The devil and the deep blue  

Like many things in life, we usually find ourselves torn between the pull of two, sometimes even three choices. Thus, we see an apparent struggle between food and bio-fuels, and now, in the case of the PNOC entry into 20 hectares of the so-called 169 hectares “Buffer Zone”. The entry is part of the process of producing more geo-thermal power to abort the threat of power shortage for Negros . The matter has drawn the attention of the Save the Kanlaon Coalition. I do not know how many trees will fall, nor the extent of vegetation that will be cleared for the geo-thermal facility. There is really nothing free in this planet. You want this – you give me that.

I suspect that in the end the crucial point would be – what would happen if an energy shortage comes on us? You balance this against the erosion of some greenery in the buffer zone.

Senator Pia Cayetano calls for finding a balance. Okay. So why should the PNOC not commit, should it be allowed into the buffer zone to reforest the area? So it cuts, say 200,300 trees, or whatever the number, to triple the number of fallen trees. Plus a firm commitment to see to it that vegetation in the area remains pristine.

Maybe their “green” activities can usher a healthier environment.

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The foregoing environmental concerns have to walk tandem with the U.S. recession. There had been debate about whether recession already afflicts the U.S. Whether the state is a pre-recession, a mild recession or a full blown one, is a matter of some semantic differences. However, other countries are already affected. Notice the falling stock prices, the expected export diminution to the U.S. These are indications of the dire U.S. economy. The electronics industry is principally threatened.

Here in the Philippines the expected shock-wave is poised to hit call-centers, including over-seas Filipino workers. Interest rates are poised to rise. These are some of the local effects of the U.S. recession. But we should be able to live thru this, given that we seem to be a nation of survivors.

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Not too many knew it, or many who knew may have forgotten that Bobby Fischer, the American chess genius who died very recently was a visitor in Bacolod City. Fischer stayed at the Sugarland Hotel where he was visited quite frequently by the late then Vice Mayor of Bacolod Ray Dizon. Another avid visitor was the late Bert Drilon, who, if I remember right, was the City Administrator of Bacolod. Both, appropriately, were chess enthusiasts.

Fischer wanted to go a nearby island. I'm not sure it was Boracay but when he was at the airport for the plane ride, he reportedly got cold feet and cancelled the trip. We will never know the true reason for Fischer's pulling out of that plane ride. I'm sure Ray and Bert were there to see Bobby Fischer off. But they're not around to say.

Some people aver that Fischer was the greatest chess player of all time. And maybe he was. His IQ was alleged to be greater than Einstein's. He was an eccentric guy, a recluse who had a gripe against Jews, although his mother was Jewish.

His last days were spent in Iceland at Reykjavik . A terribly cold place quite near the Arctic circle where his historic chess duel with Boris Spassky, the Russian champion was held.

Fischer later had legal problems and he even was jailed in Japan . But he found a companion in that country, a girl named Miyoko Watai; she was his solace in the last days of his life.

Fischer was a great chess player, a master of 64 squares where his genius could direct the march of his pawns, the slicing moves of his bishops and batter the enemy with his rooks. His queen, of course, roamed the board with swift ferocity, wrecking havoc on the enemy forces.

His life however lacked the logic that characterized his chess. For if life is a game, it is infinitely more complex than chess. Life's number of squares go a lot beyond that of the chessboard. The moves of any person that lives are more innumerable and are loaded with more consequences of a chess game.

Fischer died relatively young but his myth, his demolition of so-called “invincible Russian chess-players” will live as long as chess is played.*

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