Forgiveness good for your health

Susan Tan, a 43-year-old grocer in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, does not take it against those who looted her store and warehouse on Monday, three days after supertyphoon “Yolanda” battered Eastern Visayas on Nov. 8.

Among the looters, she said, are people she knows: friends, government employees and even policemen.

“Forgive and forget” is Tan’s attitude towards the people who robbed her.

Susan, let me tell you as a man who has seen the best and worst: Karmic justice will overtake people who have wronged you sooner than later.

Forget, if only for a while, that forgiveness is a virtue because it is.

Persons who forgive tend to live longer than those who hold a grudge.

Holding a grudge or harboring ill feelings makes a person develop various illnesses like cancer, ulcers and heart problems.

So forgive because it’s healthy.

Another reason why a person should forgive is so he can have material abundance.

The more a person gives (or forgives), the more blessings—money, success, good health, etc.—he receives from the Universe.

So Susan, in a few months, you will recover everything you have lost because you have good karma.

As for those who have looted you, well, they will become poor all the more.

*   *   *

But the policemen who took part in looting Susan Tan’s store and warehouse should not go unpunished.

Cops should tower above the rest of the citizenry even during difficult times because they wear a badge.

That badge enjoins them to become honorable members of society because they are supposed to uphold the law at all cost.

Those cops who looted Susan Tan’s store should be dismissed from the service.

*   *   *

Doctors who are members of St. Luke’s Medical Center’s Sagipbayan Foundation have volunteered not only in medical missions to Tacloban City but also give medical care to Yolanda victims who have been flown to Manila and are now at the Villamor Air Base in Pasay City.

St. Luke’s doctors are among the country’s highest-paid who earn much from consultations alone.

They are in that enviable position because of their charitable deeds.

As you reap, so shall you sow, according to the Bible.

*   *   *

I see good karma at work in Dr. James Dy, a billionaire who owns the Chinese General Hospital and Medical Center in Manila.

Dy, who’s not a medical doctor but a holder of a Ph.D., honoris causa, is a philanthropist.

He has set aside a big ward in his hospital for very poor patients who are given free medicines and hospitalization.

Policemen and soldiers who are wounded in line of duty are treated at Dy’s hospital free of charge.

Dy volunteers his doctors for medical missions.

At 84, James Dy is as strong as a man twice his junior and has the mental aptitude of a 30-year-old.

He swims 1,000 meters daily in his Olympic-size pool.

The Universe rewards generous and kindhearted people not only with material abundance but excellent health, as well.

Health is wealth.

*   *   *

Francis Tolentino, chair of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), should find out who among his traffic constables took Nelson Calabia, 45, who died of a heart attack inside his car recently.

Calabia, a sales supervisor at United Laboratories, was taken by two MMDA traffic constables from his car and brought to Polymedic Hospital.

At the time of his death, Calabia had US$1,500 and a passport which were reported to be missing.

If it was not the MMDA men who took Calabia’s belongings, then who did?