The way our councilors treat our psychotic vagrants

I wrote, last week, about the unbelievably savage act of rounding up the city's psychotic vagrants and dumping them in the mountain barangays. When adverse public opinion became imminent and our city officials could not dodge the hail of unforgiving criticisms, they, as if singing to the baton of an eccentric maestro, chorused for an investigation to find out who was that irresponsible someone and punish him. I bet, they were looking for a fall guy who would have no balls to squeal on who instructed him to do such a barbarity.

Amid such unimaginable cruelty, I read of the reactions of our city aldermen. Charge it either to my naivete or my little learning, I couldn't quite fathom the logic of their proposed solutions.

Here was the first reaction. One pretended to be indignant and sounded concerned. Who would not be so affected with elections just around the corner? He faced the media and released words that looked like he desired to skip the stinking issue. To cover his lack of a more profound grasp of the topic, the city councilor, would rather want to wield the big, but irrelevant, stick! The evasive tactic was obvious when he would lean upon a national law for succor. Instead of groping for ways to save those victims of the most inhuman of all treatments, he, side-stepping the issue, proposed to impose the criminal sanctions upon those parents who have allowed their children to stray into the streets. Pray, tell me, how did "children" of "parents" come into play?

On the other hand, he, being an elected city official, may be right. There is indeed that law, although it is not in point. He is familiar with it because a national government agency tasked with social concerns as the issue is partly at hand, engages his services. Aside from being a city councilor paid by taxes, he is also the retained lawyer of that national office.

In the mind of the lawyer-councilor, the law needs to be vigorously implemented. A next of kin, this law theorizes, is supposed to provide the first line of protection to the child, be he mentally infirmed or not.

This is a legal obligation failing which sanction follows. But, if the lawyer-councilor feels that penalty should be meted upon him who abandons his kin in the concrete jungles of the city, he should remember than, here in Cebu City, there are worse criminals. They come in the wicked name of 'vigilantes". Before tightening the noose around the necks of relatives of psychotic vagrants, he should actively help in identifying who are these people who have murdered about 170 defenseless individuals. His obvious basis? There is a law against murder!

The second reaction which came from another city councilor, was more biblical. The city legislator feigned the act of Pontius Pilate. In his great idea, the city should not be burdened with looking out for the welfare of the "grease people". This task of protecting the psychotic vagrants should be left to the barangay governments.

Surely, the honorable councilor had in mind a shelter where these buangs could be housed, fed, treated and rehabilitated. Undoubtedly, that could be the best approach to the problem. That being the case, he had in mind about 80 such shelters throughout the eighty barangays of the city.

Were this proposed solution in basketball, it has a great label. Assist, where John Stockton's record (Utah Jazz) was great, is the name. If in the Naismith's invention this could be very purposeful, it does not carry the same impact here for it, in the ultimate analysis, simply transfers the problem from one which is competent to tackle it to an entity that is not in position to implement it. In other words, it is bad that the city is not doing it, it will be worse if this function is given to the barangays.

Our city deserves more than these kinds of inutile suggestions. It's not the time to gloss over this problem of our psychotic vagrants anymore. Let our officials dig deeper into their hearts and find a solution that values human lives. Who knows, if only for this, they shall be worth the taxes we salary them with.

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