Chocolate we eat on Christmas

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.” Charles M. Schulz

By Alex P. Vidal

IS too much chocolate-eating dangerous to our health?

Can it cause diabetes and obesity as feared?

Over-eating of chocolate can be tantamount to slow motion suicide, although it contains health benefits if we eat moderately.

Some of the health benefits of chocolate are:

--Cacao, the source of chocolate, contains antibacterial agents that fight tooth decay. However, chocolate with high sugar content will negate this benefit, according to Cocosymposium. Dark chocolate contains significantly higher amounts of cacao and lower amounts of sugar than white chocolate, making it more healthful.

--The smell of chocolate may increase theta brain waves, resulting in relaxation.

--Chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine, a mild mood elevator.

--The cocoa butter in chocolate contains oleic acid, a mono-unsaturated fat which can raise good cholesterol.

--Men who eat chocolate regularly live on average one year longer than those who don’t.

--The flavanoids in chocolate help keep blood vessels elastic.

--Chocolate increases antioxidant levels in the blood.

--The carbohydrates in chocolate raise serotonin levels in the brain, resulting in a sense of well-being.

The health risks of chocolate are:

--Chocolate may contribute to lower bone density.

--Chocolate can trigger headaches in migraine sufferers.

--Milk chocolate is high in calories, saturated fat and sugar.

--Chocolate is a danger to pets (chocolate contains a stimulant called theobromine, which animals are unable to digest).

TIME

Christmas is a time for eating chocolate.

Consumption has come a long way since the first “eating” chocolate was introduced in England by the Bristol firm of Fry and Sons in 1847.

Much debate and mythology surround people’s craving for this confection, which has been blamed on depression, the menstrual cycle, sensory gratification, or some of the 300 plus chemicals that it contains.

The sensuous properties of chocolate depend on the fat it contains.

Roger Highfield explains in The Physics of Christmas that  

Cocoa butter can solidify in half a dozen different forms, each of which has a different effect on “mouthfeel” and palatability.

Form V predominates in the best chocolate, making it glossy and melt in the mouth.

Unlike other plant edible fats, which are usually oils, Highfiled explains that cocoa butter is enriched in saturated fatty acids so that it is solid under normal conditions and has a sharp melting point of around 34C, just below the temperature.

Heat is absorbed when this occurs, giving a sensation of coolness on the tongue.

“Another reason we like chocolate is the stimulatory effects of caffeine and related chemicals. Every 100 grams of chocolates contain 5 milligrams of methylxanthine and 160 milligrams of theobromine (named after the cocoa tree, whose botanical name, Theobroma cocoa, means “food of the gods”). Both are caffeinelike substances,” Highfield points out.

Originally, chocolate was a stimulating drink. The name is derived from the Aztec word xocalatl, meaning “bitter water.”

PHYSICIAN

In the 17^th century a physician from Peru wrote how it is “good for soldiers who are on guard.”

Highfield stresses that indeed, some people have suggested that it was Casanova’s favorite bedtime drink—to give him a boost when he needed it.

Medical textbooks do note, however, that when taken in large quantities, these stimulants can induce nausea and vomiting.

This effect can also be observed in children (and others) who of overindulge on Christmas Day.

He cites that every 100 grams of chocolate also contains 660 milligrams of phenylethylamine, a chemical relative of amphetamines, which has been shown to produce a feeling of well-being and alertness.

“This may be why some people binge on the stuff after an upsetting experience—or perhaps to cope with the stress of Christmas shopping,” Highfield theorizes.

He also observes the following:

-Phenylethylamine may trigger the release of dopamine, a messenger chemical in the brain that plays a role in the “reward pathway” that governs our urge to eat or have sex.

-Phenylethylamine raises blood pressure and heart rate, and heightens sensation and blood glucose levels, leading to the suggestion that chocoholics “self-medicate” because they have a faulty mechanism for controlling the body’s level of the substance.

However, if a person consumes too much phenylethylamine or has an inability to remove it due to the lack of a key enzyme (monoamine oxidase), blood vessels in the brain constrict, causing a migraine, according to Highfield.

CANNABIS

More recently, it has been found that chocolate also contains substances that can act like cannabis on the brain, intensifying its other pleasurable effects.

Highfield says three substances from the N-acylethanolamine group of chemicals can mimic the euphoric effects of cannabis, according to a study by Daniele Piomelli, Emmanuelle di Tomaso, and Massimiliano Beltramo of the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego.

Their works date back in 1990, when scientists found a site in the brain that responds to cannabinoids, the class of compounds that include the active ingredient in cannabis.

Recently they have discovered the specific substances in the brain that bind to this site. One is a fatty molecule dubbed anandamide after the Sanskrit word for “bliss.”

Piomelli investigated chocolate, which is rich in fat, because he correctly suspected that it might contain lipids related to anandamide.

Piomelli was first inspired to look into the mood-altering effects of chocolate when he became addicted to the stuff one gray winter in Paris.

Now that he has moved to California, which is as sunny as his homeland of Italy, he is no longer a chocoholic.

We pray amid poverty in Christmas

“Silent night! Holy night! Guiding star, lend thy light!” J. MOIER

By Alex P. Vidal

CAN prayers save us from poverty?

Will there be a miracle if we pray hard for gifts and for Santa Claus and his reindeer to knock on our doors this Christmas season?

Francis Galton, the progenitor of human genetics, said in his 1872 Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer, that he could find no evidence that prayer is effective.

Galton found no scientific grounds for believing that prayers are answered.

But he conceded that “prayer can strengthen resolve and relieve distress.”  

Because of poverty, many of us continue to find it increasingly impossible to enjoy “the most exciting season of the year”, the season that carries a strong emotional resonance for many Filipinos.

We continue to pray nonetheless.

We believe that “prayers can move mountains,” as the saying goes.

As obedient Christians, we continue to follow the church-mandated traditions on how to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas is probably ideal only for those who don’t have a daily bout with financial difficulties. 

Many people now begin to believe and realize that society celebrates the so-called season of the birth of Christ heavily from the commercial point of view.

We equate Christmas with material possessions.

When think of gifts, decorations, parties, wines, caroling, merrymaking, vacation, etcetera, we think of extra funds and extra expenses.

MONEY

Christmas has become synonymous to expenses and money.

Without extra funds, many Christians tend to develop a morbid feeling of insecurity and inadequacy.

How can one actively take part in Christmas parties and gift-giving binges if he does not even have enough to buy a decent meal for his family?

However, we can always celebrate the Yuletide season on a different perspective: embracing the spirits of love, humility, simplicity, forgiveness, hope and understanding.

Expecting nothing and continue living a simple life is a key to overcoming anxiety, stress, emotional and mental anguishes if we don’t have economic capacity and abundance in life.

A very interesting piece about science and Christmas has rekindled the debate whether the scientific worldview somehow undermine the religious beliefs that are the basis of Christmas for so many people.

Science has been viewed suspiciously as a force that turned people away from God ever since 1916, according to Roger Highfield, author of The Physics of Christmas.

In that year, an oft-cited survey by James Leuba of Bryn Mawr University found that 60 percent of American scientist did not believe in God.

Highfiled revealed that the finding caused a scandal at that time, prompting warnings from politicians about the evils of modernism and accusations that scientists were leading college students away from religion.

PREDICT

Leuba himself predicted that disbelief among scientists would only increase in the future.

“But research conducted recently, repeating the 1916 survey word for word, has proven Leuba wrong,” Highfield contends. “The proportion of scientists who believe in God has remained almost unchanged in the past eight years, despite the enormous leaps of discovery made during this century.”

Highfield cited Edward Larson, from the University of Georgia, and Larson’s colleague Larry Witham, from Burtonsville, Maryland, who questioned 600 scientists listed in the 1995 edition of American Men and Women of Science.

It reportedly achieved the same results as Leuba: about 40 percent of scientists believe in God.

“The future of Christmas and Hanukkah in our increasingly technological age seems assured,” concludes Highfield.  

Drug lords Co, et al won’t name Iloilo, Bacolod cohorts

“I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money.” DAVID LEE ROTH

By Alex P. Vidal

EVEN if they will kill him, authorities can’t force big time drug lord Peter Co to name his associates in various regions all over the country, even if he and 19 other fellow drug lords have been transferred from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) headquarters.

Veteran drug lords like Co are trained not to rat against their partners even if they have been cornered by authorities.

If they do, the consequences are fatal: they are usually liquidated by their own partners.

Several days after Co, et al have been caught living in extravagant lifestyle in their kubols, authorities still failed to extract damning evidence that would pin down the drug lords’ cohorts operating in various parts of the country.

NBA agents confiscated from Co’s kubol several dollar bills, high-powered firearms, shabu and drugs paraphernalia during a joint raid conducted by the NBI and the Department of Justice on December 15.

BIG TIME

Peter Co, Hans Chua, and Tony Co are reportedly among the most big time drug lords in the country detained at the national penitentiary.

The raid reportedly confirmed reports that they have been continuing with their illegal activities in cahoots with corrupt jail guards and some Bureau of Correction (BuCor) officials.

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Region 6 Director Paul Ledesma has confirmed that some of the major supplies of shabu being peddled in Western Visayas came from the National Bilibid Prison.

Ledesma knows that drug lords in “Munti” have links with drug pushers in Western Visayas.

Ledesma believes that the raid would affect the supplies of shabu in Western Visayas, which includes Iloilo, Bacolod, Guimaras, Capiz, Aklan, and Antique.

If “Munti” is the source of the big chunk of shabu that supplies drug addicts in the region, does it mean that a shabu laboratory exists inside the country’s premier rehabilitation center?

Or probably the drug lords, using their communication gadgets, operated the shabu business by a long distance—meaning the laboratories could be located in secret places far away from the Bilibid.

PINPOINT

Ledesma has pinpointed Peter Co as the contact persons of drug suppliers in the region.

They are expected to subject him in a thorough interrogation under the NBI custody, but they can never make him confess that he was still doing his illegal business while behind bars.

In a recent interview over DyRI RMN-Iloilo, Ledesma predicted a “domino effect.”

“(but) It will not be immediate. We also have to consider that they still have stocks,” Ledesma said.

“It’s just a matter of time…either mapangdakop namon ang mga pushers or maubos baligya ang supply sa mga retailers. Siguro ang mga replenishment or transactions in the future ang maapektuhan sang scarcity.”

With his vast knowledge of what had been going on in the Bilibid, Ledesma and the entire PDEA should have intercepted some of the major deals undertaken by the drug lords with their Western Visayas contacts even before the NBI and DOJ raid last December 15.

Why did they fail to monitor the deals when it was easier for them then to clamp down on the drug lords’ clandestine operations inside a state-run jail?

Let’s write the way we talk

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Benjamin Franklin

By Alex P. Vidal

WE should talk the way we write, or write the way we talk.

Both talking and writing are the most effective means of communication.

As an active community journalist, I have come to realize that it’s not enough that we write, we must also talk or write the way we talk vice versa.

Writing consultant Rudolf Flesch, creator of Flesch-Kincaid readability test, once lamented that 99 percent of the people who come to his writing classes were born non-writers and have stayed that way all their lives.

He observes that for them, writing has always been an unpleasant chore; answering a simple letter looms ahead like a visit to the dentist.

“But they have to do a certain amount of writing in their careers,” Flesch writes in Word Power. “And knowing their writing was poor, they decided to do something about it.”

No doubt when we think about improving our writing, we think of grammar, rhetoric, composition,--and all those dull things we learned year after year in school.

“But most likely,” Flesch points out, “these things are not your problem. You probably have a pretty good grip on these essentials. What you need is instruction in the basic principles of professional writing.”

Why professional writing? Because we now write as we did in school, unconsciously trying to please the teacher by following the rules of “English Composition.”

“You’re not really writing a letter to the addressee, or a report for your vice president,” Flesch contends. “The pros-magazine writers, newspapermen, novelists, people who write for a living—learned long ago that they must use “spoken” English and avoid “written” English like the plague.

SECRET

The Austrian-born author of Why Johnny Can't Read, enumerates the following:

TALK ON PAPER. The secret to more effective writing is simple: talk to your reader. Pretend the person who’ll read your letter or report is sitting across from you, or that you are on the phone with him. Be informal. Relax. Talk in your ordinary voice, your ordinary manner, vocabulary, accent and expression.

You wouldn’t say “Please be advised,” or “We wish to inform you.” Instead, something like this, “You see, it’s like this,” or “Let me explain this.” One helpful trick is to imagine yourself talking to your reader across a table at launch. Punctuate your sentence in your mind, with a bite from a sandwich. Intersperse your thoughts with an occasional “you know,” or the person’s name.

So talk-talk on paper. Go over what you’ve written. Does it look and sound like talk? If not, change it until it does.

USE CONTRACTIONS FREELY. There’s nothing more important for improving your writing style. Use of don’t and it’s and haven’t and theirs is the No. 1 style device of modern professional writing. Once you’ve learned this basic trick, you can start producing prose that will be clear, informal and effective.

Take the standard opening phrase: “Enclosed please find.” What’s a better way o saying that? Simply, here’s”!*

LEAVE OUT THE WORD “THAT” WHENEVER POSSIBLE. You can often omit it without changing the meaning at all. Take this sentence: “We suggest that you send us your passbook once a year.” Now strike out that. Isn’t this better and smoother? Again, this is something we do all the time in speaking.

And while you’re crossing out thats, also go on a which hunt. For some reason people think which is a more elegant pronoun. Wrong. Usually you can replace which by that, or leave it out altogether—and you’ll get a better, more fluent, more “spoken” sentence.

USE DIRECT QUESTIONS. A conversation is not one-sided. One person speaks, then the other interrupts, often with a question, like “Really?” or “Then what?” A conversation without questions is almost inconceivable. So use a question whenever there’s an opportunity, and your writing will sound more like talk.

You don’t have to go out of your way to do this. Look at what you write and you’ll find indirect questions—beginning with whether all over the place. “Please determine whether payment against these receipts will be in order.” No good. Make it: “Can we pay against these receipts? Please find out and let us know.”

Or take another sentence: “Your questions and comments are invited.” Again, this is really a question: “Do you have any questions or comments? If so, please let us know.” There’s nothing like a direct question to get some feedback.

PERSONAL

USE PERSONAL PRONOUNS. A speaker use I, we and you incessantly—they’re part of the give-and-take of conversation. Everybody, it seems, who writes for a company or organization clings desperately to the passive voice and avoids talking the slightest responsibility. He doesn’t say we, never says I, and he even avoids using the straightforward you. So we find phrases like “It is assumed…” “it will be seen…” “it is recommended…” Or sentences like: “An investigation is being made and upon its completion a report will be furnished you.” Instead, write: “We’ve made an investigation and we’ll furnish you a report.”

Normally, when writing for an organization, there isn’t too much opportunity to say “I.” But do use “I” whenever you express feelings and thoughts that are your own. Often it’s better to say “I’m sorry” or “we’re pleased,” than “we’re sorry” or “we’re pleased.” And call the addressee you. The idea is to make your writing as personal as possible.

IT’S ALL RIGHT TO PUT PREPOSITIONS AT THE END. For 50 years, English-language experts have unanimously insisted that a preposition at the end is fine and dandy. H.W. Fowler, in a Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 1926, defends it enthusiastically and cites examples from Shakespeare and the Bible to Thackeray and Kipling. Yet schoolteachers still tell pupils they should never commit such a wicked crime.

Put the preposition at the end whenever it sounds right to do so. Instead of “The claimant is not entitled to the benefits for which he applied,” write “The claimant isn’t entitled to the benefits he applied for.”

Remember, grammatical superstitions are something to get rid of.

SPILL THE BEANS. There’s a natural tendency in all of us to begin at the beginning and go on to the end. When you write a letter, it’s the easiest way to organize your material. The trouble is, it’s hard on the reader. He has a problem, or a question, and wants to know whether the answer is yes or no. If he has to wait until you’re willing to tell him, his impatience and subconscious resentment will increase with every word. Rather than stumbling your way through some awkward introduction, start right in with the most important thing you want to get cross.

USE SHORT WORDS. Long, pompous words are a curse, a curtain that comes between writer and reader. Here are some familiar sayings as they would appear in a business letter. “In the event that initially you fail to succeed, endeavor, endeavor again.” “All is well that terminate well.”

Everybody has his own pet pomposities. Banish them from your vocabulary. Replace locate with find; prior to with before; sufficient with enough; in the event that with if. After those simple substitutions, weed out such other words as determine, facilitate and require whenever they up. You’ll find that it’s possible to live without them. And you’ll learn to appreciate the joys of simple language.

PEOPLE

WRITE FOR PEOPLE. By far the most important thing is to give your letters just the right human touch. Express your natural feelings. If it’s good news, say you’re glad; if it’s bad news, say you’re sorry. Be as courteous, polite and interested as you’d be if the addressee sat in front of you. Some human being will read your letter and, consciously be annoyed if it is cold, pleased if you’re courteous and friendly.

A bank got a letter from a customer who’d moved from New York to Bermuda. He wrote to make new arrangements about his account. The bank’s answer started: “We thank you for your letter advising us of your change of address.” Now really! How stony and unfeeling can you get?  I would at least have said something like “I noted your new address with envy.”

Flesch suggests: “You’ll find there are rewards for improving your written work. This is the age of large organizations where it’s easier to catch the eye of a superior by what you write than by what you say or do.”

He adds: “Write the way I suggest and your stuff will stand out. Beyond the material rewards are more personal ones. When you write a particularly crisp, elegant paragraph, or a letter that conveys your thoughts clearly and simply, you’ll feel a flow of creative achievement. Treasure it. It is something you’ve earned.” 

Graciano Lopez Jaena inspires Ilonggo journalists

“When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.” Tecumseh

By Alex P. Vidal

The reason why Ilonggos are so proud and probably the most-inspired journalists in the country in this generation, is because of Graciano Lopez Jaena.

Could the son of Jaro, Iloilo City, who died in poverty, have been swallowed by the prevailing system that decimates the moral fiber of many enterprising journalists had he lived in today’s generation?  

Born on December 18, 1856 and died on January 20, 1896, Lopez Jaena was not only an outstanding journalist, but was also an orator at par with the country’s and even the Asia’s best.

As the first ilustrado to arrive in Spain where he started the Propaganda Movement against our Spanish colonizers, Lopez Jaena became revolutionary when he formed a triumvirate with Dr. Jose Rizal and Marcel H. del Pilar.

But he became well known for his newspaper, La Solidarid.

No wonder contemporary journalists in Iloilo today flood the Western Visayas community with newspapers.

Almost every freedom-loving and lovers of letters and literature want to become newspapermen or to own and manage their own newspaper in the Ilonggo-speaking populace.

It runs in the Ilonggo blood.

Before he became famous, Lopez Jaena was first sent by his parents to study at St. Vincent Ferrer Seminary in Jaro which had been opened under the administration of Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre y Nava Cerrada.

In the seminary, he served as a secretary to Claudio Lopez, his uncle who was the honorary vice consul of Portugal in Iloilo.

But he had ambition to become a physician. Lopez Jaena convinced his parents that he needed to enroll in a university in Manila.

ADMISSION

He was denied admission at the University of Santo Tomas because he did not have a Bachelor of Arts degree when he was at the seminary in Jaro.

Lopez Jaena was appointed to the San Juan de Dios Hospital as an apprentice.

He eventually dropped out due to financial difficulties and returned to Iloilo.

His assimilation with the poor ignited his feelings about the injustices common in that era.

Lopez Jaena’s potentials as a reformer and writer became apparent at the age of 18 when he wrote the satirical story "Fray Botod" which depicted a fat and lecherous priest.

Lopez Jaena ribbed Fray Botod’s false piety which "always had the Virgin and God on his lips no matter how unjust and underhanded his acts are."

The story was not published, but a copy circulated widely in Iloilo. The infuriated friars could not prove that Lopez Jaena was the author, thus he became off the hook, so to speak, temporarily.

The son of Jaro refused to testify that certain prisoners died of natural causes when it was obvious that they had died at the hands of the mayor of Pototan town, thus he was pilloried.

He continued to agitate for justice. When he received threats on his life, he sailed to Spain in 1879, where he pursued the Propaganda Movement.

LAND

In the land of our colonizers, Lopez Janea became a leading writer, propagandist, and speaker for reform of the homeland.

He finally pursued his medical studies at the University of Valencia but did not finish, thus incurring the ire of Rizal.

Lopez Jaena defended why he did not finish his medical studies by saying, "On the shoulders of slaves should not rest a doctor's cape."

"The shoulders do not honor the doctor's cape, but the doctor's cape honors the shoulders," Rizal intoned.

The national hero died of tuberculosis in poverty on January 20, 1896, 11 months short of his 40th birthday.

He was buried in an unmarked grave at the Cementerio del Sub-Oeste of Barcelona the following day.

Marcelo H. del Pilar's death followed on July 4. Rizal was killed on December 30 by firing squad in Bagumbayan.

Their deaths ended the great triumvirate of Filipino propagandists, but their works contributed in the liberation of their compatriots from the Spanish colony.

Lopez Jaena’s remains have not been brought back to the Philippines.

We commemorate Lopez Jaena’s 158^th birth anniversary on December 18, 2014, an official holiday in the entire island of Panay.

Thank you, William Shakespeare

“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.” 
William Shakespeare

By Alex P. Vidal

WE should credit the unscrupulous publishers who published the 18 unauthorized versions of William Shakespeare’s plays, made some money perhaps, and managed to get away with their shenanigans.

We understand there were no copyright laws protecting Shakespeare and his works during the Elizabethan era, thus his plays were reportedly published in quarto editions.

Shakespeare never published any of his plays and therefore none of the original manuscripts have survived, it was learned.

According to william-shakespaere.info, a collection of his works did not appear until 1623 (a full seven years after Shakespeare's death on April 23, 1616) when two of his fellow actors, John Hemminges and Henry Condell, posthumously recorded his work and published 36 of William’s plays in the First Folio.

Some dates are therefore approximate other dates are substantiated by historical events, records of performances and the dates plays appeared in print, it was learned further.

QUOTABLE

Writer Guy Wright believes Shakespeare is the most quotable playwright and poet in the world until this generation.

“I doubt that there’s anyone reading this who goes through a normal day’s conversation without quoting Shakespeare,” Wright writes in Word Power.

“Once in a while we realize we are doing this,” he adds, “but most of the time we lift his lines to season our speech and sharpen our opinions without the slightest thought of the source.”

Wright cited the examples below:

When you call a man a “rotten apple,” a “blinking idiot” or a “popinjay”…When you say he “bears a charmed life” or is “hoist with his own petard”…When you proclaim him “a man of few words”…

COMFORT

When you speak of “old comfort,” “grim necessity,” “bag and baggage,” the “mind’s eye,” “holding your tongue,” “suiting the action to the words”…

When you refer to your “salad days” or “heart of hearts”…

When you deplore “the beginning of the end,” “life’s uncertain voyage” or “the unkindest cut of all”…

“By golly, you’re quoting Shakespeare,” hisses Wright.

Here are more:

When you use such expressions as “poor but honest,” “one fell swoop,” “as luck would have it,” “the short and the long of it,” “neither here nor there,” “what’s done is done”…

When you say something “smells to heaven” or is “Greek to me,” or it’s a “mad world” or “not in my book”…

COMPLAIN

When you complain that you “haven’t slept a wink” or that your family is “eating you out of house and home,” or you’ve “seen better days”…

When you speak of a coward “showing his heels” or having “no stomach for a fight”…

When you nod wisely and say, “Love is blind”…or “Truth will come to light”…or “The world is my oyster”…

“You are borrowing your bon mot from the Bard. Shakespeare was the greatest cliché inventor of all time,” Wright explains. “Without him to put the words in our mouths, we would be virtually tongue-tied, and the English language would have a lean and hungry look.”

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Defensor’s Hemingway Solution to MIWD vacuum

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” 

John Quincy Adams

By Alex P. Vidal

ILOILO Governor Arthur Defensor Sr.’s use of authority and influence to arrest the impending vacuum at the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) Board of Directors can be called as the Hemingway Solution.

Defensor has installed Dr. Teodoro Robles and Architect Ramon Victor Singson as new members of the MIWD board.

Robles, president of the Central Philippine University (CPU), will represent the academe sector, while Singson of the Rotary Club of La Paz, will represent the civic sector.

The appointment came in the heels of the resignations of Engr. Adrian Moncada and Bernadette Castellano.

The duo informed Defensor in a letter dated November 28, 2014 that they will serve the MIWD only until December 31, 2014.

Moncada represented the professional sector, while Castellano represented the women sector.

Their terms should have expired on December 31, 2016.

Robles, who will replace MIWD Chairman of the Board, Dr. Danilo Encarnacion, and Singson, who will replace Dr. Sergio Gonzalez, will officially join the water utility family on January 1, 2015 until December 31, 2020.

Encarnacion’s and Gonzalez’s terms will expire on December 31, 2014.

Defensor will fill up the posts vacated by Moncada and Castellano from the list of nominees to be submitted by Corporate Secretary Cyril Regalado.

It has always been the dilemma every leader faces at one time or another whether to use authority or influence in directing an organization.

AUTHORITY

As appointing official, Defensor’s authority gives him power to force change, to set goals for an organization or standards of performance, and demand that they be met.

Influence gives Defensor power in a different way.

Time magazine highlights the difference between authority and influence: “To have influence is to gain assent, not just obedience; to attract a following not just an entourage; to have imitators, not just subordinates.”

Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is a classic that better demonstrates the difference between authority and influence.

It is a product of Hemingway’s interest and involvement in the Spanish Civil War.

The book focuses on man’s fate as he faces the difficult problems of living in the Industrial Era.

It closely scrutinizes the dramatic human issues of turning around a troubled organization like the MIWD, enabling leaders to understand better the differences between authority and influence, two of the most important tools of the leader.

STRATEGY

As a leadership strategy, Defensor’s influence requires a willingness to guide--not command--employees.

It takes times and patience in the case of the MIWD.

It involves the nurturing of an organizational culture in which employees are the initiators of change because they see the need for it.

Influence empowers employees and in the process, empowers the organization.

“I will not be pressured. Arthur Defensor cannot be bought. I will appoint people whom we believe will serve to the welfare and development of the city and province of Iloilo,” the governor recently vowed.

“Nobody can dictate me on what to do. Even the President, if I believe that he is wrong, I will not follow him.”