THE PRESS

Dear Son,

Adolescent love has at last attacked you. I smile when you said that you are dead serious. I am sure you will change your mind before a few months have passed.

I passed through that ailment once, and later when I was sober enough to reflect upon it I blushed purple for being so foolish. Now I know this for a fact that you will not stick to that first girl. As your contacts widen, you will meet someone "better" and then you say she is the for you. You will keep repeating this until you have crushed many flowers on your path to flame.

Then when you ultimately marry, you cannot be sure that your own wife was not herself once a crushed flower, revived only after you have picked her up on the way.

Don't you see the tremendous importance of controlling yourself at your age and wait until you are old enough to choose a good girl for a wife? You have no right to play with girls who know no better than you. You can be a butterfly sucking every attractive flower. You can even brag to your friends about the conquests you have made. You are not a hero. You have taken advantage of the weakness of womanhood to satisfy your baser nature. There is nothing heroic about that!

And then remember that if every young man were like you, it would not be safe to marry because no one could be sure about women. I want you to be sure about the past of your own wife when you are ready to take one, but I want you to begin now to stand for a standard of high integrity for young people in their relationship with women. When you are tempted to play with the love of girls, remember your sisters and mother. "The boomerang strikes harder," you know. Your father,   Walter Malvar.   Central Echo, Central Philippine College.