After the Sinulog: The Asean Summit!

Once again, we in Cebu have proudly held the Sinulog Festival and for 26 straight years, wowed the entire nation (especially those who tuned in to the Mozcom/SkyCable webcast and saw it via the Internet), which mutated from a very local fiesta into the nation's biggest fiesta celebration bar none!

Of course we have to thank all the officers and committees of the Sinulog Foundation, Inc. and the Cebu Catholic Archdiocese for all its efforts in making the Sinulog a yearly success. But all honor and glory goes to Señor Sto. Niño de Cebu who takes care of Cebu and its people.

As of press time, we haven't heard any major untoward incidents that were reported... and I hope that we won't hear about any violent incidents. No doubt the people of Cebu goes on their own steam... following the plans of the Sinulog Foundation and the Cebu Archdiocese. The rest is the commercialization of the Sinulog where those who have a product to sell use the Sinulog fiesta to promote it... because practically the population of Cebu City almost doubles during the Sinulog week. With the Sinulog festivities practically over... Cebu returns back to its daily routine.

Our final thanks should go to the street sweepers and cleaners working for Cebu City because they do their task when everyone's practically wasted and dead tired from yesterday's activities. By the time we resume our normal way of life, you better believe that the streets where the Sinulog Parade went through would already be cleaned up by those workers... one would think that there was no big celebration being held the previous day.

While the Sinulog festivities are over... this year, the Sinulog festival is only a preview of the up and coming bigger and international event, the ASEAN Summit which will be held come December. Like the Sinulog, we should put our best foot forward, after all, it would be the first time ever that world leaders would step on our shores to hold a conference that affects the lives of our ASEAN neighbors. If and when we pull this one off successfully, the world's Television will focus on Cebu and its people. It would be the first time that the whole world would know that Cebu exists with the rest of the world's great cities.

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One of the political issues that have been hogging the nation's headlines is about charter changes (cha-cha)... especially the proposal by former President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) to Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) to cut her term of office in the year 2007. This proposal is of course unacceptable to Malacañang, but then if real reforms are to be expected, no less than Pres. Arroyo should show herself as an example of one who would not cling to political power. However, all this depends upon how the Senate will appreciate the need for cha-cha or not.

Right now, FVR is thinking along the lines of the British Parliament, except that he probably forgot that England is a Constitutional Monarchy, where they have a reigning queen and the House of Lords (their upper chamber) are chosen or knighted by the Queen, while the members of Parliament who are voted by the general public belong to the House of Commons. No, I don't think Britannia is a good example for us in the Philippines.

For me, the best example for the Philippines to follow is the Canadian or the German Parliament because both are Federal systems of government. Again, I'd like to point out that a Parliamentary form of government is more efficient simply because it is a fusion of the Executive and Legislative Branches of the government. That should mean we wouldn't have anymore troubles between the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch, which should be good for a better governance. However the problem with this set-up is that, instead of having three branches of government, we're only going to have two... therefore the checks and balances aren't really that solid.

The greatest stumbling block to our progress is that, Imperial Manila has concentrated all development in Metro Manila... to the detriment of the economic growth of the south. So if we get a Parliamentary system, we will see a very strong Imperial Manila and that means they will be more arrogant than before.

It is for this reason why we should insist in having strong Federal States, which would provide a balancing factor to a very strong Parliament. Alas, Federalism isn't being talked about these days, which is why I would rather keep the present system until they come up with a better alternative. Sure, if they the Senate doesn't want to change the charter via a constituent assembly, by all means, let's have a constitutional convention.

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