I had only two occasions to meet the only Cebuano to become President of the Philippines. The first time was 45 years ago when I was only eight years old during the funeral vigil for my grandfather, Don Jose Avila, in his residence on May 4, 1959, as my grandpa and Don Sergio were bosom friends.
My father brought me before Don Sergio and made me greet him in our very uniquely Filipino practice of placing his hand on my forehead. In Tagalog, you say, "Mano po," while in Cebuano, we are made to say "amen" to our elderly folk. My father then told me that I just met a great Cebuano… who was once a President of the Philippines. To an eight-year old, titles really didn’t matter.
Then the second occasion was during the sentimental visit of Gen. Douglas MacArthur to Cebu (in 1961 I think?) where all students were made to line up the streets to have a glimpse of the man who liberated the Philippines. Since we were near the residence of Don Sergio, my Dad saw me and brought me inside... and yes, again, I greeted Don Sergio Osmeña, who was already getting frail. Back then, I really didn’t know how great this old man was until we started reading about his life.
Somehow, (perhaps prophetically as I later became a trustee of the Cebu Newspaper Workers Foundation or Cenewof, which sponsored a series of Osmeña Memorial Lectures), my father gave me the biography of Don Sergio Osmeña Sr. written by Vicente Albano Pacis in two volumes which he bought in Alemars for P48 on Sept. 25, 1972. That’s just a few days after Martial Law was declared, but then, that’s what was written on the receipt, which my Dad inserted in the book.
I have heard and read more than enough about the life of Don Sergio Osmeña to conclude that he was a great man… a great Cebuano and a true Filipino patriot. Our beloved Eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, who was the last of the Don Sergio Osmeña Memorial Lecturers under Cenewof, reminded us of one of Don Sergio’s greatest qualities… "Humility under power." Indeed, rare is the man who is humble while he wields the enormous power of government. I doubt if ever we shall see another Don Sergio rise up in our midst.
Every Sept. 9, I would never forget accompanying my father to the North Cemetery to visit the grave of Don Sergio on his birthday and of course, he would also pay his respects to another great man whom he loved dearly, the late President Ramon Magsaysay Sr. Somehow, I wasn’t able to continue my father’s tradition… but yes, every year, I always ask why we can’t bring the remains of Don Sergio Osmeña Sr. to Cebu. I have always wanted his bones to be placed at the Fuente Osmeña so that foreign dignitaries who come to Cebu can place a wreath in his honor. Right now, this may just be a pipe dream, but someday, I know that Don Sergio Osmeña will be returned to the bosom of the people whom he loved and served so dearly.
So, when Senate Minority Leader Sen. Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr. fired a broadside against the launching by pro-administration congressmen of the so-called "Pera para sa Pilipinas," it was something expected of him. We asked the same question though as Sen. Pimentel’s: How would the Pera para sa Pilipinas be spent and who would have the authority to control this fund?
But getting money is one thing, spending it properly is another... and making sure it doesn’t get stolen is a totally different problem. As we’ve said, our problem is not only that we have a big deficit and lack funds to fuel new projects… perhaps the bigger part of the problem is that a lot of our money gets stolen and ends up in some corrupt bureaucrat’s pockets.
Another street marcher, who is not willing to surrender not even 10 percent of his pork barrel, is Crispin Beltran, and I’m sure Satur Ocampo thinks similarly. Instead of cutting the pork barrel, this fellow even says that the government should increase the "pork"! How quickly these street marchers-turned-congressmen have mutated into what we call traditional politicians (trapos)?
One of the reasons why we should have a Constitutional Convention (Cha-cha) is to remove the party-list system. How do we know that these leftist congressmen are not using their pork barrel to fund more street marchers or worse, give guns and bullets to those who seek to destroy or abolish the government so they can install a totalitarian or communist form of government. We denounce these party-list representatives and better, we demand their resignation!