The sins of the son

I’m not a friend of Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, but I feel his pain over the arrest of his son, Juanito, since I’m a parent myself.

Juanito Jose is 38 years old and mature enough to know right from wrong.

As I’ve said in my Facebook page yesterday, why should Juanito Jose’s sin be blamed on the father?

Which parent in his right mind would urge his son to commit a crime, especially if that parent happens to be the secretary of justice?

I admire the justice secretary for his statement that he respects the country’s judicial system and will not intercede on his son’s behalf.

“This is a very difficult time for me and my family but this is nothing compared to what so many Filipinos are going through. I respect the justice system and I wish my son a path to redemption,” said Boying Remulla in a handwritten statement to reporters.

While his family is hurting, Remulla is thinking of the woes that his countrymen are going through. What could be more statesmanlike and altruistic a statement than that?

People who call for Remulla’s resignation on account of his son’s arrest for a drug offense are engaging in Monday morning quarterbacking.

A Monday morning quarterback is a person who criticizes or suggests other courses of action from a position of hindsight.

I’ll even go further than that: Mas marunong ang miron kesa sa naglalaro. A miron (spectator) who heckles a player’s performance is doing so from the safety of the bleachers.

Those who strongly call for Remulla’s resignation have not experienced the agony a parent goes through when an offspring brings shame to the family.

True, parents should be blamed for their son’s or daughter’s misbehavior, if the offspring is a toddler or pre-teen. Young children need the watchful eyes of parents.

But when a son or daughter has reached adulthood, parents no longer have responsibility for their offspring’s misbehavior.

Media personality and blogger Jay Sonza expresses his sympathy for Remulla thus: “Your son is 38 and has chosen a life no parent would want or dream about. We can only do so much as parents.”

That goes true for law-abiding persons whose relatives run afoul of the law. This is when the biblical passage “I am not my brother’s keeper” applies.

To parents whose adult children have misbehaved, here’s a passage from Khalil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet:

Your children are not your children.

They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

Although they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls.

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

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First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos has expressed support and elation over a proposed project to convert all discarded coconut husks into hardwood.

Americans Matt Grecsek and Robert Knighton paid a courtesy visit to Mrs. Marcos Thursday at her office at the Presidential Management Staff to inform her they were going to set up factories in many parts of the country that would revolutionize our coconut industry.

Coconut husks are discarded by farmers who extract copra from coconuts.

Millions of tons of husks are burned after copra is extracted, and the smoke contributes to pollution. Aside from that, husks are left to rot on the ground or are thrown into the river or sea, making them eyesores.

Grecsek and Knighton, both inventors who own Globe Eco, said they would buy the discarded coconut husks from farmers. The husks would then be fed into machines to undergo a heat and pressure process.

The husks-into-wood manufacturing system, the first of its kind in the world, would transform carbon-infused coconut fibers into high value building materials.

There would no longer be illegal logging as Grecsek and Knighton’s hardwood is even more durable than timber. The hardwood would be termite-free. Its other attributes are increased resistance to fire, moisture, fungus and insects that destroy timber.

Many countries, which import our timber from illegal loggers, are expected to buy the hardwood from the Philippines.

Ms. Marcos listened, engrossed, as Grecsek explained their manufacturing project and the benefits the country would derive from it.

The moribund coconut industry will come to life again, as more coconut trees will be planted for the hardwood.

The more coconut trees our farmers plant, the more the country contributes to the removal of carbon dioxide in the world’s atmosphere, according to Grecsek.

Like all green plants, coconut trees remove carbon dioxide from the air. Coconut trees are one of the most efficient carbon dioxide-removal systems on the planet, according to documents from Globe Eco, the company that Grecsek and Brighton own.

Grecsek is married to a woman from a prominent family in Camiguin. It is the reason he and Knighton chose the Philippines for their pilot project.

The price of copra at this time is low, resulting in coconut farmers, who depend on the product for livelihood, living below the poverty line.

The First Lady said she would bring up the matter with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, who is concurrently the acting secretary of agriculture.