Tambuling Batangas Publication January 03-09, 2018 | Page 5

OPINYON
Enero 03-09, 2018
DILG warns public against the use of
illegal firecrackers/pyrotechnics
Susan De Leon
QUEZON CITY--Three days
before New Year’s Eve, the
Department of the Interior and
Local
Government
(DILG)
warns that any person who is
caught manufacturing, selling,
distributing or using illegal
firecrackers and pyrotechnics
may be fined or imprisoned or
suffer both penalties.

DILG
officer-in-
charge Catalino S. Cuy says
the government is serious in
regulating firecrackers and will
deal with those who do not abide
by the law and regulations.

“Taon-taon ay nag-
aabiso tayo sa publiko tungkol
sa pagbebenta at paggamit ng
paputok. Kaya pasensyahan po
tayo kung kayo ay mahuhuli
at mapapatawan ng kaukulang
parusa o makakaloboso,” says
Cuy.

Republic Act 7183 or
An Act Regulating the Sale,
Manufacture,
Distribution
and Use of Firecrackers and
Other Pyrotechnic Devices
states that any person who
Bad new times
THE year 2017 isn’t exactly auld
lang syne, or good old times,
and 2018 is not only likely to be
a repeat of it. It could even be
worse.

As 2016 ended a year
ago, the new year of 2017 was
welcomed with optimism by most
Filipinos, in the probable belief
that thinking so will make it so.
The feng shui and other creatures
spawned by the Philippine culture
of confusion, who claim to have
the power to foretell the future,
weren’t helping any. Neither
were the survey firms, which as
usual regaled the citizenry with
their cheery polls on the average
man-on-the-street’s fact-defying
optimism.

Those
who
make
predicting what will happen in
the coming year their business
proclaim every New Year that
things will be better despite their
and the rest of the country’s
experience, which for decades
has argued against such upbeat
expectations. But whether it’s
employment opportunities or the
prospects for peace, development
and an end to corruption, their
predictions have been, and are
still likely to be, uniformly the
same.

Their
optimism
is
curious, considering how often the
rest of us have been disappointed
with the way things turn out every
year. Philippine society has after
all been in crisis for centuries
due to the rapaciousness and
incompetence of a political
class nurtured by colonial rule
and sustained by imperialist
intervention. Unless the power
structure is democratized, things
will remain the same, and any
change that does happen is likely
to be for the worse.

But why the belief
persists that things will always
be better as the old year passes
into history is understandable.
So used have Filipinos been to
political instability, violence,
impunity, uncertainty, and fear
that they think these anomalies
to be normal. Any change no
matter how small is thus regarded
as significant. Change being the
one certainty in existence, it’s
easy enough to predict, and even
believe, that every change is for
the better.
Political
upheavals,
foreign invasion, wars and the
social unrest driven by poverty,
hunger and injustice have at
various times sharpened the
seething
contradictions
in
Philippine society. These have
led to attempts to understand
how the divisions rooted in the
political, economic, and social
disempowerment of vast numbers
of Filipinos on the one hand, and
the monopoly over wealth and
power of a handful of families
and political dynasties on the
other, sustain a society of vast
inequality.

The reality is that
2017 is ending with the most
telling indications yet that
2018 may be another acute
stage in the Philippine crisis of
political, economic, and social
underdevelopment.
Eighteen
months after Rodrigo Duterte
assumed the presidency, the
Philippines is even more acutely
in the grip of that crisis because
of the distinct possibility that
the reforms the country has long
needed for its survival will never
take place. Instead there is the
continuing threat of a return to
dictatorship as the same means of
preventing change that Ferdinand
manufactures, sells, distributes
or uses firecrackers and other
pyrotechnic devices in violation
of the provisions of this Act
shall be fined from P20,000 to
P30,000, or imprisoned between
six months to one year, or both
such fine and imprisonment, at
the discretion of the court.

The license and business
permit of manufacturers of illegal
firecrackers shall likewise be
cancelled and their inventory and
stock confiscated.
Cuy, however, says allowable
consumer
pyrotechnics
or
Marcos used in 1972.

It’s not only the “war”
on drugs, which has so far cost the
lives of an estimated 14,000 men,
women, and children, that’s being
readied to justify authoritarian
rule. Terrorism and insurgency
have also emerged as convenient
excuses for a nationwide
declaration of martial law, or even
the imposition of a grievously
misnamed
“revolutionary
government” that will be anything
but revolutionary.

The next few months
of 2018 will tell if, in an attempt
to resolve a crisis that it has
pushed to an acute stage, the
Duterte regime, which clearly
demonstrated in 2017 its
commitment to keeping things the
way they have always been, will
bring it to even more dangerous
levels through open authoritarian
rule. If it does, it will plunge
the country into a maelstrom of
violence and uncertainty only a
radical shift in political power —
from its monopoly by the few to
its democratization in the hands
of the many — can remedy.

Mr.
Duterte’s
pre-
election promises of change on
a wide range of issues — from
corruption and the drug problem
to foreign relations and peace talks
with the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines (NDFP)
— resonated among a people
desperate for change. But most
of these promises have remained
unfulfilled, and Mr. Duterte has
terminated the peace talks, the
success of which was predicated
on the adoption of basic reforms.
Mr. Duterte’s preferred approach
to the drug problem, which has
led to an unprecedented number
of killings, mostly by a police
force he has empowered as judge,
jury and executioner, is still in
place. Not only is this policy
undermining the Bill of Rights;
‘pailaw’ may be used outside
places of residence.
“Naglabas
naman
po tayo ng listahan ng mga
firecrackers
o
pailaw
na
puwedeng gamitin. Huwag na
po tayong gumamit ng bawal
kung ayaw ninyong maperwisyo
sa paglipas ng Bagong Taon,” he
says.

According to the law,
the manufacture, sale, and use
of the following firecrackers
are strictly prohibited: piccolo
or “scratch bangers”, pop pop,
Goodbye Philippines or Crying
Bading, Yolanda or Goodbye
Napoles, Watusi, Pla-pla, Giant
Kuwitis, Watusi or “dancing
firecrackers,” Super Lolo, Atomic
Big Trianggulo, Mother Rockets,
Lolo Thunder, Pillbox, Boga,
Big Judah’s Belt, Big Bawang,
Kwiton, Bin Laden, Kabasi,
Atomic Bomb, Five Star, Og, and
Giant Whistle Bombs.
All firecrackers with gunpowder
exceeding two grams or 1.3
teaspoons is also banned.
Only the following firecrackers
and pyrotechnics are allowed:
baby rocket, bawang, small
triangle, pulling of strings,
paper caps, el diablo, and sky
rocket (kwitis), sparklers, luces,
fountains, jumbo regular and
special, mabuhay, Roman candle,
trompillo, airwolf, whistle device,
and butterfly. (DILG/RJB/SDL/
PIA-NCR)
The firecracker "Goodbye Bading" (Goodbye Gays) according to
the Philippine National Police (PNP) is one of the most dangerous
firecrackers which was discovered since 2012. (PIA-NCR)
it is also promoting the use of
unaccountable State violence
against the poor as the only
means of addressing the country’s
problems. But as the year is
ending, the killings hitherto
associated only with the drug
“war” are spreading to include
political activists, farmer and
worker militants, human rights
defenders and Lumad leaders.

The year is also ending
with an impending economic
catastrophe in the lives of those
with fixed incomes, primarily the
poor. The much touted — and as
misnamed as many other laws
passed by the dynastic stronghold
known as Congress — Tax Reform
Acceleration and Inclusion Act
(Republic Act 10963) will mean
higher consumption taxes for the
poorest sectors of the population,
who currently pay no income tax.
They will end up shouldering the
shortfall in government revenues
that higher tax exemptions for the
wealthier classes will bring about.
They will pay higher prices for
basic and other commodities as
well as transportation as fuel
prices, driven by higher excise
taxes, rise. Rather than an
inclusionary act, RA 10963 is
actually exclusionary. It singles
out the already burdened poor for
indirect taxation, while enabling
those who already have much to
have even more.

The
imposition
of
nationwide martial rule becomes
even more likely in this added
context, given the probability
of a surge in social and political
unrest. But there is opportunity
as well as challenge in the
reemergence of the threat of the
despotism that has always been
the ruling elite’s favored response
to the demand for change.

It can enable the sectoral
and mass organizations to
become even more relevant than
they already are to the lives of the
majority.
Through
the
enhancement of their role as
instruments for the enlightenment
and organizing of the people on
and for the need to broaden their
awareness and commitment to
the imperative of democratizing
political power as the only true
path to authentic development,
they can help put an end to the
bad times that for decades have
been the condition of life for the
majority in these isles of fear and
uncertainty.
Meanwhile,
the
unlawful arrests and spurious
charges against political activists,
community leaders and human
rights defenders, and specially the
killings that are occurring with
increasing frequency in Mindanao
and other areas, will very likely
drive more and more young
men and women into defending
themselves, their families and
their communities with whatever
means necessary.

The fundamental lesson
the history and experience of this
and other countries teaches is that
repression and authoritarian rule
have never succeeded in stopping
dissent, protest, and organized
resistance anywhere. They have
instead accelerated the coming of
the very changes they’re meant to
prevent. Bad times have in many
instances indeed led to better
times: the optimists may have a
point.