Root of the problem
When Davao City prohibited smoking in public places, it’s because smoking has been linked to various disease. Lung cancer, emphysema, and what erstwhile mayor now President Rodrigo Duterte personally knows, Buerger’s disease.
As he has told us decades ago, he has it, and shows his fingers to prove it. That’s when you notice that his fingers are indeed unusually pointed.
He attributes that to Buerger’s disease. The link to the disease is still being studied, but one thing science is sure of: almost everyone with Buerger’s disease smokes cigarettes, and it also occurs among people who use other forms of tobacco, like chewing tobacco. It’s a disease associated with heavy smoking. Duterte says he was a very smoker in his youth, smoking more than a pack a day, until Buerger’s got him.
It’s painful, he said, and thus would rather that the people not experience it, much less getting lung cancer. Ergo, banned!
When the liquor ban was implemented, it was because based on police reports, most of the crimes and accidents in the city were committed or happened at night under the influence of liquor (and drugs, of course).
Ergo, ban the sale of liquor at midnight so that it limits the intake and people will still have time to get a good night’s sleep even when drunk. Ergo, banned again! When the firecracker ban was ordered, it was because children were losing fingers and limbs because of unregulated use of firecrackers. Not even mere crackdown could stop the explosions. Ergo, ban the sale and use. In a city where it is banned, the mere sound of one exploding is easy to detect, the perpetrator arrested. From that day on almost two decades hence, not one child nor adult in Davao City lost a finger, limb or eye to firecracker explosions.
What is at the root of these bans? They are all at the root.
Smoking was the root of certain diseases. Unregulated consumption of liquor was at the root of dawn crimes and accidents. Firecracker explosion was at the root of massive injuries every holiday season.
This is not so in the ban on unattended bags, use of ethnic attires, and recruitment to illegal organizations.
At the root of unattended bags is forgetfulness and unmindfulness. The purpose of the ban is to reduce the inconvenience of mobilizing K-9 and bomb squads to check unattended luggage and discourage terrorists to leave bags with bombs. Forgetfulness and unmindfulness will be difficult to cure, and so making it illegal to leave bags will punish the forgetful and the unmindful, not the terrorists, because once terrorists know that bags will be looked upon with suspicion, they can easily find some other means. They even blow up their bodies just to accomplish their mission.
At the root of the wrong use of indigenous attires is lack of knowledge and cultural sensitivity. At the root of recruiting for terrorist organizations is terrorism, plus that P5,000 fine for first offense? Really? These are people who are willing to give their lives up for their cause and you think you can threaten them with a P5,000-fine?
All will not be affected by any ban, and you know why? Because all these new bans are attacking the symptoms, not the roots. Stop-gap measures that address the manifestation, not the problem.