The Regional Development Council 7 would like to ask Pres. Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo to initiate an investigation on the utilization of the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) funds. Without being obvious, the RDC is actually saying that the SK may not have been up to its mandate. I wonder how the SK or the youth, for that matter, will react to this. We don't, of course, see anything wrong with this move. Only that it is an affront to the performance of the SK in empowering the youth to participate in the development of the community. It is like saying, “Hey! Why don't you shape up?”

If the SK has not measured to the expectation of the public whose fault is it? Who in the first place should be the mentor of the SK? Isn't it the grown up? But what did the grown up teach the SK instead? Let's just look at how the SK conduct their election. It's nothing different from their elder politicians. That's modeling for you.

Incidentally, this Tuesday is World Population Day and the celebration is focused on the young people making choices and building voices. Have the adult really given choices to the youth? And how did the adult help them build their voices. Reading the papers and listening to reports over broadcast media, it seems that the voices heard of the youth are just voices of dissent and of bitterness. The other voices are drowned in the daily grind of adult manipulation. Today the majority of the youth is a misunderstood lot.

Yet we say they will inherit the world. It is time that the focus on the youth should insure that they really have choices to make and the venue to build their voices are put in place. Then the positive aspects of life will get their attention. Then the responsibilities of life in the far distance of the future become more clear and acceptable to them. It's time that we make the youth our responsibility and our hope. It should not be difficult. After all we have been young once and we know the capacities of the young and what would inspire them.

With this attained, the need for greater knowledge and appropriate skills will become more attractive to them. With that in place, guiding them to take care of what is in store for them will just be a matter of course. In Bohol and in the country, forums on the youth will be aired over the radio and television. It will be good to listen to what they say for us to have a better world to live in.