MUNTINLUPA recently joined Davao City in the rarefied league
of cities that shuns an inane celebration of the Savior’s birth and the advent
of a new year. Davao set in place a firecracker ban back in 2001 under the
watch of Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte—sheer force of political will defying a
tradition that has been part and parcel of a so-called “damaged culture.”
For 12 years now, Davaoeños embraced the Duterte policy that
had seen a dramatic drop in numbers of firecracker-related injuries.
Perhaps, it had not been lost to Duterte that the first
Christmas was what a carol describes as a “silent night, holy night” in a
hay-strewn manger—a few lit firecrackers tossed there may likely turn such
setting into a funeral pyre for the infant Jesus. And maybe, unthinking heathens choose to desecrate such a solemn
occasion with noise pollution.
Not unlike the illegal numbers game jueteng—a
hand-me-down tradition from Chinese corsairs and cutthroats, now a thriving
pastime for the rural poor in our strangled neck of the woods-- the use of
firecrackers to welcome a new year came from China where gunpowder was invented
way ahead of Alfred Nobel’s dynamite.
Then again, those Chinese firecrackers were no bigger than a
pinkie finger, their crackling sound supposedly meant to drive away malignant
spirits that cause illnesses. The belief stemmed from the earlier practice of
torching bamboo forests where malaria-causing mosquitoes bred and thrived. The practice
done at the outset of each year did shoo away disease-bringer insect pests.
Indeed, bamboo twigs in flames crackle like firecrackers— and a fiery tradition
thus came to be that brought business and profits to pyrotechnics
manufacturers.
Say, chewing gum manufacturing raked $21 million yearly in
Singapore before erstwhile head of state Lee Kwan-yew imposed a ban, cadged by
Singaporeans who had enough of getting their hairs or the seat of their
clothing ruined by a wad of gum. $21 million is no fiddling sum but Singapore
chose to be done with it.
Playing with fireworks can be a lot more pernicious than
used chewing gum.
And Muntinlupa city chief executive Jaime de la Rosa
Fresnedi must have had enough of perennial pyrotechnics casualties flocking to
hospital emergency rooms during the holidays. Which goes to show that playing
with fire can be ruinous to human body parts. And can be quite a pinch on one’s
pockets.
Call Fresnedi too old-fashioned in hewing to the true spirit
of the holiday season.
He pitches his two-cents worth on coughing up pesos and
centavos for fireworks. Why not, instead, spend the fireworks budget for relief
goods; send these goodies to ‘Yolanda’ victims in the eastern Visayas? Wouldn’t
that be more sensible a way to bring cheer and joy to others?
As traditional beliefs have it, rains are a harbinger of
cash flow and boons—and we haven’t had a drop or a drizzle on any past new
year’s eve, just for reassurance.
In lieu of welcoming cash flow into our lives at the start
of each year, there is the skewed belief that the air we take into our lungs
must be tainted with gunpowder, every whit of peace be shredded like dreams in
thunderous din.
We’ll still be playing with fireworks—unlike Davao and
Muntinlupa.
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