Submitted by Warlie Villasencio (not verified) on Tue, 12/29/2009 - 14:38.
Lantaka and the dead boy
I wonder if this young boy Yuri Menguito’s primary cause of demise was the lantaka? Or was it because his folks utterly failed to keep an eye on him while he was endeavoring to figure out how to work with the bamboo canon?
This post-Christmas mishap of the innocent Angel could have been prevented from happening had the father and mother, or anyone of them, were present to dissuade their child from doing something precarious to the lantaka.
According to Tanke barangay captain Perla Cabanes, the boy was left unattended by his parents while playing with the homemade cannon outside their house last Saturday morning.
Where were the parents during that time when the boy was tinkering with the lantaka? Were they inside at home, or were they somewhere else leaving their child alone by himself in the house to the point of depriving him of complete parental supervision?
You know what? If this case occurred in the US, the parents of this young boy will be in deep trouble. This is no ordinary crime. This is a serious felony. Quite a few parents in America have been incarcerated due to parental dereliction to their children.
Furthermore, if a pet (example a cat or a dog) are left unattended by their masters and someone would report them to the police, the pet owners will be facing a crime for animal cruelty. And if found guilty, they will be languishing in jail for years of imprisonment.
How much worse if you neglect a human being?
Back to Yuri Menguito. This boy would have been alive now had his parents been responsible enough to tend to him while he was merry making outside.
I don’t blame the lantaka for his sudden death. I don’t even blame Yuri Menguito since he was lured, as many kids his age, by the wonder of the bamboo cannon. But I do really place the onus on the parents for the death of their child by arbitrarily neglecting him.
This is a forlorn indication of how inadequate and irresponsible some parents are, when it comes to parenting their own children. I hope there will be no more incident like this in the future. The sad thing, we have learned valuable lessons in a hard way.