Smoking giveaways

By Johanne R. Macob

IT’S just a little more than four months before election, so even if the election period hasn’t started, it really did not surprise me to see some of our official-wannabes already on a roll to put their best foot forward, or should I say best “giveaways”?

I covered the Educators Night seated alongside my high school teachers and I saw firsthand all the ‘pagmamahal’ stuff that the politicos and aspiring politico offered them.  These stuff were generally food and drinks (well it was party mode) with of course their names and even pictures attached. I was cool with that; that’s almost considered normal in the Philippine setting I guess. However, what somehow surprised me was seeing a pack of cigarettes as one of these “politico giveaways”.

Whatever happened to: “Government warning: cigarette smoking kills.”

Well, I really am personally against cigarette smoking and I found it really insensible to give out cigarettes to the educators who are supposed to “mold the future of the youth” in such a public gathering. I am neither a lawyer nor a politically knowledgeable person but in my young mind, I found the act not good at all. Well, there’s even a law that prohibits smoking in public in some places.

I just wish our leaders and would-be leaders really act as leaders. I respect that we all have our own sets of vices and of course, we could have these in private so long as we are not affecting anybody else. And so again, to promote such vices in public is just really awful.

Happy New Year. You might want to include that in your resolutions.

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