Throughout Philippine history, Cebu has always been known for worshiping Holy Child Jesus or the St. Niño de Cebu... but in the last hundred years, we have become devotees of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help and we owe this to the Redemptorist who brought the icon of the Holy Mother to our shores. I also learned an interesting piece of history... that at the height of the aerial bombardment of Cebu City by American B-24 Liberator bombers, the Augustinians secretly brought the statue of the Sto. Niño to the convent of the Redemptorist...because it was located in uptown Cebu.
This is quite interesting for we know that it is only natural for a little child to seek solace and comfort from its mother and where did the Sto. Niño seek refuge? From the house of the Blessed Virgin Mary who protects the Holy Child with her blue mantle. Perhaps we should recreate this historic event with a dual procession... bringing the Holy Child to the Redemptorist, which I believe could someday become a big celebration like the Sinulog! What this show tonight on SkyCable's channel 15 at 8:00 p.m.
Well, it's about time that we went on the offensive because all these years, the military seem to have adopted a defensive posture when the reality is...offense is always the best defense! At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me repeat the four "F's" that the late Pres. Ramon Magsaysay, Sr. quipped in order to beat the Communists..."Find 'em, Fool 'em, Fight 'em and Finish 'em and then offer them the hand of peace!
Because we didn't embrace the suggestion of Pres. Magsaysay, the Communist insurgency has become one of Asia's longest running insurgencies without any let-up in sight... where civilians, soldiers, policemen and ordinary folk... and yes and many insurgents have died. Thanks to our previous political leaders who unwittingly allowed the communist insurgency to thrive... because of corruption, which only made this country poorer.
Worse of all, there have been so many ill-fated attempts by the government to hold peace talks with the Communists, but all these failed simply because... the objective of Communism is to establish their political order into this democratic country... something that can never be allowed to happen.
Worse of all, the peace talks with the Communists was used by them to regain strength because they only agreed to hold a dialogue when things went sour for the Communists. It is for this reason that I told my good friend, Jess Dureza, presidential adviser for peace talks not to be once more conned by the Communists, who've always fooled our politicians!
In this renewed offensive against the NPA... perhaps it is time for military intelligence to expose, which barangays have been supportive of the underground movement and believe me, this is not a difficult task to do. But while we're at it, let us also expand this intelligence gathering a little further and expose those among the top business groups who have been paying the so-called "Revolutionary Taxes".
We've been saying all along that the NPA's have declared war against more than 50 cellsites of Globe Telecom because I know that Globe's top management refuses to shell out this money, which would only finance more raids against innocent people. But what about Globe's competitors... how come they have not been touched by the NPA terrorists?
Another battle zone in our fight against the Communist is for Congress to openly declare who among the members of Congress have contributed to the many leftist organizations? I submit that a lot of our friends in the media are "sympathizers of the Communists" and they too must be exposed! As Gov. Gwen Garcia aptly put it...it's time to be counted...are you for the communists or against them? Almost 20-years ago, I made that decision...that this country could never progress for as long as we have a communist insurgency putting a monkey wrench in our economic growth. Now is the time to get serious in stopping the Communist threat once and for all!