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Monday, November 07, 2005
Gulle: After death, what?
By Inocentes A. Gulle
Your business is our business
WE JUST celebrated All Souls' Day last week. Everybody went to the cemetery "to honor" the dead relative or loved one. Some say they have to go there lest their departed kin would feel bad and haunt them. Others say the souls of their dead loved ones need to get-together with them, at least once a year as they, the souls, y get very lonely out there.
Does that mean that the souls of the dead have been sitting around in their graves waiting for our visit every year, all those years? That is how all this fuss would amount to, wouldn't it?
Others say the soul of the "good" goes to heaven, the "bad" to hell and the "not-so-bad" to some place between heaven and hell to wait for living relatives to petition for possible reconsideration. I heard that's a rather expensive enterprise.
Still others say the soul would be re-incarnated as another person or even an animal, as the case may be, depending on how good or bad one had been in the previous life.
There are, however, those (communists and adherents of materialism) who believe that when one dies, he's dead, kaput. Such a confusion of divergent ideas and propositions, don't you think so? (I beg the indulgence of the gender-conscious for using the masculine pronoun all the way. It's simply for brevity sake.)
What really happens to the human soul after death? I guess this has been a subject of human speculation since Adam. I suppose, to un-confuse oneself he has simply have to take what the Bible says about it, if he thinks he is a real Christian. Otherwise, he just has to stay confused.
Many passages in the Bible say that the person "sleeps" or "returns to his people" when he dies. But I don't think there's any that says he goes to heaven if he is good. or to hell if bad. There are passages, however, that say something like, "No one has gone to heaven except the one that came from heaven," obviously Jesus Christ. So that settles the issue (for the Christian, anyway) whether one goes straight to heaven, or to hell, after death.
It is also a Christian teaching that Christ was sent by God to be born as a human being, to redeem man from the death penalty, pronounced by God on Adam and all his offspring (us) after violated God's order by eating the forbidden fruit. In the process, Jesus became the model ("the way, the truth and the life") by which man could return to his original place in His grand plan for His creation. Thus, I think all Christians "know" that after resurrection Christ went up to heaven "in the clouds".
The next part has been rather confused by pagan beliefs injected into the contemporary Christian doctrine such that many different denominations have sprung out of the confusion. But if we but stick by the Biblical teaching we'd know that He is coming back (in the clouds) just as he went. As He comes the elect (those who lived by the guidance of God's Holy Spirit) will be resurrected to become immortal. And those that are still alive who have been begotten of the Holy Spirit, shall be changed, instantaneously, from corruptible to incorruptible (from mortal to immortal), and together with the former, shall meet Christ in the clouds and be with him forever wherever He is. (If you care to read them, these passages are found in: Acts 1:9-11; Matt.24:30; I Thess. 4:14-17; Rom. 8-11,14; I Cor. 15:50-54; & John 14:3).
There are parts here that probably need further explanation to make the picture more concrete. We'll try to do that next time we meet here.
Gensan tuna producers slams report
Local tuna producers last week castigated reports a third of tuna canneries in the city are planning to close shop down.
They said the story is a disinformation aimed at discouraging producers from pouring in more capital to the industry.
"That's a hoax. It's not true. The local tuna industry is very alive and kicking. In fact, everybody is expanding," said Marfenio Tan, president of the Socsksargen Federation of Fishing and Allied Industries, Inc.
Tan in fact said local tuna canneries here are operating in full capacity. Local tuna catch has reportedly picked up during the last few months, exceeding the 10,000-metric ton capacity of cold storage plants across the city.
Tan likewise strongly denied that tuna firms here have filed notices with the Department of Labor and Employment that they would cease operations and lay off some 26,000 cannery workers.
The report came from an international wire agency which was carried by local and national newspapers.
But Agence France Presse has mistakenly reported that Mega Fishing, Zamboanga Universal Fishing, Miramar, YL Fishing and Ayala Foods are based in the city.
All the said companies are based in Zamboanga city.
Tan admitted that while rising costs of oil products is the biggest threat to this city's tuna industry, as is with any other industries in the country, local tuna firms here are far from collapsing way beyond the brink of collapse.
The six tuna canneries in this city--Ocean Canning Corp., General Tuna Corp., Philbest Canning Corp, Celebes Canning Corp., Seatrade Canning Corp and Alliance Tuna International--are in fact gearing for the visit of a team from the European Union late this month, according to Tan.
He revealed that local tuna producers here have been expanding their capabilities to meet the strict requirements of the European Union on tuna products entering member countries.
Tan said that after the wire report hit the international market, his office was bombarded with inquiries from clients in the different parts of the globe.
"One of my staff just arrived from a tuna trade fair in Germany and the participants were talking about the reported closure of tuna canneries in this city," he added.
Secretary Sto. Tomas had appealed to the five companies in Zambonga City to adopt more flexible work hours instead of closing shops to save jobs.
Earlier, the five firms announced a temporary shut down from four to six months beginning November 2005.
'Bahalina' producers eye slice of liquor industry
GLAN, Sarangani -- The art of coconut wine making is not lost at all after all those decades of being bombarded with commercially-branded intoxicating beverages.
In fact, a group of backyard producers here, with the support of the local government and concerned agencies, have recently banded in a bid to at least earn a pie of the liquor industry's cheap-end category.
They hope to vie for a market slice through "bahalina," an alcoholic beverage produced from coconut, the "Tree of Life."
Mayor Enrique Yap, Jr. said several residents have formed a group called Bahalina Producers Association in an effort to consolidate to finally penetrate the local beverage industry.
"This is a positive step in the town's quest to make bahalina known not just in nearby areas but across the nation as well. Hopefully, bahalina from Glan will also become popular in the international market," he said.
Records from the municipal planning and development office showed that the land planted with coconuts reached 33,192 hectares. Copra production, coconut's main product depended on by the residents, in the town yields at least 52,532 tons a year, it added.
(November 7, 2005 issue)
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