By Jan Vicente B. Pekas
After the tragic school shooting in Tacloban, they have managed to push the incident further into madness by blaming it on video games. This act of investigation is beyond disservice to those who were killed and affected. A simplistic and stupid scapegoat is being thrust into the spotlight in order to misdirect the people from deeper and uncomfortable issues.
Let us not forget that just some years ago, the act of might makes right had been justified by our own president. Shootings became normalized so long as you could fool the public into believing the person dead was a bad man. Day after day, I remember the headlines being the same. A person, a lot of times, minor was shot dead. Then they would say that kid was a drug dealer/pusher. A pouch of cocaine was found on his possession and he tried to fight back against the police. That was the story that everyone had gotten used to. Everyday, someone died, for years that was the norm and even defended. Kill, kill, and kill all the drug dealers, the criminals and even journalists who wrote against the president.
Any kid who had access to a smart phone has played “violent” games. Every kid in our family had their fair share of playing those types of games. Yet no one has killed anyone so far.
Before the killings in national headlines, we had and still currently have criminals in positions of power. For as long as young people have lived, they have seen politicians get involved in scandals. From dead sabungeros and journalists to millions stolen, children have witnessed grown ups do as they pleased to anyone who wronged, cheated, and even voted for them. In this nation, the story that has been told is that crime does not always bring you consequences. You can get away with even the most heinous acts.
Yet they want to talk about banning violent video games when people we were told to respect and look up to have been the most violent. Even their will and actions to jail children fail to compare when it comes to impeaching the vice president or holding their fellow politicians accountable. They seem to only puff out their chests when it comes to kicking down the already miserable common people.
Hypocrisy is everywhere. All the while, the masses are forced to live in a world of violence and live with all its demons, the same world architectured by those in power. The officials speaking in front of the cameras are hypocrites. They had a part in this tragedy yet they get to act like they’re above everyone else.
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