No easy New Year but…

By Herbert Vego

IT won’t be easy welcoming New Year 2022 when the clock strikes 12:00 midnight on Friday, understandably because of typhoon Odette that had drained some of us of our meager resources.

But as the saying goes, where there is life, there is hope. This we saw in the way victims expressed their optimism on TV and radio interviews.

I heard one of them recall how he escaped the flying GI sheets, but ended up still grateful: “Glad to remain alive and kicking.”

Indeed, with the onset of the New Year a few days from now, why don’t we rise up where we stumbled? Why not write a New Year’s resolution?  Its fulfillment is worth the effort, as I have found out for myself.

Frankly, however, it is not unusual to break a resolution, as in “to spend moderately”. Unexpected emergency situations can melt the money that has taken years to save. I have been through it many times.

There was a time when a date with an x-ray machine revealed a life-threatening lung disease which could be irreversible – emphysema, characterized by breast tightness that made me cough and chase short, whistling breaths.

The bad news depressed me, knowing a friend who had died within five years of enduring the disease.  But I opted to listen to the familiar expression, “God heals.”

It was on a New Year’s day that I resolved to junk the bawal or the inflammatory foods that my doctor had forbidden me to eat, and to prefer fruits and vegetables instead.

For a decade already, I have lost the disease but am no longer banned from eating occasional beef and pork delicacies.

As in the year about to end, I intend to stay debt-free in 2022.

We like to think of New Year’s resolution as another Christian tradition. But it is not. The tradition of affirming a New Year’s resolution had preceded the Christian era. It began in ancient Babylon, according to the website History.com.

The Babylonians are believed to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They mainly focused on making promises and offering sacrifices to gods, praying for fruitful harvests and swearing to repay debts in hopes that spiritual figures would bless people with good fortune. Failure to keep their word meant falling out of the gods’ favor.

For a New Year’s resolution to succeed, there must always be a motive strong enough to command fulfillment, as in the resolution to lose weight which is always anchored on the individual’s obsession to look attractive or to live healthier and longer.

Ancient New Year’s resolutions involved making promises and sacrifices to gods, praying for fruitful harvests and swearing to repay debts in hopes that spiritual figures would bless people with good fortune.

Today, it’s the young high school students who first learn to compose resolutions. As taught by their teachers, their New Year’s resolutions involve self-betterment, such as studying harder and avoiding bad habits like smoking and drinking.

-oOo-

MORE POWER TO THE RESCUE

KABANKALAN City in Negros Occidental was one of the hardest-hit localities by typhoon Odette. At least seven residents of the city drowned to death. An estimated 70% of Kabankalan had gone under water by the time the rain stopped.

In view of that emergency, MORE Power sprang into action by sending 22 of its technical men to join Task Force Kapatid, a contingent aimed at helping the Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative (Noceco) restore electricity that had been devastated by super Typhoon Odette.

But of course, the majority of MORE Power’s linemen remain in Iloilo City on 24/7 alert in clearing fallen trees and replacing damaged poles, cross arms, wires, transformers, etc.

And as part of its corporate social responsibility, MORE Power has started the ball rolling in its call for donations to help the typhoon victims there.  We are reprinting herewith its call as published on its Facebook page:

“We are making a call for donations in cash or in-kind (i.e. drinking water, canned goods, rice, noodles, blankets, old clothes) to help people in Kabankalan City who were adversely affected by the disaster.

“To donate, you can hand over your in-kind items to our GST Corporate Center, and to our Customer Services Office in Hotel Del Rio. Should you decide to donate in cash, please reach out to our Customer Care team.

“Your support helps bring immediate disaster relief and supplies, and long-term recovery so people can rebuild their lives.

“These trying times, your kindness and generosity will go a long way!”