Morality Change, A Bigger Threat Than Climate Change

People’s speaks of climate change and blames it on typhoons and earthquakes. Yes, it is good for people to take care of its natural environment for it is typhoons and earthquakes that destroy houses but it is MORALITY CHANGE that destroys HOMES.

Natural resources are part of our lives, but the most important resources of this country is MAN, but our HUMANITY is at threat because of MORALITY CHANGE. When we were young, we have heard our elders talk of moral decadence and we just ignored it, but today, our country is beset by the decay of our morality, which we thought were just figment of imagination of the past.

MORALITY CHANGE is not a phantom or invisible thing, but it is a thing that we see daily. When we were young (to those 40 and above), especially the minors, we were at home the most at 10:00 p.m. aside from paying attention on the Angelus at 6:00 p.m. Today, it is a common sight for minors and teenagers so as the young adults to be out on the streets on late evenings and early mornings. Teenagers and young adults joined by old immature smoking and drinking liquors on street bars the late evenings till dawn.

Is this not MORALITY CHANGE? When drinking and smoking is considered a vice and should be bragged about? We see teenagers and young adults proudly posting on Facebook and internet pictures of them smoking, drinking and being drunk. This not including, nudes photos, wearing skimpy skirts and shirts, not just public display of affections but public display of lusts.

How could we correct this? When the parents and the adults of this nation are also hooked on vices? Majority of those in rehab centers (and this should be commended, rather than be left alone with addiction or dependency not being addressed) the parents are also in vices. Now, drug dependency has become an heirloom, a legacy being passed from the ancestors to its descendants.

Why are we concern of minors and young adults being out in the streets late at night? It is because it is in these times and venues that vices, from smoking to drinking, illegal drugs and promiscuity are introduced.

Crime, are committed because of opportunity, and when our youth are out in the streets with no parental guidance, it is where vices are being taught and nurtured.

There are many examples of MORALITY CHANGE and it is endless, and if you are not seeing it, it is because it is either you are part of the decayed morality or just fool enough not to see it. If today’s parents could just ensure that their children could not be part of the hoard that are having not experiencing good fun (nothing wrong with being happy, but it is the artificial happiness we should be wary of) especially the bars located along at the Gen. Arcadio Maxilom Avenue and Colon Street.

What is so gruesome that when a young adult is hooked on drugs, he or she engages also in premarital sex, more often with multiple partners. How could we say that the YOUTH IS THE HOPE OF THE LAND when our youth are hooked on drugs?

By the way, while reading this, do you know where is your child now? If it is not at home, at 10:00 in the evening the place to be is either hanging out in bars of uptown and midtown Cebu or look for him/her in the PDEA of Cebu: Pasil, Duljo Fatima, Ermita and A. Lopez.

About the Author: Clarence Paul V. Oaminal is a lawyer and author of ‘The Textbook on The Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002’. He is the Vice-chairman and Undersecretary of the Dangerous Drugs Board and is the current adviser and presiding officer of Cebu City Anti-Drug Abuse Council. He also hosts the local advocacy program ‘Krimen ug Drugas’ in CCTN Channel 47.