This year's New Year's wish list

For our very first presentation on our talkshow in Straight from the Sky for the year 2007, we have with us the indefatigable, iron lady of Cebu, Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia who will give our viewers her assessment for the year 2006 and of course tell us about her two and a half years as Governor of Cebu. Last year, we also had Gov. Gwen to start our show for the New Year and this year, despite the announcement that she'd be less accessible to the media, she most graciously accepted to be with us to start the New Year 2007. So watch this New Year's presentation with our very own Cebu Governor on SkyCable's channel 15 at 8:00PM tonight.

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Every year, the first column we do is our New Year's "Wish List" for the coming year and we are not breaking our self-made tradition. This article is about our hopes and aspirations, our "Wish List" for the Year 2007. But before we go into that, I checked with our last year's Wish List just to find out if they came true. I had three such wishes then and apparently, the first one was granted, when I wished that Cebuanos would turn back to God; after all, life on this earth is all but temporary, which is why we are often called "Pilgrims" here on earth as we are merely passing through. At least for the year 2006, Cebuanos kept their faith in God and thankfully, we were spared from many the natural calamities happening around our beloved island of Cebu.

My other wish was for Cebuanos to be less dependent on the government and do things on their own even without government support. Somehow, the private sector in Cebu has not only moved forward, they are helping the Provincial and City government a lot, especially in the preparation for the coming ASEAN Leaders' Summit. Just to name a few, the Cebu Provincial government had the full support of the Cebu and Mandaue Chambers of Commerce and Industry and a big hand from the Cebu Furniture Industry Foundation, Inc. (CFIF) who supported our efforts to host the ASEAN Summit.

My 3rd and final wish was for the successful hosting of the ASEAN Summit, but alas, that didn't push through because of Super Typhoon "Seniang". Still, the hosting by the private sector of the 4th ASEAN Business and Investment Summit still pushed through without a hitch. So you can say that we only got half of the Summit, while the remaining half will be done next week. But part of that wish is for the sprucing up of Metro Cebu and that's exactly what we got. I have never seen the roads of Metro Cebu, especially Cebu City so well-paved, well-painted and truly prepared to host the ASEAN Summit.

Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) still wasn't satisfied with the landscaping (she also wanted the sidewalks to have their flower arrangements just like what they did to the islands in the middle of the road) but at least, we are now talking about the icing, no longer the cake. By this I mean the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC). Surely this time, we can successfully host the ASEAN Summit and look forward to another rousing Sinulog festival.

For this year, my New Year's Wish List is for a clean, honest and peaceful elections; after all, whether we like it or not, everyone will be preparing for this political battle. Call this a motherhood wish if you want, but the only way to bring stability to this nation is to have a credible elections and it can only happen if the electorate made sure that their votes would be counted. I'm sure like in the elections of the past, the Cebu Archdiocese would ask for volunteers to ensure free and honest elections. So we hope they would never run out of volunteers.

My other wish is for the Filipino people to embrace charter change via a Constitutional Convention (con-con) as it is the only proper way to change the basic law of the land. Towards this end, how we wish that the con-con would adopt a Federal system of government, where real powers, especially the power to tax will now rest on each Federal State.

Today we have the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) or that of the Cordilleras, but this is not a true autonomy when Imperial Manila still calls the shots when it comes to the collection of government revenues. Federalism can speed up the progress of many places not just in the Visayas but also in Mindanao. The better-run nations on this planet have a Federal system: United States, Canada, Malaysia, Germany and Spain just to name a few. So I wish that my Wish List would come true this year. Happy New Year to one and all!

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit's columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com