A quick visit to Baybay City today is enough to shame any mature Taclobanon. Its spanking new streets, well-organized terminals, breezy public market, and growing city center are in sharp contrast to Tacloban’s messy downtown, bumpy barangay roads like that of St. Anthony Subdivision in San Jose, and tacky rotunda, which pretends to be an authentic urban showpiece. Tacloban is behind, not just in image, but in service, and it has no one to blame but itself and its administration.

The sad truth is that Tacloban has become complacent in the thinking that the sad recognition of being the ground zero of Yolanda would be sufficient to guarantee it with continuous sympathy and assistance. Cities do not develop with sympathy—they develop by vision, planning, and bold infrastructure. Look at Maasin City. Quiet, remote, and small, yet its government complex is modern, its roads are upgraded, and its port investments are being noticed. In Tacloban, though, it takes forever to drive through Real Street during rush hour, and the terminal remains messy.

There is now such a need for an efficient transport system in Tacloban—one that is not multicab-dependent and a sea of claustrophobic tricycles. In Baybay, there is only one transport terminal, and a more organized mode of public transport nowadays. Tacloban? It still makes people alight along pedestrian paths with no shield and no regulation. And the pedicabs in the city outskirts are the ones deciding how much fare they should get from passengers, which is usually sky-high. How can the people be served by a city when it cannot even transport them efficiently from one location to another?

And another big shame is drainage. Every good rain is evidence that Tacloban learned nothing from Yolanda. Flooding continues to blanket downtown intersections. Even the main roads—Justice Romualdez, Paterno, even Burgos—are pools of despair. Baybay and Maasin, on a smaller budget, were able to rebuild their flood control and drainage systems. Why not Tacloban, with all the priority promised by the national government and foreign assistance?

Then there is the matter of green space. Parks, recreation grounds, and decent pedestrian walkways—these are nowadays taken for granted in cities’ modernization. But where can one catch their breath or stroll in Tacloban? Rizal Plaza is not enough, Balyuan lags, and the rest are privatized or cemented. Other cities have learned something from the pandemic: give people open, safe spaces to relax and gather. Tacloban still forces pedestrians to swerve around potholes while breathing the dust of incomplete works.
Even barangay roads, many of which have remained uncemented for decades, are screaming for attention. Go to the interior parts of San Jose, Abucay, Tigbao, and even Calanipawan, and you’ll find neighborhoods that feel like they were left out of city planning altogether. Worse, these are the areas vulnerable to flooding and isolation during emergencies, yet they remain under-prioritized in the city’s annual investment plans. It’s as if the city wants to grow without feeding its limbs.

Urban planning in Tacloban appears reactive, not visionary. Projects seem to be done only when there is a leftover budget or political urgency. There’s no coherent master plan that boldly anticipates the city’s future—only patchwork repairs and image-driven beautification. But real infrastructure isn’t just about looking good; it’s about working efficiently. It’s about making the city livable, accessible, safe, and competitive.

If Tacloban hopes to regain its leadership in Eastern Visayas, it must stop riding on its past and start racing toward its future. That means prioritizing projects that matter—flood control, public transport, barangay access roads, civic spaces, garbage disposal, and drainage. It means listening to engineers, not just contractors, and urban planners, not just politicians. And most importantly, it means waking up from the illusion that Tacloban is still the queen city of the region—it no longer is. The crown is slipping fast.

Some senators who appear to be loyal factotums of the former and now detained president had openly manifested their partiality in favor of the impeached vice president. It is well to note that the articles of impeachment was filed during the previous congress but the impeachment trial never happened as the consistent ad hominem to attack the inaction of congress over the previous impeachment complaints filed before the lower house. The explanation is cyclic to buttress the senate president’s position that there is no reason to hurry him now in the same manner that the lower house did not hurry to bring the impeachment complaint against the now impeached vice president.

While the senate has not yet started the impeachment trial, two senators who are long-time loyalists to the former and now detained president, took the floor to move for the dismissal of the impeachment complaint. The motion to dismiss was purportedly based on the defective impeachment complaint and the alleged violation of the constitutional provision that allows only one impeachment complaint in a year. The motion seeks the dismissal of the impeachment complaint without trial.

It was followed by a lengthy discussion on the purported violation of the one-year bar rule that was interrupted by contrary discussion of the minority on the necessity to start the impeachment trial. The discussion was again interrupted by a privileged motion of the magical president’s sister. The discussion which begun on the construction of the word forthwith turned to be a display personal interpretation by each grandstanding senator.
These non-lawyer senators had the gall to discuss legal matters, chiefly the construction of the constitution. They act as if they are better than the lawyers in the senate and the legal luminaries that were invited as resource persons to shed light on the issue of dismissing the articles of impeachment without trial. These supposed senator-judges are to comport themselves with the cold neutrality of a judge.

Unfortunately, they have acted as defense lawyers of the impeached vice president. They keep on arguing that the articles of impeachment is defective and was filed in violation of the constitution. Their conclusion was made without giving the prosecutors the opportunity to explain the issues regarding the questions raised by the biased senator-judges. Another senator who is self-righteous and so assuming argues using the national language that the impeachment is dividing the country and an embarrassment thus the same has to be dismissed.

It is well to remind these senator-judges that their posturing as defense lawyers of the impeached vice president is an unlawful practice of the legal profession. People know that in our country, the practice of any profession requires formal education and license. The person in pursuit of his chosen study and grandstanding non-lawyer senators taking turns with their motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment is pure and simple malpractice.
comments to alellema@yahoo.com

This human had written a few 5 minute read articles on Artificial Intelligence and Humans in the different local newspapers. The thesis was simple , teachers and AI are competitors in the teaching profession.

Only a few of this works garnered attention and seldom does it ring bells of interactions from friends and fellow knowledge workers alike.

Several Search Engines can be consulted and that you can actually find in seconds a quick denial and AI Tool , denies outright the replacement of the Human Teachers by AI and Robots . Here is what one Artificial Intelligence reply:

The role of AI in education is expanding and evolving, but it is unlikely that AI will completely replace human teachers in the near or distant future. While AI can offer personalized learning experiences, instant feedback, and efficient administrative support, there are certain aspects of teaching that only humans can provide. Here are a few reasons why human teachers remain irreplaceable:

If only we will take an AI’s word for it . Then we must set the morbid thoughts aside and refuse to be bothered by the thoughts of being replaced.

Disruptive Technology

Samantha Rohn defines it as Disruptive technology is any new tool that changes how people and businesses think about something. Generally, disruptive technology emerges as a new approach to an existing activity (eCommerce, ridesharing) or as a completely invention that entirely transforms how people do things (television, the Internet). Because of this, disruptive technology often leads to the creation of new products and industries, which displace existing ones.

My late Father was a mailman, when he retires in 2016, he was on an organization that was lonely , less frequented, and out of relevance. Snail Mail was not anymore romantic the message reaches expiry dates and new innovations like Cellular Phone and Email, was lower in costs , almost free yet its faster, real time and reliable.

In the last 50 years , many of the technologies were replaced by a smarter , better versions yet it also starved and kill the incumbent with the drastic and even slow but sure transition of low tech to high tech metamorphosis.

• Typewriters to Computers
• Ordinary Camera to Digital Camera to Cellular Phone
• Physical Media to Digital Media
• Video Rental to Live Streaming
• Ordinary Mail to SMS/ Email

The teachers must realize that in their heydays the one replaced cash cow for companies that turned awry in such a short period.

Lacking Emotional Intelligence, Ethical Guidance and Empathy the AI will never be as good as Humans but in some aspects of the economy , Humans are being robbed by the AI for possible employment because AI or Robots can do the task without paid leave, all for several days at times. At a lower operating cost and less friction and conflict.
Will human teachers be replaced by AI Robots or Program; I am sure it will. The certainty that it will replace us Human Teachers or at the very least, they will be laid -off.
So how soon, only heavens know!

YES, we have to learn the art of how to end our day well. That’s because it is our way also of how to end our life well, ready to meet God in judgment. We just have to be realistic about the real purpose of our life here on earth, so that we avoid getting entangled in things that are not actually necessary for us even if they seem to us as indispensable at the moment.

We are reminded of this need in that gospel episode where someone asked Christ to mediate on the inheritance issue with that person’s brother. (cfr. Lk 12,13-21) Of course, Christ, knowing the motive of that fellow, refused to do so. Instead, he reminded the person to focus more on what truly matters in life, that is, to seek the real treasure. Rather than focusing on earthly treasures, he told him to be “rich in matters of God.”

In our daily life, we should have a running account, so to speak, of how our life is going in terms of achieving its real purpose. We are not here mainly for earthly gains, although they figure as a means to pursue our real goal. We are here to gain our own sanctification through all the events and circumstances of our life, whether ordinary or extraordinary.
Let us remember that every moment in our life, irrespective of how it affects us—whether good or bad according to some earthly or temporal criteria—is an occasion to interact with God who always intervenes in our life, testing us but also guiding us and giving us all the means that we need. Yes, we have to be aware that every moment is a moment for sanctification.

We need to train ourselves to think that way and to act accordingly. That’s why we need to have some running account of how we are faring in this ultimate concern of ours in this life. And so, at the end of the day, we should make some kind of accounting to see if we are progressing or not, if there are things to be improved or to be more focused on, if we are equipping ourselves adequately to pursue our real goal, etc.

The ideal thing to happen is that at the end of the day, before going to bed, we should make some kind of examination of conscience so we would have a good idea of how things are going in our life. This way, we would always be ready to face God in judgment.
We have to learn to leave our earthly and temporal concerns so that we can focus more on the definitive eternal life that is promised us. This is just to be realistic about our life, cutting away whatever fantastic and fictional ideas we have about our life here on earth.
To be sure, this will give us a lot of confidence and hope no matter how things go. We would know what to do, both in good times and in bad times. The only thing necessary is to do the will of God which, as Christ spelled out to us, can involve denying ourselves, carrying the cross and following Christ himself wherever he leads us. (cfr. Mt 16,24)
We avoid getting entangled in an unnecessary drama that would only complicate our life without leading us to where we should be in the end.