Irresponsible parenthood

“ALL SCHOOL-AGED children in basic education must be in school.”
Thus declared Education Secretary Jesli Lapus in support of a bill filed in the House by Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez that sanctions jail terms and/or fines to parents who fail to send their children to school or to provide them with an education.
Poverty, Rodriguez pointed out in his explanatory notes, should never be a hindrance to education since parents can enroll their children in public schools which provide free education.
Lapus even went further to say that poverty should even be a motivating factor for parents to send their children to school.
“Education is life’s great equalizer. It is also the number one anti-poverty measure we can have,” the education secretary was quoted as saying.
As “knowledge is power,” so “education is the greatest gift parents can give their children.” It is a life-long treasure that cannot be stolen, that will not perish.
In the rural communities, cursed is the home that did not have a wall – even if only of the lowly sawali – serving as shrine to education whence displayed the diplomas, medals and citations of the children.
Premium is indeed put on education as sure-way to get out of poverty. The sagas of Diosdado Macapagal and Oscar Rodriguez are testaments to that.
Parenthood is measured not simply in the number of children sired, but in those reared and educated to be useful citizens.
Failing there thus is the pits of parental irresponsibility. So well discoursed by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in his essay On Liberty: “To bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction or training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society.
A moral crime indeed! Your children did not ask you to be brought out into this world. You did it – with pleasure, to boot! Now you rear them until such time they can go on their own. That is your obligation not only to your God but to society as well.
But where stands the traditional bastion of morality here?
No to all forms of artificial contraception. Yes to tuition hikes in its exclusive institutions. And the population-education-poverty problem gets on a full cycle, nay, on a spiral: the poor getting more babies, the population mired in ignorance with quality education beyond, poverty a-breeding.
There has to be a stop somewhere. And penalizing parents for abandoning their moral responsibility makes one good start.
Most proper and just then for the state to act.
Thus, per Rodriguez’s bill, failure to send children to school will mean imprisonment of six years or a penalty of not more than P100,000.
Abandonment of children translates to six months to two years and a penalty of P100,000.
All sectors of society are bound to support Rodriguez’s bill. To save the children. To save society itself.