Welcome back to Cebu City Mayor Tom!

Mayor Tomas Osmeña is back for a short two-week visit. We’d like to welcome him back to his beloved Cebu. However I gathered from news reports that people shouldn’t be going near him because his immune system is quite low. We hope that his supporters who want to go near him should realize that they just might contaminate him. Mind you, Mayor Osmeña is back to Cebu because he misses us, but he also needs a lot of rest. That’s what we should give him because he still has to be operated on when he goes back to Houston so he can finally be cured of this cancer.

I’m sure that the issue brought to the public eye by the barangay captains who don’t want to support the bid of Vice-Mayor Mike Rama and as of late, the bid of Cutie del Mar to replace his father Rep. Raul del Mar will be one of the main topics Mayor Tom will have to tackle. I’m sure that he got many text messages from friends of what’s been happening to Cebu since he left. But now is the time for hearing it from the horse’s mouth so he can separate fact from fiction. Only Mayor Tom can put this issue to rest so that finally he too can have some rest in Cebu.

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I couldn’t help but notice a news report where Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) ordered the manhunt for a witness of the Aquino-Galman murder case. Isn’t this Presidential directive 26 years too late? Or is this a mere gesture from Malacañang to the Aquino family who were incensed that the ten convicted soldiers in the controversial Aquino-Galman double murder walked out of the New Bilibid Prison Wednesday last week.

I asked friends what they think about the President freeing these convicted soldiers. Most would say that these people didn’t tell the truth and should stay in jail. I guess most Filipinos believed in the story that Galman didn’t fire the gun that killed the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. while the soldiers insists that Galman did fire the gun. Now whether there was a second gunman, we really don’t know. But in fairness to these soldiers, their story has remained the same in all those 26 years.

Of course the rumors that the families of these soldiers were given big money in return for their silence have been around for more than two decades. Whether there was more to this than just persistent rumors, we cannot really tell. But in my book, these 10 Avsecom soldiers were mere pawns in this blatant assassination. They have been punished for this crime, while the real culprits have never been tried, nor have been even seen the inside of a jail cell.

I can understand the sentiments of the Aquino family about the release of the soldiers. But they cannot blame Pres. Arroyo for releasing them after so many years in jail. The Aquino family had their chance in finding out who was responsible for killing Ninoy. Despite Tita Cory being president for a six-year term, she seemed contented with the poor soldiers incarcerated. Surely as a true and devout Christian, she must have found some kind of compassion in her heart for those poor pawns in this political game. They have suffered enough!

So back to that Presidential directive to track down and seek the extradition of former Air Force Capt. Felipe Valerio, a supposed key witness to the assassination. Is this is on the level? Justice for Ninoy has been denied for too long. Why didn’t Tita Cory demand for the extradition of Capt. Valerio when she was the president of this country? In those days, we were the darling of the United States (until the Senate threw out the US bases) and anything Tita Cory wanted, the Americans would have given to her on a silver platter.

At this point, we can only ponder and ask, “What would I do if I were in Capt. Valerio’s shoes?” If he was smart enough, he could have had a face surgery and a change of name and vanished from the scene. But then, he just might be living with some Filipino friends in the US? If so, then, I fully agree that we should extradite him; that’s if he’s still alive today.

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We heard that the Foodarama was robbed by eight armed men allegedly wearing police uniforms at midnight the other night. I call this the most creative bunch of robbers we have ever heard. No doubt there was a lapse in the minds of those security guards who readily surrendered their weapons to these holduppers! If indeed as they said, there was a report of indiscriminate firing, if the Foodarama guards weren’t sleeping, they would have heard those shots. But if they didn’t hear anything, they should have known that this was a trick and eventually a holdup! We should learn lessons from this.