Vandalism in Cagayan

Vandalism in Cagayan

In my Cagayan province, one gets to notice flyers “Gising Cagayan” and “Gobierno Ti Umili” glued to practically every conceivable public space. These flyers are highly visible as they maliciously defaced newly painted bridges, historic markers, walls, waiting sheds, and the like. They create the perception that the areas where these flyers are put on are tagged as belonging to a group or a political party known as “Gising Cagayan” or “Gobierno Ti Umili.” Probably, the people behind these nasty tagging of areas wanted to heighten the awareness of the Cagayanos that these are existing political groups. Perhaps it is also the desire of these groups to conduct self-publicity or status-promotion simply because they are aware that they are virtually unknown. Moreover, it may be their craving to be recognized that the areas they vandalized are their identified turf or political territory.

The people behind these pasting of flyers have low regard and respect for properties. They damaged or disfigured properties without the consent of the people who own or have control of such properties. We take pride of Aparri as one of the cleanest municipalities in the province but with the flyers all around they cheapened our town and make it unattractive and frightening. Take for instance, our newly refurbished Knights of Columbus marker in Aparri, it is now peppered with these flyers. It will cost us much again to repaint and restore it.

We feel angry and hurt by this vandalism. We condemn this wanton act of disrespect to private and public properties. The people behind this may think that we don’t care for our surroundings hence they are least troubled if they vandalize them. We care for our properties. These vandals should respect our properties and they should respect us too.