Tragic New Year start

We have entered the third year of the third millennium and sad to say we entered the New Year, as we do every New Year, with fireworks casualties. In the United States, many communities prohibit the sale of firecrackers to individuals because so many persons have been injured or killed from their use. Here, we refuse to go by actual annual experience. And so last New Year, no less than 503 persons were injured by firecrackers. Fifty-two of the victims required amputation. Forty suffered partial or total blindness. In the words of Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit, the firecracker victims were lower than last year’s, but the injuries were as devastating.

Aside from the injuries, the use of firecrackers also caused 13 fires in residential and commercial areas. There is no doubt just by listening to the explosions that many of the firecrackers used in the last New Year celebration were of the illegal kind, meaning firecrackers that could be employed as explosives. The funny thing is that we have not read of any reports on illegal firecracker manufacturers, sellers, buyers or users who have been apprehended and charged in court. We are not advocating for a total ban on the use of firecrackers. But we want the firecrackers sold for public use to be as safe as those manufactured before the war.

There are ways of celebrating the New Year with gaiety without the use of illegal firecrackers. First, very few people know the history of New Year. It only became a Christian holiday in A.D. 487, when it was declared as the Feast of Circumcision. It was not till the Gregorian Calendar was introduced in 1500 that January 1 became officially recognized as New Year's Day. For 4,000 years, the Chinese used the lunar calendar based on the waxing and waning of the moon. Today they also use the Gregorian Calendar and even the Japanese also celebrate Jan. 1 as their New Year. In India, to this day, the New Year depends on the religious group that the individual belongs to. Each religion has its own concept of the New Year.

We are all for a happy New Year celebration and there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that our annual New Year commemoration would be much happier if the authorities clamped down on the illegal production and use of dangerous firecrackers. The trouble is that the police themselves are often part of the New Year menace. We are referring to some policemen who fire their guns in the air as their contribution to the noise barrage. This year, a five-year-old child in Bulacan and a security guard in Quezon City were killed by stray bullets. Sixteen others were wounded in Metro Manila. They were probably the victims of irresponsible gun owners. The PNP authorities took the precaution of taping the guns of all policemen so that they could be checked if they had been used. So this may be the first year when no policemen had fired his gun.

We must take the necessary steps to make the New Year’s celebrations, not only the happiest but also the safest.