EDITORIAL - After the family, is the country far behind?

Times have really changed. There used to be a time when it was "a family that prays together stays together." Now it seems it is "a family that deals in drugs together stays together ... in jail." This after a family of five – the father, mother, their two sons, and a daughter – were caught in a police operation that led to the confiscation of more than P2 million worth of shabu and some firearms.

This is not the first time that members of a family get caught in some criminal act. But this is probably the very first time a complete family cast had been apprehended in connection with a crime of such deadly consequences as drugs. To be sure, there have been other whole families similarly arrested in connection with a crime, but never this complete, and in such magnitude.

Cebuanos have increasingly been shocked by the involvement of families in the peddling of their children for cyberporn. But while there should be no distinction between drugs and porn when it comes involving children – both are unconscionable and deplorably – there is an element of relative safety when it comes to cyberporn than when it comes dangerous drugs.

It is easy to see why, deplorable and unconscionable though it may be, some parents might find it a relatively easier to sell their kids up for cyberporn than to involve them in illegal drugs. Almost to a man, there is no disagreement over the danger drugs poses to humans. But in cyberporn, parents may find the no-contact-just-watch nature of cyberporn a far relatively easier pill to swallow.

Of course, it can always be argued how harmful it is to children so young what their parents are making them do. But because psychological and emotional impacts are not immediately seen or realized, the unscrupulous parents of these abused children can always find it readily acceptable to dismiss the consequences as nothing more than bad thoughts to be forgotten.

Doing drugs is different. Drugs have more pernicious effects on anyone. Aside from their terrible psychological and emotional effects, the physical can be more apparent and graphic. For parents not to be held back and deterred by such consequences make them far more hardened by their crimes that the violators of their own children's morals.

As bad as it is for this country to have reached such profound lows in its national character, it is worse to realized that entire families can now get actively involved in the open and unrestrained commission of crime. It is shuddering to even just imagine how a father and mother can engage their own children even in just some light banter about drugs. So much more when it involves running a criminal drug enterprise. After the family, can the country be any farther?