Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Who Says Life Is Fair?
And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations. And Job died, an old man, and full of days. Job 42:12a,16-17
Whoever said that life is fair? Certainly not God. Airplanes crash and burn just as do marriages and future hopes and dreams. Innocent children in Africa die from HIV as well as the doctor who has spent her life striving to save the lives of her patients. Never, under any stretch of the imagination, would a sane person ask God for difficulty, for trials, for illness that he or she might learn the lessons of grace and patience which come from facing difficulty and winning the battle.
Yet only a fool would deny the fact that some of life’s greatest lessons are learned from facing the unfair challenges of life, but instead of growing bitter, he or she finds the strength of God to triumph.
Take, for example, the magnificent story of a man named Job. In the book that bears his name in the Old Testament, we learn that Job was a good man. Nonetheless, he wasn’t spared trouble in life, and when his world began to fall apart, his wife challenged: “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:9-10).
When Job’s life began to unravel, his friends–arm chair philosophers–came to comfort him. The dialogue between them and Job is well worth reading. Perhaps like your friends who are quite certain they know why things are not going well for you, the three tried to comfort him. But they didn’t really know what was in Job’s heart.
They condemned Job–blamed him for his troubles, quite certain that he had really failed somewhere. It was the old belief that when things go well, it’s a sign that you are a saint blessed by the Almighty, but when things go wrong, it’s a sign you are a sinner. And trouble is your just dessert.
Job also struggled with this issue of life’s unfairness. Yet he felt that he was innocent of wrongdoing. He asked, “…But how can a mortal be righteous before God? How then can I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him?” (Job 9:2,14). Then in frustration Job cried out: “He is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot” (Job 9:32-35).
Have you ever felt like Job? Chafing at life’s unfairness, misunderstood by your friends, wondering whether trouble is God’s judgment for your own blunders that stings or just plain bad luck, you are confused, perplexed, fearful.
Hey, friend, the ball game isn’t over. The end is not yet. More than a few individuals have felt like cursing God, or ending their own lives, wondering how things could ever turn around. If you are one of them, go to the end of the book of Job and read the final outcome. Job did go through a rough period of testing–one which God allowed to strengthen him and help him learn some lessons which could never have been grasped apart from walking through deep waters. Eventually Job said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5). Head knowledge became heart knowledge, and Job became a better person because of life’s unfairness. Life may be unfair, but God is just and fair. Of that you can be certain.
Resource reading: Job 42.
https://www.guidelines.org/devotional/who-says-life-is-fair/
Malay wants to be a city
The Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) of Aklan voted on Feb. 8 to endorse to the House of the Representatives a municipal council resolution on Malay’s bid to become a city.
According to the SP members, the cityhood of Malay – currently classified a first-class town – would mean the further development of the municipality and its famous Boracay Island, and greater autonomy.
Cityhood would mean a bigger Internal Revenue Allotment for Malay. This, in turn, would improve the delivery of basic services, they stressed.
Section 450 of Republic Act (RA) 7160 as amended by RA 9009 (Local Government Code of 1991) states a municipality may be converted into a component city if: it has a locally generated average annual income of P100,000 for the last two consecutive years as certified by the Department of Finance, it has a contiguous territory of at least 100 square kilometers and it has a population of not less than 150,000 inhabitants.
According to SP member Esel Flores, Malay was able to sustain its tax collection of over P169 million for two years pre-pandemic (2018 and 2019), exceeding the cityhood threshold prescribed under existing laws.
The average annual income is based on the Statement of Receipt and Expenditures submitted by the Municipal Treasurer of Malay, Aklan, and computed using the 2000 constant prices and in accordance with the Department Order No. 031-2018 issued by the Secretary of Finance.
Because of its robust tourism industry, the municipality of Malay, Aklan is considered as having the strongest economy in all the municipalities in Region 6, and the richest municipality of Aklan in terms of income and annual budget. The tourism industry of Boracay Island is the catalyst of Malay’s economic growth, bringing in investors and helping transform the municipality into a cosmopolitan area.
The high-income municipality is also qualified to be converted into a component city without regard to the size of its population or land area. Last October 2020, the Land Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources certified that Malay was composed of more than one island, hence, exempted from the land area requirement of Republic Act 9009.
According to the 2015 census, Malay had a population of 52,973 people.
Malay is politically subdivided into 17 barangays, three (Balabag, Manoc-Manoc, and Yapak) of which are situated within Boracay Island, while the rest are in mainland Malay.
Last year, the local government of Malay created a technical working group to study the cityhood plan.
It also wanted Aklan 2nd District’s Cong. Teodorico Haresco to sponsor a House bill on the cityhood./PN
Breaking up of Palawan seen to threaten the province's ecosystem
The plan to divide Palawan—the country’s “last ecological frontier”—into three smaller provinces will mean huge economic costs for residents and aggravate the threats and challenges to the environment, groups opposing the move said Tuesday.
In 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act 11259, which divides Palawan into the provinces of Palawan del Norte, Palawan Oriental and Palawan del Sur. For the new provinces to be established, majority of the voters in the affected areas have to approve the plebiscite scheduled on March 13.
Lawyer Gerthie Anda of the civic group Save Palawan Movement said the division of Palawan will pose threats to the environment and the culture of the people.
“The division of Palawan is a political agenda. This is costly. This is dangerous to the environment and culture. This was not studied and there was no consultation that is fair and sufficient,” Anda said in a forum organized by Oceana Philippines.
‘Last nail in the coffin’
Palawan is the largest province in the Philippines, encompassing 1,780 islands and islets. It is endowed with rich natural resources and highly diverse flora and fauna.
According to UNESCO, it has 105 out of the 475 threatened species in the Philippines. Of these threatened species, 67 are endemic to the Philippines.
Dr. Neil Aldrin Mallari, president of the Center for Conservation Innovations, said there is a “big mismatch” between conservation requirements of key threatened endemic species in Palawan and the policies in place protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services.
He also pointed out that the province is losing 13,323 hectares of forests annually, which is equivalent to “about 300 SM Malls of Asia”
“In 2049, in 30 years, what will be left are the 'taraw' and mountaintops. The remaining low-lying areas, meanwhile, will be flooded or will be dried out,” Mallari said in Filipino.
“In the next 30 years, if it’s still business as usual, the division of Palawan into provinces will be the last nail in the coffin that will just accelerate the scenario. So it means that if it happens, more than half of Palawan’s unique biodiversity would have been extinct in the next 30 years,” he added.
The plan also poses challenges to the management of the province’s diverse ecosystem.
“Environmental governance is a cross cutting theme and the biggest challenge so far is the division of the province into three,” Anda said.
In a statement last week, the Episcopal Commission on Social Action, Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines called to re-examine the scientific, cultural and moral foundations of the law above all economic and political gains of the proponents and their business allies.
Fr. Rey Aguata, the apostolic administrator of the Apostolic Vicariate of Taytay, also said the “separation will only be putting Palaweños, especially the indigenous communities further from the doors of government service... and not to pave the way for genuine human development."