A Haven for Books: A Niche for Communion

In the morning of June 27, 1998, due to a storm, the New Haven River overran its bank and pummeled the small village of Vermont. For the villagers, it was really a disaster. But what really put the villagers of Vermont into the deep abyss of loneliness, according to Chris Bohjalian, a resident of Vermont village and a contributor in Reader’s Digest, was the lost of their village library—a library that used to be the haven most especially for Vermont literature. The loss of their library, according to Bohjalian, had also become the loss of one of their niche for communion.

With the villagers of Vermont, I also believe that library is a treasure. It is a resository of knowledge, wisdom, history, culture, belief, way of life, and most especially, of relationship—be it a reader-book relationship or reader-reader relationship. In connection with this, in our ‘age of internet,’ library still remains as one of the few places that can bring us together.

Given this reality, as readers, how much do we love our libraries? Do we really hunger and thirst for the gift of library to us?

TB: Out of Control

In the article “TB: Out of Control,” of Tan Suat Lian in the Reader’s Digest dated October 1999, he stated that Asia is considered as the tuberculosis (TB) capital of the world. More than a million Asians were diagnosed and were killed by it. It is really an epidemic in most poor countries, e.g. India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Philippines. Considered as the number one infectious-disease killer in the world, Lian said that it is caused by a bacterium—the mycobacterium tuberculosis—that is common in poor social environment due to malnutrition and poor ventilation. And though it is curable, Lian wrote that doctors find it out of control due to inadequate health facilities and poor patient compliance.

Put in the Philippine context, I agree that TB is really out of control in our country. It is now considered as one of the country’s worst silent-infectious-disease killers. With my observation, in line with Lian’s thoughts, I really find it hard to control this problem especially with our present situation. First, we have inadequate health facilities. I agree with Lian’s suggestion that we should start upgrading our clinics, equipment and laboratories, and to conduct proper staff training.

The second reason why it’s hard to control TB is poor patient’s compliance. Discipline is also needed in our advocacy against TB. Thus, the patients must also be faithful to their medication.
The advocacy against TB is not only a responsibility of medicine, or a project of the government, or the duty of the patients. The advocacy against TB is a call for consensus. We are all invited to give our share—to battle against it, to control it.

The Beauty of Reading

Television, VCD, DVD, youtube…most of us are very much addicted in watching that we tend to forget and to neglect the beauty of reading. Many of us love instants that we find reading books boring and a waste of time. But what is really there that makes reading beautiful?

Reading is one of the best roads towards learning. It is very much informative and at the same time refreshing and enjoyable. Reading is also a good teacher in a way that it could widen our horizon in terms of insights, vocabulary, grammar, techniques in writing, and the likes. It is also a good tool in harnessing our imagination. Unlike watching, where we are just absorbing images, in reading we will be enhanced and be trained to transform words into flesh in our mind. These are just some of the factors that make reading beautiful, enjoyable, and powerful.

Reading is not a waste of time. It is not a burden. Reading is a journey into the world named LEARNING.