Muslim issue: A double standard of justice!

For a special Christmas treat for our faithful televiewers, Straight from the Sky gives you an evening of Visayan music from the maestro and composer Paul Melendez who gave us that famous hit “Make Believe” popularized by singer Marco Sison. Paul’s well-renowned “Mabuhi” has become the Provincial Anthem of the Province of Cebu under Gov. Gwen Garcia. He has many other songs as well, like the recently recorded song “Parian” that reminisces about the past of Cebu. He even rewrote his original composition “Make Believe” into a Cebuano version “Para Aron Ingnon Lang”.

Mr. Paul Melendez has gone a long way in the music industry. He admits that no matter how long the procession is, it always ends up back in church. Paul is back in Cebu to give back some of his talents to enrich Cebuano culture, music and the arts. It is an honor and a pleasure to bring to your living rooms our Christmas show, a night to serenade you with music. Watch it on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm tonight with replays on Christmas Eve Wednesday and Dec.26, Saturday at the same time.

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There’s an expected dialogue between officials of the City of Cebu and the Muslim community in the hope that the terrorism that haunts Mindanao, especially with the recent bombing of a shopping mall in Iligan City, would not be repeated here. I have long suspected that a modus vivendi exists between the City of Cebu (and many other cities in this country as well) and the Muslim community, where Muslims can sell pirated DvDs in return for peace in our shores. But this is at the expense of the City of Cebu itself and the theater industry as millions of pesos in revenues in amusement taxes are lost annually due to this “arrangement.”

This situation also exists in Iligan City, except that, despite whatever arrangements are in place, bombs still exploded in Iligan. So all bets are off there. But perhaps the biggest casualty in this unofficial arrangement is Justice itself, it’s a double standard of justice! When Muslims can peddle pirated movies in our sidewalks for all to see without fear, this gives you the impression that the police are not doing their job and it is only because the city government approves or closes its eyes from this kind of arrangement.

We’ve always trumpeted Cebu to be the next Singapore, which penalizes citizens who drop cigarette butts anywhere. But how can we be the next Singapore when we can’t even stop people from urinating on our walls or stop film piracy? Cebu has the golden opportunity to make it big in the movie world with the opening of the Cebu Film and Television Academy at the SRP. This is something that Acting Mayor Mike Rama must talk with the Muslims. Mike is a lawyer and knows that the rule of law must be observed in Cebu City because he knows in his heart that old legal dictum, “No one is above the law.”

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In a teleconference presscon held last Thursday we learned that the Aboitiz Transport System Corp. through the Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. (AEV) and Aboitiz & Co. Inc. had virtually closed the deal between the KGLI-NM Holdings, Inc. that offered the purchase the ATS shipping company a few months back. However there is a slight hitch to this deal. KGLI-NM Holdings Inc. would only be getting a 49% stake in ATS by April 30,2009 instead of outright purchasing the entire company.

This was revealed to us by Mr. Stevie Paradies, Chief Financial Officer of AEV who stressed that in the meantime, ATS operations would still be run under the Aboitiz banner. However, AEV is giving KGLI-NM Holdings, Inc. the option of buying out the controlling 51% share of ATS by Sept. 30,2009. In the meantime, a deposit of P100 million has been given by KGLI-NM Holdings, Inc., which could be forfeited if the Kuwaiti-Netherlands based company decides not to push through with the purchase.

How things often change in the world of business. KGLI-NM Holdings, Inc. became interested in the Philippine Shipping industry when it purchased Negros Navigation, Inc. (Nenaco) which was on a court receivership. When oil prices soared to record highs, it became a huge problem to the shipping industry, but KGLI-NM Holdings, Inc. saw this as an opportunity to buy out shipping companies that were in trouble due to high oil prices. But then as fast as the oil prices shot up to record highs, it has plummeted down so low. With the global financial mess today, the deal between AEV and KGLI-NM Holdings, Inc. have been affected in the sense that they can only get one-half of ATS when they wanted the entire company.