One can only hope that no more babies will be sold by their parents as a year-old boy from Compostela town, northern Cebu was three months ago.
Some may see the boy’s sale for P500 to an interested couple as his ticket to a better life. That’s a misguided view.
The boy turned 2 years old last May 14. Now under the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, he is being set up for legal adoption after the government agency found his parents unfit to raise him.
The mother is jobless. The father does not care.
On paper, the boy is not yet formally under the State parens patria because he has no birth certificate, although he has proof of baptisim in Naga City.
A future better than that of Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo or Jose Rizal’s Basilio and Crispin may await the boy, who according to the DSWD is likely to qualify for intercountry adoption.
We can’t march forward as a nation while many a Juan de la Cruz and Maria Clara find themselves ill-prepared for the challenge of parenthood and building a family.
The Kabataan party-list and authors and supporters of bills to protect the unborn and promote reproductive health should turn their eyes to legislating the mandatory training of schooled and unschooled youths for the rigors of parenthood.
Such a broader-minded public policy would be a far less contentious way to address the issues of a burgeoning population and rising abortion cases.
Women-oriented groups like Gabriela may even advocate this policy. Parenting after all, is a potent platform for the display of equality between men and women.
Youths who are convinced of the validity of natural law that governs a woman’s cycle of fertility, the sacredness of parenthood and the gravity of child-rearing cannot be expected to engage in behavior that results in unplanned pregnancies that thrust them into grave moral dilemmas.
In a 2009 study, Maria Perlita de Leon of the University of the Philippines Diliman College of Home Economics recommended that “flexible, sensitive and comprehensive parent education programs in the community should be implemented by the local government.”
The art and science of parenting cannot be left entirely in the hands of specialists.
It needs to be transmitted to youths both in and out of school. Concerned governmnent agencies need to invest in gifting our children with good parents.
Parent education should be continual. The Center for Family Ministries Foundation based in the Ateneo de Manila University can help transfer knowledge to parent trainers.
The time is long past but it is not yet too late in the day for Filipinos to realize that a bright tomorrow goes beyond raising children well.
Our sons and daughters also need to be raised to become good parents in their turn.