Inventing Letters Along the Way

STRESS got you when you begin to think that everything is a matter of life and death. For this, Natalie Goldberg explained in her book, Wild Mind (1990): “Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.”

The International Labor Office (ILO) issued on April 28—in time for the World Day for Safety and Health at Work—a report entitled, “The Emerging Risks and New Patterns of Prevention in a Changing World of Work,” that noted significant changes in the patterns of employment in the recent decades and had a hand in emerging new risks that affect the workforce. These risks include work restructuring, downsizing, subcontracting and outsourcing, all making it harder for workers to achieve balance between healthy life and productive work.

In countries like the Philippines, with populations working in precarious employment status, people accept jobs with low occupational safety and health (OSH) standards, low wages, and poor working conditions.

A study conducted by Michael Hilton and Harvey Whiteford of the University of Queensland School of Population Health in Herston (Australia)—it involved 11,259 employees (60 percent female) and six employers—found... [Read more.]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 2 February 2011.

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POST-PRESS: Narcissistic Disorder, Ground for Annulment

On 20 May 2011 (Friday), the First Division of the Philippine Court of Appeals dismissed the plea that Julie Balarbar, wife of 15 years of House Deputy Speaker Lorenzo Tañada III, filed questioning the November 25, 2010 decision of the Makati Regional Court declaring the marriage null and void on the ground that Balarbar had been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Pyschiatric evaluation show a diagnosis of NPD with anti-social features, from her involvement in a shoplifting incident, her closeness to and trips abroad with her male students, and a kissing incident with a co-professor. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder Fourth Edition (DSM IV-TR) enumerated nine indicators of NPD, with only five of them needed for the diagnosis. It is not clear however which indicators have been found in the case of the Tañada annulment case. The Archdiocese of Manila also declared their canonical marriage void ab initio (void from the start) due to "gra

Omicron Updates

(Source: Penzit, 2015) UNITED KINGDOM As of 29 December 2021, the UK Health Security Agency reported the current status of its Omicron cases under emergency care. The lowest emergency admission rate is among those who received one dose of vaccine up to 21 days before specimen date: 0.1%. However, the overall rate for vaccinated individuals was very high at 72.5%. The unvaccinated emergency admission rate was 25.3%. (Source: SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern and Variants under Investigation in England , 31 December 2021, page 8)

Death By Heat Stroke in the Philippines

The hotter and earlier-onset El Niño phenomenon this year 2010 poses a threat to the Filipino lives. How much life it took? See incidence that reached the news. UPDATE On 19 May 2010, candidate army soldier Ericson Pascua (22) came on his first day of training in Isabela when he collapsed after a series of strenous exercise. Although rushed to the hospital immediately, he died shortly afterwards (around 11 a.m.) due to heat stroke. That day Isabela peaked at 38.2 degrees Celsius. Sixteen others were rushed to the hospital for dehydration and heat exhaustion. (Check report ) On 28 April 2010, a veteran Cavite cop, PO3 Florencio Gamana Alivio (48), succumbed to cardiac arrest as a result to heatstroke while having tae bo with his colleagues at the Cavite Police Provincial Office (CPPO) grounds in Camp General Pantaleon. He reached the Imus MEdical Center but pronounced dead at 5:15 PM. (Check report ) In Batangas, former governor Amando Sanchez (57)died on April 27 (Wednesday), a

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