Chilling violence

PANGASINAN is feeling the chill. Not from cooler winds but the wave of reported crimes in the past two weeks.

The most disturbing was the drive-by shooting – again perpetrated by the evidently unstoppable hired guns riding in tandem on unlicensed motorcycles – which took the life of three 14-year old boys and almost killed a fourth, a barkada of teenagers who were simply walking home from a wake, a customary social activity in Filipino society. It was horrible enough that young lives were taken, but what made the crime even more appalling were the facts that they were not actually the intended victims of a supposed vendetta arising from another killing and that a policeman was one of the arrested suspects.

Just a week earlier, another policeman was involved in a crime, a hold-up of a tricycle driver, and in the ensuing pursuit the rogue policeman was killed along with his two cohorts in a shoot-out. Makes it much harder now to believe the words of Superintendent Geraldo Roxas , chief of the Police-Community Relations of the Pangasinan police, that this robber-cop was an “isolated case” in the police force.

Then there’s news of minors being used in the illegal drug trade with dealers thinking that they would be protected under a law that is meant to safeguard the young from the full penalties for heinous crimes. And the series of the kapitans in one barangay in San Carlos being gunned down, which is on top of similar shootings of elected officials in other parts of the province.

Whatever positive spin and assurances that the police authorities deliver to the public, the stories of crime clearly speak of a reality that violence lurks in the air. It is not enough that the cases are solved and the criminals brought to justice, what our communities need is a stronger crime prevention program that will make people feel safe and protected.

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Wash your hands but…

THE Department of Health and the United Nations Children’s Fund said washing our hands twice daily with soap could save lives. They said two million children who are five years old or below die every year of diarrhea and acute respiratory infections — which is partly the result of non-washing of their hands regularly. The best time to wash hands with soap, they said, is before every meal and after coming from the toilet. And clean water is a must when hand-washing is done.

But do you know that the country’s elementary and high schools lack at least 135,000 toilet facilities this year?  And that’s not to mention also the utter lack of clean water nationwide, not only in schools but in many homes, as well. We talk of saving lives but, alas, the tools aren’t in place for the mission — literally.

It’s like having the carriage, but not the horse to pull it.

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