The good and happy in the news

Daily, we are bombarded with news about drugs, killings, threats here, threats there, alleged plunderers released, and you can add to the list of bad news brought to you through various types of media.

Happy and good news are hard to come by. In fact, many tabloids thrive on sensationalizing the bad, rather than the good and happy news.

Gratefully, there were several good and happy news lately.

We start with the four wonderful lolas among the Aetas who are literally bringing the sun to light up the evenings in their communities. Evelyn Clemente and Sharon Flores live in a resettlement area in Sitio Gala, Aningway Sacatihan, Subic, Zambales, with some 130 families while Cita Diaz and Magda Salvador come from Bamban town in Tarlac. They have just returned from a six-month training as solar "green" engineers at Barefoot College in Rajasthan, India along with 32 others from 11 countries. Their task is to set up solar panels in their communities. Now the evenings are no longer forever dark for the residents in their areas.

One can imagine the benefits of having extended "sunlight" through the night for the Aetas from now on. Not only were these four lolas empowered, we look forward to more empowered youth and adults from this wonderful indigenous people from now on. We also laud this green project that promotes solar power which we should be more seriously utilizing in this tropical country of ours.

We move on to another happy, good and inspiring story of Tong PhuocPhuc a very kind Vietnamese man referred to as a "hero" for saving the lives of more than a hundred children since 2001. He narrated that when his wife got pregnant and they visited the hospital, he observed many other pregnant women entered a room and came out without the expected newly delivered baby. He later found out that the pregnant women went to the hospital for abortion and this discovery broke his heart. He asked the hospital if he could be allowed to bury the unwanted, aborted children. He was a construction worker but he saved and bought a land at a hilltop to honor the aborted babies with proper burial.

After burying about 10,000 aborted babies, Tong PhuocPhuc realized it was better to save the lives of babies rather than bury them, "be a lifesaver, rather than a gravedigger."

He set up a special home for the babies he adopted from the mothers who wanted to abort them. Now, women who cannot support their children go to him for help and Tong takes in their babies – already he has adopted hundreds. Mothers can also return for their babies once they are more secure in their own lives and when they have decided to want their babies back.

The story of this simple but very kind and Vietnamese sends the beautiful message that anyone can do something good for others with whatever resources they have and most importantly, with a very sincere, selfless heart to want to help and save lives.

We end by celebrating and applauding our very own kababayan, Norlan Pagal, who almost lost his life because he tried to defend Tañon Strait in his own simple ways. A bullet meant to silence him and stop his advocacy forever left him paralyzed from waist down. Despite that, he continues to "ask his daughter to push him to the shore to watch for violators."

May we all remember the commitment of the four Aeta women to bring the sun and light up their villages for their people, the wonderful selflessness of Tong PhuocPhuc in providing a simple but sincere alternative to save babies from being aborted and inspire desperate mothers not to abort, and, the continuing courage and crusade of NorlanPagal,despite a bullet in his spine,to save and conserve our sea and marine resources.

May we all remember also to strive to have more happy, good news to wake up to daily from here on.