Sorry New Year

A 9-year-old boy from Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija province lost his life to a fireworks explosion in the first death due to Christmas and New Year revelry that the Department of Health (DOH) recorded.

The Health Department has yet to complete its tally tomorrow of casualties of the orgiastic firing of guns and setting off of firecrackers and pyrotechnics during the holidays.

Yet the passing of the hours shows that elation over a supposed fall in the number of victims is premature if not misplaced.

Fireworks injured 108 persons in the first hour of the year. Yesterday, the number of “holiday victims” stood at 739. These include the Cabanatuan boy and eight persons in Cebu who got hit by stray bullets.

In barangay Tisa, a bullet hit a woman, 50 years old, while she walked back home towards midnight last Dec. 25. As in most incidents of stray bullets hitting people, naming the gun owners has turned into an endless guessing game.

In barangay Tuyom, Carcar City, Vince Laurence Sasotara, 7, began 2012 without a thumb and pointer finger. These were amputated after a firecracker blew up in his hand last Christmas Eve.

Death and physical injuries weren’t the only consequences of blind revelry or the superstitious belief that noise in welcoming the year would drive away bad spirits and misfortune.

As smog from firecrackers and fireworks enveloped Manila on New Year’s Day, flights were cancelled and passengers diverted from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark, Pampanga where planes could land.

Good thing, belief in palihi doesn’t work. Otherwise, the deaths and injuries of Christmas and New Year would recur throughout the year.

The government needs to improve its promotion of safer ways for people to welcome with a joyful noise holidays like Christmas Day and the New Year.

Apart from distributing recordings of firecracker noise, authorities should designate areas for fireworks displays and the setting  of firecrackers by professionals, and propose alternative means of livelihood for vendors so that they will no longer sell these items.

At the same time, civilians should be forbidden to carry firearms. That would leave only security guards, policemen and soldiers with the permit to carry guns, which should be strictly accounted for and muzzled with tape in an annual pre-Christmas and New Year census in precincts and headquarters.

It’s tragic that as 24-hour news flash to the world images of the secure firecracker spectacle at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the jubilation with the descent of the ball in New York’s Time’s Square, or the annual polar bear swims in the wintry countries, the Philippines should be the New Year’s first bearers of bad news with images of smog, bleeding body parts and dead people.