Anticipating better times

Media continues to report on the devastation in the wake of Typhoons Pedring and Quiel that hit central Luzon and adjoining areas of the country last month. Thankfully we were spared in the Visayas. But not for long, because as I write this in midweek, another typhoon, Ramon this time, threatened to hit southeastern Mindanao and the Visayas, so by the time you read this, there will be more reports on the effects of this unusual worldwide climate and environmental change that Al Gore predicted years earlier in his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Late last week, unusually heavy rains flooded areas in Cebu and Mandaue cities with reports of the earlier devastation in Luzon. Again, thanks to the rescue and relief efforts of various groups and organizations, civic and community, media, religious, even political and government, among others, all have worked together, uniting our fractious people even as there are more storms to cope with amid the La Niña phenomenon.

Turning to other concerns, the topic for discussion on our monthly “Women’s Kapihan” last week over dyLA radio was “Women and Breast Cancer.” Our guest was Nelia Navarro, provincial director of the Department of Trade and Industry. As a cancer survivor in this year’s Pink Month of October, Navarro is deeply involved with groups campaigning year-round to arouse public awareness in breast cancer .In cooperation with health units in schools and the Department of Education, she is involved in information campaigns and video shows to raise awareness and erase fear of the disease, and fund-raising activities for the medical needs of breast cancer victims, as in the Pink Room for further help and advice at the Ayala Mall and in the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center compound at B. Rodriguez Street, Cebu City.

October is also National Children and Senior Citizens’ Month.

The abuse of and crimes against children top this month’s new reports. The trial of the case of the brutal death of 6-year-old Ella Joy Pique will proceed with the arrest of principal suspect Bella Ruby Santos.

I remember a similar case years ago, involving the death of the two Chiong sisters, daughters of Thelma Choing. Thelma is now into women’s concerns as a result, and is president of our Cebu Women’s Network, which, together with the Provincial Women’s Commission, are both responsible for airing our monthly “Women’s Kapihan.”

In the current financial problems worldwide affecting retrenched (and recalled, then retrenched again!) men and women union workers of the nation’s Philippine Airlines, I can understand their dilemma. I have learned about labor unionism, its rationale and how it can work positively for both employer and workers during my long years with radio dyLA, owned by one of the country’s respected labor unions, the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Council of the Philippines.

And now, a duly financed flyover project is dividing the city with conflicting opinions as to whether traffic-busy streets should be widened instead, and whether the location of flyovers would jeopardize cultural and historical sites for which Cebu City is known and appreciated. Concerned parties have sought the wise and cool mediation efforts of Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma. We hope for a happy solution soon in this project.

Another hotly contested issue is the K-12 curriculum to be implemented in our public and private schools to reinforce our currently abbreviated six-year elementary and the four-year high school curriculum. I remember I went through the original seven years in the elementary and intermediate grades, four years in high school, and four years in college for the regular bachelor’s degree, except for other courses. Graduate school followed with a variety of years, depending also on the course further taken. Graduates in this schedule were adequately prepared to work in jobs and careers they chose.

But as a teacher later in college, I found graduates of the new course sadly deficient in some of the basics we learned in the old curriculum. Even now, as a retiree tutoring or helping a couple of high school students I know, I bewail this lack, particularly in language, geography, history, current events, and values, among others, even as I admire their proficiency in modern math and the new technology in computers and social media.

Speaking of modern technology in which I confess to be myself deficient, that is a field in which I must now seriously apply myself if I am to keep up in this day and age. This week in his column, Conrado de Quiros paid tribute to the modern-day genius Steve Jacobs who recently passed away, leaving us a legacy, not just the iPhone, the iPod and the iPad among others which represent his legacy to “Think differently.” Because that was “what he preached and how he lived. And it made all the difference.”

And now, students and workers are happily looking forward to a four-day holiday from Oct. 29, 30, and 31 (Halloween) through Nov. 1st (All Saints’ Day), in a respite from all the stress and trauma suffered in month-ending weeks of typhoons and floods, as we now look forward to Christmas Day, still almost two months away. But did we not already anticipate the Christmas holidays with the start of the four “-ber” months of the year last September?

Till next week then, may God continue to bless us one and all!