Over-Entertained

                

(image: youtube.com)        

Sobrahan da na paglingaw sa kaugalingon. Often, you observe people who are constantly looking for some kind of entertainment. Young ones complain about being bored all the time and gadgets like smart phones are used 98% to entertain them. Activities like viewing memes, laughing on viral vlogs and doing tiktok videos seem to be the fad. A lot of time used in the virtual world is all about entertainment.

We are always learning either deliberately or unconsciously. At each moment in time we are absorbing something into our brain, either we are picking up bad habits or good habits, or maybe taking in useful knowledge or useless knowledge, but we are learning nonetheless. That is why you may have heard people say ‘watch what goes in your brain.’

For a lot of people today, entertainment is a high priority, and they can’t go a day without it.

Shikati (2018) posited: Entertainment is the enemy of self-development and personal growth; it is the enemy of education. The moment you choose harmful or time wasting entertainment you place your personal education in the hands of content creators and you give them the power to educate you on whatever they want to feed you. In part, you also place the power to choose the direction in which your life is headed in the hands of someone else.

People spend more time with entertainment media than with any other activity outside of work. Yet given how ubiquitous it is, we have spent far too little effort learning about how entertainment media affects how we think and act.

Parents and policy makers are often inundated with frightening claims about media and technology’s effects on kids.  In 2014 one British newspaper compared playing video games to using heroin. In 2017, a headline in The Atlantic asked “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” Recently, there are claims that too much exposure to social media can create depression due to the highly studied FOMO (fear of missing out) theory.

Entertainment is not wrong. In fact, it creates balance in the lives of people. Yet, balance is not going to be attained when too much of it will be consumed. We must not let entertaining ourselves get along with our capacities and responsibilities. It is always wrong to become unproductive due to too much longing for entertainment.

Henry David Thoreau, as always, said it more eloquently than anybody: “A stereotyped, but unconscious despair is concealed under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work.”

In 1787, Edward Gibbon completed his book, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” giving the following reasons for its destruction: the rapid increase of divorce with the resultant undermining of the home; higher and higher taxes and the spending of public money for free circuses for the people; the mad craze for sports, which became more and more brutal; the building of gigantic armaments, when the real enemy was within, and the decay of religious faith, which faded into formalism and became impotent.

In short, Gibbon concluded that satisfying the desires of the people for comforts and entertainment became more important than their relationship with God and others.

How many family members are not speaking even if they are physically present and are stooped over their smart phones or laptops being “somewhere” else? How many friends prefer to play online games without even asking about their emotional well-being? How man online prayer gatherings are snubbed in lieu of Netflix and YouTube?

This is not to say that all entertainment is destructive or immoral. We need periodic breaks from the routines of life; time out from the daily grind. Jesus told His disciples to “come apart and rest awhile” (Mark 6:31), prompting someone to wisely observe that if we don’t come apart, we’ll come apart.

We must be reasonable enough to prioritize. This is the activity that arranges items or activities in order of importance relative to each other. There is a need for us to consider what is more important first then inject entertainment to create balance and productivity. If we are students, we can prioritize learning over entertaining memes and videos. If we are government workers, we can start with service rather than loafing.

Kids today, and really adults too, expect to be entertained all the time—even when they’re at school and work, observes Gregory Bloom, lecturer and author of Overcoming Entertainment Addiction: How to Cure Your Children of the Need to be Constantly Entertained (Action Publishing Group, 2006).

Amusement or fun addiction has an alarming rise among people today. “Behavioral” addictions have now been widely recognized as non-substance addictions (that can also develop with or without substance addictions). Neuro-imaging techniques and recent research show that it is not only alcohol and recreational drugs that are addictive. Behavioral addictions trigger the same fundamental responses in the body as, for example, cocaine (Grant et al., 2010).

In the end, it is the person to push himself towards that direction. A strong understanding of his/her action is needed for him to steer clear from the damaging effects of too much entertainment consumption.

Let us also create…not just consume.

 

Whether Drunk or Not

 

                                     (image: youtbe.com)

Protektahan an bayong na baji. In line with the ongoing talks about the case of the flight attendant’s death during the New Year’s Eve party in a hotel in Makati City, a hashtag circulated in the social media sites which became the talk of the town when 2021 was ushered in. PROTECT DRUNK GIRLS seemed to be all over the media platforms which sometimes bring confusion to some.

Athena Presto posted her opinion on Rappler: The pushback against victim-blaming is a moral imperative. The reminder that getting drunk does not equate to consent can never be overstated – especially in a country where many use the idea of sexual harassment to tell women to cover up. However, we also need to remind each other to resist in a way that doesn't box women into being passive victims needing protection.

Women are not special beings that need to be shielded. Protecting women, especially in a patronizing and infantilizing way, distracts us from recognizing that women are human beings deserving of respect just like everyone else — drunk or otherwise.

Getting drunk is the decision of a person. Gone are the days when we blame peer pressure or whatever justifications that we have. It is the person who puts the alcohol in his/her body and most of the time not at gunpoint. It was scientifically proven that too much consumption of alcohol can either make one do unthinkable things due to intoxication. Thus, the mandate came to put labels on alcoholic beverages to “drink moderately” which later evolved to “drink responsibly”.

Both men and women are at risk of the dangers of being intoxicated by alcohol. It can produce detectable impairments in memory after only a few drinks and, as the amount of alcohol increases, so does the degree of impairment. Large quantities of alcohol, especially when consumed quickly and on an empty stomach, can produce a blackout, or an interval of time for which the intoxicated person cannot recall key details of events, or even entire events. This is according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The campaign to “protect drunk girls” seem to romanticize getting drunk. According to startuprecovery.com, there can be any number of reasons that someone can begin to romanticize their time with alcohol. Going to the bar to blow off steam and constant advertisements tying alcohol’s use to happy, social gatherings, there can be many ways to receive mixed signals about drinking, even after they have experienced the highly destructive side of alcohol.

The long history of colonialism has embedded a patriarchal culture among Filipinos. The conception of women as full-time homemakers, as subordinated to men, violence against them is private, as reserve labor force, and as sexual objects is now being eroded by modern women asserting themselves in many aspects of life. But on the other hand, some are either marginalized, discriminated, or even exploited by the harsh realities of global economy and consumerism (Anonuevo, 2000).

Although the patriarchal culture persists, we now understand equality on both sexes. The 1987 Constitution states a prominent provision. The first in the Declaration of Principles Article II Section 14 asserted that "The State recognizes the role of women in nation-building and shall ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men."

We need to frame sexual violence as something done by criminals than something that just happens to women. Taking the perpetrators out of the conversation makes it harder for us to demand accountability and justice. It has been more of "she was raped" than "they raped her" or "teach your daughter to say no" than "teach your sons that no means no." Reminding girls to stay safe is an inadequate response vis-à-vis clear manifestations of who we should be dealing with (Presto, 2020).

In management, Root cause analysis (RCA) is a systematic process for identifying “root causes” of problems or events and an approach for responding to them. RCA is based on the basic idea that effective management requires more than merely “putting out fires” for problems that develop, but finding a way to prevent them. In cases similar to the much-discussed one over the flight attendant, we can see irresponsible drinking as the main culprit. Again, this writer does not blame the victim but the root of the problem. In excess, everything can be dangerous.

We can stop romanticizing alcohol intoxication.

So what then? Vince Ferreras of CNN Philippines reported on January 7, 2021: Four of flight attendant Christine Dacera's friends, who were also respondents in her case, recalled their final hours with her while celebrating New Year's Eve in a Makati hotel. In a press conference on Thursday, the respondents reiterated their innocence, saying Christine died of natural causes.

There are “unknown” and unpublished attacks on women, boys and children. These violent acts decompose the core of our society.

[Violence], says Rappler, happens to women because they are continuously rendered weak, no matter the circumstance. Fighting sexual violence does not need any qualifier — not drunk, not naked, not alone — especially when qualifiers contribute to the stigma against women who are independent and do not conform to gender norms.

Violence must not be treated indifferently. And all of us must be protected from it.

  

Drunken Master

                                     (photo:councilonrecovery.org)

Parabayong! This is actually a term which is translated to ALCOHOLIC. Yet a lot of young people seem to take pride by being one. They are posting their drinking binges on social media like important events. Of course, we adhere to the understanding that “this is a free country” and “we are responsible for our own body” concepts but ADDICTION is a social malady. It is happening in the society and is slowly eating the morality and values of people.

Alcoholism, according to healthline.com, has been known by a variety of terms, including alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. Today, it is referred to as alcohol use disorder. It occurs when you drink so much that your body eventually becomes dependent on or addicted to alcohol. When this happens, alcohol becomes the most important thing in your life.

People with alcohol use disorder will continue to drink even when drinking causes negative consequences, like losing a job or destroying relationships with people they love. They may know that their alcohol use negatively affects their lives, but it’s often not enough to make them stop drinking.

The symptoms that can lead to a diagnosis include drinking more alcohol than intended, failing to cut back on alcohol use, devoting substantial time and effort to drinking and recovering from drinking, strong cravings for alcohol, failing to fulfill obligations at work, school, or home, disengaging from relationships and activities, and developing tolerance or withdrawal, among others. Experiencing at least two symptoms throughout the course of a year merits a diagnosis, from mild to moderate to severe (Psychology Today).

Just like cigarette smoking or nicotine addiction, the target of alcohol addiction is usually the young people. Alcoholic drinks are lucrative businesses and the manufacturers make it sure that their products must have a set of clients so that business will continue to thrive.

Research shows that many adolescents start to drink at very young ages. In 2003, the average age of first use of alcohol was about 14, compared to about 17 1/2 in 1965. People who reported starting to drink before the age of 15 were four times more likely to also report meeting the criteria for alcohol dependence at some point in their lives. In fact, new research shows that the serious drinking problems (including what is called alcoholism) typically associated with middle age actually begin to appear much earlier, during young adulthood and even adolescence (Chen, Williams, et al, 2003).

In a survey conducted by the University of the Philippines in 1994, 60 per cent or 5.3 million Filipino youths are said to be drinking alcoholic beverages. About 4.2 million of them are males and 1.1 million are females. On the average, Filipino youths start drinking alcohol at the age of 16 or 17. Alcoholism across the Philippines in 2016, by gender and type is around 8.8 percent of males and 1.8 percent of females had alcohol use disorders.

The teenagers said their family, friends, and the mass media have influenced them to experiment with drinking alcohol. Underscoring the critical role that the family plays in youth behaviors, young people seem to take their cue from their own parents' attitudes and behavior. Thus, a boy who grows up with an alcoholic father is more likely to become one himself.

Mass media and the internet also play a great role in the marketing of alcohol. Beer and liquors in the Philippines are portrayed with positive images. Companies have varied strategies, depending on what market they want to target, focusing on basic Filipino values. For instance, beers and other alcoholic beverages have been associated with thirst quenching, male bonding, friendship and camaraderie, unity, youthfulness and fun among many others. Most common in the advertisements is the use of popular local action and sexy actors and actresses as their image models.

Why is it addictive? Physical addiction to alcohol is caused by the chemical response in the brain to it. Studies show that alcohol interacts with receptors in the brain called gamma-Amino butyric acid (GABA) receptors. These receptors stimulate opioid receptors in the brain, releasing chemicals called endorphins that cause pleasure or euphoria. Addiction to alcohol can also have a psychological cause when someone uses alcohol to cope with a psychological need. For instance, someone who feels unhappy may use alcohol to cope with that unhappiness (Williams, 2020).

Most of the literature on alcoholism suggests that the reasons are genetics, external or peer pressure and personality (those who think that drinking makes them socially-accepted).

What are the risk factors? Jurgen Rehm (2011) mentioned that alcohol is a necessary underlying cause for more than 30 conditions and a contributing factor to many more. The most common disease categories that are entirely or partly caused by alcohol consumption include infectious diseases, cancer, diabetes, neuropsychiatric diseases (including alcohol use disorders), cardiovascular disease, liver and pancreas disease, and unintentional and intentional injury.

Many teens do not have the mental capacity to fully understand the consequences of drinking or even be aware of them. Teens can face immediate negative consequences, such as brain damage and delayed puberty. Indirect health issues, such as car crashes and sexual assaults, are also common problems from drinking.

Still, we see an alarming increase of youngsters displaying their “seemingly normal” drinking binges and drunken acts on social media. It takes a lot of good parenting, education and morality development for them to lead a healthier life ahead.

If the parents, schools and religious denominations do not condemn such addiction, the future might be bleak plagued with sick and dysfunctional individuals.

It's All in the Mind

 

                                    (img: youtube.com)

Mayaot na tuig an 2020. A lot of people mentioned this. One can hear comments on the different experiences we encountered this year including the pandemic. Who would have thought that we will experience a global threat on our health during our lifetime? And human as we are, we find something to blame. We need a scapegoat. And for that, we have no choice but blame the year 2020.

Our ancestors might disagree that 2020 is the worst year on record. Sure, frightening things are happening, but many of those things happened in the past, too, including the 1918 flu pandemic, during which 50 million people died. Plus, the belief that civilization is on the decline is a tradition as old as civilization itself. Even Ancient Athenians complained in the fifth century B.C. that their democracy wasn’t what it used to be. These days, we call that belief “declinism,” or “decline bias” (Renner, 2020).

Rob Picheta of CNN said: Even before Covid-19 existed, humans had an unmistakable and scientifically pinpointed tendency to believe the world is poorer, angrier and more unsettled than it really is; an unconscious desire to hold onto negative stereotypes and ignore the scale of progress unfolding right in front of us.

 

It's a habit picked up in childhood and reinforced by media coverage and our own psychological peculiarities, many experts believe. Put simply, we think the world is a bad place that's getting worse - a sense that undoubtedly grew in the last 12 months.

Declinism is the tendency to see the past in an overly positive light and to view the present or future in an overly negative light, leading us to believe that things are worse than they used to be. Declinism is often a feeling harbored about the overall state of a country, society, or institution, with the view that it is in decline or getting worse.

Looking closely, this might be one of the downsides of the information technology. Too much information allow us to compare and marvel the past (where we seldom saw what was happening because the internet was still unheard of) as better and of “good quality”.

The decisionlab.com said, the 24-hour news cycle that bombards us with negative and violent images contribute to declinism and end up confirming our existing beliefs that the world is getting worse. News stations, which have to compete with one another, capitalize on confirmation bias. They know that if they continue to present viewers with shocking and disturbing stories, viewers will continue coming back for more.

Then, our culture dictates us to rely on numerology. It is any belief in mystical relationship between numbers and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value of the letters in words, names, and ideas. It is more often associated with the paranormal, alongside astrology and other divine arts.

The Chinese also tags a year with a certain animal and it has a certain astrological connotation. 2020 is the Year of the Rat according to Chinese zodiac. This is a Year of Metal Rat, starting from the 2020 Chinese New Year on Jan. 25 and lasting to 2021 Lunar New Year’s Eve on Feb. 11. Rat is the first in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. The Years of the Rat include 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020, 2032...

When 2020 arrived, events came to people all over the world presented through their smart devices and even in the social media sites. These can be considered as stressors. The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory lists 43 life events and assigns a point value to each event. That point value corresponds to the amount of life change caused by the event.

It is important to note that on this scale, according to Johnson (2020), there are both positive and negative events. This means that change, even a positive change, requires adjustment and therefore is a stressor. Our bodies respond to all stressors in the same way—including hormonal responses that increase blood pressure and promote weight gain. As changes add up, so does our stress load.

An example that many people can relate to right now is “work from home.” Working from home is accompanied by many changes—some good and some bad. For example, people may find that they no longer have a long commute to work, which is a positive change. However, they may also find that the physical environment is harder to work in.

Then, the learners started doing their lessons in a remote manner. This drastic change can cause stress both to the adaptive population and those with other learning preferences. This situation is another factor which made people complain. And these happened in 2020.

Kendra Cherry (2017) said: “Positive thinking actually means approaching life’s challenges with a positive outlook. It does not necessarily mean avoiding or ignoring the bad things; instead, it involves making the most of the potentially bad situations, trying to see the best in other people, and viewing yourself and your abilities in a positive light.”

It’s about increasing our control over our own attitude in the face of whatever comes along the way. We cannot control things and events happening around us, and we cannot always control the thoughts that pop into our heads, but we can choose how we handle them.

Another year is coming. There are things within our grasp but there are those that we can’t even comprehend. All we can do is adapt and become works in progress as we see the new ecology a challenging one for our growth and the chance to become better versions of ourselves.

Murder and Insanity on Christmas

                                   (photo: philstar.com)
Kun Pasko baja kinahanglan gajod bibo? When one goes deeper and understands Christmas, it is really a religious event, not just a “social” one. Although it encourages interaction with others through the displacement of love, respect and goodwill, the event stems back to being of the spiritual context. Yet, materialism, commercialism and other stuff occur this time of the year.

When people seem to lack the resources like money, significant companions, new clothes and even social gatherings, the event seems threadbare. This is probably the reason why there is such a thing as “holiday blues”.

Feelings of sadness that last throughout the holiday season—especially during the months of November and December—are often referred to as the holiday blues. The holidays are usually viewed as a time of happiness and rejoicing. But for some people, it can be a period of painful reflection, sadness, loneliness, anxiety, and depression (Cherry, 2020).

According to webmed.com, sadness is a truly personal feeling. What makes one person feel sad may not affect another person. Typical sources of holiday sadness include: Stress, Fatigue, Unrealistic expectations, Over-commercialization, Financial stress, the inability to be with one's family and friends.

But looking into the main culprit of the development of holiday blues, we can glean that it is the inability to understand the event and attach it with something which muddles with people’s emotions. This is probably brought about by traditions, media hype, commercialization and the recently theorized FOMO (fear of missing out) caused by the social media posts.

Ghio Ong of the Philippine Star reports: A man surrendered to police in Taguig City after killing his two children on Christmas day 2020, a day after his wife’s death. Aiko Siacunco, 28, admitted to strangling his three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son in their room at his father’s house in Barangay North Signal, according to a report sent to city police chief Col. Celso Rodriguez. Rodriguez said Siacunco turned himself in after surviving an attempt to hang himself. Following his surrender, police officers rushed to Siacunco’s room at around 7:30 a.m. and found it in disarray. The floor was covered with unidentified stains and the children’s bodies were lying on a mattress on the floor.

In radio interviews, Rodriguez said Siacunco’s wife, Karina, 28, hung herself on Thursday, a claim that her family denied. Siacunco and his wife, who worked as a call center agent, had been arguing over his failure to find a job since the government imposed a lockdown in March, police said.

This might be a sad outcome of the so-called holiday blues phenomenon. If uncontrolled, emotions can cause the neurons in the brain to go haywire. If not for the pressure the suspect felt for the “happiness and joy” they have to feel during Christmas, he could have stayed sane and accepted the fact that the event will only pass.

Emotions become associated with objects, things, places, time periods, and any other element in your life. Once we have formed an emotional association between an object/scenario/thing, etc. and a psychophysiological state, just by simply sensing (i.e. seeing, hearing, tasting, etc.) it again, the same emotion is often evoked. This is one reason to the “attachments” on the Christmas season. We attach it with food, new clothes, gatherings and other material stuff. And without them, we feel depressed.

It was mentioned a while ago that the event is a religious one. So, the attachments people must have with it should be spiritual activities like going to church and reflecting. It is a Christian event so the activities must be in line with what Christ was presenting like humility and simple living. We have to remember that he was born in a barn, not a hospital. Ergo, not lavish but down-to-earth…

Religious people are happier than those without spirituality in their life, says psychologist Dr Stephen Joseph from the University of Warwick, and those who celebrate the original, Christian, meaning of Christmas are, on the whole, happier than those who primarily celebrate the festive season with consumer gifts.

Research entitled "Religiosity and its association with happiness, purpose in life, and self-actualization" published in Mental Health, Religion & Culture reveals a positive relation between religiosity and happiness. The study also suggests that the reason for this is that religious people are happier because they have more of a sense of purpose in their lives than non-religious people.

Dr Stephen Joseph, from the University of Warwick, said: "Religious people seem to have a greater purpose in life, which is why they are happier. Looking at the research evidence, it seems that those who celebrate the Christian meaning of Christmas are on the whole likely to be happier. Research shows that too much materialism in our lives can be terrible for happiness."

With these facts, it is high time for us to detach materialism from this event since it is basically a spiritual journey. We need to be in step with reality rather than getting stressed with something that we do not have.

As entertaining as it can be to escape daydreams from time to time, there are certain lifestyles, attitudes, and behaviors our society presents as being cool and desirable which are actually far more harmful than they are aspirational (Aggeler, 2017).

Ultimately, we can all be into whatever we choose to be into. But when you're deciding how to build your life and what to fill it with, make sure you're making a decision based on facts, and not some romanticized version of reality.

  

Violent Parenting

 

                                   (image: youtube.com)

Kay uman kun pulis an tatay mo? This can be puzzling. Did she mean that the father must be respected because he is an “authority”? Or is this line related to bad parenting when her idea of respect is only limited to those people with “titles” and the rest of humanity does not deserve respect. In the first place, who displaced disrespect first?

Neil Jayson Servallos of the Philippine Star reported: An off-duty policeman shot dead at point-blank range his elderly female neighbor and her son after an altercation in Paniqui, Tarlac on Sunday (Dec. 20, 2020) afternoon. Police Staff Sgt. Jonel Nuezca, 46, of the Parañaque City Crime Laboratory, later surrendered to the police station in nearby Rosales, Pangasinan after he shot twice in the head Sonya Rufino Gregorio, 52, and her son Frank Anthony, 25. The shooting incident was caught on cell phone camera and has since gone viral on social media.

Another video taken during the incident also showed Nuezca’s daughter shouting that her father was a policeman, a few seconds before shots rang out. In the video, Nuezca shot the victims after the elder Gregorio taunted the suspect’s daughter.

People who saw the video online were horrified and castigated the dastardly act of the policeman. The blaming mutated into something which generalized the PNP as killers which can be unfair but people are emotional and these outbursts are expected to happen.

Gun violence, according to the American Psychological Association, is associated with a confluence of individual, family, school, peer, community, and socio-cultural risk factors that interact over time during childhood and adolescence. Although many youths desist in aggressive and antisocial behavior during late adolescence, others are disproportionately at risk for becoming involved in or otherwise affected by gun violence. The most consistent and powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior.

Prior to the shooting, Jonel Nuezca already had episodes of violence. Two of the cases against Nuezca were of grave misconduct involving homicide. One was dated May 9, 2019, and the other, December 29, 2019. Both cases were “dismissed for lack of substantial evidence,” JC Gotinga reported. In 2016, Nuezca was accused of serious neglect of duty when he allegedly failed to attend a court hearing as a prosecution witness in a case involving illegal drugs. Police involved in the apprehension of drug suspects are supposed to provide witness in court.

With this background, what can we expect of his parenting style? Yes. It is true that any child will be a victim of adult misdeeds and it is not fair to blame her. But what would become of her? Philnews.ph said that a witness said that after the attack the police father put his arm on the shoulder of his daughter or “akbay” and allegedly said, “Mission accomplished baby.” Then they went home and the suspect asked for his helmet from his wife and flew away.

Witnessing violence can lead children to develop an array of age-dependent negative effects. Research in this area has focused on the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional effects of domestic violence. Children who witness violence and children who are abused may display many similar psychological effects (aafp.org).

Some of the men in uniform, specifically the PNP are reacting on the smearing on their image. For them, this is a fallacy of generalization. But history tells a different story.  By late 2016, approximately 9,000 casualties, mostly from the poorest areas of urban Manila, had been ascribed to the war on drugs (Human Rights Watch 2017). In 2018, three Philippine policemen were found guilty of murdering a teenager during a drug sweep — the first conviction of officers in President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly war on drugs. The victim was Kian delos Santos.

In January 2014, the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights (CHR) exposed a secret detention facility in Laguna, a province south of the capital, Manila, in which police officers appeared to be torturing detainees for entertainment. The CHR found a large roulette wheel on which were written descriptions of various torture positions. If the wheel was spun and landed on “30 second bat position”, for example, this meant that the detainee would be hung upside down (like a bat) for 30 seconds. “20 second Manny Pacquiao” meant that a detainee would be punched non-stop for 20 seconds. The existence of such a device, apparently for police officers’ entertainment, clearly demonstrates the casual attitude towards torture within the police force.

Still, we adhere to the belief that there are policemen whose mind, heart and soul are dedicated to serve and protect the people.

But then, we go back to the daughter’s would-be psychological makeup. Children who witness violence or are victims of abuse themselves are at serious risk for long-term physical and mental health problems. Children who witness violence between parents may also be at greater risk of being violent in their future relationships, according to womensheath.gov.

The daughter of Police Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca will undergo counseling following the fatal shooting incident that she witnessed in Paniqui, Tarlac on Sunday (gmanetwork.com).

The fact that people are reacting on such violence presented on different media, it is still our individual roles to raise our voices against senseless killing, violence and bad parenting.

 

 

Romanticizing Calamities

                                        (photo: YouTube.com)

Kibali bibo kun bahaan? A question occurred on the mind of a sane individual as he sees people showing photos making fun out of the flood which recently took place in the vicinity. There were those young people who made fun out of the situation by posting jokes and insensitive comments as the typhoon intensified.

Being an archipelagic country sitting on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Philippines is a hotspot of calamities. In fact, the past year ended with a Typhoon right on Christmas day wrecking regions in the country’s central islands. And in less than a month, Filipinos again faced another catastrophic event to kick-start their New Year, the eruption of Taal Volcano in Batangas after half a decade (Pangilinan, 2020).

To some, there is this portrayal of victims of calamity as resilient and discerning groups. This rosy view of disaster-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful. It allows corporations, governments, and nonprofits to deny this vulnerable population the protections it needs. Romanticizing the poor also hobbles realistic interventions for alleviating poverty.

A lot of people who are also using the social media platforms falls prey on this romanticizing thing. Good for those who make such platforms as sources of information and avenues to facilitate help and rescue but there are those who seem to over-romanticize the events. It is good to be resilient but making disasters as avenues for selfies and posts to gain number of “likes” can be psychologically-skewed.

We also see those who are making the flood look like the worst disaster that happened. Instead of facilitating help, there are some who sends the wrong messages creating anxiety to the families of some in far places. Information can be thwarted, you see…

Jain (2001) said: "Information is power" and it is a catalyst to sustainable development. Complete and correct information to the community is clearly a very important tool to assist in developing a transparent system free of bureaucracy, corruption and general mismanagement of already limited resources.

The role of information and communication changes in emergency situations and can play important role at varied levels based on different needs, Jain continued. Flashing warning news - Incorrect or unreliable information while forecasting the disaster can often result in great damage.

The most effective information dissemination system is community based participatory approach where technical know-how is provided through training to enhance internal capacity of community and local NGO’s of the region. The information and knowledge thus provided enters the system and stays effective in the long run. To accomplish this, the group has now developed an archive of user friendly information packages, which include posters, brochures, pamphlets, information leaflets and training manuals designed for different end users. These include beneficiary families, community workers and site supervisors. These packages include interactive literature in form of user manuals, production manuals, family passbooks, and other documents customized to their needs in regional language (devalt.org).

Legislators and political leaders play a great role in disaster and risk management. In fact, this is one of the competencies the elected officials must have. It was already mentioned that our country is prone to natural calamities and so, the officials must put a lot of premium on this.

Eva (2020) wrote: We see the same things happen over and over again: we weren’t prepared for a disaster, the disaster strikes, and we depend on aid and relief goods with politicians’ names on the plastic bag. It is the inaction from our government that perpetuates the vicious cycle of patronage politics.

BANGON SURIGAO is not just a tagline. It is not only fortifying resiliency. It is in fact a message sent to the local leaders to stand firm and not collapse every now and then when natural calamities strike. A thorough study and recommendations must be in place. The system of disaster preparedness is needed. An orientation on “what to do, when to do and how to do” can empower the vulnerable communities with valuable lifesaving information.

Designing appropriate relief and mitigation projects for natural disasters requires a solid understanding of the magnitude, geographical distribution and frequency of these hazards. This level of information requires both horizontal and vertical flows within the relief providing organizations and from organizations to community. Information is not an end in itself, but a tool to assist the community to organize themselves in the hour of emergency.

After any disaster, there is sudden decline in the confidence of people in traditional / prevailing building systems. The reconstruction phase is considered as a second chance to start afresh with something more "reliable".

Indeed, let us rise from the old beliefs and inefficient ways. The poor will always be the victims of indifference, natural and MAN-MADE calamities.