On the day that I wrote about a “long, guarded weekend” (Cebu Daily News, page 13, 09/09/16) in the wake of the Davao City bombing, Cebu City residents were greeted with a news story about a female employee making a bomb joke at a downtown mall that resulted in her arrest and detention.
You’d think that people would learn not to do that by the time they heard about it, but lo and behold a 19-year-old kid got arrested for — surprise, surprise — making a bomb joke to a mall security guard.
Even if they weren’t aware of the law prohibiting people from making bomb jokes — which isn’t a restriction on freedom of speech by the way — these two people must have learned about the night market bombing in Davao City the other week to know better than to make a tasteless joke about a bomb that’s supposed to be in their possession so they can get a rise or panicked reactions from security guards.
Making bomb jokes is tantamount to screaming “fire” or even “bomb” inside a darkened movie house. Imagine the panic that would happen if someone did just that. A lot of people would get hurt, and one cannot rule out a death or two.
Freedom comes with responsibility, and that responsibility should extend to ordinary, everyday people who must refrain from making irresponsible, unsubstantiated and dangerous claims like reporting about the presence of a bomb, explosive or a natural calamity in a public area.
As I wrote this piece, two more bomb pranks occurred; one, an abandoned carton box wrapped in packaging tape caused panic and heavy traffic in Barangay San Nicolas and two, a student was apprehended by Ayala Mall security guards for allegedly making bomb jokes.
If it occurred in other countries, these offenders and violators would have been placed in isolation until they confess to their crime or they would undergo public whipping.
Chief Supt. Noli Taliño, Police Regional Office chief, may have a point when he said that Ayala Mall should have turned over the student to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) rather than forgive him/her outright since the full weight and implications of his or her misdeed may have been lost on him/her.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s order declaring a nationwide state of emergency should remind Filipinos not to give cause to authorities to arrest them for making bomb jokes either in public places, through text messages and online platforms.
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Speaking of that nationwide state of emergency, not a few are questioning when President Rodrigo Duterte would lift the declaration and thus ease public fears of martial law, the 45th anniversary of which would be observed this month.
Again, I am reminded of a scene in the 1998 movie “The Siege” starring movie stars Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington in which Willis’ character, a hardened US army general, warned New York City officials about the consequences of declaring martial law in the Big Apple days after a terrorist attack.
“I must warn you ladies and gentleman, the US military is not a scalpel, it is a broadsword and it should not be taken lightly,” he warned. But is the public concerned about the state of emergency?
A Facebook friend took comfort in the presence of soldiers, saying she was enthusiastic about going out and posted it with the hashtag #feelingsafe. I wonder if that sentiment is shared by others.
Then again, watching presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo in ANC’s “Hot Copy” trying to justify the state of emergency and making so much hullabaloo about a “constitutional dictatorship” — the very same words used by the late president Ferdinand Marcos to justify his martial law regime — gives people pause for concern.
So far, there had been no restriction of movement other than the 10 p.m. curfew on minors and the ban on drinking out starting at 1 a.m. No thanks to these bomb pranks and bomb jokes, an already wary public is starting to get jittery.
The public should help crack down on these bomb jokers and pranksters to prevent the administration from finding grounds to justify the declaration of martial law.
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