EDITORIAL - Dancing the Sinulog as a punishment

If you are active on social media, like many of us under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), you might have already seen videos of authorities arresting and dealing with many violators of the quarantine order here and in other parts of the country.

Some violators are made to do some exercises or dance as a form of punishment, to humiliate them so much that they will think twice the next time they leave the house without a face mask, without an ECQ, or without any valid reason at all.

Among these videos is footage of Cebu City Prevention, Restoration, Order, Beautification, and Enhancement (PROBE) making a group of people arrested for violating the ECQ dance the traditional Sinulog dance.

By all means, we should use every means at our disposal to make sure people stay put when told to do so for the country’s sake. Even the means of shaming them by making them dance in front of cameras.

However, perhaps some things should not be left alone and some lines should not be crossed.

The dance we offer to the Holy Child is something we take pride in, something some people would even interpret as a form of prayer and offering we give to the Holy Child, something we consider as part of our heritage and history.

Something that reflects our heritage and history should not be used as a form of punishment, since a punishment is supposed to be something unpleasant, something someone would not want to do again as a consequence of a certain action.

It’s not unlike having little children pray as a form of punishment; the more they get punished, the more they will associate prayer with negative emotions.

We aren’t saying what PROBE did is outright wrong and deserves condemnation. In fact, PROBE personnel should be congratulated for keeping quarantine violators off the streets. All we are saying is perhaps it’s not appropriate to trivialize something we offer to a certain Someone. A certain Someone whose name we invoke for deliverance from COVID-19.