A bilateral partnership is being hatched between two original ASEAN member countries – Indonesia and The Philippines – is centered on a major reforestation project deemed to catalyze net zero and carbon market development in the Southeast Asian Region.

An off-shot of a meeting on reforestation partnership by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) held early this year (2023), it identified Indonesia and The Philippines as both countries have significant forest resource. The two countries make them among the biggest oxygen producers in the region. Indonesia alone has 91.2 million hectares of forest land while the Philippines has 23.3 million hectares.

The vast forest resources of the two ASEAN-Member countries present a major reforestation partnership to the global aim for a net zero and carbon neutrality to attain the carbon credit – with a carbon market reaching $50 billion by year 2050 with the ASEAN region being well positioned.

While the Indo-Phil reforestation partnership is being refined, finalized, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) is being crafted to be tackled by the ASEAN leadership meeting in September 2023. The partnership expects to commence upon approval, signing of said MOU.

MY COMMENT:
The Indonesia-Philippine reforestation partnership is a well-thought of effort to adhere to the mandate on Climate Change conceptualized during the Paris convention as well as previous and succeeding fora to protect mother earth from calamities pestering mankind and the Planet. I still believe that knowledgeable and science-founded people are involved in the partnership. Indeed, effects of Climate Change is real, imminent!
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THAT gospel episode where the apostles found themselves in a storm in the middle of the lake (cfr. Mt 8,23-27) teaches us a great lesson about absolute trust in God’s providence amid the twists and turns, the ups and downs in our life here on earth.

We cannot avoid storms and other forms of negative happenings in our life. But before this fact of life, what we have to do is to try our best to remain calm and just go to God to ask for help. He’s always around. He may appear asleep and oblivious of our predicaments, but he actually knows everything that happens in our life and is there to help us.

To be sure, the storms and the negative things in our life were not part of the original plan of God for us. They only came out as a consequence of sin, that of our first parents as well as those of ours which are still a continuing affair for us. God allows these things to happen to respect our freedom which we often misuse and abuse. But he also knows what to do with them.

On our part, whatever storms we encounter in life, whether material, temporal, or spiritual and moral, our attitude and reaction should be that we can precisely use these storms to approach our Lord, begging for help. It would be wrong and would make things worse if we choose to run away from him. God is all there to help.

No matter how guilty we may be with respect to the predicaments that befall us, God is not scandalized by any wrongdoing we do. He may be angry for a while, but his mercy will always prevail. And his anger and the punishment that may go with it are always meant for our own good.

And when problems and difficulties beyond our control take place, we should just trust God’s providence and be ready for wherever divine providence would take us. We have to be open to it all the time, developing a faith-guided adventurous outlook.

Even as we make our plans and pursue them truly as our own, we should not forget that nothing in our life is actually outside the providence of God who can adapt himself to us, even in our worst situations and predicaments, and can still lead us to himself.

The only thing to remember is that God is always around and is actually intervening and directing our life to him. That is part of his omnipotence which he exercises both from all eternity and in time since our creation and all the way to the end of time.

There will be things in our life that will be beyond our human notice, and much less, our human control. We have to trust God’s providence even if things look terrible, impossible, or inhuman when judged simply by human standards.

Let’s again remember that episode of the apostles in a boat that was about to sink because of the big waves. (cfr. Mt 8,23-27) Christ reproached them for their lack of faith. And in that parable of the wheat and the weeds, (cfr. Mt 13,24-30) Christ was clearly telling them and us that we should just go on doing a lot of good even if we are disturbed by many evils, because in the end Christ would make the proper judgment.

He assures us that with him we will never work in vain and everything would just work out for the good. (cfr. Is 65,23; Rom 8,28).

Consumers are always at the losing end of the deal of commercial transactions. This, despite laws aimed to uphold the rights of consumers. There are always unfair business practices that makes victims out of unsuspecting consumers who buy goods at face value, trusting that they are getting their money’s worth. Unfortunately, merchants and traders and vendors had their way of earning what is made to appear as fair price for goods that are actually less than what were priced for. It allows the merchant to earn more by less than what was sold. The practice is rampant and widespread and prevalent that they appear as normal practice in business. Something ought to be done to really protect the consumers from such malpractices. While government is on a serious campaign against unscrupulous traders and merchants who make a living out of victimized consumers, the drive must be pushed harder and farther.

One common source of cheating is the sale of underweight goods which customers pay for the exact price per weight unit. Concerned government agencies are into saturation drives to nab weighing scales that are not calibrated. Many vendors selling goods their daily living had been caught, fined and penalized for cheating their customers with tampered weighing scales. These are small entrepreneurs that engage in small business to earn something to support their family. We see them as the easy catch to be shown to the public that indeed there is a serious campaign against cheats that victimize consumers. Nothing is really wrong with nabbing wrongdoers but for their utter selectiveness in nabbing the hapless and weak while letting go the rich and powerful is truly revolting to the public mind.

We have yet to learn of big cheats being nabbed for the same offenses. Customers are well aware how huge weighing scales are not that fair as they ought to be, causing greater damage to the hapless and unsuspecting consumers. There are those that fall victims of slender sacks containing underweight rice or other goods sold by the bag. Customers have no way of checking the weight of cement for instance that is supposed to be of a standard weight per bag. Rice, flour, sugar and other mass goods in sacks with labels of a standard weight are often less than what they ought to be as paid for by the hapless consumer. But we have yet to learn of huge weighing scales found as cheats being confiscated by the authorities for violation of the laws.

But there is another business malpractice has to do with shortchanging customers on the flimsy excuse of lack of coins. Many customers had fallen victims to petty changes being disregarded in favor of the vendor. This had become a normal practice in huge department stores with cashiers apparently under instruction by management to disregard what they deem as insignificant amount, never minding to give the change that is due their customers. Consumers just take the practice in stride, avoiding the hassle and waste of time asking for the exact change.

In some establishments, candies are used in lieu of coins, with the candies given a price equivalent akin to the price with retail vendors and stores, which price carry the profit margin. That makes the exchange a short change for the candy is valued more than its flat price at breakeven cost. This writer would dare posit to customers who might encounter being given sweet changes in the form of candies, sans melamine, to keep such changes intact and use the same in paying to the same establishment that gave that sweet changes the next time you pay for anything to such business establishment. Let us see if they can smile taking the very candies they gave their customers as sweet, if not, anted changes.
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