Families have been waylaid

Batas Mauricio

THOSE who have previously experienced the loss of loved ones would definitely understand the hysterical sobbing and plaintive cry of Horacio Castillo Jr., the father of the UST law student Horacio III. Castillo Jr. literally poured his heart out after he came to know that his son, Horacio III, was killed on account of the injuries he sustained from a supposed fraternity hazing at the UST.

What happened to Horacio III was truly painful, particularly because his father, Horacio Jr., was full of good dreams for him — for him to become a high-caliber lawyer and, at the appointed time, be installed as a magistrate of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. All of these dreams were shattered mercilessly and ever so suddenly, all because of fraternity hazing.

Be that as it may, what perhaps would be source of the greatest pain for the Castillo family in connection with the death of Horacio III is the thought that, somehow, the UST law student disobeyed, or, maybe, disregarded in many ways, the declared preference of his parents for him not to be joining any fraternity, especially since there had been many instances of deaths from hazing in this country in the not-so-distant past.

At this point, we cannot blame the parents of the slain student if their minds would be filled with the thought: if only he listened to them, if only he believed them, that it was not really important for anyone studying to become a lawyer to join any fraternity at the College of Law to prevail in his academic chores.

But, as is always the case, recriminations and remorse would always come at the end, where in many instances, nothing more can be done to bring back the past. What happened can no longer be undone, and for those who died on account of what happens to them in their day-to-day lives, the breath in their nostrils that have been snuffed out can never be revived anymore, forever.

So, the question remains: why are there many instances where children choose not to listen to what their parents are telling them to do — which oftentimes lead to tragic consequences for themselves? Why have the youth of today become so hardheaded to the point of self-destruction?

There are many reasons. As far as I am concerned however, what I see as a principal reason whereby children no longer obey their fathers and mothers is the truth that all of them — parents and children alike, the whole family as a whole — have become inexorably estranged or separated from good manners and right conduct.

Indeed, many families have been waylaid and already taken very far away from good conduct, all because they no longer have any training on what is good and what is bad, aggravated by their lack of fear and love of God. If only Filipino families remained moored on good manners and right conduct and on the fear and love of God, it would not happen, at any time, that children would disobey their parents’ desires and wishes for them.

This, I believe, is due to the removal of the course on good manners and right conduct in schools, and the separation of almost all Filipinos from the Word of God, the Bible. Nobody but nobody reads and obeys the Bible anymore, for a very long time now, so that many are no longer with God. And because God is no longer with many of us, our entire being is controlled by the devil and its teachings.

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There is something truly grave with the words that detained Sen. Leila de Lima let out against the three Sandiganbayan justices who decided to free former Sen. Jinggoy Estrada from a three-year detention in connection with the P183 million plunder case against him.

De Lima’s handwritten tirade, written from her own detention cell in Camp Crame, claimed that Jinggoy’s provisional liberty by virtue of bail (which, she said, was already rejected by the Sandiganbayan earlier on the justices’ perception that there was sufficient evidence against the former San Juan City lawmaker) shows control over the court by President Duterte, and over the whole judiciary as well.

I don’t know if de Lima can prove or not the charges she aired against the justices — Maria Theresa Arcega Mendoza, Reynaldo Cruz and Lorifel Pahimna — but the issue here is simple: The lady lawmaker is a good lawyer, former secretary of justice, and an incumbent senator so that, by force of circumstances, she should be in the forefront of respecting issuances of those in authority.

Truly, the problem with de Lima and her colleagues in her group, really, is that, for a long time, they have been used to disrespecting any authority, or any decision of those in government if it is not favorable to their interests — personal, business, or political.

Is it not a fact that, they would approve of decisions or issuances of those in power if those decisions and issuances favor them, or their families, allies, and cohorts in politics. If these decisions and issuances do not favor them, they would lambast those issuances and decisions as unacceptable, even if those were the result of deliberation of a lot of people.

The greatest example of the people that are with de Lima that sport the same treatment of what is happening in government here in the Philippines — that is, they would conform to a decision provided it favors them, and would oppose such a decision if they are not favored — would be the very president that installed her as the Secretary of Justice.

Do you still remember what happened during the 2010 elections? What did one presidential candidate say then — if he would turn out to be the winner in that political exercise, he would accept the results but if he would lose in the counting, revolution is what he and his colleagues and associates would resort to. Indeed, are these people in their proper senses?

I really cannot understand why, despite the truth that this group is truly the one that is corrupt and are working only for their own selfish interests, many people are still siding with them, even up to now. I really don’t know why despite the overwhelming proof of this group’s graft and corruption, they still appear to have in their grip many of our countrymen.

So, okay, let’s do some accouting here: who was responsible for shipping out tons of gold from the Philippines doing the time of President Noynoy Aquino? According to a report written by former Press Spokesman Bobi Tiglao, some US$4.2 billion worth of gold were shipped from Mindanao to Hongkong but the revenue did not go to the government. Was this even investigated by de Lima and her group?

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com