EDITORIAL - The ‘rugby epidemic’

According to a report in this newspaper, the presence of “rugby boys”, or street kids who get their high sniffing industrial glue, continues to be a problem in some areas of this city.

When the high hits them, some of these kids can become brash or violent, harassing pedestrians, throwing stones at vehicles, and even committing crimes.

We need to address this issue for two main reasons.

The first reason is if today’s rugby boys are not put on the right path they are likely to become tomorrow’s criminals. Don’t get us wrong, anyone can become a criminal after all, glue-sniffing street kid or not. But it is usually those who do not have the means to earn an honest living who are likely to resort to crime to feed themselves or their families.

And in the streets, kids learn more than just “connections” they can also learn about opportunities to gain at another person’s expense.

The second reason is because it’s also likely they will become a vector for spreading the Delta variant of COVID-19.

Many of our children, glue-sniffers or not, are allowed a degree of freedom to wander our neighborhoods even now. Being kids, they are carefree and have no sense of danger; meaning they are not likely to wear face masks or keep distance from their playmates.

And while it is easier to track where the adults have been and to tell them what to do and what to be careful for, it’s just not the same way with children.

Unfortunately, the problems authorities come across in dealing with miscreants who are minors has remained the same throughout the years; after they are apprehended and turned over to barangay officials they have to be released back to their parents or guardians. Most of these parents or guardians are too busy or actually don’t care about them, and they end up unsupervised and back in the streets again.

Another problem? Industrial glue is so easy for them to obtain. A small bag of it can be had for practically pocket change.

It is good that some of the authorities recognize this problem. Now if only they can come up with a permanent and effective solution to it.

Hopefully this isn’t another problem that will be buried by the attention on the ongoing pandemic.