Our need for silence and recollection

We need to realize this human requirement deeply. We need to have silence and spirit of recollection even as we immerse ourselves in our human, mundane and temporal affairs, so that we would not lose the moorings and focus in life that is proper to us as persons and ultimately as children of God.

Definitely, our need for silence and recollection is not a matter of being indifferent and detached from the things of the world.It's not a form of escapism. It is not a way of alienating us from the world and from others. Quite the contrary is true.

When we properly satisfy this need, our involvement in our worldly affairs becomes deeper and more realistic. We would be engaging ourselves in what truly matters in life. We avoid being carried away by strong blind worldly forces that can be exhilarating and captivating but can lead us nowhere in the end. We avoid dispersion and dissipation.

This realization of our radical need for silence and recollection is most relevant these days since we are bombarded with so many things that tend to confuse and blind us, and alienate us from the source of everything that is true and good. This source is, of course, God.

In fact, for Christian believers, the very source and end of their consciousness should be God. This is simply because the Christian faith teaches that God is the creator of the whole universe,including us, and continues to govern us intimately in our hearts.

We need to be focused always on him for us to be properly in touch with reality. Straying from him would be to stray from reality. It would lead us to make our own reality and our own world, a purely subjective world that can be detached from the objective one.We would simply be at the mercy of our own estimation of things.

For Christian believers, reality is not simply the items that we see or hear or even feel and understand. Reality is a given, not made by us. It has to be discovered, not invented by us. But it has to enter deep into our being, since we have a subjective mode of existence, meaning that we are meant to know and love everything the way God, the Creator, knows and loves them.

Since our society today is characterized by a constant and unstoppable flow of information, we need silence and recollection all the more not so much as an antidote to the noise around as a necessary way to be able to integrate things properly.

Silence and recollection favor the habit of discernment and reflection. With silence and recollection, we would be in a better position to listen to and understand ourselves as well as others.

Through silence and recollection, ideas easily come to birth and acquire depth. We would better know what we want to say, what we expect from others. We would know how to express ourselves in a more appropriate way.

When there is silence and recollection, we can understand people better, and avoid being simply tied down to our opinions, preferences and biases. We foster mutual listening, and a deeper human relationship comes as a consequence. With silence and recollection, a better communication with others is made possible.

With silence and recollection, we can better distinguish between what is essential and what simply incidental. They enable us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected. We can better analyze messages and share thoughtful and relevant opinions. So we need to find a good balance between silence, words, images and sounds.

Mariano Jesus Cuenco.

The Philippine Railway Company was dying because of the competition thus on April 8, 1932, R.R. Hancock, Vice President and General Manager of the Philippine Railway Company filed with the Public Service Commission (there was yet no Land Transportation Office and the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board) to be given authority to alter the freight rates of their trains. The area was for Cebu and Panay. The complaint of the Philippine Railway Company was that freight as well as passengers was handled by road trucks and auto buses without regard to any regulation or law, they run up and down the highways and into the station grounds bargaining for every piece of freight and every passenger.

The set up was that the charges were primarily based on the railway rates. The trucks on the other hand go to a shipper and ask that what the railway charges, and then offer to haul the freight at a few centavos less per bulto or ton.

The Philippine Railway Company argued that their rate being fixed it has no chance to secure the freight as against the trucks and buses. It was proposed by the Philippine Railway Company that the present rates will be considered the maximum, and that they could fix other lower rates whenever in its opinion it will be to the advantage of the company to do so.

The petition of the Philippine Railway Company was opposed by the Cebu Autobus Company on May 28, 1932 arguing that the company holds a certificate of public convenience to operate an autobus for the transportation of passengers and freight between all the principal points in the Province of Cebu. That the sliding rate proposed by the railway is against the fundamental principles of the Public Utility Regulations.

The commission after hearing the opposition of Cebu Autobus Company and the Panay Autobus rendered a decision on June 21, 1932 granting authority to the railway the power to alter its rates.

The case reached the Supreme Court who on February 17, 1933 reversed the decision of the Public Service Commission who said that it is the duty of the latter to correct the conditions complained by Hancock of the PRC by enforcing the law and its orders as to those operators responsible, and not by delegating its powers to the Philippine Railway Company and authorizing it to reduce its rates, whenever necessary to meet such unlawful competition.