On Assult to Person in Authority, Secularism and Superman

Over the radio, Kaibahang Butch was gaping at a reported incident where two uniformed policemen were stabbed following their attempt to disarm a minor who was brandishing a knife at the height of the Sto. Niño celebration. The anchorman was overwhelmed by the fact that agents of law are now the victims of such violence. I remember some years ago that he was also taken aback over a report where a Baleten-on was mauled over somewhere near the Magsaysay Park during one of the after dark Ati-atihan celebrations. He was trying to impress upon his listeners that during his salad days, it was the Baleten-ons who were feared at and the last persons you would want to cross with.

But time has changed. The younger generation would regard at the policemen as just typical employees trying to make a living. They see the Sto. Niño Festival as just like any other gimmicks. And they don't have a sense of history of their province or even that of their community. The aura of respect and reverence for persons in uniforms and the men of the cloth are unperceived if not unrecognized by them.

Modern thinkers would call this phenomenon, secularization or as by products of it. It does not only limits to the "liberation" of modern thinking from the "bondage" of "theological pretensions" but of diminishing the boundaries between the sacred and the profane and the exultation of superman. Secularism seeks to kill God and all the values associated with him and in his place, hails supermen--self-contained as the androgynous, proud like the kings, powerful like the Titans.