THIS is no longer a laughing matter. A 34-year-old woman and a 15-year-old boy are the latest to be arrested for making a bomb joke inside two malls, one located along Colon St. and the other near Cardinal Rosales Ave. The mall management released the minor, though, when his parents fetched him.
This is the fifth bomb joke incident in Cebu City since a bomb exploded at a night market in Davao City on Sept. 2, killing 15 people and wounding 60 others. The perpetrators were nabbed for violating Presidential Decree 1727, which penalizes not the mere uttering of a joke but the “malicious dissemination of false information concerning bombs, explosives and other similar devices.”
Calls have been made to amend the law, which is a Martial Law-period decree, but with Congress focused on their probes (the Senate on extra-judicial killings and the House of Representatives on the illegal drugs trade in the country's prisons and Sen. Leila de Lima's alleged links to the illegal drugs trade), that surely is the least of the lawmakers' concern.
In the meantime, people should be admonished to refrain from daring the police or mall guards to arrest them by joking about bombs. That the arrests came seemingly one after the other only means many are ignorant of the fate that befell the others who issued similar jokes. Also, many still have to understand that making bomb jokes at a time when many have been killed by bomb explosions is bad.
While waiting to amend the law, the police and owners of business establishments may have to be given an orientation on the law's provisions and how these are implemented. The mere joke should be separated from the malicious act and treated differently.
On this, the implementation of a provision in the firearms and ammunition regulation act that has given rise to the objectionable “tanim-bala” scheme can be used as an example. Law enforcers used to arrest everybody found carrying bullets, even if they are merely used as, say, amulets. Under the current administration, authorities have become more objective in dealing with people who violate the law on carrying bullets.