Will congressional history repeat itself today?

At last 57-year-old Italian missionary Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, who was kidnapped last June 10 in Zamboanga Sibugay, was released last Thursday, weak and frail, but alive. Call it perfectly timed for the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) before the 14th Congress today. As the old saying goes, “All’s well that ends well.” Unfortunately, we really can’t say this in Fr. Bossi’s case because of the death of the 14 Marines.

Fr. Bossi’s kidnapping should be a lesson to all of us, especially to foreigners working in this country that they have to take extra security precautions when they are traveling particularly in known hotspots like Zamboanga del Sur because like in the case of Fr. Bossi, the Marines sent to look for him suffered 14 casualties in a firefight with the MILF.

What is now very clear is that these Marines entered a heavily defended MILF-controlled area and after they were ambushed, they were overcome by superior and intense firepower. I hope to hear from the SONA of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) her government’s determination to rid any armed groups from controlling a single square meter of Philippine government estate. We got rid of Camp Abubakar and I don’t see any reason why we can’t get rid of territories controlled by the MILF.

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Today is the day when eager Cebuanos will find out whether history would repeat itself when a hundred years ago, the first Speaker of the Philippine National Assembly was Don Sergio Osmeña Sr. at a young age of 29. Since that time, no Cebuano has ever held such a high post. Today, the 14th Congress will decide hopefully through clear-cut democratic rules to have secret balloting in order to arrive at who should be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. Will they retain Speaker Jose de Venecia for a fifth consecutive term or will this 14th Congress begin with real reforms and call for a change in the leadership by installing the only contender to the throne – Cebu second district Rep. Pablo P. Garcia?

I’m sure that the first order of battle will be for the rules governing the election of the House Speaker. Since the 9th Congress, our congressmen have never known any Speaker, except Rep. Jose de Venecia. But with the entry of some 80 “neophyte” congressmen in the House, there is a very strong chance that Rep. Pabling Garcia would make history repeat itself.

While I have never been a fan of the 1987 Constitution, however, let me point out the spirit of having term limits for elected officials embodied in this Constitution… which is to prevent potential dictators from holding unbridled power, which has actually happened in Congress under the leadership of Smoking Joe de Venecia. Because of De Venecia’s vise-like grip of Congress, he can make demands from congressmen who vowed fealty to his dictatorship of Congress… like voting viva voce… so he would be able to know who voted against him so he could act accordingly.

While many in Cebu are supporting the bid of Rep. Pablo Garcia, I have heard from many businessmen, mostly from the Visayas and Mindanao, that they also support Rep. Garcia. But until the last ballot is counted, only then can we be sure if history would repeat itself. What is clear to us is, a vote for De Venecia is a vote for the status quo of a Congress that has lost all its credibility. A vote for Rep. Pabling Garcia is a vote for real reforms in Congress and if our people can see reforms begin in Congress itself, then we can truly see big reforms coming our way for the betterment of our country.

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Last Friday night, we huffed over to the enchanting Abaca Boutique Resort & Restaurant, (owned by Jason Hyatt, though he admits he is not related to the Hyatt hotel chain), one of Cebu’s best kept secrets, for a fabulously delicious evening for the grand launch of the Nokia E90, the newest model in the Communicator series, hosted by Globe Platinum and Nokia. Invited to this event were Globe Telecom’s Platinum members and rabid Nokia users like me.

It was the first time I met the new Nokia country manager, William Hamilton-Whyte. On our table was Mrs. Nikka Singson-Abes, corporate communications manager of Nokia; Mrs. Regina Reyes-Lingan; Coco Domingo, honorary consul to Portugal and virtually ambassador-at-large; Sammy Chioson; and Eva Gullas. Of course, my good friend, Lito Navarro, the nickel magnate, came with Globe Telecom’s Jerry Yntig and Vince Ong. Globe Telecom’s Ferdinand “Ferdz” de la Cruz, head of the Consumer Business Group, was also on hand to lead the Globe officials for the grand event of the evening.

No launch of the E-90 would be complete without going through the chronology of Nokia’s Communicator line of mobile phones. It started with the Nokia 9000 model, which had fixed antenna and was huge, bulky and slow. Thankfully, this was the only Communicator that I didn’t have because it was not available in numbers in Cebu.

My first Communicator was the Nokia 9200 with a folding antenna. The first one I saw was shown to me by no less by Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (JAZA) when he came to Cebu with his big bike group and we rode together to the mountains of Cebu. I was so impressed with it, I got one the following week. But then the 9200 still had a lot of limitations. So when the 9500 Communicator came, we immediately got one and it was (and still is) impressive because I can e-mail my columns from this phone. Call it a freedom phone!

I recall that the first time I used it was the day that the great Pope John Paul II died and my editor Tony Paño sent me a text message if I wanted to change my column to pay tribute to the Pope. Tony clearly had a hunch that I had a prepared column in the event the Pope died. But then we were on a Toyota coaster just leaving Subic with the Cebu media and the only way to send the article was via the Nokia Communicator. Good thing my good friend, Jonji Gonzales (also a Communicator user), was with me and configured my phone to send an e-mail and in five minutes voila, Tony Paño got the article sent in the middle of nowhere! The Communicator is indeed a great tool for journalists.

No doubt the E90 is a handier handyphone loaded with lots of state-of-the-art features. Alas, the GPS system still doesn’t work in Cebu simply because someone has to install the Cebu maps on the server. But the launch of the E90 was a great success and the formula was simple… put Globe Platinum, add a Nokia Communicator and go to the Abaca Boutique Resort & Restaurant, it will guarantee you a great evening with great friends! Hmmm, it was Marissa Fernan who won the raffled E90; now she has two of it!

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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.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.