Raincoat Rush

There’s a forecast of heavy rains on the very day of the parade. It would be much like the heavy rains a couple of weeks ago that elevated floods and evacuated residents. What do we do? Do we adjust schedule? Do we postpone the activities? No, we let the kids bring raincoats. With these additional articles of clothing the child’s head, upper limbs and torso, the tradition would move forward in the middle of the rains just like the way we used to.

There is a contingency plan after all. If the weather gets really bad, the parade will be held at the JMR Coliseum. Okay, that sounds like a fair substitute for the parade on the road. The audience will be watching from the bleachers, companies of scouts going around in circles on the ground below. I guess, that’s an exciting spectacle. I suppose, this measure would be taken in the event that the rains would be too heavy that it would be ridiculous to march around the streets with a raincoat. In that case, in such conditions, the rains would be too heavy for parents and children to commute. Some of them may have a hard time passing through alleys, streets and roads that would be flooded by then. But in the middle of these rains and floods, they would be expected to make it to JMR Coliseum. Oh yes, we expect that the audience would be there too. Of course, despite the rains, tradition would lead then there. Of course, family of scouts, which would include eager grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and cousins of cousins, family friends, neighbors would not pass up the chance to see their favorite scout marching with his/her fellow scouts. This is a landmark moment of his/her childhood. Of course, in the middle of heavy rains and most probable floods, they will find a way to make it to the Coliseum. I imagine they would just bring packs of lunch or rice and adobo since it could be difficult to cross the road to SM. But, it would be fine. They would have a memorable picnic on the bleachers. Then, when the circular parade would have been finished, at which time, the rains may have stopped, or the rains may have grown stronger, the audience would in the same way, have found their way home. Certainly, they would find some mode of transport. Well, it may take some time and some difficulty, but they would eventually have gone home By that time, the water may have found their way through the windows and /or the ceiling. But the good Nagueno family will be ready to face these challenges. After all, they would have celebrated their child’s participation in the scouts’ parade, a landmark of Nagueno and Bicolano culture, especially in the time of Penafrancia Fiesta.

I have long found the elevation of the Scouts’ parade’s degree of importance as a confused oddity. This is not what scouting is about. Scouting is about the practice of resourcefulness in the outdoors. Perhaps, a more suitable landmark activity would be a day camp, or some form of community service, or hiking which would culminate to tree planting. This should be the sort of activities that the scouts and their parents should be enthusiastic about. They should be engaged in outdoor survival skills. If they have to be along urban streets, they should be helping with the cleanness and order or showing charity to vagrants. These sort of events should mold and achieve virtues among the scouts and offer some concrete benefit to the community. Perhaps, one could argue that some virtue is instilled in marching around the city streets along with the rehearsals before the actual day. But, you’re going to have a hard time to convince anyone that the march offered some tangibly valuable help to the community and/or the environment.

Well, what do you know? The kids themselves seem to want to join in the parade. They seem to be excited. Parents seem to be proud that their children are taking part in the parade, taking extra effort to assemble the complete uniform, so that their little boy or girl scout could go around downtown up to the reviewing stand. They seem to be okay to buy them raincoats just so they could go on with the march, even if they challenge the threat of influenza in filing under probably heavy rains. I heard, raincoats have sold out around the local malls. I guess, if they themselves like what they do, what is a spectator’s right to interfere with their happiness? I guess, that’s how tradition goes. Just take care of yourselves when you go out there.

“But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good…” 1 Thessalonians 5:21