The Philippine Online Chronicles

It is often said then when politicians or advocacy groups pick up the cudgels of a cause, they are doing so for the children of the nation. Therefore, it is only inevitable that the children who are now seeing the impeachment proceedings unfold before their very eyes will start to generate interest about it.

From Monday to Thursday afternoons, many homes all over the country have their TV sets switched to the impeachment trial. This is about the same time that children are back from school and doing their homework, mothers are preparing dinner and the other members of the family unwinding for the day. Even as background noise, children can’t help but be exposed to a number of things regarding this political and administrative process.

Every morning, newspapers deliver headlines relating to the trial. Editorial pages are loaded with opinion. Front pages are screaming with facts and updates. The evening news is all about what happened during the trial. If we had late night standup comics, it’s likely they would be joking about the impeachment trial as well. There’s so much information going around, it’s actually a great way to start teaching kids about a few things.

We are now three to four weeks into the impeachment proceedings of Chief Justice Corona and. The impeachment trial is a good learning opportunity for children (and people in general), so we should talk about the trial with our kids. Regardless of your political stance, the impeachment can teach children many things.

New vocabulary words

Many new words not typically heard have been thrown around in the recent weeks. Impeachment, articles of impeachment, inhibit, testimony, betrayal and subpoena are just some of the terms that can be easily explained to children that relate to the trial. If you want to take it up a notch, start explaining the multi-syllabic words used by Senator Miriam Santiago, such as colloquy and sententious. Teachers must be having a field day coming up with spelling words that can be taught children by simply listening to what’s on the news.

Introduction to social studies

Now is a great time to teach children about the three branches of government: executive, legislative and judiciary. These are separate entities that act together. Each branch of government provides a check and balance for each other.

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There is also the upper and lower house, which refers to the Senate and Congress. Because we are a democracy, we don’t just vote to place these people in office. Our elected officials also vote amongst themselves to come up with a resolution, such as when the lower house voted to impeach the Chief Justice and how the Senator Judges will also have to vote whether Renato Corona should be removed from office.

Children learn more about the other functions of senators, aside from lawmaking. Parents can start talking about what a congressman is, a chief justice, the Supreme Court, a senator and all the other major players that are being subpoenaed to testify.

When children start asking why, such as “Why are we having an impeachment trial?” and “Why is it taking so long?” explain about the justice system. It’s the perfect opportunity to discuss cause and effect, why everyone needs to obey laws as well as the need to tell the truth and why we have laws to protect the rights of people. No one is exempt from the law, even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

However, if children start asking what happens if the lawmakers get so distracted dealing with the impeachment rather than making laws, then that’s a question we need to ask our lawmakers.

Learning about the law

It apparently doesn’t take a law degree to handle an impeachment trial (not all the senator judges have a legal background), but it does help to know a little something about it. Kids can learn about what it means to subpoena someone, what a witness is, what evidence is for, and the difference between the prosecution and defense team.

At the same time, you can show how the law protects everyone, even the accused. Not all evidence is admissible in court, and you can’t force everyone to testify against you, if it is your immediate family. Also, just because you are accused of something, doesn’t automatically make you guilty. There is a need to undergo due process in order to determine whether the accusation is true of not.

This may not necessarily be the case in the trial today, since the media trial being put forth by the prosecution team has certainly swayed public opinion against Corona. However, the injustice of that action can once again be pointed out, providing golden opportunities to learn about fair play.

Lessons in morality

On a very basic level, the impeachment trials can be related to a child’s upbringing by talking about the importance of certain morals. Honesty is obviously the most important.

People have to be honest and not lie, whether it is talking to mom and dad or when a witness is asked to testify in court. Taxpayers have to be truthful about their income tax returns. Government officials have to be thorough about their SALNs.

If you lie about something, the truth will eventually come out. It’s hard to keep up with lies because you have to lie in order to cover up the first lie. If you make false accusations about someone, that is not acceptable either.

Before you look at the faults of others, be sure to check your own first. For example, lead prosecutor Neil Tupas has been all up and arms about how the Chief Justice should have been unable to purchase multi-million peso homes with his given salary and has accused Corona of betrayal of public trust. However, he himself has pending cases in the Ombudsman’s office regarding the misuse of public funds and is allegedly currently having a P50 million home built in an exclusive village in Quezon City, with a congressman’s salary of only P25,000 a month.

Everyone can learn

Everyone, regardless of age, background, gender, political affiliation and educational attainment, can learn something from the impeachment proceedings. It is also just as important that everyone pay attention to what is going on because our history and future is being created as we speak.

It’s necessary we listen to what is being said and to be vigilant about the proceedings. Landmark rulings may be made that will determine how future cases are handled. Talking about things will open up people’s minds to various possibilities and make them more critical about what is being presented. For children, it’s a crash course in English, math, accounting (try and figure out how to buy something worth millions with only thousands), social studies, political science, law and morality all in one room and instance.

Everyone can take something away from what is going own, whether it is a belief in karma or balance, an interest in the legal and political process, reminders in morality as well as the powers of the state, an indignation for injustice, a paradigm that this is a test of faith, a social studies lesson or simply the thirst to seek the truth.

Stock photo from Blog Watch. Some rights reserved.