A Very Happy and A Hopeful New Year To All!

Since this is the very first column for the New Year 2011, allow me to be the first to greet our faithful readers A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! For this year, my prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ for myself is to give a special blessing to the people who read our columns. So cheers to our Lord for the great blessings that He would shower to each and every one of you.

To prove that I, too, can change, I’m veering away from my traditional New Year’s wish list that I have been doing in the past so many years that I’ve been writing with The Philippine STAR. A few days ago, I got this text message from our dear friend UNESCO Ambassador Preciosa Soliven and widow of our mentor Sir Max Soliven and I’d like to start the New Year’s article with this text message. “Seriously give this message a thought. Life today has become so ‘LESS.’

Now our Telephones are Cord Less,

Cooking is Fire Less,

Food is Fat Less,

Dress is Top Less,

The Youth is Job Less,

Our Leaders are Shame Less,

The Government is Hope Less

Our Jobs are Thank Less

The Police are still Clue Less,

Our Policies Aim Less,

Labor is Effort Less,

Relations are Meaning Less,

Our Attitude is Care Less,

Feelings are Heart Less,

Education is Value Less,

Arguments are Base Less,

The Future is Direction Less

And still our Expectations are End Less!

Have a Wonderful New Year 2011!

Based on this message, we begin 2011 with fresh hope that for this year, we can see real change in the hearts and minds of the Filipino people. While we chastise the government for all its blunderings, especially when the Aquino government came into power and that’s all we got in the last six months, however, it is a new year and we start by forgiving President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III for all those blunders, of course, on the condition that he straightens his act and cracks the proverbial whip on those members of the Cabinet who act in an unintelligent manner. Especially those who, when they are cornered, pin the blame on the President, making him look like a feeble-minded person, which I’m sure he is not.

In my book, starting a new year is not different from starting a new week. When I used to run the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM) I usually start my Monday morning meetings with one question… what was the unfinished business that we failed to do last week? Before any new business is put on the table… the unfinished business gets top priority and it is for this reason why we could move forward.

So allow me to suggest to the P-Noy government to put a closure to the many unfinished businesses during his short six-month term. I shall only make two such suggestions. First on the priority table is to put a closure to the Aug. 23 incident as soon as possible so we can put this in our dustbin of history. Second order of business is for P-Noy to immediately push for a serious Cabinet reshuffle and we hope it is not the run-of-the-mill “musical chairs” that most presidents practice just to show to the Filipino people that there was a Cabinet reshuffle.

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It’s nice to start the New Year with a thank-you letter from the spokesman of the Philippine Army in response to our Dec. 18 article. Here’s the letter in full:

“Dear Mr. Avila… This has reference to your Shooting Straight column entitled ‘Under P-Noy, soldiers have no human rights’ at The Philippine STAR published last Dec. 18. We in the Philippine Army are happy to have found an ally in you. You don’t know how important are your words are to the morale of our soldiers. Making this unpopular stand that soldiers have human rights, too, greatly inspired us to remain committed in our sworn duty. Thanks for believing the truth while others are just too busy making a living at the expense of the truth. Thank you for believing in the Filipino soldiers! Happy New Year! With utmost gratitude, Col. Antonio G. Parlade Jr., Army Spokesman/Army Chief Public Affairs.”

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. Avila’s columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.