It was quite disturbing to note the news the other day when a man allegedly raped a dog thinking it was a woman he was performing with. How can one be so utterly lost to resort to bestiality? What has our world come to now? Too much alcohol they say.
A man kills his children and his mother-in-law seeing them differently as his heart is clouded with jealousy over his suspicion on his wife’s infidelity. His notion was unconfirmed but his traitorous heart misleads his actions. He stabs his children to death and his mother-in-law, sparing his father-in-law from the blade by the latter’s quick run, before the former took his own life. His excuse? Substance abuse.
A policeman was sighted on the CCTV robbing a money transmittal center. He was with another policeman as they did the heist. One of the policemen was said to belong to the Cebu City Public Safety Department. The other was from Mindanao with a pending case on robbery and illegal drugs. Considering the positions they ought to have held, it is sad to note that the abuse of public trust has also come to play.
In another incident, a pregnant woman was killed for a property dispute. The main reason apparently was not so much the property but the manner in which they took up the problem. Too much quarrelling, too much nagging, became too irritating, and spurred the admitted criminal to put the law in his hands.
Among all these incidents only the last one had the decency if you may call it such, to admit his crime.
One may ask, what has come to this world? Have we become so brazen and uncaring of the lives of others and even one’s own to murder so easily? Or to commit lascivious acts indiscriminately?
What has occupied our hearts so that we no longer care what we do or who we affect.
A retiree friend of mine prepared to leave for abroad. Before his retirement he said he wanted to set up business in Cebu so that he had something to do. But with the growing criminality he decided to just join his children abroad and live there. “I would rather do ‘apostolic’ work,” he joked. “Business seems to be rather difficult here and I am scared of how people seem to be uncaring about who they hurt,” he said, referring to the many incidents of riding-in-tandem crimes and the recent robberies of a forwarding company.
Our newspapers bear headlines of many crimes. With it also come the many reports on calamities all over the country notwithstanding the world. Its succession is remarkable. One can no longer say typhoons returning or making a detour is unlikely for this has happened. Again, the question, “What is our world getting into now?” The image painted by these many pictures makes investors wary. Banks go on bank runs or merge or simply declare bankruptcy. Companies downsize and multi-task, leaving families with lesser time as overtime or “offertime” as some chide about it, takes on the most precious quality time with loved ones.
Lacking the time to build the right values at home, creating good bonds, and finding time to think about what is good is a dominant factor to the many ill events that have come up. Some do not even have a private moment to pray. Or the heart for it.
Truly, if we do want to improve on the way we live, and the future that we have, we must submit it all to that one who blesses our plans, and ensures our future. God.