It has been years since the city government of Tacloban rerouted traffic flow of the poor man’s public transportation, that is, the motor cab for hire (MCH). It was rammed upon the riding public in the guise of experiment where traffic signs were installed on street corners purportedly on a temporary basis with the aim of quelling public resistance.

That rerouting was designed to ease traffic by making some major streets one-way for MCH. It also paved the way for the entry of four-wheeled yellow spider mini-cabs that competed with the MCH not only in income but the use of city streets. The public transportation inside the city got heavier than the traffic problem that the one-way traffic system aimed to solve.

The direct impact of the traffic rerouting was on the income of MHC operators and drivers who had to go around one-way routes with often one passengers as taking two or three passengers would often be on different destinations and out of way. The driver would be without choice but take one passenger of the shortest route to save on time and fuel.

Under the old two-way route system, an MCH could take at least two or three passengers and pass all destinations on a single round. That was so because the traffic system allows MCH to pass through all city streets or take a u-turn for the next passenger’s destination.
On the part of the passengers, they have to wait for the MCH whose driver would accommodate them for a ride. More than the delay, passengers have to pay more than the regular fare just to get a ride especially if the distance is farther than the regular and the driver would be at a loss for just one passenger.
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THE parable of the sower and the seed (cfr. Mt 13,1-9) prods us to undertake the urgent and most necessary task of spreading the word of God widely and abidingly. It also urges us to be that good soil that brings good and plentiful fruit of God’s word.

Nowadays, we cannot deny that a large sector of the world is setting aside God’s word and are preferring their own ideas, theories and ideologies. The God-given nature of things is being redefined today by many people who pride themselves to know better than what God has set.

What St. Paul once said is being validated: “The time will come,” he said, “when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. So, they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.…” (2 Tim 4,3-4)

We have to understand that preaching the word of God is a task entrusted to his apostles and shared by all of us in different ways. The clergy take a leading role, of course, in this affair. It’s a serious business that involves our whole being, and not just our talents and powers.

First, we need to examine our understanding and attitude toward God’s word, especially the Gospel. On this basic understanding would depend what we do with the Gospel and how we handle it.

Do we really know the true nature of the Gospel? Or do we take it as just one more book, perhaps with certain importance, but definitely not as the living word of God, in spite of its human dimensions?

The Gospel is actually the proclamation of Christ as the Emmanuel, that is, God with us. This is an on-going affair that did not stop with the death of Christ. Christ lives with us up to now, and continues to do things with us.

All these affirmations are captured in the last lines of the Gospel of St. Matthew where our Lord said:

“Go, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them…. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” (28,19-20)

Our Catechism tells us that “We must continue to accomplish in ourselves the stages of Jesus’ life and his mysteries and often to beg him to perfect and realize them in us and in his whole Church” (521)

Obviously, to carry out this mission, we need to know our Lord and his teachings. We have to go to him and read the Gospel. Reading and meditating on it should be a regular practice for us, a habit meant to keep us in touch with him.

Thus, every time we read the Gospel, we have to understand by our faith that we are engaging with our Lord in an actual and living way. We are listening to him, and somehow seeing him. We can use our imagination to make ourselves as one more character in any scene depicted by the Gospel.

For this, we need to look for the appropriate time and place. We have to be wary of our tendency to be dominated by a lifestyle of activism and pragmatism that would blunt our need for recollection and immersion in the life of Christ.

We need to understand that in the end, preaching the word of God involves making Christ present in us and in others. Preaching God’s word also means that we have to know those to whom we address God’s word, so we would know how to present it to them as God’s word and not just ours, and avoid getting trapped in the non-essentials.

The Atkin’s cold storage facility, owned by the Atkin’s Import and Export Resources Inc, operates using solar renewable energy (R E) installed by Spectrum, a renewable energy company owned by the Manila Electric Company Inc.(Meralco).

The sixth and latest cold storage and the largest in southern Luzon, is the first to use clean energy from the sun. The R E provider Spectrum is capable of generating 1,362 million kilowatt hours of clean energy annually, and translates to Atkin’s annual savings of P9.5 million in energy costs. Also, means that “Atkins will help reduce carbon footprint by 970 tons or over 44.500 trees planted or reducing about 3.9 million kilometers in car travel per year.”

The Atkin’s and Meralco partnership is vital because it helps ensures food supply, particularly meat products sourced, imported from and distributed to all over the world. Likewise, the partnership “. . . reaffirms Meralco’s commitment to taking an active role in energizing and supporting agri-ventures that pave the way towards nation-building. We trust that with the energization of this breakthrough facility will trigger meaningful conversations about food security and encourage industry to encourage members of the food and beverage industry to emulate Atkins.”

MY COMMENT:
The Atkin’s and Meralco partnership is an example showing how science through research and development (R & D) works. The discovery of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, are off shots of painstaking research – a departure from using coal to fuel cold storage and similar facilities. The Atkins cold storage engineering design must have evolved from a simple facility to one that could be operated using renewable energy. My take, is for Filipinos and mankind is just to BELIEVE IN SCIENCE.
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NEXT TOPIC : “MGen MOVES TAREGETS GREEN ENERGY CAPACITY”
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Work-life balance is typically defined as the amount of time you spend doing your job versus the amount of time you spend with loved ones or pursuing personal interests and hobbies.

It is important to strive for a healthy balance between work and personal life to improve overall well-being, including physical, emotional, and mental health . www. Coursera.org
In the title above, it can be noticed that this writer purposely changed the arrangement of the work-life to life work, to emphasize the need to prioritize and give emphasis on life first before work.

At one side we see, that work realities is unique to the individual. One may be, a Public School Teacher and hers is a sustained day job that requires daily commute. Yet, another one may be a Virtual Assistant who needs to be up all night and recalibrate her body clock and live in painful nocturne for the 5 day week. A Police officer may require a 4 day 10 hour duty per week and an Election officer whose job accelerates come election season and dissipates later on.

The hours on a day has different definitions for one worker and the next. It may be something simple for some but complex for others. One thing is for certain, work life balance is not merely an ambition it is something that people knew that is essential and thus must be strived for.

Over the years, the understanding of what it means to have a good work-life balance has evolved dramatically as new generations (with new expectations) enter the workforce. The benefits of accommodating flexible working are more widely accepted as organizations increasingly prioritize the well-being and happiness of their employees.
Why? Because researchers have revealed that work-life balance is just as beneficial for businesses as it is for their staff.

According to the Harvard Business Review, employee burnout costs the U.S. between $125 billion and $190 billion every year in healthcare. Meanwhile, a five-year study found that employees who work more than 55 hours per week are 1.66 times more likely to develop depression in later life. This is America.

In the Philippines, we barely scratch the surface of work life balance. We are an enduring people who are grateful for the job, we don’t mind putting in extra hours and giving all we got and forgetting the balance of life and work.

We are faced with mental problems and burn out although these are never disclosed in the open, it is as real as it can be.

In the recent Global Talent Trends worldwide a Linkedin study shows that thousands of job seekers has Work life balance as the top priority the figure is 63 % followed by Compensation or Salary and Organizational Culture. This reality proves that Money is subordinate to the work life balance the thousands of workers craves.

Work life balance is not merely about equilibrium, it is about Life. It is about the fact that a faculty, employee and official’s well being is paramount for business and organizational success. Every manager worth his salt must adhere to this.