Glasses

There are some among us whose problems with their vision become apparent very early in their lives. Fortunately, they are but a small percentage of the population. Nevertheless, those whose conditions were diagnosed and who had the means had glasses fashioned so that they could go about their lives normally.

Most of those who wear glasses early in their lives have really bad problems with their vision, otherwise these would not been diagnosed. Nature helps correct vision problems in childhood, and those who had problems but did not wear glasses would outgrow the complication, benefiting from the body’s correction of the vision problem.

However, many who start wearing glasses early in their lives would continue to wear these throughout their lives, as glasses were never designed to correct the underlying cause of the vision problem, but merely to correct the refractive error in our eyes. In fact, there are many who say that glasses are harmful to the eyes. Once one begins wearing glasses, one becomes prone to straining the eyes to overcompensate when the objects being viewed are nearer or farther than the distance that the glasses were fitted for.

There is contention that it would be wiser not to wear glasses at all, and the eyes would naturally turn toward normalcy.

The reason why more and more of us need glasses in these times is because while working, we need to look at things closely for extended periods of time, thus eventually causing our eyeballs to somehow physically deform according to the focus needed in the extended viewing.

Thus professions that need reading or looking at computer monitors for extended periods tend to need glasses after a time.

The suggestion for people in such jobs or vocations is for them to somehow break the pattern by stopping every once in a while and focus on farther objects, so that the eyes retain their flexibility.

Unfortunately for most of us, that option is not available, specially if we are engrossed in what we are doing. Therefore many would need glasses.

The use of glasses is certainly helpful, for then we could read easier. However, they remain harmful, for beyond or closer than the reading distance that glasses were fitted for, our eyes are forced to compensate for the discrepancy. And the longer we wear glasses in the same close work conditions, the more the eyes would be exposed to an abnormal situation, reinforcing the initial problem.

In modern and post-modern times, glasses and other vision correction items like contact lenses became common. What is however disregarded is that there are no studies that have established that glasses are not harmful. This is because glasses were being used way before the modern and post-modern practice of requiring products to be tested for their safety before these were made available to the public. So we continue to wear glasses, even though we could say with some certainty that these are more harmful than beneficial.

Vision problems in earlier more simpler times, or in simpler societies, are mostly associated with the aging process. Eyesight problems occur mostly when people get old. Yet not all old people would develop eyesight problems in these societies.

Sadly for most of humanity, we have forsaken that simplicity, and so more and more of us would wear corrective lenses. And once we begin doing so, would inflict progressive myopia upon our unlucky eyes.

I am no doctor, but I now write about glasses and vision problems. It is because I misplaced my glasses (perhaps another sign of aging), and am typing this while looking at a blurred computer screen. I leave it to my spelling and grammar checker to correct whatever errors I commit, beyond the usual convoluted nonsense that I normally churn out.

If errors survive after editing, I beg understanding from the reader.

 

For the nth time, peeved over fuel prices

The Philippines is continually in a fuel crisis.

The recent social and political disturbances in Northern Africa and around the Arabian Gulf has only made things worse. The situation has deteriorated not because there is a shortage of supply, or an increase in demand, as “economists” would sure to allude to. Prices have skyrocketed to its present levels because oil, from the producing countries to the distributors, say that petroleum prices should increase because of the troubles in Libya and the Gulf. Prices have risen because speculators in oil trading and in the global stock markets, like to take advantage of the troubles and make humongous profits. By feeding the illusion that indeed prices have to rise on account of the social and political troubles in Africa and the Gulf, the price of their stock would likewise rise.

When the stock prices plateau or peak, these speculators would divest themselves of these. After the troubles simmer down, stock prices would also fall to their more natural level, where the same speculators would buy them back, and hope for another crisis in a major oil-producing region to resume the cycle. As things go, because of the speculation, it is expected that fuel prices will continue rising, irrespective of supply and demand issues.

Come to think of it, oil trading is one of the few industries where profits are assured. When fuel prices do rise, whether artificially or for real, petroleum companies would simply pass on the increase to the consumers. For countries that subsidize petroleum products, government takes care of some of the cost. In any case, the oil companies do not lose. It has long been the suspicion of many that price adjustments in petroleum products have always been done to ensure bigger profits for these companies.

But the Philippine government, like most other governments in this environmentally-devastated planet, is hostage to the oil and energy industry. Our government is rather inutile dealing with the astuteness of oligarchic petroleum companies, whether it be during the time when the industry was regulated, or after it was de-regulated.

Government is ever afraid that a stand-off with the oil companies would result in a fuel and energy shortage.

The effects of a fuel shortage would be catastrophic to the economy, and before it happens, government will give in and allow the petroleum companies to have their way. In the Philippines, the industry is dominated by three companies, Petron, Shell andCaltex.

Fuel prices do have to be reduced, if consumer groups are to be believed, as petroleum products are overpriced by as much as P8 per liter. This claim is totally believable, since the big three in the Philippine fuel scene, Petron, Shell and Caltex, are perennially included in the top earners in the country. Where else do these earnings come from but from their sales of overpriced fuel?

True, being businesses, oil companies are expected to profit, but what these three are earning is just too much.

Since the industry has been deregulated, prices are supposedly dictated by market forces, but we have not seen any competition at all between the three. Rather, what we have seen is cooperation, a cartel, where they raise prices together. Pundits believe that they do it too early and too often. They even roll back prices at the same time. The same pundits say these rollbacks are again too little too late.

Some form of regulation is needed, since the effect of fuel prices is far ranging, reaching out to every other industry and enterprise. If needed, the oil deregulation law should be revised to ensure more reasonable fuel pricing. It seems too much to hope that Congress shall enact laws that will mitigate the people’s suffering, at least on the issue of fuel prices.

The penchant of the oil companies to maximize profits may be seen in the difference in pump prices in Baguio and La Union or Manila. Prices in Baguio are higher by as much as P10 than Manila. Logically, this is explained by the cost of transporting the product, that cost being passed on to consumers as the price difference. However, if we look at other franchises, it boggles the mind that oil companies charge us for product transport when others do not. Cocacola products, for instance, costs the same here and Manila wholesale, despite the reality that the products are also transported. Jollibee sells all its products all over the country at the same prices, even if these are also transported. Wholesale prices for many other products are mostly the same nationwide.

But fuel prices are different. The consumer has to pay more for the transport of fuel from the oil depots. The farther, the more expensive. Where is the logic in that? It simply means that at the disadvantage of Baguio consumers, the oil companies are earning as much as P10 additional for every liter. If that price difference is the cost of transportation, it boggles the mind that it costs that much to transport a liter from Poro Point to Baguio.

If only on this point government will act so that pump prices will be the same nationwide, it will be an incalculable reprieve for our crisis-ridden people.

 

 

Earthquakes, again

Humanity is again humbled by Nature.

The recent earthquake in Japan, the earlier ones in Chile and in Haiti have again shown how natural phenomena could be catastrophic to man.

Earthquakes have been a staple part of this planet since its birth billions of years past. Without earthquakes, the earth as we know it now would not exist. Earthquakes are after all part of the evolution of this planet, a part of the forces that continually shape it.

Earthquakes most certainly occurred when the interaction of the Pacific and Asian continental plates pushed the Philippine Islands out from under the sea.

This continuing interaction of the tectonic plates make the Philippines part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, that area around the world’s largest ocean where volcanic and tectonic activity is expectedly frequent and violent. Japan and Chile are also in the Ring of Fire. Haiti is also prone to tectonic activity, as it is found where the Atlantic and American plates meet.

Our being in the Ring of Fire makes earthquakes an expected occurrence in the country. For this reason, we should more or less be prepared for a perfectly natural earthquake of perfectly ordinary powerful magnitude that would rattle the puny human structures we have built on these fragile islands.

We should be prepared for a tremor that has the capacity to quite easily kill thousands. It is in this preparedness that government takes a major role. In fact, it is a role that only government can take.

But events throughout the world have shown that no government is able to take on that role. The damage of earthquakes to human life and property is no doubt magnified by our species’ propensity to congregate in teeming cities. With the concentration of humans in cities we can expect human suffering to be high when an earthquake shakes these population centers.

Such was the way it was in 1990 when the cities of Cabanatuan, Baguio and Dagupan were affected by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that may now have become dim in our collective memory. At least 1,681 died then.

A lesser earthquake of magnitude 7.2 struck Japan in 1995, affecting the city of Kobe. Japan has been touted to be much better prepared for such an occurrence, yet 5,100 died that time. The damage to property was also considerably more.

Japan suffered even more damage in the recent earthquake, the damage magnified in no small way by the tsunami that devastated its shores. Even with the much-praised preparedness of Japan for these kinds of calamities, the damage was nonetheless massive. Certainly the damage would have been much more if that wealthy country were less prepared. But prepared they were, yet still the damage is great.

The Haiti earthquake (magnitude 7.0) was comparatively weaker than that of Japan, but the damage and human suffering it caused was also severe. More than 200,000 are estimated to have perished. The extent of the anguish perhaps is owed to that island’s nation’s inability to put in place measures to mitigate the effects of an earthquake of destructive magnitude.

Every time major earthquakes strike other parts of the globe, fear is expressed in the Philippines, and rightly so, that the same magnitude quake hitting Metro Manila would be catastrophic to its human population and the entire nation. The fear is compounded by the perception that our government has been remiss in preparing for such an occurrence.

The magnitude 8.8 Chile earthquake, though much stronger than the one in Haiti, caused less loss of human life, with “only” 300 deaths. This is because the quake’s center was some 325 kilometers from the country’s capital of Santiago. If it hit that city more squarely, we can only surmise what it would have done to its population. More than one-fourth of the nation’s population is concentrated in that city.

While we do not wish it upon ourselves, an earthquake of equal or even stronger magnitude would most certainly hit the Philippines, though we do not know when or where it will occur.

No amount of preparation, no amount of human intervention would make any nation adequately ready for such an occurrence. What we can merely do is to lessen possible effects, and to effectively respond to the aftermath as best we could.

In the end, what these earthquakes teach us is that we are ever at the mercy of natural phenomena, and our efforts at controlling natural forces shall remain ever puny and ineffectual.

It is folly.