Will the truth set DepEd officials free?

Panay News Editorial

Dated: Sept. 13, 2014

Will the truth set DepEd officials free?

THE Department of Education’s Iloilo division superintendent, Dr. Myrna Castillo, has spoken in a press conference, “My conscience is clear.”

She was clearing herself of any anomaly committed by her office’s direct involvement in the Little League Softball World Series, where high school and elementary school girls from Zarraga, Iloilo competed in the major league softball in Portland, Oregon (August 7-13, 2014) and junior league in Kirkland, Washington (August 10-16), respectively.

Well, whether her conscience is good enough to “clear” her is one thing. Whether the investigating bodies — the DepEd regional office and the Sangguniang Panglunsod — agree with her is another matter.

Let us take her word at face value: Despite the help of Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr., she and other delegation officials had not raised enough millions of pesos demanded by their USA trip, and so they had to pick their own pockets.

If they are that rich, we hope they would not be liable for unexplained wealth punishable under the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. No doubt any ordinary DepEd employee would not waste more or less $2,000 for a round-trip fare.

Let us also take Dr. Castillo’s word at face value: Only her son Nonie Mark, not her daughter Marian Grace, went with her as “comforting coach.” Has Marky, a college student, ever played a game of softball?

We now agree that Marian Grace Castillo–Suiza was not able to join the trip for whatever reason, but we don’t agree that she had no participation in soliciting funds. The letterhead of their solicitation letter listed her as “finance officer.”

She must have given way to Ruby Theresa Palmaira, a DepEd supervisor detailed in the division office who made it to Kirkland, Washington as “assistant team manager.”

A school principal (name withheld upon request) said Ruby had worked hard in reminding 180 school principals and 52 district supervisors to send in their donations. It remains to be proven, however, whether each of them was really forced to cough up public funds ranging from P5,000 to P20,000, unless they eventually “sing” at the risk of being implicated.

In the list of donors that Castillo gave to the media, no name of supplier or contractor appeared. But these suppliers and contractors were the biggest “pressured” donors.

In fairness to the division superintendent, she is not the only “nepotistic” official in the junior league delegation. Lina Dordas, principal of Zarraga National High School, had her daughter, Arvek Clydel Dordas, listed as player in the junior league.

As regards the claim of team manager Antonio Oquindo that the Iloilo team had defaulted only one game in Oregon, the Little League website shows that they had defaulted two — against Northern California on Aug. 7 and against New Jersey on Aug. 8. They lost all of their games against Canada, Louisiana and the Czech Republic. True, they placed 5th in the pool of five teams in pool B. Therefore, after losing to the 5th placer of pool A (Czech Republic), our team was as good as 10th placer.

Demoralization could have devastated our “coach-less” team in Portland, Oregon. Believe it or not, the “comforting coach” was no real coach. If it was any consolation, our team in Kirkland, Washington won one game. As to why Castillo did not even announce what team they had defeated, we don’t know why.

We agree with Novie Guazo and Regan Arlos of RMN Radio: the delegation officials were primarily motivated by their quest for a US visa, not for a medal for the 24 Ilongga players. Jun-Jun Sornito of Aksyon Radyo, on the other hand, echoed the ruling of the Civil Service Commission that public funds could not be used for private activities.

Bombo Radyo and Super Radyo likewise questioned her “fund-raising.”

The Commission on Audit was right in disapproving the Division Office’s request for a million-peso donation to be sourced from the school board fund. As we have noted in a past editorial, the Little League World Series is a private US-based sports organization with no formal DepEd linkage. It should have coordinated with the Philippine Sports Commission.

Incidentally, sports are no longer within the domain of DepEd, which used to be known as Department of Education, Culture and Sports, or DECS. DepEd has bigger problems to attend to, such as dilapidated and unrepaired schools.

PEOPLE POWWOW: A misleading indicator of productivity

As Published in Panay News

Dated: Sept. 12, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: A misleading indicator of productivity

By HERBERT VEGO

EACH time President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III paints a glowing picture of the country’s “prosperity” because of tuwid na daan, the poor can only shake their heads, wondering whether he is referring to New Zealand.

Well, how can we argue against the Philippines’ 7.8 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth? GDP refers to the annual domestic output of a country, including exports. The climbing percentage is therefore measured against the previous year’s output, hence not indicative of the general population’s economic productivity.

In fact, nine of the top 10 GDP performers in the latest list of the Economic Intelligence Unity of the United States are “poor nations” by world standard.

As published in a recent issue of the Washington Post, here are the 10 countries that are expected to have the most economic growth in 2014, ranked from first to last by percentage of GDP growth:

(1) Mongolia, 15.3 percent;

(2) Sierra Leone, 11.2 percent;

(3) Turkmenistan, 9.2 percent;

(4-5) Two-way tie: Bhutan, 8.8 percent; Libya, 8.8 percent;

(6-8) Three-way tie: Iraq, 8.5 percent; Laos, 8.5 percent; Timor-Leste, 8.5 percent;

(9) Eritrea, 8.0 percent;

(10) Zambia, 7.9 percent

You will note that all of these countries, with the exception of Libya, are very poor. In most of them, economic growth is driven by oil or any other natural resources. Many of the booms come from the sale of those natural resources to developing countries.

A very poor country growing rich because of a single natural resource is nothing new, to cite Saudi Arabia as the best example, which has been transformed by a half-century of selling oil to Western countries.

Top-ranked Mongolia has been the world’s fastest-growing economy since 2012, resulting from the massive sale of its mineral resources to China. The country’s families that have been nomadic for centuries have now homes of their own.

But on the local front, as far Juan dela Cruz who does not feel the trickles of prosperity is concerned, the President’s glowing boast sounds Greek.

We have heard enough of broken promises from PNoy.  We have seen enough of graft and corruption, but not a stretch of tuwid na daan.

I wonder how many of us remember the words he said when he ran for President against his cousin Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro in 2010. He said, “This will be a fight of good versus evil.”

The allusion to “evil” was in the sense that Teodoro was the candidate of the then outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Gibo, were he not a gentleman, could have reminded PNoy that the battle between good and evil only refers to the battle between God and Satan.

Has PNoy vanquished Satan in four years of his administration?

Considering the current population of the country which is a hundred million people occupying an archipelago of 115,830 square miles, the fact is that with more mouths to feed than we can afford, our average per-person income or gross national product (GNP) – that is, value of all goods produced annually divided by number of people – is only around US $1,000 or P44,000 per year or P3,666 per month. Oh no!

Worse, since 90 percent of the country’s wealth is in the hands of only 10 percent of the population, the poorest of the poor cannot eat three square meals a day.

Compare our GNP to that of Denmark, a smaller nation with a population of only seven million people, and you will gasp in awe. Denmark has a towering GNP of US $27,000. That’s 27 times of our own!/PN

PEOPLE POWWOW: Raul Gonzalez Sr. was also a journalist

As Published in Panay News

September 10, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: Raul Gonzalez Sr. was also a journalist

By HERBERT VEGO

IN the wake of the death of former Justice secretary Raul Gonzalez Sr. Sunday night, we heard Ilonggos from all walks of life reminiscing the “good old days” with him. Even his political allies-turned-enemies could only count the ways – as private citizen, congressman and Justice secretary – the old man had helped them.

I was no longer close to the man when he ascended the political ladder. But I would like to share with you readers how we had crossed path in the past because of our common passion for journalism. I am sure most Filipinos do not yet know that, aside from being lawyer, politician and Cabinet official, Gonzalez used to be an active newspaper columnist.

The first time I saw his byline was sometime in the early 1970s when he was writing a column for the now defunct “We-Forum”, at that time a hot weekly critical of martial law and President Ferdinand Marcos. Being also a Manila-based journalist, I knew then the bigger risk he had undergone when he stood as lawyer to then Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. who was facing subversion charges before the Marcos-controlled military tribunal.

The first time I saw Raul Gonzalez Sr., he was at the check-in counter of the Manila domestic airport. I sidled up to him and introduced myself as a fellow journalist.

“I’m going home to Iloilo City to deliver a speech before a civic organization,” he said while giving me his calling card.

It would take many more years before I saw him again. I contented myself reading his columns and reading about him.

It came as no surprise when the next President – Ninoy’s widow, Cory Cojuangco Aquino – handpicked him as the tanodbayan in her revolutionary government in 1986. The said new position was the equivalent of today’s ombudsman.

Sometime in 1992 or 1993 while I was holding office as editor of the weekly Visayan Tribune at the Iloilo-YMCA Building, a surprise visitor came in. He was Raul Gonzalez Sr. who had gone back to private life.

He offered an idea I could not refuse. He would write a column for the paper for free.

From then on, he paid me a weekly visit to submit his typewritten column.

More often than not, he was tackling local, rather than national issues, in his columns. He would often criticize the congressman at that time, Rafael Lopez-Vito.

One afternoon, he asked me to list down the names of all the 180 barangay captains in Iloilo City. This done, he issued a check for a year’s subscription of each of them to our weekly newspaper.

Later, he also wrote columns for Panay News, which was still a weekly.

Of course, most of the barangay leaders at that time were identified with the incumbent congressman. But Gonzalez saw this not as a handicap but as a challenge to hurdle.

As president of the Iloilo Press Club at that time, I proposed that he sponsor a bowling tournament to be participated in by the print, broadcast and TV media. That should endear him to the most important people who would boost his image as upcoming public servant.

He agreed to sponsor. In fact, he personally attended our bowling tournament at Saint Elizabeth Center. He footed all the bills and left cash prizes for individual and group winners.

That single act of camaraderie endeared him to the Iloilo media. The news that he would run for congressman against Lopez-Vito in 1995 had gone “viral” in the tri-media.

The late Rodolfo Legaspi, an incumbent provincial board member at that time, predicted that Gonzalez would win.

“If Raul becomes congressman,” he told this writer, “he would be flooded with invitations he couldn’t accept. Now that he is not yet a candidate, please relay my invitation to him to visit Marina Beach Resort.”

Marina, owned by Legaspi, was then a popular tourist resort in Miag-ao town.

When I told Gonzalez that the invitation had come from the owner of Marina, he snapped, “Okay, I will be there on Sunday. I have to find out if the resort would be an ideal place to gather together my political leaders and followers.”

To cut the long story short, he ran for congressman and unseated Lopez-Vito in 1995, in effect sealing his colorful political future.

From then on, he ceased to be a journalist in order to be a newsmaker.

Happy trip to the more wonderful world, Sir!/PN

Trillanes half-correct on K-12

As Published in Panay News

July 25, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: Trillanes half-correct on K-12

BY HERBERT VEGO

THIS corner half-agrees with Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV who said the other day that the K-12 program should be suspended until the government has resolved the current fundamental problems of the country’s education such as lack of classrooms and school materials. The clarion call of the moment is to rebuild the typhoon-wrecked public and private schools. There are still thousands of them.

That’s correct. I “half-agree” because, rather than just be suspended, the K-12 should be discarded. As envisioned by the elitist Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro, it would require compulsory kindergarten and prolong elementary-to-secondary education from 10 to 12 years on the wrong assumption that “we have been left behind.”

It would also prolong the agony of poor parents and students. Shouldn’t we be prouder that we do it in only 10 years while others do it in 12?

The K-12 program having kicked off, most parents now see added commercialism beneficial to the schools, especially private ones, and textbook publishers, among other beneficiaries.

Look at some of the new modules K-12 has enforced. To name a few: Handicraft Production, Bread and Pastry Production, Caregiving and Electrical Installation and Maintenance.

Why ram them all into high school kids? Does Luisto expect high school graduates to bake cake or baby-sit for a living right after high school graduation?

These are the same modules that the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) separately teaches to short-course vocational trainees, depending on the field sought. In fact, the main reason why TESDA exists is to accommodate students who can’t afford long professional courses.

The extra two years of high school would have been more than enough for a vocational tertiary education, or for the first two years of professional education. Extending the agony of students and their poor parents would not result in better and more college graduates.

As I said in a previous column, records at the DepEd show that, out of every 100 students who enroll in elementary school, only 58 make it to high school. Of these 58, only 33 enroll in college but only 14 finally graduate. Those who drop out do so due to the incapacity of their parents to spend for their tertiary education.

On the other hand, Trillanes is correct in citing the government’s unpreparedness to solve  the threatened retrenchment of about 85,000 college professors and employees when the first batch of K-12 students enroll in Grade 11 (the equivalent of fifth year high school) in 2016. Without K-12, they will have graduated by then.

Simply put, with no high school graduates moving into college in the year 2016 – of course with the exception of a few previous years’ graduates who temporarily stopped schooling – instructors and professors of college freshmen would go either unemployed or underemployed for at least two years.

And so, the only sane move for the PNoy government to do is scrap Luistro’s K-12 program, which has not undergone public hearing, before it’s too late.

It’s really not too late to scrap K-12 because this year is only the third year of its implementation; the third year high school students this year would be glad to hit fourth year and finish high school in 2016.

Who cares what President Noynoy Aquino and Education Secretary Armin Luistro say? The prolonged basic education would only result in more dropouts.

There has been no evidence to show that Filipinos who spend only 10 years in basic education do not succeed. If that were so, then Luistro himself would have gone to the farm.

I remember my friend Canuto, who did spend six years in high school long ago. Did that make him a good college student?

No, he did not have to. His parents bought him a plow and carabao to work on the farm. Today, he is one of the richest farmers in our barangay./PN

The oatmeal solution

As Published in Panay News

Dated: July 23, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: The oatmeal solution

By HERBERT VEGO

AS late as one year ago, I had become so frail and underweight that I thought it was a matter of time before I checked into kingdom come. I blamed it on my proven afflictions, namely hypertension, atherosclerosis and ventricular dysfunction.

“Don’t give up,” my sister Susie, a doctor of medicine, advised. “Try altering your food preferences.”

Today, at age 64, I am no longer that skinny scarecrow. For whatever benefit it may give our readers, I am now writing about it.

My sister’s advice was for me to immediately forget pork, beef and all other fat-rich meals as much as possible and switch to fish and plant-based products. Since then, oatmeal – topped with fresh fruits – has become my favorite breakfast.

Oatmeal contains soluble fiber, which reduces low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the “bad” cholesterol. Soluble fiber, which is also found in such food as kidney beans, mongo sprouts, apples, pears and prunes, appears to reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the intestines. Gel-like soluble fiber binds bile (which contains cholesterol) and dietary cholesterol so that the body excretes it.

Based on my sister’s research, five to 10 grams of soluble fiber a day decreases LDL cholesterol by about five percent. Eating 1.5 cups of cooked oatmeal provides 4.5 grams of fiber — enough to lower cholesterol.

A cholesterol-lowering diet in which 20 percent of the calories come from may reduce LDL cholesterol by 12 percent. For a 1,200-calorie per day diet, a little less than 1/3 of a cup of pili nuts or peanuts is more or less 240 calories, or 20 percent of the total calories for the day.

Since all nuts are high in calories, a handful will suffice. As with any food, good or bad, eating too much can cause weight gain, and being overweight places you at higher risk of heart disease. To avoid gaining weight, replace food high in saturated fat with nuts.

Studies in the 1970s showed that Greenland Eskimos had a lower rate of heart disease than did other individuals living in Greenland at the same time. Analysis of dietary differences between the groups showed that the Eskimos ate less saturated fat and more omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and whale and seal meat.

Researches since that time have supported the heart-healthy benefits of eating fish. The Eskimos are naturally healthy because they have plenty of omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon.

Other good sources of omega-3 fatty acids or fish oil are mackerel, herring, sardines and tuna, which are also noted for their triglyceride-lowering effect. They also help the heart in such other ways as reducing blood pressure and the risk of blood clots. In people who have already had heart attacks, fish oil significantly reduces the risk of sudden death./PN

K-12, an anachronistic DepEd program

As Published in Panay News

Dated: May 20, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW

HERBERT VEGO

K-12, an anachronistic DepEd program

AS I was writing this yesterday, Department of Education Secretary Armin Luistro was expected at the Nueva Valencia High School in Nueva Valencia, Guimaras to spearhead the “Brigada Eskuela” there – meaning clean-up of school classrooms in preparing for the opening of classes. Ang sipag…

I heard a radio commentator joking that “Sec chose Guimaras because it had not been badly hit by typhoon Yolanda.”

In other words, had he chosen to go to Estancia, Iloilo instead, he would have been embarrassed with nothing to clean there anymore because entire classrooms had already been ‘cleaned’ away by the typhoon.

Would he rather not see them?

Reconstruction of wrecked schools is just one of the many problems besetting Dep Ed. Compounding that problem are the lack of classrooms and lack of teachers.

If I may say my two cents’ worth, the PNoy government should scrap Luistro’s K-12 program before it’s too late.

The clarion call of the moment is to rebuild the wrecked public and private schools. Billions of pesos would have to be defrayed to do so. Adding more classrooms for additional classes would entail added burden to the already suffering taxpayers.

On the other hand, the parents have become poorer. Even on the assumption that they have the option of enrolling their kids in free public schools, many will still be unable to shoulder the cost of their fare and allowance. Hence, extending basic elementary/high school education from 10 to 12 years on the pretext that “we have been left behind” is no longer tenable.

It’s really not too late to scrap K-12 because this year is only the 3rd year of its implementation; the third-year high school students this year would be glad to hit 4^th year and finish high school next school year.

Who cares what President Noynoy Aquino and Education Secretary Armin Luistro say?  Most Filipinos do not believe in prolonged basic education;  it would only result in more drop-outs.

There has been no evidence to show that Filipinos who spend only 10 years in basic education do not succeed. On the contrary, each of us personally knows those who can’t stay that long in school due to financial limitations.

The super typhoon has aggravated an already existing problem.

While it is true that the biggest share of the annual budget always goes to the Department of Education,  it hardly catches up with the ever-increasing number of students, teachers and classrooms to spend for.

Ask the parents. In its first two years of implementation, the government has not proven itself overcoming such old problems as inadequate supply of free textbooks for public-school students; and parents of poor children can’t afford to buy them, too.

There was no K-12 in bygone years. In those years, each student in each subject got a book, to be returned at the end of the school year for lending to the next batch of the next year. It would be more logical for government to resume this book-lending program than to defray much more money for additional curricula.

There was a time, according to our grandpas and grandmas, when outstanding elementary-school graduates were allowed to teach primary pupils.

In a pre-Yolanda editorial, this corner sounded off the statistics that Dep-Ed is aware of: Out of every 100 students who enroll in elementary school, only 58 make it to high school. Of these 58, only 33 enroll in college but only 14 finally graduate. Those who drop out do so due to the incapacity of their parents to spend for their tertiary education.

The really “mango,” on the other hand, indeed spend 12 years and even more before finishing high school. Would that make them better prepared for college?

The job market does not look for graduates who have spent more years in high school but for those who have earned skills in college. Filipino seamen, for instance, are in demand abroad because they work better than other nationals.

If our teachers go to Hong Kong to “demote” themselves as domestic helpers, it’s not because they ran short of two years in high-school. It’s because they could earn more as such in HK than as teachers here. /PN

We are now a hundred million

As Published in Panay News

Dated: July 18, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: We are now a hundred million

By HERBERT VEGO

THE last time I talked to Iloilo provincial population officer Ramon Yee, he estimated that Philippine population had already hit 100 million. In the last six years, we have held on to our reputation as the 12th most populous nation on earth. We have advanced two steps since 1998 when we were 14th with 75.3 million.

If our growth rate stays at 2.3 percent annually, our population would rise to 118 million by 2025.

Nevertheless the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) insists, “Population is not the problem. It’s the great disparity of wealth. If the wealthy would share what they have, then population would not be a problem.”

Although I have written about the population problem many times, I am tempted to do it again in firm belief that while it may not be “the problem,” it is a problem nevertheless.

It is a problem ignored by the Roman Catholic Church which condemns artificial family planning as “pro-abortion, anti-life.”

No less than Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, past president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), has preached, “The social doctrine of the Church challenges society and government to regard population not as mere consumer but also to help and facilitate their becoming producers and formal businessmen.”

Monsignor Hernando Carbonel has called population explosion “a myth.”

That wistful thinking is easier said than done and is a myopic way of defending an undesirable situation where a poor couple makes more children than they can afford to feed and send to school in order to survive. More often than not, the cycle replicates itself in the next generation.

Doesn’t even common sense tell us that a worker making barely enough bread for himself is unfit to marry and multiply? The new family consequently becomes a burden, not an asset, to society.

In the book, “Hey Joe”, a collection of Asian travel stories, American author Ted Lerner relates the plight of Nina, an unwed 30-year-old mother of 10 children who migrates from Bacolod City to Angeles City, ending up as paramour of an American serviceman.

“Almost anywhere one travels in the Philippines,” Lerner writes, “you could

select women at random and you’d likely hear similar stories.”

Conversely and ironically, it is the rich in the Philippines who limit the number of their children to two or three to ensure their good future. That probably explains why only 10 percent of Filipinos are believed in control of 90 percent of the nation’s wealth; and 90 percent survive on 10 percnt of its wealth.

Ironically, other predominantly Catholic countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Poland control their birth rates despite the clergy’s admonition to the faithful to refrain from using church-banned contraceptives.

I was 10 years old and in grade four in 1960 when I first learned that the Philippines had a population of 30 million. This means that, between 1960 and today, the aforesaid population that took centuries to accumulate has more than tripled in only a half century!

Thailand, on the other hand, which had about as many people as the Philippines in 1960, has only doubled its population. Predominantly Buddhist, Thailand has an active population management.

The Thais must have used their bigger heads; ours, the smaller ones./PN

Some graduates should not have graduated

As Published in Panay News

Dated: June 16, 2014

People Powwow: Some graduates should not have graduated

By HERBERT VEGO

IN yesterday’s talk show Reklamo Publiko on Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo, host Danny Fajardo (founder and editor-in-chief of Panay News) asked Dr. Teodoro Robles, president of Central Philippine University, whether his school was offering the Journalism course.

“No,” he answered. “We only offer Mass Com.”

Without belaboring what he had in mind, Fajardo candidly told Robles that we at Panay News were having a hard time accepting applicants for reporter because even Journalism graduates could not write news.

Unbelievable? Yes, but it’s true. Some graduates are the kind who write only “pag may time.” This means that they should not have passed the course in the first place; that nothing has changed since the late 1960s when I was a journalism student myself.

In those days, our professor was often reminding our class, “If you can’t even write a simple news, you have no right to be here.” He was exasperated because most of us wrote news stories that “sounded” Greek.

After our graduation, I could not even count on 10 fingers my classmates who had landed a newspaper job.

On the other hand, I don’t have enough fingers to count my lady classmates who have resorted to post-graduate “MD” – “marriage degree,” that is – after failing to get a job.

Conversely, we have active newspaper reporters today who have had no formal education in journalism. They are here because they have the talent and the aptitude.

No wonder I don’t believe that the so-called “K-12” innovation of the Department of Education is the key to post-graduation “excellence.” Hence, imposing mandatory kindergarten and extending basic elementary/high school education from 10 to 12 years on the pretext that “we have been left behind” is no longer tenable. It would only extend the financial agony of poor parents and delay the entry of the students into the job market.

The only sane “advantage” the K-12 gives as far as the schools are concerned is added income from tuition and other school fees. Not really surprising when one realizes that Education Secretary Armin Luistro used to teach at the elitist Ateneo de Manila.

Have you ever heard of a school that discourages students from taking a particular course on the ground that his heart is not in it? I guess no.

A personal experience I would like to impart occurred in my first year in college. I was enrolled as a Veterinary Medicine student to appease my late father who had attempted to lure me into the course because of the “big demand” for veterinarians.

Fortunately, as soon as he discovered I could not even inject our pig, he asked me to shift to my choice: a four-year course in Journalism. So I “demoted” myself by moving from the prestigious University of the Philippines (UP) here in Iloilo City, to Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU) in congested Manila.

As a parent myself today, I justify my decision with the thought that I would not have become a good vet. Success is what one makes of his gift.

May I cite the moral lesson behind two flashlights? Two men walk the road late in the afternoon. One of them shows an expensive, glittering flashlight while the other keeps quiet, hiding a cheap plastic flashlight in his pocket. When the night falls, the two switch their flashlights on. The rich man’s flashlight fails to light up while the poor man’s cheap flashlight shines brightly. So which of the two flashlights is the successful flashlight?  You know the answer.

Our worth lies in our capacity to exploit our God-given ability./PN

God in the mind of a top lawyer

As Published in Panay News

Dated: June 18, 2014

People Powwow: God in the mind of a top lawyer 

BY HERBERT VEGO

LAWYER Edwin R. Catacutan has made a name here in Iloilo City not only because of his legal expertise but also because of his “incursion into Christian theology.” Having received a copy his book Creation, Fall, and Redemption, I would like to briefly reflect on the salient points of his book.

For this is one book that can rightly be judged by its cover: a colorful telescope image of an outburst of Monocerotis, a star which is about 20,000 light years away from our sun, echoing the Bible verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Psalm 19:1)

Catacutan alludes to the first three chapters of the book of Genesis on creation and fall of man, which is less than 0.3 percent of the entire Bible, as “the substantive law defining the individual’s rights and conditions of having and maintaining eternal life.”

The author agrees with Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century French mathematician behind the famous Pascal’s Wager.

“If there is no God,” Catacutan simplifies Pascal, “then no one is benefited; but if there is a God, the believer wins and the unbeliever loses.”

The lawyer believes that while the Bible does not explain but simply asserts confidently the creation of the heavens and the earth, they could not have always been there.

He quotes famous physicists, including Paul Davies, who wrote that “the essential hypothesis – that there was some sort of creation – seems, from the scientific point of view, compelling.”

God did not have to create, Catacutan asserts, to sustain Himself. He did so “for His pleasure.” When He finished his work, He found the entire creation “very good.”

He created Adam and Eve in his image (Genesis 1:27), but with “free will.”

It was out of such free will that they disobeyed God’s instruction to them to refrain from eating the “forbidden fruit” of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”; otherwise, “you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)

It was then that Satan burst into the picture, deceiving Eve that God did not want them to eat the forbidden fruit because “God knows that when you eat it, you will be like God.”

Their disobedience, Catacutan explains, marked “the fall of man,” shedding off immortality.

“The bodies of Adam and Eve,” Catacutan writes, “immediately became vulnerable to the death process of diseases, old age and decay… The Bible says that Adam lived 930 years.”

It was a “death penalty” handed down to us, the descendants of the first man and woman.

Catacutan asks us to fear not. The Redeemer would come by “virgin birth” and save us by grace. We can claim back the immortality promised by the most popular New Testament verse, John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Catacutan explains, “Jesus’ coming to earth in the flesh, His dying on the cross and His resurrection completed the redemption process from the side of God. It perfected the justice-compliance stage. In this context, Jesus is the last messenger from God as He himself is the message.”

The lawyer’s book offers Jesus Christ as the only way to eternal life after death. Either man believes in Him for the transformation of the soul from perishable to imperishable in the resurrection or stands condemnation by default.

If there is no discussion on the so called “fire of hell” that is widely believed to be the destination of non-believers, it could be because the Bible itself has no adequate discussion on the matter. In fact, he refers to his son Edwin Jason as the only one in his family, being “now with the Lord,” who knows all the answers to the questions that he had been asking about./PN

My brother’s triumphant death

As Published in Panay News

Dated: June 27, 2014

People Powwow: My brother’s triumphant death

By HERBERT VEGO

FOR a full  17 years and five months, my brother Efren savored 17 years and five months of “bonus life” until death did us part on June 23 this year at the age of 62 years and nine months.

What I mean is that he could have died at the operating table in 1997 yet at age 45. He was ready for that, knowing he had pancreatic cancer.

However, he lived on to be part and parcel of the modernized social media that we know today as Facebook on the Internet. His FB page attracts attention because of his head “implanted” on the body of a robust torso; and another head on the formally-attired US President Barack Obama delivering a speech. A backdrop behind the “implants” are these words: “Nothing other than my last breath can end my life. We learn from different sources but we get the best education from diversity. Even a turtle, if it never gives up, can finish the race.”

Efren Legaspi Vego finished the race ahead of us his siblings, breathing his last at 4:30 a.m. on Monday. He had expected it even much earlier while pinning hope for longer life.

In January 1997, my 45-year-old brother heard life’s most deafening news while confined at the United Doctors Medical Center in Quezon City, awaiting surgery after he had been diagnosed to be agonizing from cancer of the pancreas. It was his doctor speaking: “I will make the last four months of your life as comfortable as possible.”

Doc’s verdict must have scared Efren more than his eight-centimeter tumor. It could only mean that, despite the impending surgery, his disease would end his life within four months. In that case, why would he have himself operated on?

Not liking what he had heard, he scouted for a better surgeon. A fellow police officer, Nick Caba, referred him to Dr. Celso Fidel, a military surgeon at the AFP Medical Center, who candidly told him about studies revealing that “only one in a thousand pancreatic cancer patients worldwide survive Whipple’s surgery.”

Whipple’s is a complicated surgical procedure aimed at cutting away the almost inaccessible head of the pancreas.

With or without surgery, a pancreatic cancer patient could enjoy only six more months to live.

“I’ll go for it,” my brother answered, knowing he could not even be one of the lucky “one in a thousand” if he refused to go under knife.

On January 27, 1997, Dr. Fidel and his team of military surgeons performed an eight-hour operation that removed the ampullary mass at the head of his pancreas, including his gall bladder and portion of his stomach.

After his surgery, he applied for disability retirement that would entitle him to a monthly pension big enough to support his family comfortably. He was a cop assigned to the Quezon City Police Office.

In lighter moments, his friends would kid him about life being unfair to good cops. It’s the bad ones – especially protectors of drug lords and crime syndicates – who live longer.

Efren, a good cop, has already proven them wrong. Since that surgical procedure, my brother Efren has added 17 more years to his life and more life to his years together with his beloved wife Amparo and their children Walter, Cheryl and Honey; and on many occasions with us his siblings, namely Herbert, Jesse, Azucena, Jasmin and Randy.

He also cherished his high school classmates, using Facebook as venue to organize annual reunions.

On May 2 this year, he posted a message that he might not be around to attend their May 3 reunion in San Jose, Antique due to failing health.

The following day, he posted another message declaring that he had recovered and was strong enough to fly from Manila for the reunion. He arrived there on time and hugged everybody, whispering, “Let me hug you for the last time.”

Our brother Efren was rushed to the Commonwealth Medical Center in Quezon City on June 11, 2013.

Rather than be instructed, he instructed his family and his doctors to do away with all “human intervention” whenever his debilitating health could not take it anymore.

He returned to his creator at 4:30 in the morning of Monday, June 23, 2014.

He will be cremated today to immediately fulfill the Biblical injunction: “Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return.”/PN

Writing for a lifetime

As Published in Panay News

Dated: July 2, 2014

People Powwow: Writing for a lifetime

BY HERBERT VEGO

LAST week, I was probably at the nadir of my writing life when my dear brother Efren passed away in Quezon City. I had to spend most of my waking hours receiving sympathizers at the funeral parlor where he was lying in state. Then, too, I had to steal time to write and edit online even while grieving. I consequently realized that journalism is akin to show business: “Come hell or high water, the show must go on.”

But of course, writing for a living in my entire lifetime is not a curse but a blessing. As long as I write, I hope to keep my mind sharp and resistant to senility.

It’s my writing career that has seen my son through elementary, secondary and nursing schools. Now 41, he has blazed an enviable nursing career: five years working at the Family Clinic in Quezon City, another five years in Abu Dhabi, two years in Canada, and now in his fourth year in New York.

If I were to live my life over, I would probably opt for a more financially rewarding career. But why should I regret having chosen journalism when it has always been my destiny? I guess every man is what he is because of past circumstances.

In my case, it all began in my sixth grade when my English teacher rated my themes more or less “90”.

In my third year at the Antique National School, I took and passed the qualifying examination for staff members of the high school organ, “The Madia-as”, bagging the position of news editor. From then on, I set my eyes on a writing career, which I thought was, and still is, honorable; not everybody could write.

My father opposed my plan: “Oh, no, writing will not make you rich. I have a better idea. Why don’t you become a veterinarian? There is great demand for animal doctors in government.”

I insisted on following my aptitude and finished a four-year AB-Journalism course at Manuel L. Quezon University in Quiapo, Manila.

It has been 44 years since then. In my first 10 years in the profession, I handled various jobs as press relation officer for movie and music companies, editor of an entertainment tabloid, stage show producer and freelance journalist in Manila. I came to Iloilo in 1981 to edit Panay News, which started as a weekly. It has grown into a daily – a feat many other local papers have tried but failed.

The transition from typewriter to computer has not been an easy learning experience for an old wordsmith. But having overcome the difficulty, I look forward to  riding further the technology wave.

Admittedly, however, making a living writing is no easy task in this country. It’s the rare writer who can splurge off his or her earnings. For those of us who simply love the job, survival is enough.

You must be familiar with the saying that those who can write, do; those who can’t, teach. I think that’s unfair for teachers who can write. Had I earned an MA or PhD degree, I would have taught for a living, too.

Of course, there are others like us with the ability to create new realities out of thin air — unheralded painters, singers, actors and other talents who thrive on the need to express themselves even in thankless jobs.

What about you? Do you make a living doing what you love?  Why is it so important?

Well, it’s because you love it and because self-expression is the stuff that human civilization is made of. Be proud because you produce what others consume./PN