OKTUBRE 23-29, 2009
Mabuhay
LINGGUHANG PILIPINO MULA PA NOONG 1980
3
Regarding Henry
H
ENRYLITO
D. T
ACIO
Love your work
WHETHER you like it or not, youhave to work. For God said so:“By the sweat of your brow youwill eat your food until you returnto the ground” (Genesis 3:19). Adam, the first man, was giventhe job to take care of the Gar-den of Eden. All throughout theBible, God has commanded manto work. In the Ten Command-ments, He said, “Six days youshall labor and do all your work.” Voltaire said that work keepsus from three great evils: bore-dom, vice, and poverty. With thatconcept in mind, we can look atthe benefits and understand that“you don’t ‘pay the price’ – youenjoy the benefits.”Thomas Alva Edison himself said, “There is no substitute forhard work. Genius is one percentinspiration and ninety-nine per-cent perspiration.” And finally,Richard Cumberland observed,“It is better to wear out than torust out.”If you don’t work, you getnothing. I was reminded of a story told by Aesop. It goes thisway: An old gardener was dying and sent for his two sons. He toldthe, “For years, our orchard hasgiven the best of fruit – goldendelicious fruit. Look at my cal-loused hands, worn by the spade.But you two have never done a day’s work in your lives. I’ll tell you what I had been doing: I havehidden a treasure in my orchardfor you to find. It is not near thetree trunks; it is midway betweenthe trees. It is yours for thetrouble of digging, that’s all.”So, the father sent his twosons away and not longer after-wards he died. The orchard be-came the property of the sons. Sowithout delay, they set to work todig the treasure that had beenpromised them.They dug and dug, day afterday, week after week. They dug up all the stones and picked outall the weeds. Rainy seasonpassed and summer came and thetrees were loaded with blossomsand perfume. After months cameharvest time, but the brothershad not yet found the hiddentreasure. A business man came to buythe fruit crop and he was as-tounded, “This is the finest cropI have ever seen,” he told them.“I’ll give you twenty bags of money for this crop.”That was more money thanthe two boys had ever seen intheir life. They struck a bargainwith the business man, took thebags of money, while the latterbegan to gather the fruit. He toldthem, “I’ll be glad to buy yourcrop next year again. You musthave worked with your spades toproduce such a crop.” When the business man went,the two boys sat looking at eachother over the bags of money.Then they look down at theirrough hands and smiled as onesaid, “You know, I think this isthe treasure we’ve been digging for all year.”Had the two brothers quitworking, they would have neverfound the “treasure.” Henry Ward Beecher was right when hesaid, “When God wanted spongesand oysters, He made them andput one on a rock and the otherin the mud. When He made man,He did not make him to be a sponge or an oyster; He madehim with feet and hands, andhead and heart, and vital blood,and a place to use them, and Hesaid to him, ‘Go work.’” A lot of people became richand millionaire because theywork – hard. They don’t believein luck.
The Laggard’s Excuse
confirms the principle that theman who is born the luckiest isthe man who doesn’t believe inluck – but in work! “He workedby day and toiled by night,” thepoem states. “He gave up playand some delight. Dry books heread, new things to learn andforged ahead, success to earn. Heplodded on with faith and pluck.
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CLIMATE change is definitelyhere, and it had to take a costlylesson for our country to wake upto this reality. It is here, and it ishere to stay not unless we dosomething to prevent it. In fact,it will be here to stay long afterwe are gone, because it has thepotential of destroying all lifeforms in our planet, but also thewhole planet itself.Climate change and globalwarming are two intertwinedchallenges to our survival, and itis important for all of us to un-derstand the relationship be-tween the two. There is actuallyas cause and effect relation be-tween them, because it is globalwarming that causes climatechange, among many othercauses that could all be traced toenvironmental causes.So much finger pointing andblame throwing has happenedsince the disasters struck, but itseems that the real culprits have yet to be known. Although we areall inclined to blame our govern-ment officials for their apparentlack of preparedness in dealing with the disasters, we should bearin mind that the disasters wereonly effects of known causes thatcould directly be traced to thebehavior and habits of everyone
Fair & Square
I
KE
S
EÑERES
in this planet. While it is very easy for us tosay that plastic bags are to blamefor the clogging of the rivers andwaterways, has it occurred to usthat it is within our power to ac-tually reduce the volume of plas-tic bags that are thrown away asgarbage? No, I am not talking about recycling although that isneeded too. I am talking aboutour propensity to buy and useconsumer goods that use a lot of non-biodegradable materials onone hand, and produce a lot of carbon footprints on the otherhand. Years of neglect and apathyhave caused the weaknesses andvulnerabilities in our environ-mental defense mechanisms. Itwill take years to rebuild and re-vive these mechanisms, but fromnow on and in the many years upahead, we should know what re-ally needs to be done, apart fromknowing what we should expectfrom, and demand from our gov-ernment officials in the years tocome, starting now, today.Small things add up to big things. In the same way that“small is beautiful”, small thingscould also add up to become ugly,if nothing is done to put order in
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Cebu Calling
F
R
. R
OY
C
IMAGALA
Beware of the technocratic ideology
PHENOMENA like young menand even women already taking beer at 6 in the morning in con-venience stores, seminarians en-grossed in Facebook but cannotmaster the Latin declensionseven after one year of classes, etc.,are getting rampant these days.They indicate a big, worrying shift not only in behavior but alsoof attitudes and values that isnow asking to be regulated prop-erly. This is a challenge for every-one. Of course, the elders andthose in authority—parents,teachers, clergy, public officials—should take the lead.Those call center workers areinverting their days and nights.To some extent this can be doneand is necessary. But identifying the limits, and respecting basic,unchangeable values can be a tricky problem. They tend to in-vert things indiscriminately.Those young seminarians re-miss in their academic require-ments while immersed incyberdistractions are just a
Forward to Basics
F
R
. F
RANCIS
B. O
NGKINGCO
Baking Jesus
thumbnail image of a widening problem besetting our youth to-day. Obviously, the computersand the internet can stimulatetheir thinking, but they can alsostimulate other unwelcome prac-tices in them.The predicament actually hasdeeper causes and needs to beframed within a wider perspec-tive. Pope Benedict hits it bull’seye when he said in his encycli-cal “Caritas in veritate” (Charityin the truth):
“Technological development can give rise to the idea that tech-nology is self-sufficient when toomuch attention is given to the‘how’ questions, and not enoughto the many ‘why’ questions un-derlying human activity.”
(70)This is the problem we haveto tackle. We are slowly being lulled and intoxicated by themany wonders of the technologi-cal potentials. We are being de-tached from our true humanfoundation as we are slowly be-ing made into slaves, victims andpreys of the predatory side of ourincreasingly technocratic culture.With this frame of mind, ourgrip of reality hardly goes beyondwhat is instantly practical, plea-surable, popular. We get hookedto a knee-jerk, Pavlovian way of reacting, without giving anythought to long-range effects. We get restricted to the mate-rial and sensual aspects of ourlife, forgetting the spiritual andsupernatural. We find it hardernowadays to pray, to find leisuretime with family and friends, etc. We get prodded to act withoutgiving due attention to thinking and planning.In its wake, we can find thedebris of disorder not only in thephysical and external order, butalso and more seriously in theinternal side, since our sense of values and priorities are pres-sured to go haywire.In short, we are being emptiedof our substance as persons andas children of God, and are mas-
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“THE Body of Christ,” the priestsaid.“Amen,” the man said.Louie stared at his father whoreceived the consecrated host.His father returned to the pewrecollected, knelt down and con-tinued praying.“What did you just eat, dad?”he whispered.“Jesus’ Body and Blood,” hisdad whispered back.Satisfied, Louie impatientlywaited for the Mass to end as hesat swinging his short legs abovethe ground. He observed thepriest giving communion. Howsolemnly he held the white objectin his fingers, and each time hesaid, “The Body of Christ.”“Dad, what’s the whitethingy?” he asked.“It’s called a host. The breadbecomes Jesus’ Body,” he said.“And how does it taste like?”“Like bread,” his dad smile ashe sat down beside Louie.Louie then noticed the priestreturning to the altar, gathering the remaining hosts, and placing them inside a ciborium.“What’s he doin’, dad?”“He’s going to keep Jesus inthat metal box. It’s called a Tab-ernacle, which actually means‘tent’ so Jesus can stay there tobe with us always.”CLICK! went the Tabernaclekey. The priest returned to thealtar to finish the Mass. Louie,upon seeing all this, asked, “Youmean that box is where they bake Jesus?”
* * *
If it is sometimes challenging to explain certain earthly reali-ties to children, then how moredifficult it is to tell them aboutheavenly things. This is, however,answered gradually by the lightand gift of faith that assures ushuman and supernaturally thatwhat we profess –the Apostle’sCreed– is true. And these are notonly true because we can some-what grasp them with our intel-ligence, but because we
trust
inthat they have been revealed byGod’s Fatherly authority whotells us these truths for our goodand our salvation.The same goes with the Eu-charist –the sublime miraclewhere the bread and the winebecome the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ– instituted by Jesusto be our spiritual food for our journey towards Heaven. It isn’teasy to humanly understand howa particular reality becomes sub-stantially something else whenour senses continue to perceiveno physical or apparent changein the appearances of bread andwine. Thus, St. Thomas Aquinaspoetically describes this in hiscelebrated Eucharistic hymn the
Adoro te devote
:
Seeing, touching,tasting: these are all deceived
/
Only through the hearing can itbe believed
./
Nothing is more cer-tain; Christ has told me so;
/
Whatthe Truth has uttered, I believeand know
.This unique miracle of God forman was, so to speak, prepared
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Depthnews
J
UAN
L. M
ERCADO
Street corner ‘tutorial’
THE kids approached as Istopped to tighten a shoe lace. Iwas strolling through one of Cagayan de Oro city’s poorer butremarkably clean-swept baran-gays. A Philippine Press Instituteseminar on the 2010 electionshad just ended. But a tutorial onurban sociology from the kids wasthe last thing I expected.“My mother is in prison,” vol-unteered Clara, 7. Why?“Shabu,” she said matter-of-factly. A neighbor also peddledthe drug. Paula, 6, claims the ri-val tipped off the cops. “Mymother burned all the shabu be-fore the police arrived,” Clara said. They arrested her anyway.Clara’s mother is now in a Davao jail. Clara hadn’t seen hersince the arrest. Will you visit?“We have no money to go to Da-vao. But my lolo has been re-leased.” He’d also been in theclink for drugs. “He often beatsus though,” Clara gripes. “Evenif we obey his order to buy some-thing at the sari-sari store.”“Are you langyaw (Visayan forforeigner)? Paula wondered. Who? Me, an alien? “You’rewhite,” she adds. Is that news-room pallor perhaps? Or my mopof silver hair? “Combing greyhair,” the Irish poet William But-ler Yeats wrote, was a gift. “Myfather is very dark,” Paula adds.“That’s our school.” Theyproudly point to a nearby build-ing. “We’re classmates.” Paula likes to color “but I have nocrayolas.” Clara says her school-bag has a book and a pencil.Nothing more.Paula has three brothers.That includes 2-year old Jinggoy,playing a few yards away. “I have10 brothers and sisters,” Clara says. “But my Kuya Ronalddied.” Ten! Did your parents everhear of family planning? I mut-ter under my breath. “What?”they ask. Nothing.“The teacher often marks usabsent,” both complain. Why so?“Because if our dress is being washed, then we don’t have any-thing to wear. So, we stay home.”Paula adds wistfully: “I wish Ihad a new dress.” You’ll need more than that,kids. Mentally, I measure upClara and Paula against mygrandchildren: Kristin, 6, inCebu and Alexia, 8, in California.Clara and Paula are scrawnier,shorter. That points to “hiddenhunger”.Denied essential nutrition inearly years, Clara and Paula’s IQswill never quite fully bloom.“Their remotes will always lacka button or two.” These adverseeffects are reproduced, time andtime again — worse, across gen-erations. Ill-fed wizened mothersgive birth to dwarfed children,the Asian Development Banknotes.The plight of Carla and Paula are also replicated in some baran-gays in this province. Theirpinched features give a humanface to 24, out of every 100 Pinoyfamilies. These do not earnenough to satisfy their basic foodand other essentials.“The ten poorest were com-prised of seven provinces inMindanao, two in Luzon, andonly one in the Visayas,” the Na-tional Statistical CoordinationBoard reports.These were: Zamboanga del
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Climate change
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