Code for students. A damn good idea!

Why do I feel that election season is truly upon us? I first felt it when I read the news about the bombing of the Innova van of Rep. Robert "Dodot" Jaworski last Tuesday along C-5 Road. Now police investigators believe that the bomb containing nitroglycerine was triggered to explode via remote control. Then a couple of days ago, Abra Congressman Luis Bersamin Jr. and his security aide were gunned down in broad daylight last Saturday outside the Mt. Carmel Church in Quezon City. That's two Congressmen involved in criminal cases in a space of just one week! One got killed, the other survived.

While the May 2007 elections is not even visible in the horizon yet, political kingpins are already making their move now, so that by election time, their constituents might already forget these incidents and vote for their Congressmen who just might buy their votes anyway in order to stay in office.

At this point, while this has not yet happened here in Cebu, perhaps it is now time for the Philippine National Police (PNP) to already make an assessment of the up and coming political season and look at probable persons or contenders who just might be in harm's way because they pose a threat to many well-entrenched politicians who are on their last terms of office.

Here in Cebu Province, we have a good number of these last termers who want so much to cling to their political power, they would even dare to destroy the Province of Cebu into smaller political fragments so that they could run for Governor for a smaller piece of Cebu island. Thankfully, this issue was waylaid or delayed because of other issues that were given more importance in the House of Representatives.

* * *

As always, good news never makes it in the front page of our newspapers. I was reading a report buried in the inside pages of another daily, that the Cebu Provincial Board approved in mass motion an ordinance sponsored by Board Member Juan Bolo requiring all students in private and public schools in the Province of Cebu to recite the recently approved "Code of Duties and Responsibilities" before the start of classes every Monday. Let me say that this is a damn good idea, which should have been done a long time ago. But at last, they've done it!

It's about time that people knew exactly what their duties and responsibilities are, whether they're students or government workers. Perhaps, Provincial Board Member Juan Bolo ought to extend this measure to government employees or officials throughout the entire Province of Cebu and share this with the Cebu City Council. Allow me to extract the recently approved Code of Duties and Responsibilities.

"I acknowledge the presence of a loving and provident God
I love my country for it is the land of my birth,
the home of my people,
the source of my happiness and well-being.
I love and respect my parents, my teachers, officials and elders.
I will serve them gratefully and well.
I promise to keep my honor and integrity pure and clean.
I will be honest and truthful in all my thoughts and actions.
I will endeavor to lead a simple, honest and frugal life.
I will strive to be industrious and will not be ashamed
to do manual labor.
I will contribute to the good of my community,
promote social justice
and be a law-abiding citizen.
I am proud of my heritage and my people."

While most of this code is self-explanatory, allow me to delve only in two items. The first one I especially liked is the part where our students should not be ashamed to do manual labor. This is exactly the very reason why Filipinos are prized worldwide as cooks, maids or servants because we are not ashamed to do manual labor and early in our student years, this should be inculcated in the minds of our youth during their formation years.

The other one is the last point, that of being proud of our heritage and our people. Lest we forget, while we as a nation are called Filipinos, we are first and foremost Cebuanos, having our own culture and a language separate and distinct from the many spoken languages in this country, especially Tagalog, where our language is totally unintelligible.

We must learn from our history that when Ferdinand Magellan came to Cebu, Rajah Humabon gave him a great feast with food served in porcelain plates. That means, Cebuanos in those days obviously traded with China and therefore, we had something of value that the Chinese traded with us. At this point, allow me to congratulate the Cebu Provincial Board for approving this measure, which we hope will make better students out of our youth.

* * *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit's columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com