For everything, there is a proper time

NOW is not the time to implement the Child Car Seat Law. There is no need to enforce it now when cur­rent community quarantine rules prohibit children below 10 years of age from leaving their houses, Sen. Lawrence “Bong” Go said this week­end.

The law, RA 11229, the Child Safety in Motor Vehicles Act, was supposed to take effect last Tuesday, but the needed guidelines have not been drawn up, and six senators called on the Department of Transportation and the Land Transportation Office to de­fer its enforcement.

At this time of the pan­demic when so many fami­lies are striving so hard to survive loss of income due to closures of so many busi­nesses and offices, let us not add to the economic woes of families who have to provide their cars with these special seats costing P3,500 to P7,000 each.

The car seat controversy recalls another proposal that is even more unnecessary at this time – the move to amend or revise the Con­stitution, allegedly to allow foreign investments in many industries now closed to them.

Charter change moves have been part of every outgoing administration in the past, with legislators hoping to add Charter provisions that will allow them to stay longer in office than the current three-term limit.

There are many programs and projects that could be un­dertaken, even in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, such as cleaning up the pollution in Manila Bay and Metro Manila’s network of rivers and streams, more funds for agriculture so it can help cut down our costly rice imports, and solutions to help millions of schoolchildren who cannot join virtual class sessions for lack of online services in their areas.

Such needs as these could be met with funding from Con­gress. We can do without the move to amend the Constitu­tion to ease limitations placed there by the framers of our present Constitution to pro­tect our country from being dominated by foreign economic interests.

For everything there is a proper time, as it says in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible – a time to be born and a time to die, a time to break down and a time to heal, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak, etc.

This is not the time to amend the Constitution so some of­ficials can stay longer in office. And this is not a time to require small families to spend so much to buy for special seats for their children in their cars.