BusinessWeek MINDANAO
4
Opinion
Best in Business and Economic Reporting Philippine Press Institute Civic Journalism Community Press Awards 2013
friday|may 23, 2014
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How should the gov’t address BusinessWeek the Mindanao power problem? MINDANAO YOUR LOCAL ONLINE BUSINESS PAPER
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They’ll Feast At Your Funeral
T
hink a minute… When you decide to do something, whose opinion do you think and care about the most? Do you simply do what you know is right, or do you first consider what other people might think about you? What will your neighbors or people you wor k w it h t h i n k ? You r family and f riends? Do you realize that when you die, except for your closest family and friends, most people will not even be sad enough at your funeral to lose their appetite! Those same people whom you now try so hard to impress and please are going to feast at your funeral. Yet, we often neglect and hu r t ou r ow n w i fe and children, the people who truly love us, because we tr y so hard to please and impress others. But t he g re ate st t r age dy of all is that we seem to care the least about what G o d t h i n k s o f u s . We almost seem to have no shame or fear of God and His opinion of us. Even though at the end of our l i fe , it’s on l y w h at ou r Maker thinks of us and w h e t h e r w e h av e t r u l y live d His way t hat w i l l
THINK
A Minute
By Jhan Tiafau Hurst
Long-term and sustainable solutions are needed to address the wors ening p ower crisis in Mindanao as we can no longer rely s olely on hydrop ower for electricity needs. Our island is heavily dependent on hydropower for its electricity re qu i re me nt s w it h 7 0 % b e i ng s ource d f rom hydro faci lities, including the Agus and Pulangui hydropower plants. However, this cannot be sustained because we have deforested our watersheds. Our river systems are silted, and what we have are aging power facilities. The summer heat nowadays have only worsened the situation The present administration is hoping that with the acquisition of modular generator sets the power supply deficit will be solved. But this is only a short-term solution. We h a v e r o t at i n g b r o w n o u t s because our power deficit is at 300 megawatts. How can we best maximize the
capacities of the government’s remaining assets in Mindanao, including Agus and Pulangi hydropower plants? Some sectors suggest that we need to stop the intentional decay of these facilities, because the government will only sell them at a “give-away” prices to the private sector. Think-tanks say that there is a long term solution and this is tapping renewable energy sources. Mindanao’s economy is agricultureintensive. We can harness the agricultural wastes of Mindanao to fuel biomass facilities. Hydropower, g e o t h e r m a l , a n d bi om a s s a re now competitive with the cost of conventional energy sources. They are cheaper than the dieselfired power facilities and power barges that the government are mobilizing to address the power crisis of Mindanao. Another is the proposed Lake Lanao Development Authority. One established, this Authority is
hoped to carry out effective policy and regulator y administration over L ake L anao to ensure its promotion and development in a sust ainable manner. It may address the problems of worsening deforestation of watersheds, and the siltation of river systems. These are among the reasons why the power supply in the island has become erratic. The continued deterioration of Lake Lanao has affected the supply of water from the lake for six of Mindanao’s existing hydroelectric p ower plants, including Agus. In the surrounding provinces of Bukidnon, and ARMM region, it is public knowledge that deforestation still continue. Forests are logged by loggers with approved government permits. May the Authority be able to check this. Lets not wait for our mountains to completely go bald. Reforestation is a long term solution but it can give a reprieve to the depleting hydropower sources.
Helping Hands
O
n d ay, af te r s up e r t y pho on “Yol and a” s l a m m e d i nt o E a s t e r n Visayas, I received a phone call from the German TV news channel N24 in Berlin to deliver some live reports, because during that time I was the only “available German journalist” in this countr y. Since that day, “Yolanda” and all news about it remain as daily part of my journalistic work. Fact is: the rehabilitation work goes on; life is “somehow back”, but many international organizations pledged more supp or t for rebui lding
efforts as they noted some encouraging signs of recovery in areas hit by “Yolanda”. They also acknowledged the massive scale of work ahead and the remaining gaps in the response to the crisis, lapses that even the government’s rehabilitation czar had publicy admitted. The UN, ever so diplomatic, described the situation in the typhoon zone “as fragile”. There are still many helping hands needed. One of these angels is German national Andreas Engelhardt, who contacted Mr. Ulrich
Behmann from the German NGO Interhelp Hameln, which prepared already a Medic Rescue Team during that time. Interhelp financed several projects in Cebu, Ormog, Tacloban and Guiuan, Ilo-Ilo, Paola and Gapas/ Santa Fe and worked very well together with a rescue team from Manila under the leadership of Mr. Peter Negrido. 32,000 EUROS have been donated for these projects. Maraming salamat po and God bless. The next projects of Andreas Engelhardt and
H ave M y Say
By Klaus Doring
Interhelp/G er many are planned for Ilo-Ilo, Estanzia: Helping to take matters and a youth village in Davao City.
A Very Exciting Thing
I decide where and how we live forever: in heaven or hell. God the Son even b e c ame a hu man b e i ng named Jesus Christ to die for a l l ou r w rong s and then come back to life, just so we could know how much our Creator loves us. Jesus c ares more ab out y ou t h an any on e d o e s ! Esp ecially those p eople you and I tr y so hard to please—those people who will feast at our funeral. So if we’re smart, we will stop living to please other p e opl e and st ar t l iv i ng Jesus Christ’s way to please Him. Always remember, at the end of your life it is only what Jesus your Judge will think of you t h at c an s ave you. Ju st Think a Minute…
”m referring to prayer. If it’s authentic prayer that we do, then we can only experience joy and excitement. That’s precisely because when we truly pray, we are talking with God. And can there be any other person more exciting to talk with than God himself? Can there be any other person who can give us what we really need? Besides, if our prayer i s g e nu i n e , w e w o u l d be touching on the most important and relevant topics and issues in our conversation with God. Nothing else can outrank the subject matter of our prayer. Whatever riveting human projects and concerns we have would end up being part and parcel of our loving dialogue with God. What is more, when we truly pray, we can always manage to see the meaning and beauty of everything. Even in our darkest moments or our worst scenario, we can always find the light at the end of the tunnel.
This is quite so especially when we realize the true spirit of Easter, that is, Christ conquering sin and removing the sting of death with his passion, death and resurrection, and sharing this Easter renewal with us if we want to. That’s why we can always say without exaggeration that there’s always hope for us in spite of whatever. We need to examine the way we pray. Very often, what we call prayer is actually not prayer, but simply some kind of personal introspection, a s or t of s olilo quy, or otherwise, a mere play or expression of the emotional and psychological condition we find ourselves in a given moment. We have to be most careful when we fall into this predicament that can come to us in a very subtle way, because sooner or later we will find ourselves confused if not lost, deceived and completely deprived of any
benefit. We will find ourselves tricked and losing for good any interest in prayer. Obviously, prayer can involve all these, but what makes real prayer distinctive is that it is driven by faith, hope and charity, and not just by human or natural factors or conditions. Genuine prayer transcends our bodily and earthly settings. It is a spiritual and supernatural activity, first of all, before it expresses itself in our material and natural dimensions. It is fuelled by faith, hope and charity rather than by our mere sentiments and human understanding or estimation of things. Our beautiful manifestations of popular piety where we pray with showy public expressions like making novenas, staging processions, kissing, dancing and waving at images would be hollow if this basic property of prayer as primarily a spiritual and supernatural activity would be missing.
HINTS
and
Traces
By Fr. Roy Cimagala
If we pray as we should, then we allow God to come to us and to engage us in a true discussion of things. It would be God, more than us, showing us how things ought to be. In a way, prayer is actually an easy thing to do, precisely because of this. When we complain that we find prayer boring or empty or something that would lead us to some sad, depressing or inconvenient episodes, it can only mean that we are not actually cimagala/PAGE 6