The fall of Bataan. We shouldn't forget!

As we didn’t have any Lenten show for this Holy Week, allow me therefore to present to you the second part of our travelogue in Macau. We will show you what Macau has to offer today. It has gotten the reputation of being “The Las Vegas of Asia.” Indeed by the number of Las Vegas-based hotel-resort-casino that opened in Macau, from Wynn’s, M-G-M to the Venetian Macao Resort-Hotel-Casino, you would really think that Las Vegas has moved to Macau. When we took the Gondola ride, it made me think I was at the Venetian in Las Vegas!

The focus of our show is really the Venetian Casino-Resort-Hotel, which is three times as big as the one they have in Las Vegas. The entry of the Las Vegas hotel-resort-casino group into Macau tells you that the Las Vegas patterned design or concept can draw in more money than just operating a simple casino, because they are enticing families and their children to travel together, thus spending more while they’re on a family vacation at the doorstep of China. Watch this very interesting travelogue on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00 pm tonight.

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Today, thanks to Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) holiday economics, we are celebrating ahead of April 9’s Araw ng Kagitingan or what we’ve always known as the “Fall of Bataan” to honor those valiant Filipinos who fought and died for Freedom and Democracy. While many pundits of today make a bad joke about the Philippines commemorating its defeats rather than its victories; it is unfortunate that many of our people have soon forgotten the ultimate sacrifices of our Filipino brethren who answered the call to battle in the defense of the homeland.

These days, we have too many armchair historians who from hindsight would say that the Battle of Bataan was unnecessary and it could have prevented the numerous lives of many Filipino and American soldiers who fought valiantly but perished in the mountain fastness of the Bataan Peninsula. My own grandfather, Capt. Valeriano Segura, the father of my mother died just a month before Bataan fell.

Those where different times 67 years ago when the Japanese overrun the defenses of Bataan. We hold this date in memory of their valiant efforts so that our people will never forget their sacrifice. Aside from the Philippine Scouts, many of those who fought in Bataan where ROTC graduates. Today, we’ve even removed ROTC from our curriculum just to show you how far we have forgotten those years. Today, North Korea is a real threat to democracy in this part of the world. This is why we should return ROTC to prepare our nation for the worse.

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Last week, we were in Manila for the Globe Telecom annual stockholders meeting, which we already reported in this corner last Friday. The following day was the annual stockholders meeting of its mother corporation the Ayala Corporation. I was able to secure the Ayala Corp’s annual report and learned that Ayala Corp. will be investing P49 billion for this year in infrastructure development of Globe Telecom, the expansion of its real estate arm and water distribution business.

This Capital Spending is broken down group-wide with P16.5 billion for Globe Telecom, P17.4 billion for Ayala Land and P11.4 billion for the Manila Water Co. These figures may sound small when you compare to the billions that many countries have promised to spend as their stimulus package to help get through the global financial crisis. But remember, we’re talking here about the Ayala Corporation, a private institution! Perhaps we should ask around, how much of a stimulus package are the many Local Government Units (LGU) spending for this year.

 No doubt, Ayala Corp. knows that in these hard financial times, money is of no use if it is kept in the bank, more so that the great financial institutions, from Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and the like have all but collapsed under its own weight of worthless loans. When you spend money like what the Ayala Corp. has earmarked, you can expect that they would be a huge help to the country’s financial stability.

I’m sure other private companies in the category of Ayala Corp. are also doing their own expenditures; after all, through all these years of ups and downs in the financial world, we learned that during a recession, it is time to buy property or build infrastructure to help the economy and reap the benefits or profits when times get better.

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Congratulations Atty. Juan Carlos de Veyra, son of my first cousin Mr. Manuel “Didoy” and Ely de Veyra, for being one of the lucky takers of last year’s Bar examinations who made it to become lawyers.

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Email: [email protected]