands suffered during accidental firecracker explosions.
Blame firecracker manufacturers instead. In the past, firecrackers were very small. In my childhood days, our favorite firecrackers were the cock and devil brands. We thought then that they caused very loud explosions, especially when placed inside cans or gasoline drums.
Through the years, however, firecracker manufacturers, out to rake in more money, made firecrackers bigger, louder and deadlier. The results were mangled hands when accidents happened.
Anyway, celebrating Christmas without firecracker blasts would be in keeping with the first Christmas in the little town of Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. Christ came into this world sans firecracker blasts or the blare of trumpets. He came on a night that was silent and holy. And only Mary and Joseph and lowly shepherd with their flock kept Him company.
As the Son of God, Christ could have chosen to be born in a magnificent palace with a silken diaper on His fanny and attended to by royal attendants. But He chose to be born in a manger wrapped only in swaddling clothes.
For Christ came not to build a royal kingdom but to save mankind from its sinfulness. To do that, He later performed the ultimate sacrifice on the cross.
When John the Baptist announced Christ's coming, in fact, he preached and emphasized one thing: Repentance. So in the strict sense of the word, celebrating Christmas means preparing the way for Christ through repentance and a firm resolution not to slide back to our unchristian ways.
It's because we have forgotten this age-old message that we have succumbed to extreme materialism and hedonism. Far from keeping Christmas with clean hearts and clean consciences, we celebrate it with such fanfare and commercialism that astound the sense. It's time for us to do the opposite and celebrate an alternative Christmas, one of peace and quiet, of extreme simplicity and piety.
The idea of welcoming Christmas and the New Year with firecracker blasts to drive away evil spirits in our midst came from the Chinese stargazers.
However, we have been exploding firecrackers during Christmas and the New Year for countless years, but have we driven away the evil spirits of corruption, of dirty politics, of violence and killing in our midst? We certainly have not.
Do away with the firecracker explosions. They cannot drive away the evil spirits because they are not outside of us but within us. Only God can exorcise the evil spirits within us.
But worse than firecrackers are guns. People who explode firecrackers only injure people. Those who fire guns kill people, including innocent children. So perhaps Duterte and Bonguyan can work out something with PNP 11 Director Sid Lape¤a and with private gunholders' associations to see to it that there will be no more indiscriminate firing of guns during the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Point to Ponder: "Guns do not kill people. People kill people." --From a gun shop poster |
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