Let's just pray for Tita Cory!

For our special presentation on Straight from the Sky tonight, we bring you a bold, but novel approach in cleaning the environment in a project dubbed “Basura Mo, Panginabuhi Ko” which is in reality, Cash for Trash. This was conceptualized from the ground up by the Consultative Assembly of Mandaue Neighborhood Organization, Inc. (CAMANO) and it spin off another organization, called the Mandaue Homeowners Credit Corporation (MHCC). They clean up their garbage and refuse by creating Eco-Aides that use trisikads to bring their garbage for a certain fee.

This is what helping the poor is all about, while maintaining a clean and healthy environment. I’m saying that it is a novel approach in the sense that this project needs the services of those who have less in life and many do make a living collecting garbage. But with the support of the credit cooperative, they can make more and earn more through this project. With us to explain the mechanics of this project is Mr. Danny Daniel, Chairman of Camano and the MHCC, funded by Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz. I’m sure that if this project is duplicated in other barangays, it would help more of our poor. So watch this very informative show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00PM.

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We were at the Tropics Resort in Tagbilaran, Bohol for the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) meeting when about 1:30PM, RDC Chairman Gov. Gwen F. Garcia announced the passing of former Pres. Corazon C. Aquino. I ask you, what would you do when you hear the news that most people were expecting to happen? So we rose from our seats and offered a minute of silence.

Around 15 minutes later, as I was getting back to the SuperCat for the trip back to Cebu, I got text messages that this was a false alarm. I checked with our friends from The Philippine Star but they were still verifying this news. Apparently the “believable” text came from former Justice Azcuna who was at the Manila Cathedral when they were having a mass for Tita Cory. He also got the text and then announced it to the churchgoers. That false announcement now had a credible name attached to it, and as expected, a text brigade ensued and the whole nation got hold of that erroneous message, including us having a meeting in the RDC.

Whoever started that prank joke should be hanged by his heels. There is no doubt that Tita Cory is dying, but no one should kill her prematurely! While I may have my differences with Tita Cory as a journalist, I credit her for bringing change in this country from a dictatorship that we thought couldn’t be budged! If at all, my own personal prayer for Tita Cory is asking God to receive her into his heart by giving her a holy death. My own aunt, Tita Soledad Avila died of colon cancer and our family knows how much Tita Cory is suffering on her last days on earth. May I ask our readers to please pray to God to give Tita Cory a holy death.

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Today, Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will be making her last State of the Nation (SONA) address before Congress. I sincerely believe that there will be no more SONAs from her after this. Hence I believe that those Senators and Congressmen who planned to boycott her SONA for their own selfish and political reasons is not giving their constituents their fair share. Whether they would like her SONA or not, is not the point. The point is their respect for the Office of the President, even if they no longer respect the person that holds that office!

To those who hate Pres. Arroyo, no amount of reporting in the President’s SONA would appease them, even if the President told them the truth. These are the people who were never with the President since 2004 as she did run for President in a field of many Presidentiables, but she won the Presidential race to become a minority President. With so many Presidentiables who have already announced that they are running for President, you can expect that we shall elect another minority President, even if the automated polls of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) actually worked!

If there is anything that I would wish that the President would include in her SONA, it is that she would call a Constitutional Convention (con-con) whose delegates would be elected together with the 2010 Presidential elections. This is the cheapest way to select con-con delegates. Since many people are running for public office, you can be sure that the people who will run as a delegate of the con-con are the ones who have the nation’s interest in their hearts. Changing our President would be meaningless unless we change our charter. The best example we have is Tita Cory. She wasn’t a corrupt leader, she was a good person but she was used by the opposition. The gains of EDSA disappeared and we’re back to square one! Change the constitution, then we can change the nation!