Innocence
Innocence
Posted 00:16am (Mla time) Mar 13, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE NEWS from Bohol has cut us to the quick. In part, it is because the tragedy was not caused by extraordinary weather or an out-of-the-ordinary situation; it arose out of the familiar routines of daily life. A crowd of grade school students rushes out at mid-morning to enjoy a traditional snack. What can be more ordinary than that?
In part, the tragedy bears heavily on us also because of the extreme youth of the victims. More than a hundred schoolchildren, aged between 6 and 13, had been poisoned, and as of yesterday 27 had already died. The victims' parents and many others have asked: What had they done to deserve this fate?
The Department of Health has narrowed the possible causes of the mass food poisoning to either cyanide (possibly left in the cassava because of undercooking) or pesticide (possibly through the use of contaminated containers). While careful to say that we must all wait for the results of the various tests being conducted, health officials actually think the pesticide poisoning or organophosphate theory may better explain the circumstances.
Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said the symptoms exhibited by some of the patients were "more consistent" with the theory, and that the patients "were responding to atropine sulfate, which is the antidote for organophosphate [poisoning]."
Pinpointing the actual cause will help any post-tragedy initiative. If it is proven to be pesticide poisoning, then the attempts of, say, the Department of Education to impose "stricter restrictions" on food vendors plying their trade immediately outside schools will have to be reconsidered.
But knowing the cause of death will do very little to ease the trauma of the victims' families. Similarly, the conviction of the two snack vendors, possibly on charges of gross negligence or reckless imprudence, will serve the cause of justice, but the families will find little relief in it.
For the death of the children has inflicted a deeper wound. The families will be looking not so much for cause but for meaning. What had the children done to deserve this fate? Why did it happen so near the end of the academic year, at about the time the children were looking forward to more time for play? Who, in the end, is responsible for it all?
In an uncanny way, the news from Bohol anticipates the central story of Christianity's Holy Week: the horrifying death of the innocent.
Ignorance
THERE is one thing we can say for certain about the "meaning" of the Bohol tragedy. It is not a sign, contrary to the opinion of Bohol Bishop Christian Noel, that God is displeased with the government's population management program.
A couple of days after the mass food poisoning, Bishop Noel took aim at the government's Ligtas Buntis campaign, using the lives of the schoolchildren as ammunition. "Maybe some of the [government's] health workers are trying to go beyond what they are expected by their conscience (to do). So now the Lord is giving us the sign that if we continue to go against what the Church preaches, something like this will happen to us," Noel had said.
We have no reason to doubt that Noel believes he is only offering a Christian explanation of the tragedy. We just don't agree that it is either. It does not explain the sudden death of the innocents, and it is emphatically not Christian.
The ghost of a violent God, seen most clearly in some passages of the Old Testament, was definitively laid to rest by the New. Precisely because of the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ, the Christian understanding of God has changed, from the exacting, jealous God of the Old Testament, who punished the Egyptians with plagues and purified Job with extraordinary tests, to the suffering savior of the New Testament.
In other words, Noel is appealing to an image of God that is pre-New Testament, and thus not-yet-Christian. A truly Christian understanding of the Bohol tragedy will find Christ right there in Barangay San Jose in Mabini, among the victims.
Posted 00:16am (Mla time) Mar 13, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE NEWS from Bohol has cut us to the quick. In part, it is because the tragedy was not caused by extraordinary weather or an out-of-the-ordinary situation; it arose out of the familiar routines of daily life. A crowd of grade school students rushes out at mid-morning to enjoy a traditional snack. What can be more ordinary than that?
In part, the tragedy bears heavily on us also because of the extreme youth of the victims. More than a hundred schoolchildren, aged between 6 and 13, had been poisoned, and as of yesterday 27 had already died. The victims' parents and many others have asked: What had they done to deserve this fate?
The Department of Health has narrowed the possible causes of the mass food poisoning to either cyanide (possibly left in the cassava because of undercooking) or pesticide (possibly through the use of contaminated containers). While careful to say that we must all wait for the results of the various tests being conducted, health officials actually think the pesticide poisoning or organophosphate theory may better explain the circumstances.
Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said the symptoms exhibited by some of the patients were "more consistent" with the theory, and that the patients "were responding to atropine sulfate, which is the antidote for organophosphate [poisoning]."
Pinpointing the actual cause will help any post-tragedy initiative. If it is proven to be pesticide poisoning, then the attempts of, say, the Department of Education to impose "stricter restrictions" on food vendors plying their trade immediately outside schools will have to be reconsidered.
But knowing the cause of death will do very little to ease the trauma of the victims' families. Similarly, the conviction of the two snack vendors, possibly on charges of gross negligence or reckless imprudence, will serve the cause of justice, but the families will find little relief in it.
For the death of the children has inflicted a deeper wound. The families will be looking not so much for cause but for meaning. What had the children done to deserve this fate? Why did it happen so near the end of the academic year, at about the time the children were looking forward to more time for play? Who, in the end, is responsible for it all?
In an uncanny way, the news from Bohol anticipates the central story of Christianity's Holy Week: the horrifying death of the innocent.
Ignorance
THERE is one thing we can say for certain about the "meaning" of the Bohol tragedy. It is not a sign, contrary to the opinion of Bohol Bishop Christian Noel, that God is displeased with the government's population management program.
A couple of days after the mass food poisoning, Bishop Noel took aim at the government's Ligtas Buntis campaign, using the lives of the schoolchildren as ammunition. "Maybe some of the [government's] health workers are trying to go beyond what they are expected by their conscience (to do). So now the Lord is giving us the sign that if we continue to go against what the Church preaches, something like this will happen to us," Noel had said.
We have no reason to doubt that Noel believes he is only offering a Christian explanation of the tragedy. We just don't agree that it is either. It does not explain the sudden death of the innocents, and it is emphatically not Christian.
The ghost of a violent God, seen most clearly in some passages of the Old Testament, was definitively laid to rest by the New. Precisely because of the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ, the Christian understanding of God has changed, from the exacting, jealous God of the Old Testament, who punished the Egyptians with plagues and purified Job with extraordinary tests, to the suffering savior of the New Testament.
In other words, Noel is appealing to an image of God that is pre-New Testament, and thus not-yet-Christian. A truly Christian understanding of the Bohol tragedy will find Christ right there in Barangay San Jose in Mabini, among the victims.
posted by Dante at 12:16 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home