A better show for our children on real-world stage

I wish to commend Inquirer’s July 27 editorial titled “Kid-friendly cinemas.” The editorial underscores the work the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) is doing in order to keep television and cinema safe to watch for children. Another excellent point it emphasizes is the role of the parents in guiding the children. This is its final note: “It is fortunate that the MTRCB is keeping an eye out for the children, be it at home in front of their TV sets and in the cinemas, just before a movie starts. In this digital age, it should continue to help inspire parents and guardians to constantly be aware of what their children are watching.”

I would compliment this advertence because parents indeed hold the primary role in educating their children. Movies and television have a dominant influence on the minds and values of young people and often the values that the media present to them are not critiqued. It is usually the older persons who care for their young ones who give them the ideas with which they can pass favorable or objectionable judgments on the values presented to them.

I would like to point out also that it is not only the stage on which movies and television make their presentations that present positive or negative influences on the children. The world itself in which we, the adults, perform as if on a stage, also influences the children for better or for worse. Every day, Filipinos have to contend with traffic jams, power outages, utilities that do not work, services not rendered, deadlines not met, corruption, lack of discipline, dishonesty, cheating, poverty, mediocre work, toilets that don’t flush, busted street lamps, and so forth. It’s as if we have set a stage for our children and we are acting on it and showing them this is how we Filipinos are. We can surely give them a better show.

—FR. CECILIO L. MAGSINO,

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