EDITORIAL - Let the children be

If Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young has his way, he would rather have the Sinulog sa Kabataan scrapped. The chairman of the city council committee on education believes too much time and money is spent preparing the children for the Sinulog than on schoolwork.

Pastilan sab si Vice oy, pagka killjoy, mura man og wa moagi pagkabata. He may not be a teacher nor a school owner but as education committee chairman he must have heard of the “all work and no play” saying. He must be aware that extracurricular activities are part of learning. 

To be sure, children who participate in the Sinulog, or in any activity for that matter that requires some practice, will have to sacrifice some time away from schoolwork. But for Mr. Young to say such time away from schoolwork is “damaging” he needs to show some proof.

So, does Mr. Young have any statistics to show that children who spent some time practicing and joining the Sinulog or any other activity eventually fared so “damagingly” against those who buried their noses on schoolwork?

If he does not have the evidence to the contrary, then Mr. Young is best advised that shooting from the hip takes no one anywhere. Let us just hope he had no motive for making noise and was simply seized by some unfounded fear.

Actually, there are those who feel having the Sinulog sa Kabataan, whether it is of the Dakbayan or Lalawigan version, is already a redundancy and an overkill, considering that there is still the grand mardi gras which is the mother of all Sinulogs.

But if proposals to scrap the Kabataan versions are to be seriously entertained at all, they must proceed from valid, serious and defensible concerns, not frivolous and unsubstantiated claims that simply do not wash against reality.

Having been held for some time now, it should be safe to assume the Kabataan versions of the Sinulog have become institutions just like the grand mardi gras. Thus, if these versions are to be scrapped at all, let it not be on the mere say-so of just anybody.