A laudable city ordinance

By: Alex P. Vidal

“We are not victims of aging, sickness and death. These are part of scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change. This seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.” – Deepak Chopra

SOMETHING good came out from the Iloilo City Council before the end of 2019.

This was the unanimous passage of an ordinance amending Ordinance 2017-053 which honors Iloilo City-based Centenarians, granting them additional cash incentives of P10,000 upon reaching the age of 80 and P20,000 upon reaching the age of 90 years old and P50,000 cash incentives for elderly who reach 100 years old.

We laud Councilor Irene Ong, proponent of the ordinance, who confirmed in a report that an Ilonggo elderly will receive a total of P80,000 worth of cash incentives from the city government at the age of 100 years old.

Senior citizens in Iloilo City will have something to expect once they reach 80, 90, and even 100 because of the ordinance filed by Councilor Ong.

The amount may not be too big given the current economic reality in the Philippines, but the gesture of the city government will certainly enliven the hearts of many Ilonggos who have parents and grandparents qualified to avail of the cash incentives.

Because of this really impressive ordinance, Ilonggo households with elderly members will never forget Councilor Ong especially if he will run for a higher office in the future.

Ilonggos know how remember and even pay back “utang ngakabalaslan” or debt of gratitutde.

-o0o-

Many people laughed when Kingdom of Jesus Christ boss Pastor Apollo Quiboloy boasted “he stopped” the recent earthquake in Mindanao.

They also “hoped” Quiboloy would stop typhoon “Tisoy” and laughed once more when he “did not.”

We all know that his allegations were hogwash, yet many Filipinos believed in what he has been saying hook, line, and sinker.

If Quiboloy were a candidate for senator, he would surely win.

This is the kind of personality that Filipinos actually want and need nowadays.

We don’t take seriously our defective electoral process; we continued to elect into office personalities who should be either in jail, in the elementary schools, in mental institutions, or in the fiesta and public plaza circus.

The reason is simple: many Filipinos are tired of serious and intelligent candidates with sterling academic and professional background who will only impoverish our country.

Based on the kind of public officials we have electing (especially in the Lower and Upper House of Congress) these past years, we won’t be surprised in the future if most of our senators and congressmen will act, speak and think like Pastor Quiboloy so we will have more reason to laugh.

-o0o-

Will we die if we run out of sweat?

We are now on the verge of winter season here in the East Coast and we are no longer experiencing any sweat even if we are active physically.

The whole point of sweat is to keep the body cool.

This is pretty vital, according to Popular Science: if our core temperature goes above 104 F (40 C), our body begins to overheat to the point where its proteins denature.

When this happens, “membranes of the tissues lose their integrity, and things leak out,” said Lawrence Spriet. The intestines can discharge bacteria into the bloodstream, and the body goes into shock.

By then we would probably be unconscious, possibly even in a coma.

But while people do in fact die of overheating, it’s reportedly very unlike to be due to a sweat shortage.

As pointed out by Lawrence Armstrong, even in extreme cases it’s impossible to sweat out all the water in our bodies.

“People don’t shrivel up until they are dead,” he said.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)