The year ended and another year started with firecrackers exploding and pyrotechnics lighting up Bohol skies.
Firecracker exploding, pyrotechnics display and noise making has been a tradition which Filipinos borrowed and adopted as their own.
The tradition roots from the Chinese, who thought bad luck is as chicken as the dog which runs with its tails tucked every time an explosion happens.
For the bad luck that has hounded Chinese families during the previous year, scaring it off would mean good luck as the new year opens. Or so, they thought.
In fact, for some believers, exploding and lighting up pyrotechnics is not enough.
Like the Filipinos penchant for the back-up systems in everything, lighting firecrackers and pyrotechnics need to be accompanied by other attempts at bringing in good luck: the round fruits on the dining table for example, are just some of them.
In the Philippines, the use of firecrackers and pyrotechnics have always been seen as a free zone.
Everyone with the money to purchase some, can basically ignite them: the more people you scare the better.
Of course, this is not rooted from a belief that bad luck does come from people, although some would gladly ascribe the jinx to them.
So, when people start thinking exploding pairs with scaring people to death, in a country with regulations that are left un-imposed, firecracker makers craft the scariest of them all, so there’s Goodbye World or Goodbye Philippines for that matter.
And, next to that, expect people to get hurt. And so does making useless stumps from what was once arms and limbs are every New Year’s aftermath.
And from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Supt. Renato Marcial, made the rounds on TV and radio talk shows to pound home the proposal for a total ban on firecracker use by civilians on Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Indeed, it sounds radical, as this is always viewed as contrary to tradition.
For a once or twice a day revelry now proposed to be banned, the BFP might be too alarmist, so they say.
But then, the Department of Health’s latest bulletin says injuries relating to firecracker use, most of them occurring during the New Year countdown and the parties afterwards, have hit really alarming counts.
While this happens to be, according to the DOH, 57 percent lower than the five-year average for the same period in 2010-2014, the figure becomes threatening especially if one of them is your kid.
Traditionalists however insist that there is such a thing as responsible use of firecrackers.
This means that firecrackers use by private individuals, households and civilians is banned but let the professionals do the scaring.
Now that firecrackers are exploded even in limited, dangerous environments, expect injuries.
Not, however in a controlled environment or designated area where the risks are contained and rubbish easy to clear.
Davao has shown that it can be done. The next thing we need to do is copy what Davao has done.
That however can not work with the kind of leaders we have whose fire are just as a fleeting as a firecracker.
Would a rather different kind of fired leader come out?
