The Actual Birth Place of Jesus Christ

This is the most holy place in Bethlehem, the crypt in the Church of the Nativity, believed to be the actual birthplace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Celebrating Christmas
Let Us Call to Mind 
The Birth of Jesus

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet (Matthew 1:18-22): Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).

Happy Greetings for a Blessed Christmas!

POSTSCRIPT TO A PACQUIAO FIGHT

Manny Pacquiao’s win against Antonio Margarito once more invites world attention to a Filipino in particular and the Philippines as his country of origin. While most Filipinos are still relishing Pacman’s recent victory, foreigners whose attention is advertently invited into the Philippine situation will find out that there are a string of high profile cases that are yet to be resolved.

Foremost of these cases are the Maguindanao Massacre, the Supreme Court being besieged of attacks relative to the Del Castillo plagiarism affair, the unresolved NBN-ZTE deal, the Jocjoc Bolante fertilizer fund scam, the case of Senator Panfilo Lacson who absconded in order to evade eventual arrest to answer for murder charges, the recent incident resulting to the death of taxonomist-scientist Leonardo Co who was allegedly caught in the crossfire between government forces and the New People’s Army while doing scientific research in the mountains of Kananga, Leyte, the pending case of impeachment against Ombudsman Merceditas Guittierez, graft charges against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and on top of these, cases of victims of disappearances, and a litany of other pending cases and debacles that could not be contained in this piece.

What the Filipinos, in general, and the Philippine Congress, in particular, failed to see is Manny Pacquiao’s dereliction of duty to attend to regular sessions and official functions as congressional representative from Sarangani Province. He had been absent from those sessions from the time he went into full preparation for his fight with Margarito until after he won that fight. Moonlighting or pursuing a private profession while in government service and using official time and resources for one’s personal gain is definitely unethical if not against the Code of Conduct of government officials. In Manny Pacquiao we have a model where a Congressional Representative of the Philippines is seen by the world fighting in a professional match while being away officially from the legislature.

The mediocrity of the rest of the legislative members, as well as that of the Chief Executive, to take action on the blatant absenteeism is a tacit admission of the flawed presumption that Congressmen are exempted from the rules of attendance to work, or that boxing has a much higher level of priority compared to concerns for enacting laws and legislative inquiries--- or that other personal alibi could be a viable reason to be absent from the hallowed halls of Congress, or that no agency or authority has the prerogative to censure the likes of Pacquiao, even if he does another boxing match in the near future.

The public in general has been led to believe that things are going regularly. It is, for instance, not extraordinary to have a boxer as a Congressman, to have a movie actor as a legislator, to have a congressional representative as anchorman in a primetime television show, or a Senator or Governor endorsing a commercial product, or to see the likes of Senator Bong Revilla running a television program. All of these, taken together, lend further credence to impressions in the public mind that the legislative work is easy, that sometimes it could even be unnecessary, and, yet, really, very rewarding. These are the subtle impressions that get embedded in the Filipino psyche and culture which are sooner or later manifested in the way government is run in the Philippines.

It's Time We Own the Earth

Wind, solar and other renewable-energy technologies that were once considered more appropriate for single homes or small communities are reaching levels of scale and centralizing that were formerly the province of coal- and gas-fired plants and nuclear reactors. In other words, green is going giant. In the Philippines, where land area and living space are fast becoming constricted, limitations relative to areas necessary for installing solar panels, wind turbines and infrastructure for renewable energy technology are a hindrance to making policy decisions intended to cope with thrusts towards clean air and sustainable environment. 

The Philippine National Building Code will have to be revised to keep it attune to the turbulence of technology and technical change. Sooner or later there will be a need to require homes, condominiums and shelters to have solar panels as roofing materials to do away with fossil fuel permanently. One drag about this idea is the reluctance of oil producers and oil marketers to relinquish business and take on the challenge of a new frontier where they will be groping for clout in a path less traveled. 

Arizona Public Service, an electric utility based in Tucson, is already harnessing natural energy by using an array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight in order to heat mineral oil up to 550 degrees; the heat vaporizes a liquid hydrocarbon, which runs a generator to make electricity. In other places, windmills and turbines are employed to generate and store electricity to run factories and light homes.

Government should encourage business to thrive in these areas. But more often than not, engineers and technicians employed therein become trapped in a system where everything becomes trade secret thereby killing the industry that was primarily intended for public purpose. The real change should come not in newer technologies, but rather on the willingness and political will of government policy makers to adopt these technologies for the advancement of humanity and the preservation and renewal of global environment.

In the G20 Summit which started last Thursday night in Seoul, no agenda has been included pertaining to environmental protection, much less global warming and climate change. World leaders were all concerned about currency war, the ailing US economy and the uncertainty of the Euro. For all we know, issues and anxieties about environmental destruction in Africa and the Middle East and territorial marine disputes could be the underpinnings of terrorism, global unrest and the crashing world economy. In short, the real issue should be about the rising temperature of planet Earth and the man-made factors that contribute to the foreseen impending global catastrophe.

It is not amazing that impetus for global climate protectionism is usually hatched in smaller non-distinct countries where the effects of imbalances in nature and climate are heavily felt. Typhoons and other natural calamities are fast becoming a regular phenomenon if not a scourge. Billions of dollars are annually sucked in the drain by harsh force of nature of which man has no control except the willingness and resolve to mitigate it. Where IMF-WB loan funds seem limitless and unending, we still have to see an orchestrated effort from among the leaders of the world to pool those fund resources and equitably shared among qualified countries for the purpose of  investments on programs to protect and preserve planet Earth--- with strict sanctions against heads of state in case of misappropriations. It can be done if we begin to think that we are all co-owners of this planet!

Notes on Leonardo Co's Murder

This murder is a useless waste, and another one for the books, too. With all due respect to researchers and scientists doing field work, they should involve local government units in their endeavors, first by seeking permission from LGUs to do research in their jurisdictions, and second, by asking assistance from local government agencies to provide security. At the stage of inception of any research work, the LGU concerned should already prohibit field research if the area concerned is infested by rebels or if it is a warfront between armed protagonists.

At this juncture, misgivings about the Agham research group could be commonplace as it is imbued with some political color, taking into consideration the fact that Agham is a party-list political aggrupation. On the one hand, if the Agham group is doing research for Energy Development Corporation, what has it to do with research on taxonomy in Kananga, a research which was what the late Leonard Co and company were allegedly conducting when they were killed in the alleged crossfire between government forces and the New People’s Army?  Taxonomy is the science that deals with description, identification, naming and classifying of organisms.

On the other hand, it is unfair to surmise that Agham and taxonomist Co are somehow having illicit connections with the NPA or that they could be working clandestine on the side of the government forces, all under the veil of scientific research work. These presumptions could have been eliminated at the first instance when Agham researchers and scientists properly secured permission from the local government of Kananga, Leyte.

Now, Anakpawis party-list Representative Rafael Mariano has filed House Resolution 653 for a probe into Co’s death, contrary to a neutral civilian investigation that Agham is asking for.  As usual, cases such as these are gifts to Representatives who are very eager to embark on new causes of action in Congress for their own personal grandstanding. Suddenly a simple case of police matter becomes high profile, giving us the impression that Congress has judicial powers to resolve criminal cases and further deepening innuendos that ordinary courts have lost their judicial ascendancy and functions to decide on legal matters.  At the least, Filipino taxpayers are again at the losing end in terms of time and effort being expended by legislators to inquire into criminal events which are not the primordial concerns of Congress.  This is just another case that is being added to the already piling legislative inquiries that have no clear end in sight. 

Merry Christmas

The Christmas season begins on the day of Advent (December 8), which is also the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, which is also the feast day of St. Nicholas, who, the Roman Catholics believe, is the real Santa Claus. In other words, it is roughly two weeks from now that the Yuletide season begins. News today, however, report business firms already wary about the expected slow-down of business activity after the year ends. This looming post-holiday blues sees the latest confidence index (CI) falling to 51.0 percent for the first quarter of 2011, from the previous 59.2 percent of first quarter of 2010.

Latest survey of the Bangko Sentral nga Pilipinas shows that business expectations of majority of 1,624 respondent business firms were less optimistic for the coming first quarter. The CI is the difference between the percentage of firms that answered in affirmative and the percentage of firms that answered in the negative. The 51.0 percent CI should not dampen the rest of the population who would like to feel the joys and blessings of Christmas this season, and the CI should not set the tone of the upcoming holidays. 

What then ushers in the spirit of Christmas, or more particularly, who should usher in the spirit of holidays? Definitely not the government, even if it allows extra bonuses to government workers, even if it declares holidays on some certain dates; not business firms, not agencies, and not even news that foretell gloom after the Christmas season two weeks before it could even begin. It is the happy people who enliven the season, the people who are eager to share that spirit of giving, who would like to go out and meet friends on a get-together or on a holiday, people who light up Christmas trees this early to herald the coming of the Advent season, people who rejoice at the thought of commemorating the birth of the Savior of the World.

The spirit of optimism is the expression of hope. In the spirit of Christmas we celebrate that hope by setting and lighting up Christmas trees, by sending Christmas cards, by putting up decorations that not only add color to what could be a dull and dim ordinary world, by sharing passages from the Bible that recall the blessed nativity, by singing carols or playing that favorite Christmas tune that has been playing inside our heads, by meeting new friends and posting happy greetings in Facebook, or by simply thinking that the season of giving is a good reason to be happy. 

Merry Christmas!