THE Senate, on Monday, passed on third and final reading the Senate Bill (SB) No. 1224, or the proposed Comprehensive Values Education Act.
The bill seeks to institutionalize values education by requiring elementary and high school students to attend good manners and right conduct (GMRC) class for an hour daily.
The House of Representatives approved its version of the bill on February 4, 2020.
“The most important thing we must teach our children is to hold in their hearts and minds the proper moral, spiritual, ethical, intellectual, and social values they need to develop into upstanding, productive and fulfilled members of our society,” Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, who sponsored the bill, said in his Sponsorship Speech.
He said the bill “will provide significant practical learnings to students about the proper way to conduct themselves according to universally accepted modes of behavior, with a special emphasis on treating every person with which they interact with the proper courtesy and respect deserved by all human beings.”
When you think about it, it is quite odd that we would need a law just to teach the future generation on values. However, when you look around you, you would be disappointed to see that there are families who are unable to properly teach the proper values to their children.
Bullying is still evident in schools. Several teenagers cannot even respect minimum wage earners like a restaurant server, security guard, taxi driver, janitor, and even a vendor.
Values should have been taught in homes but it is sad to see that not all were able to raise children who have respect for others, conduct themselves properly outside, humble, helpful, and patient.
Not being able to raise a generation with the right values goes to show that we as a community may have failed to raise them properly. A contributing factor may be from elders and adults who are not good examples to the children. It is common to see adults cutting into lines, being disrespectful to others, and are feeling entitled, among other tasteless characteristics.
Some church leaders may have also been too focused on their political leanings and rituals rather than helping raise a generation with GMRC.
The law is a welcome development. However, it is also an eye-opener to those who play a large part in the lives of the children. Have we really inculcated the right values to our children?
Let us not wait for the law to be fully implemented. We can already start teaching GMRC to the future generation at our respective homes.