Ban us in cemeteries? Oh no!

By Herbert Vego

WHEN I heard the news that Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas and Iloilo Governor Art Defensor Jr. would not allow us — the unvaccinated against Covid-19 — to visit the cemeteries on All Saints Day, I thought I was luckier because my dead relatives await in Antique.

Later, however, I read that Antique Governor Rhodora Cadiao had also issued a “no vaccination card, no entry” executive order.

Expect other local government units to follow.

Thus, my living relatives want me to be jabbed, or else my dead relatives would miss me.  I refuse, believing it’s unnecessary, if not risky. You see, I caught Covid-19 in March 2021 and got well after 12 days of hospitalization. I had previously recovered from such other respiratory diseases as pneumonia, pneumonitis, tuberculosis, asthma and emphysema.

My hospital records are available to those who may accuse me of spreading falsehoods.

Now 72 years old, why should I risk my life on experimental vaccines that have so far not proven their immunization claim? What is proven so far is that the vaccine makers — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Sinovac and Sinopharm – have made billions of dollars. And yet they do not indemnify patients who get sick or sicker after vaccination.

Instead, they “scare” us with endless Covid-19 variants. If it’s not to keep their cash registers perpetually ringing, then I don’t know why.

It puzzles me that the “protected” vaccinated government officials are afraid of us, the unvaccinated. If we were more vulnerable to Covid-19, why are we still alive after two and a half years of the pandemic?

On the other hand, we know of fully- or partially-vaccinated individuals who have consequently caught the disease and suffered from serious side effects. To write about them is tantamount to “disinformation” by the World Health Organization (WHO) standard.

Wasn’t there a time when the Department of Health (DOH) assured us of “herd immunity” whenever 70 percent or more of the population would have undergone vaccination? Therefore, it would be no lie to say that the DOH was lying.

If the anti-Covid vaccines truly immunize their adherents, then why be afraid of the “fearless” unvaccinated?

That question really bothers me because no less than Dr. Roland Jay Fortuna of the Iloilo City Health Office (CHO) has reported 739 Covid cases in the first three weeks of this month. That is more than double the 317 cases in the entire month of September.

Doc, don’t tell us they are unvaccinated; they know the truth.

Lest I be accused of “disinformation,” I will not elaborate on freedom of choice. Burawa na lang ninyo ang sementeryo sa Piesta Minatay.

-oOo-

WHAT IS THE REAL PRICE OF COAL?

WHILE having coffee with a Jamaican businessman at Hotel del Rio, my friend Bong (not Go) asked him whether the price of coal in the world market had jumped from US $60 to $400 per metric ton.

That is cited as the reason why MORE Power in Iloilo City and the other distribution utilities nationwide have hiked rates per kilowatt-hour.

“It’s not true,” the Jamaican disagreed.  It’s only $100-plus per metric ton.

Bong had no alternative but nod his head thrice. The Jamaican is in the business of buying wholesale coal from Indonesia for distribution to coal-fired power plants in the Philippines.

Yesterday, however, I verified the latest price in the Internet, which showed that the current coal price in the world market is $270.

The Jamaican also told Bong the reason why coal-fired power plants buy only a small percentage of their coal consumption from the coal mine of Semirara Island in Caluya, Antique.  Semirara coal, he alleged, is sub-bituminous or having low thermal energy.

Semirara Mining and Power Corp, therefore, has no reason to equalize with the world market in pricing its coal.

Magkano ba talaga, Chairman Isidro A. Consunji?