SK and drugs

LAST week, a former chairman of a Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) unit in Manila was arrested in a buy-bust operation by the police. So wonder no more why we never heard of any barangay, town/city or the provincial chapter of the SK that denounced, at the very least, the lack or absence of concern of their barangay officials over the proliferation of illegal drugs in their communities in the past.

In fact, no SK chapter was known to have lent its voice to support the national campaign against illegal drugs. The chapters have existed for decades in a vacuum like the drug problem never affected them as a sector.

This indifference of past SK officials can perhaps be attributed to the fact that most were related to incumbent barangay and town/city officials. Hopefully the SK Reform Act of 2015 will finally bring real change in their purpose.

One specific reform requires the Katipunan ng Kabataan (KK) through its SK to “partner with the Local Youth Development Council in planning and executing projects and programs of specific advocacies like good governance, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and resiliency, youth employment and livelihood, health and anti-drug abuse, gender sensitivity, and sports development.”

Towards this end, KK members can and should require their chapter SK candidates to present their platforms supporting the above specified advocacies.

 

 ‘Boracorruption’

BORACAY is beach paradise no more starting April 26, when it becomes off limits to pave the way for its rehabilitation lasting at least six months.  Business establishments and a labor force comprising thousands suffer the brunt of President Duterte’s blunt but wise decision to close the world’s No. 1 destination down.  The lesson learned here is mankind’s capacity for ill-gotten wealth at all cost.  For, whether we like it or not, Boracay’s downfall was the result of its man-made decay arising from rampant violation of sanitary rules abetted by corruption from where else but the innermost recesses of government power: local, provincial and national.

Money changed hands indiscriminately for years among two-legged crocodiles to bend the laws of proper sewage disposal, in the process triggering the birth of that monster called “Boracorruption.”

A grim reminder of how man can be so cruel for the color of money.

PUNCHLINE

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