Two big ASEAN confabs coming up

The news says some P1 million worth of potatoes went up in smoke in a fire that gutted a warehouse. They ended up real hot potatoes.

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In Congress, says a broadsheet columnist, you meet people with crab mentality. Yes. And like I said before, there are also people with grab mentality.

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These people with grab mentality are mostly landed. In fact, they're also sometimes called land grabber.

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If there are politicians who are known for their gift of gab (extremely talkative), there are also those known for their gift of grab.

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My friend Nido Polancos says: "Many friendships have wilted and died because of politics ... For politicians never care about their friends if their political life is at stake."

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Jeremy Thorpe has a poetic way of saying it: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his political life."

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Our basketball team garnered 4th place in the cagefest held recently in Qatar. There are four teams in the tournament.

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Coach Chot Reyes said he was satisfied with the winless performance of the RP five. Was the tournament "perdegana"?

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Pinoys who flocked to Doha to watch the RP team play kept yelling to our boys "Chot that ball, Chot that ball!" They did Chot the ball but it couldn't fall in.

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Coach Reyes said the RP team's competing in the Qatar cagefest was a valuable learning experience for our boys. But the OFWs - like Renato Palma of Cebu - went to see their countrymen play to win not to see them learn how to play basketball.

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Seriously now, Cebu will be hosting not only the 12th ASEAN Summit this December but also the 23rd ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization convention this September (next month). Parliamentary leaders from the 10 ASEAN member countries will be coming over to Cebu for this important convention whose last meeting was held in Vientiane last year. These two regional conference scheduled here this year have pushed up Cebu to political prominence not only in Southeast Asia but in the entire Asia and the world.

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Let's put our best foot forward in hosting these two conclaves. It's not everyday that we are given this chance to host world-level conferences and the opportunity as well to prove to the world that Cebuanos can do it and do it well.