BUT first, before that
* ISSUE TO TAKE SIDE ON: Are you in favor of lowering the age of criminal liability from 15 years old to nine years old? Before you argue, define with the other side what you're arguing about -- and read the proposed bill and the existing law.
* THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT: the 700,000 Facebook friends that Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña says he has. Tuesday, January 22, Mayor Tomas ran a full-page print ad in SunStar that thanks his "700,000 friends" on social network (705,251 as of that BO-PK-owned ad says).
Cebu City had 630,000 voters in the 2016 elections, in which Tomas beat Mike Rama by 33,975 votes. We don't know how many FB friends Tomas had at the time. Now we do, because he advertises it. True, not all the FB friends who are qualified to vote this May "like" Tomas enough to vote for him. But the sheer number being waved like a banner can be psychologically scary.
She joined procession
Here's what's not known, so far: it's not confirmed yet by official autopsy that the 19-year-old fourth-year high school student who collapsed at a pre-Sinulog party last Saturday (January 19) at the Ayala Business Center in Cebu City and died the following day was a victim of drug overdose.
Social media identified her, even circulated her photo, and blamed drug use as cause of death. Traditional media knew her name: Some news outfits disclosed her identity, others withheld it. They didn't say she died of drug overdose; it was "suspected" or "alleged."
Organizers of the party and the police gave sketchy details but were both profuse about what each group did to prevent or respond to the "unfortunate incident." They sounded defensive but they addressed the public's major points of interest.
The organizers talked about their "medical team" providing prompt assistance to get her to the nearest hospital.
The police said they scoured the area for drugs before the party, even using dogs to sniff them out. If drugs were brought in, it must have been done after the police did their search. And, of course, not every person or inch of ground could've been covered. K9 dogs soon tired.
A Facebook comment said the girl should've attended the masses and other Sto. Niño rituals instead of the concert party. She did, another comment said, she attended the procession early that afternoon.
Party drugs
If the incident contributed anything, it focused on the problem of party drugs at concerts and similar activities. The music, the fellowship and ambience are recipes for drug use. Often, beer or liquor is mixed with party drugs.
Police focus has been on peddlers of marijuana, shabu and cocaine, not the party drugs, which are more expensive and peddled quietly in settings less open than the streets, definitely less obtrusive than the hard-stuff counterparts.
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