PIT SEÑOR: Binaliw and Waste-free Sinulog!

Cebu City will be filled with more visitors especially this Sunday January 17 – the Feast of our dear Sto. Niño and the Sinulog parade and celebration!

Millions are expected, devotees, revelers and more! Processions, Masses, fluvial boat parade, street dancing, family reunions, lechon, and more!

PIT SEÑOR to one and all!

Amidst the happy, joyful, sacred and secular celebration for this year, we ask everyone to also please stop to pause, offer a moment of silence, prayers and special petitions for Binaliw: for Señor Sto. Niño’s eternal rest and peace among their dead, for fast and complete healing of their injured, for strength and comfort for the families grieving for their lost loved ones, and, for all the waste-related problems and needs of the families of Binaliw and other neighboring communities to be sufficiently, urgently responded to effectively by the proper public and private authorities.

Will this year’s celebrations witness a waste-free Sinulog and Feast?

Yes, more visitors, millions of visitors will generate more waste.

HOWEVER, proper waste management and disposal of SEGREGATED WASTE, will show that the people who generate waste CAN ALSO be the same people who can properly separate/manage waste as resources, not as dirty, unhealthy, problematic, useless waste!

This year’s worship/celebration is unique, coming in after the tragedies that affected those in Binaliw as well as those affected by last year’s typhoons, floods and earthquakes throughout Cebu!

This is also the first time that Cebu Diocese Archbishop Abet Uy and Mayor Nestor Archival, known for their transparent and committed leadership to protect people and Mother Earth, are concurrently leading the Church and the city in coping with difficult multiple challenges at the start of their terms.

Thank you sincerely, Mayor Nestor, for your concern, presence and coordination at ground zero which will be remembered not only by those in Binaliw but by all who recognize genuine public servants who stand out among the more numerous self-serving politicians.

When blessed in a Mass he recently attended, Mayor Nestor said he prayed that the city constituents will work and cooperate with him.

Yes, we hear you Mayor Nestor and yes, we are one with you, as partners, as honest constructive critics, and volunteers to protect God’s people and his planet.

And Archbishop Abet, we are also one with you in promoting Laudato Si and protecting God’s creations --people and our common home, our one and only Earth.

Thank you also for saying Mass and being with those in Binaliw before the Sinulog, a very precious/compassionate/timely gesture of remembrance, of silence, of prayer for the victims and their families.

With your joint leadership, Archbishop Abet and Mayor Nestor, there is very high expectation that this year’s Sinulog will be waste-free or will see more responsible waste segregation and management from the devotees and revelers.

Archbishop Abet, this unsolicited suggestion please that I have written but ignored for close to a decade now:

For a waste-free Sinulog, a pastoral letter from you will be most appreciated, that 1.) Will be read in all parishes, at Mass and sermons, and most especially coming from you personally while celebrating the Sto. Niño Mass, procession and celebration, 2.) Reminding all to keep their own waste items to bring home or to segregate their wastes and dispose in properly- designated segregated disposal bins and areas, AND, 3.) Most especially, before the blessing at the end of your Mass or procession, asking all devotees to look to their right, left, front and back, to check and PICK UP any waste items for them to responsibly segregate and dispose of as their eco-offering and thanksgiving to our Sto. Niño.

Mayor Nestor, the Feast and Sinulog Celebration will be a timely occasion to reward all barangay and other multisectoral initiatives for waste segregation!