In Support of the Campaign against TV Violence in Children's Soap Operas

By; Candice Regala

As a child, I wasn’t raised with my parents taking care of me all times of the day due to the demands of their profession. My father would leave home early in the morning and would go home only when the workload in the hospital can be managed by the other staffs. At most, he’d come home twice a week. My mother chose a work that has a more convenient time sched. She’d leave home 7 in the morning and comes back at 6 pm. The four of us siblings would be left in the care of our kasambahay and we’re free to do what we want so long as we’d behave and do our afternoon nap.

TV became our lives that time. We were so entranced by the actions and entertainments it shows to us. We became so desensitized that because of our young minds, we cannot anymore separate fiction from the reality.

There’s this cartoon we’ve watched wherein the “good guy” has thrown countless punches to the “bad guy”, the bad guy seems to be unaffected. One time my older sister and youngest sister got into a petty quarrel. My youngest sister claiming that she’s the good guy and is being attacked by the bad guy punched my sister straight on her nose making it bleed. What children see, children do and the parents play a great role in protecting their children against these acts of violence.

My mom has come to know this and informed our father who hasn’t come home for a week that time.

Whenever my parents come home and will approach us, it’s like they are stranger to us, when my mom tries to hold us we’ll recoil and would run to our kasambahay. My mom told us that she got so sad that she’d come home early everyday after work and slowly regained our affection. One day she asked us ‘Hindi niyo ba namimiss si daddy niyo?, and we replied, “Hindi, sanay naman kasi kami na wala siya palage.” My father heard of this and that was the last straw, he quit his work in the hospital and became a RHP like my mother, everyday they’d come home together and will ask us of our daily activities.:)share