A judge whose heart is for the poor

I take my hat off to Executive Judge Meinrado Paredes whose story appeared in a special report by a national daily, yesterday. I’ve always known that Judge Paredes was one of those activists who was jailed during the Marcos Dictatorship yet when finally he received his US$1,000 compensation check ordered by the US Court at Club Filipino, he told reporters that he would donate part of the money for the prisoners of the Cebu City Jail so that they could start a livelihood program.

No doubt the kindness of Judge Paredes is a rarity. I have read the reaction of some of the victims of the human rights abuses done during the Marcos years and somehow, some of these victims still harbor a lingering hatred towards the Martial Law regime. By this time, our Christian teachings of loving one’s enemies or the teachings of the Catholic Church about forgiveness should have already settled in their hearts. But so far, it is only Judge Paredes who came out in the open to share a little of this money to people who have less in life. Consider me lucky that I know Judge Paredes personally. In my book, he is a true Christian without any duplicity in him. God Bless you Judge Paredes and your kin!

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There they go again. The Commission on Audit (CoA) questioned the City of Cebu to justify the over P3 million food purchase that was served to the teachers during the May 2010 elections. As The FREEMAN exclusive front-page report goes, there were some problems in the procurement of this purchase. This is the kind of style by CoA that promotes corruption because it takes them too long to decide whether there was a defect in the purchasing system.

I’m sure that CoA officials also go and eat in restaurants and they pay for the food and service given to them, otherwise the waiters would never serve them. But in the catering business, the caterer already knows that there are certain “risks” if they deal with City hall or the Province of Cebu. Chances are they would be paid months after the food had been served and consumed. But in this case, the caterer ends up holding the empty bag!

I really don’t know who owns the Red Carpet Catering, but I know this business well enough when my wife had her catering business when we used to operate the Chikaan Restaurant. This CoA order is a grave injustice done against the caterer, unless of course if they can prove that there was some kind of collusion between City Hall and the caterer.

Despite the demand by Red Carpet Catering Services for the City of Cebu to pay its debts, CoA now has asked the City of Cebu not to pay them. If CoA can prove that there was irregularity in the way this deal was concocted, it should be a court of law that should make that decision as to whether or not there was some collusion between someone in City Hall and the caterer. Without any other evidence contrary to that, the fact remains that the caterer invested in the food ingredients and delivered them to the teachers during election time and it is the duty of City Hall to pay those debts that have been due to their creditors for months already!

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House Assistant Majority Leader Rep. Eduardo “EddieGul” Gullas has come up with a statement declaring, “If Congress reinstates capital punishment, the Philippine government will naturally lose the moral high ground to boldly appeal to foreign governments for clemency on behalf of the many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) who have been meted out death verdicts.”

Rep. Gullas issued this statement in answer to the calls in Congress for the revival of the death penalty because of the numerous heinous crimes that have been committed by criminals. I fully concur with the statement of EddieGul because those foreign governments who sentence our OFWs to death would only question why we are seeking clemency for our people when we ourselves execute them back home. There are 139 countries that abolished the death penalty, but 58 countries still have them and they are mostly in the Middle East where we have a lot of OFWs at work.

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The Eduardo Aboitiz Cancer Center (EJACC) has declared the month of March as Colorectal Cancer Month. Colorectal cancer is a disease where the normal cells in the lining of the colon or rectum begin to change and grow without control. It starts with a cancerous polyp and over time it becomes a cancerous tumor. Hence EJACC is exhorting the public to come for a check up in order to detect any early signs of colorectal cancer so it can still treated. Doing otherwise could shorten your lifespan. For more info on colorectal cancer contact EJACC at 254-6351 and look for Gina Mariquit.