In the altar of discernment
In the 1963 mid-term elections, I asked the mayor of my late father’s hometown, Padre Burgos, Southern Leyte, to allow me to speak onstage during the campaign sorties of national political parties. I promised him he would be proud of me and maybe because he was the half-brother of my paternal grandmother, he convinced campaign managers to allow this. I was 13 years old and a non-voter. My speeches urged the separate crowds of the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party to vote for Jose W. Diokno and Jovito R. Salonga, respectively.
The mayor, a stalwart Nacionalista, tried to instill in my young mind a rigid political practice. Supporting candidates from different political parties was, to him, unacceptable, counter-productive. Party rules demanded voting straight from the candidate for the highest position down. Campaigning for candidates from opposing parties, like what I did, was a definite no-no. He later asked my father to help me shape my political concepts that early.
It was and still is not easy to choose the best candidate in an election. Myriad factors have to be considered. In most cases, voters don’t have profound personal encounters with candidates, so we rely mainly on political propaganda and word of mouth of supposed leaders. We need to discern.
In that election year, I discerned differently. At that young age I discerned Salonga and Diokno were the best bets. The eventual result of the election proved that, in my tender age, I discerned well.
When the Civil Code took effect in 1950, the age of majority was 21. Only when a person has reached 21 could he legally enter into contracts, vote, among others. About 40 years later, this age was lowered to 18. The arguments presented to lower both voting age and age of majority were multifarious. The most compelling reason was that information became more easily available. Television, which was in its infancy in the ‘50’s, is now in almost every household. Newspapers then only circulating mainly in Manila are peddled in many population centers. Those published in Cebu in limited copies are sold by the thousands.
The abundance of sources of information makes a minor mature earlier. A young man, who, decades ago was forced into naiveté by limited news on the way government was run, is made aware of issues by social media. The thought process of a modern 13-year-old feeds on more facts, figures, and opinions than his counterpart decades ago. An informed person discerns better. Indeed, a teenager of today, given an equal background when compared with one living half a century ago, can be expected to weigh things more intelligently and logically.
I raise this point true to the off-tangent nature of this column. There is a raging controversy on the lowering of the age of criminal liability from 15 to 12 years. Despite the seeming majority of our representatives agreeing to hold liable for certain criminal acts children in conflict with the law aged 12, other sectors of our society hold contrary views. What is lost in this controversy is the acceptable concept of discernment. If the opposing advocates decide to agree on what discernment is, I believe the issue will settle.
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