Save and protect our children, kill corrupt politicians

CHARLOTTE, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Avielle, Allison.

By this time, these names shall have been enshrined in the hearts and minds of most Americans and among peoples in a large part of the world, including the Philippines.

These are names of the children, nearly all of them aged six, who were murdered in cold blood by a deranged young man inside two classrooms in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, USA, on Friday morning, Dec. 14, just after 9:30.

It was the fourth such murderous rage by a lone gunman in four years of the presidency of Barack Obama.

In a 19- minute, 1633- word speech at a memorial service on Monday morning Manila time for the 20 children and six adults killed by Adam Lanza, President Obama conceded that the government and parents were not doing enough to keep their children from harm.

Looking as if he had just cried, Obama delivered a speech poignant with sadness and compas- sion and heavy with rage, bitterness and a sense of failure.

Obama described the joy and peril of of parenthood: “With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves, our child, is suddenly exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice, and every parent knows there’s nothing we will not do to shield our children from harm. And yet we also know that with that child’s very first step and each step after that, they are separating from us, that we won’t — that we can’t always be there for them.”

“They will suffer sickness and setbacks and broken hearts and disappointments, and we learn that our most important job is to give them what they need to become self-reliant and capable and resilient, ready to face the world without fear. And we know we can’t do this by ourselves.”

“This is our first task, caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right,” declared the father of two young daughters, “That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.”

Obama asked rhetorically: “And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we’re meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm? Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know they are loved and teaching them to love in return?”

“Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?”

“If we’re honest with ourselves,” Obama related, “the answer’s no.”

“We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change. Since I’ve been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings, fourth time we’ve hugged survivors, the fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims.”

“We can’t tolerate this anymore,” Obama vowed, looking sad and sounding angry but determined. “These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.”

He elaborated: “We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.”

“If there’s even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town from the grief that’s visited Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek and Newtown and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that, then surely we have an obligation to try.”

Obama promised to do something. He said: “In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.”

The President’s statements were read by analysts to mean that the US government shall henceforth do something about the proliferation of guns in America.

According to stats, 88 percent of Americans own a gun – one of the highest gun ratios in the world. Imagine four of every five Americans you meet daily in America carry or hide a gun – in his shirt, in his car, in his home. That’s a formula for murder and mayhem.

Here in the Philippines, we can ask our President, our congressmen, senators and indeed our churchmen the same question:

“Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?”

To be honest with ourselves, the answer is No. We are truly not doing enough.

The question is being asked in the light of the Reproductive Health Bill. The RH bill is supposed to save mothers (eleven die daily while delivering a baby) and by saving mothers, we save their babies.

We are supposed to save mothers by giving them a choice – a choice to space out the arrival of their children – currently an average of 5.5 children in less than ten years of copulating. That means would-be babies, would-be human beings, have to be eliminated somehow. The word for it is abortion. The RH bill is supposed to provide the mechanism for this so that it becomes perfectly legal.

We need to plan properly the arrival of children because the government cannot plan well enough – plan to manage our economy properly so that it can feed an additional 1.8 million mouths a year and employ two million additional jobseekers a year.

If the one at fault is the government, then how come we have to kill babies? Why not kill the government that has made it possible for babies to be born at the wrong time and at the wrong place?

Shouldn’t we abort or overthrow such a government rather than abort the unborn child?

Of course, there are not enough Adam Lanzas in this world to finish off with finality all the incompetent and corrupt government officials in our land. Aside from the bullet, there is perhaps an equally effective, if not more tedious means – the ballot.