WHEN VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE

And she hit him for no reason at all other than the fact that she felt like hitting him. She said he was "makulit". He was crying his heart out telling his side of the story. He could not understand why she was hitting him.

"He" (the boy) was a boy of 2 years and "she" (the girl) was a girl of 16 years.

I asked the girl why she hit the boy. "He is so makulit," she said. I said "but children are supposed to be that way. You don't hit him again, you hear?"

I thought that was the last of the hitting, until one day, the boy's mother told me that she saw scars on the boy's arms. "Scars from what?", I asked. The girl pinched the boy several times on the arms real hard that the pinches left marks.

I again asked the girl why she hit the boy. Again, she said, "he was makulit." Again, I told her the same thing I told her before, i.e. that children are really makulit, that you don't hit any children because of that.

To my surprise, the girl shouted at me telling me that the boy is so "makulit" and what's it to me that she hit him for it? I got angry for several reasons. Why was shouting at me? Why can't she see my point? And then I paused...

...she was also still a child. She was hit (beaten, not merely pinched) by her parents for the smallest infraction she made at home. She was always shouted at. She fended for herself at the age of 14 and was forced to care for herself on her own. She had to be strong. For her, strong was being like an adult...Now, there lies the problem...

The girl's idea of being an adult was being like her own parents. She had to shout like her parents. She had to hit children like her parents. She was emulating her parents...

A culture of violence grows when we let it grow in our homes. When we do nothing about it when we see it. When we don't correct it at its core...

The girl had to be told. Violence against children is a crime. She was also an abused child. She should know that it doesn't feel good at all to be hurt and shouted at. She had to know that it wasn't the only way of doing things. That children have to be cared for and loved. It was a difficult concept for her to grasp. She never felt loved. She wasn't cared for.

But she was an intelligent creature. I simply asked her: "Did you like it when your parents hit you? How did you feel when you were shouted at?" At these questions she just stared at me quietly. I was hoping she was digesting every word I was saying. I wanted her to stop this habit of hers.

It has been 2 days since I heard the boy cry. I hope the reason is that the girl has stopped hitting him. After all, the boy is her cousin.

“Aftershocks” of Sendong

Huh? But Sendong was not an earthquake, you might tell me. Sendong was a storm that hit the Philippines late last year which caused a lot of flashfloods and mudslides in Mindanao, the hardest hit areas of which were Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City. Why then do I refer to “aftershocks”?

Aftershocks are natural (and equally unwelcome) occurrences after an earthquake. They occur, as I understand it, while the earth is still in the process of settling down after its movement.

Yes, Sendong, a storm, has “aftershocks”. Literally, the people (especially the children) were “shocked” “after” Sendong.

Our kasambahay, Violy (not her real name) had to go home after Valentines Day to be with her eight year old daughter. You see, Violy’s daughter was diagnosed as having depression. The condition was attributed to her experiences after Sendong. Violy wasn’t beside her daughter when Sendong happened. She wasn’t there when her daughter saw the decomposing bodies of those who drowned in the flashfloods. Our kasambahay was not there to assure her daughter that she would be safe. And it didn’t help that an earthquake of a high magnitude hit the Visayas region and was strongly felt in Cagayan de Oro where Violy’s daughter was.

Violy had to go home to care for her daughter even if it meant not having any regular source of income doing housework for us. She argued, no amount of money can take the place of a mother’s comforting presence. True, indeed. Upon her return, she reported, her daughter was happier and seemed to have gotten better. But Violy’s daughter still had to take her medicines and visit the child psychiatrist regularly. Poor Violy! She is now beside herself with worry over how to get the money for her and her other children’s needs, as well as the medical needs of her depressed daughter. This notwithstanding, she consoled herself by saying that at least she and her daughter are together.

Our kasambahay’s daughter is just one among many children who experienced the “aftershocks” of Sendong. Fortunately, Violy was able to go home and be with her child and we were able to help her out materially but what about the other children... the other children who have seen the wrath of Sendong without their parents? What about the children who lost their parents to Sendong? What about those who lost their siblings and barely survived themselves? Who cares for them now?

It is this blogger’s sincere hope that something concrete is being done about this beyond mere giving of relief goods. Relief goods are mere palliatives for they only remedy what is immediate and does not provide the answers for the long-term. What about the “aftershocks”? Is anything being done about them? I sure hope so.

At the barest minimum, is there, at present, an attempt to even assess or evaluate why the catastrophe in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City happened? Is there an effort to identify the causes thereto?

I am not a geologist nor am I a scientist but satellite pictures of the flooded areas clearly show that the floods carried with it mud. Mud, to me, means that there is erosion. The high volume of mud further indicates the seriousness of the situation. And, tracing the path of the mud, one could see that it came from the mountains...nothing is holding the soil together. Who then is the culprit?

In answering this question, I am reminded of a song “Where have all the flowers gone?” Unfortunately, for the Philippines, it is not just flowers that have been picked...I sing in my mind, albeit sadly, “where have all the trees gone?” “where have all the minerals gone?” “Loggers and miners picked them, everyone” “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn” (as the original song goes for the last two questions)...tsk tsk tsk...