A case of poetic justice!

A year ago, at the time when the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was raging mad in China, we exposed a potential environmental hazard plaguing the beaches of the municipality of Liloan some 18 kilometers north of Cebu City, using passionate language to drive home our point that the beaches of Liloan are being used by the poorer Cebuanos who could ill-afford to go to the expensive beach resorts on Mactan Island. Yes, we drove home our call to clean up the beaches of Liloan, to which fortunately, the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) responded positively.

One of the perils of our trade as columnists is we do get to lose a lot of friends when we expose the wrongdoings or misadventures of our government officials. But that goes with the territory. In fact, I will never forget that when we wrote those articles, friends of the late Mayor Panphil Frasco demanded our apology… but somehow, test results showed that there was a high incidence of fecal coliform in the beaches of Liloan.

Call it ironic, but last Friday, we participated in the launching of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu Chapter’s effort to implement Republic Act No. 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, where officials of local government units (LGU) were present, among them Liloan Mayor Maria Sevilla and her staff. Of course, I expected a cold shoulder from the Liloan officials, but to my big surprise, the mayor and her staff approached me and thanked me for the columns we’ve written about the problem. Apparently, they used our columns on this issue and got a grant of P15 million to help Liloan fix the problem.

Call it "poetic justice" if you wish, but yes, this is one example that negative publicity can be turned around into something very positive. Now Liloan officials are taking the protection of our environment very seriously. Our good friend, Atty. Antonio Oposa, chairman of the IBP’s National Environmental Action Team (NEAT), brought along Wilbert L. Candelaria, the country’s first Environmental Ombudsman, to show that the IBP is dead serious in being the catalyst of change in implementing Republic Act No. 9003. Oposa said that three months from July 1, his group will inspect the various LGUs and see if they have implemented this law. If they haven’t, he assured me that charges against these erring LGUs would be filed with this newly created office of the Environmental Ombudsman. Knowing Atty. Oposa, this isn’t an idle threat!

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Cebu City is abuzz, especially in the provincial capitol, in preparation for the historic oathtaking of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) this coming Wednesday. That President Arroyo decided that she would take her oath in Cebu is a decision only she could make and expectedly, this has dismayed certain people who ask, "Why, is GMA the President only of Cebu?" Well, I’d like to ram home this point… that we in Cebu didn’t expect this thing to happen to us. Perhaps, some people ought to start looking at what could have been if FPJ was the one taking his oath of office!

I first met the First Gentleman Mike Arroyo at the Grand Ballroom of the Waterfront Hotel during the Grand Chamber Awards of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (CCCI) and yes, I told him that President Arroyo won practically in the non-Tagalog speaking regions. Perhaps, that is due to the fact that among the presidential candidates, it was only Ate Glo who would dare speak in the vernacular whenever she saw it fit.

When I interviewed her on my show Straight from the Sky last April 15, she answered all my questions in English in Bisaya, so we ended up with the entire interview in Binisaya! This television interview was replayed on IBC-13 and RPN-9, and yes, I got text messages from my friends living in Mindanao that it was the first time they saw President Arroyo speaking Bisaya in a television interview. Thus, more people who do not speak Tagalog had a deeper understanding of the issues we raised.

It is for this reason that when we asked her about our shifting to a federal system, President Arroyo said this new system can have federal states based on ethno-linguistic lines. For example, Region 7 or Central Visayas is composed of Negros Oriental, Bohol, Siquijor and Cebu. But if we become a federal state, this could be expanded to include Southern Leyte and Northern Leyte — the Cebuano-speaking areas of the island of Leyte.

That we are, indeed, an archipelagic nation with diverse cultures is something that the people of Metro Manila must fully understand. This is what I gathered during the last elections: Bicol was won by its own son, Sen. Raul Roco, followed by GMA. In Ilocos Norte, FPJ won with GMA trailing behind, but GMA won in Ilocos Sur, the Cordilleras and Baguio City. In Tarlac, there was a tie. Of course, Pampanga was won by GMA, while Pangasinan went for FPJ.

The Ilonggos went for GMA, and Samar and Leyte were won by GMA too. While Sulu was won by the President, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao went to FPJ. What is clear is that the Tagalog-speaking people voted for FPJ, including Metro Manila and yes, Mindoro, Noli de Castro’s bailiwick. Once, Ka Blas Ople said the Tagalog vote didn’t exist anymore. Well, apparently, there was a Tagalog vote that they all went for FPJ.

Talking about traditions, if you didn’t know, Cebu has always been a traditional opposition country. Perhaps, this title made a sort of permanent mark due to the long reign of the conjugal dictatorship. When the last political opponent of President Ferdinand E. Marcos was the late Sen. Sergio "Serging" Osmeña Jr., Cebu was regarded as "Opposition Country." Well, not anymore. For the first time, Cebuanos went for an incumbent President and well, we hit the jackpot, and for the first time in our lives, we bask in the glory of Gloria’s victory. Well, as the old saying goes, "Victory has a thousand fathers, while defeat is a lonely orphan!"

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.