The right to disagree

By Herbert Vego

WAY back when I was a child in the 1950s, religious “debates” at our plaza were in vogue – usually between ministers of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) and those of other Christian sects. I still remember that one pitting an INC minister against a layman of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) or Aglipayan Church. Their exchanges of views, the audience feared, could end in a fistfight.

To our relief, after an hour, they agreed on only one thing: that their founders – Felix Manalo of the INC and Gregorio Aglipay of IFFI – had done right in abandoning Roman Catholicism.

In a past column on religious diversity, I cited a home debate between my late father and one of his friends over Jesus Christ.  My dad, a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, disputed his friend’s argument that Jesus, though “the son of God,” was not God

“That’s like saying that an animal born to a dog is not a dog,” Tatay debunked him.

Nobody gave in to the other, but their friendship remained intact for the rest of their lives.

I have since then followed their example in disagreeing with others without being disagreeable because, to quote the late American inspirational author Dale Carnegie, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Simply put, what’s right to one person is wrong to another.

But a right person may occasionally yield to the wrong one as a “peace-keeping” measure. I did so when I boarded an airplane and found an obviously older woman seated in my assigned seat. I showed her my boarding pass to prove she was occupying my aisle seat. But when she begged for “understanding,” explaining that her kidney problem necessitated frequent walks to the CR, I took her seat next to mine.

I was falling in line at the senior citizens’ lane in a pharmacy when a woman walked over and beat me to the cashier, announcing, “I am diabetic. I need to take medicine now.”

In both the airplane and pharmacy scenes, I could have asserted my “priority right” at the risk of being adjudged “heartless”.

Eventually, I realized I had done right in allowing myself to be “wronged” for their sake and mine; a hypertensive like me must keep cool all the time to stay alive.

We all have heard of Rolito Go, who languished in jail for killing another man over a traffic altercation.

As in a game of basketball, the broader game of life is ideally played by obedience to rules and regulations which, unfortunately, are often bent to suit the prevailing norms. In theology, for instance, one sect interprets monotheism as praying to only one God; another group prays to “one in three persons”; and a third group merely “venerates” Mama Mary and Church-canonized saints in answer to charges of idolatry.

A believer believes what he has been made to believe or what his senses tell. There are color-blind drivers who could not distinguish red from green and so are prone to beating the red light unknowingly.

Millions of Germans hailed Adolf Hitler for killing six million Jews as the “right” way to propagate Nazism.

To quote the Dalai Lama, “People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.”

As the famous French thinker Voltaire wrote, “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”.

Methinks only the “laws of nature” like gravity, heredity and chemistry are right all the time.  We always fall down, never “up”.

We also fall, not rise, in love.

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 SO LONG, MAYOR OCA

THIS corner mourns the passing of a colorful politician, Mayor Oscar Garin of Guimbal, Iloilo, who passed away last Sunday at the old age of 80. He had blazed a trail that reminds us of a Bible verse (2 Timothy 4:7), “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

He led a family of successful politicians: his wife Ninfa, children Richard, Jennifer, Sharon Karen, and Christine.

The journalist closest to Mayor Oca, Florence Hibionada, has written a mini-bio of the Garin family for Facebook.  I would like to quote a small portion:

“The Garin story begins with the patriarch of the family, Oscar “Oca” Garin, whose humble beginning in politics was in the summer of 1987.  It was to be the year that he first became congressman of the First District of Iloilo.  He was to keep the position for a total of 14 years.

“He became the Presidential Assistant to the President for Western Visayas during the administration of President Joseph Estrada.

This was followed by a similar if not higher distinction, Presidential Assistant on Agriculture with the rank of “undersecretary” during the administration of President Corazon Aquino.

He became administrator and director of the Philippine Coconut Industry.  In such a short period, he managed to introduce major programs for the benefit of coconut farmers.

In 2016, he ran unopposed for Municipal mayor of his hometown Guimbal. And here he introduced projects that made Guimbal the honor as one of the most beautiful towns in the country.

There is probably no one in the Iloilo media who has had no memorable moments with Oca Garin in his varied roles in public service dating back to the 1970s when he was a practicing civil engineer and an employee of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

He liked to joke even while discussing serious matters. I vividly remember that Sunday when he discussed the problem of old age with his co-hosts on his radio program “Owa Mangunguma.” The discussion strayed into the diminishing capacity of the old to pee to the max. They agreed that the younger a person, the longer the distance his urine reaches.

He then recalled having heard the story about old men bragging to each other about the long distances that their urine could still cover.

Mayor Oca quoted the last man bragging, “I once peed and hit a bird.”

“His amazed friends would not believe,” he punched, “until he said that the bird was perched on his foot.”

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HAPPY OVER MORE POWER RATES

OUR friend Raquel Chavez was asking whether she would be given a cash refund by MORE Power because of the order of the Energy Regulatory Commission directing the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation nullifying the “line rental” charges it had imposed in the wake of an accident that damaged a submarine cable of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

I have no idea about the refund facilitation. But refunding in cash would be very cumbersome.  Most probably, it would come in the form of a deduction from the September bill.

The September 2021 residential consumers in Iloilo City will only be billed total charges of P6.38 per kWh; it used to be P7.99.

To stimulate the economy in Iloilo City, the commercial and industrial customers would be charged the lower rates of P6.11/kWh and P6.05/kWh, respectively.