Thank God it's Sunday! Gov. Vilma Santos on Ralph, Edu & Nora Aunor

MANILA, Philippines - Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.                — Albert Schweitzer

I want there to be no peasant in my kingdom so poor that he cannot have a chicken in his pot every Sunday.   — King Henry IV

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.  — Joseph Addison

Greetings to the women of our outwardly male chauvinist but de facto matriarchal society of the Philippines. Happy International Women’s Day tomorrow!

Yes, I’m not pandering to you women because I’m not running for election this May 10. I just sincerely believe that women of the Philippines are generally superior and have infinitely more emotional maturity, sense of responsibility, resourcefulness and leadership than men. 

Women are our best leaders! Look at Gov. Vilma Santos, Loren Legarda, Pia Cayetano, the feisty Miriam Defensor Santiago, Marides Fernando of Marikina, Tessie Sy-Coson of BDO, Socorro Ramos of National Bookstore, Kate Gordon of Olongapo, fearless opposition legislators Risa Hontiveros and Darlene Antonino-Custodio, even the unpopular yet still unsinkable Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. 

This past Wednesday night, I had the privilege of dining with Philippine politics’ “Dragon Lady,” Batangas Governor Vilma Santos and senatorial bet Ralph Recto (whom the “Star For All Seasons” half-jokingly described as “my youngest son”) at the Imperial Palace Suites Hotel of Mother Lily Y. Monteverde.

Ate Vi’s comment on her ex-husband and vice-presidential bet Edu Manzano was “Kawawa naman siya (I sympathize with him),” due to his fourth-place standing in the polls behind another decisive lady, Loren Legarda, and also behind Korina Sanchez’s husband Mar Roxas (his wife is more popular than him nationwide, like that of Vilma-Ralph or Sharon-Kiko) and Jojo Binay.

Another woman phenomenon who’s staging a comeback next month is the only Superstar of Philippine entertainment and the greatest actress ever, Nora Aunor. This news was relayed to me by her new talent manager Aster Amoyo, who’s also a columnist of Philippine STAR’s popular sister publication Pilipino Star Ngayon. Amoyo said: “Nora will come back to the Philippines to grace the opening in April of Japan’s Shinagawa Lasik and Aesthetic Center at The Enterprise Center in Ayala Avenue corner Paseo de Roxas, Makati. We all have missed her for over five years.”

The Superstar’s reel life archrival and real-life kumadre Gov. Vilma Santos said: “Kumare knows my number, if she comes back I will personally go to the airport to fetch her! I’m very happy and excited that she’s finally coming back.”

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Thank God it’s Sunday! Exactly 1,689 years ago today on March 7, year 321 A.D., Emperor Constantine I — the first Christian emperor of Rome — decreed that the dies Solis Invicti (“sun day”) would be the day of rest in the empire.

Two great people on earth whom I admire — Bill Gates and Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez — are wrong about Sunday. Gates said: “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” Marquez said: “If God hadn’t rested on Sunday, He would have had time to finish the world.”

My childhood Sunday school teacher before said that it is ideal not to work on Sunday, but to relax’ that we will excel and achieve greater success if we live out our faith and go to church instead of overworking an extra day on the Christian Sabbath day. 

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Today on the 1,689th anniversary of Sunday as rest day, I wish to pay tribute to one person of extraordinary moral courage whom I admire — Scotland’s Olympic champion, China missionary and educator Eric Liddell. His guts and life of true greatness reminds me of the Egyptian Jew Eli Cohen who became Israel’s hero, the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan, the Song Dynasty General Yue Fei and others. In our modern era, when many people are obsessed with pursuit of fame, money and power at all costs or even by any means, Liddell turned his back on fame and fortune as a world-class athlete in Europe to serve God and his adopted land of then war-ravaged China.

An excellent movie I admire is the British film Chariots of Fire, which recounts the true story of two athletes in the 1924 Paris Olympics — devout Christian Scottish Eric Liddell who runs for the glory of God and British Jew Harold Abrahams who runs to overcome racial prejudice. Both are rivals who made history by winning Olympic gold medals.

Born in Tianjin City in north China to Protestant missionaries, the devout Christian Eric Liddell refused to compete in his favorite 100-meter event in the 1924 Olympics because it was a Sunday which he always observed as the Christian Sabbath for rest and faith, so he opted to compete in the longer 400-meter event in which he had little training.

On the day of the 400-meter race, as Liddell walked to the starting blocks, an American masseur slipped a piece of paper into the athlete’s hand with a Bible quotation from 1 Samuel, Chapter 2, Verse 30: “Those who honor me I will honor.” Liddell ran with that piece of paper in his hand, and he not only won the race, he shattered the existing world record with his time of 47.6 seconds.

Spurning wealth and fame, Liddell chose to become a missionary in China and died at the young age of 42 serving others during the chaotic period of Japanese military invasion in the 1930s. When Britain went to war with Japan in 1941, it advised British nationals to leave China due to the brutal Japanese military invasion making life unsafe for all, Liddell sent his wife and kids to Canada but chose to serve China’s rural poor alongside his medical doctor elder brother Rob. Even when the Japanese military imprisoned Liddell, he was unselfish, undaunted and a natural leader in the prison camp.

Due to his birth and death in the country and devoting his life to education there, some of China’s Olympic literature lists the Scotsman as China’s first Olympic champion. Reuters reported that biographer John Keddie said: “He was born in China, he died in China, he helped the Chinese people and he had a great love for China; it really was his frame of reference in life. These things endear him to the Chinese even though in principle there is a hesitancy about making a hero of someone who was a Christian missionary.” (The reason for the last line was China’s traumatic experiences when missionaries came along with the immoral Western Opium trade and colonial impositions from the 19th and first half of the 20th century.)

Liddell accomplished another heroic act at the Japanese prison camp before he died. He had given up an opportunity to leave the prison camp in Weihsien (now called Weifang) in Shandong province because he chose to give his place to a pregnant woman. At that time, the Japanese had struck a deal with the British, with Winston Churchill’s approval, for a prisoner exchange. Since Liddell was a famous Olympic champion, he was among those chosen to be part of the prisoner exchange, but Liddell sacrificed his own freedom so that another could go free.

Over half a century after the historic 1924 Paris Olympics, another Scotsman named Allan Wells won the 100-meter race at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. When asked after his win if he had run the race for Harold Abrahams who was the last British Olympic champion in 1924 to win the 100-meter race, Wells replied: “No, this one was for Eric Liddell.”

Eric Henry Liddell was a great human being, a role model of Christian who upheld Sunday as a day set aside for rest and prayer, a genuine hero whose life of selfless service, humility, excellence, moral courage and indomitable faith should be our inspiration.

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Thanks for your letters, all will be answered. E-mail willsoonflourish@gmail.com or at my Facebook account.