CSF dishonors Oscar Rodriguez

ON MONDAY, Feb. 26, in what can be the culmination of the celebration of its Kaganapan 2024, the city government “bestowed upon San Fernando’s ‘Cityhood Heroes’ a day of recognition to honor ‘their significant contributions in the Cityhood journey.’”

“Leading the roster of awardees was former Mayor and Congressman Dr. Jesus Reynaldo “Rey” Aquino, who spent a certain three years of his life as a local chief executive campaigning non-stop in the Congress and the Senate for San Fernando’s cityhood.” So read the post in the social media page of the city information office, naming some significant others who were accorded due recognition.

“Atty. Oscar Rodriguez, who likewise served as San Fernando Mayor and Pampanga Third District Congressman, was also one of the awardees…” the post noted. Thereby, the city government utterly dishonored Rodriguez; relegating him to a mere footnote of the history he himself crafted.

Oscar Samson Rodriguez did not merely serve as city mayor and Pampanga 3^rd District congressman but can rightfully claim paternity over the cityhood of San Fernando.

Short in memory – it has been only 23 years since, and long in ignorance is the city government of an epochal instance in the history of San Fernando. It ought to hang its head in shame!

Against the caution of a well-meaning friend who said the collective intelligence at city hall today could be contained on the head of a pin, hence the futility of any discussion, I would still share this definitive narrative on the cityhood saga of San Fernando lifted from my book Oca: A Story of Struggle published in 2005.  

Fathering the City

ABORTED BY the threat of lahar after its very conception in 1995, miscarried – induced by the financial crisis – in 1997, and stillborn because of the 1998 elections. That was the wringer the dream of cityhood for Pampanga’s capital town went through.

“But for the persistence and dogged determination of Congressman Oscar S. Rodriguez, there would have been no birthing to the City of San Fernando,” says Redgie Salas-Szal, a member of the legislative staff that prepared the paperwork for cityhood.

Soon as the din of the 1995 elections died down, Oca, fresh from electoral victory, took with characteristic boldness the preparatory steps to the realization of his dream by immediately buckling down to work in preparing the bill at the House of Representatives to start the municipality’s campaign for cityhood.

Disaster came in October that year, with lahar rampages that buried Barrio Cabalantian, Bacolor and hit San Pedro Cutud, Sto. Nino, San Juan and threatened the very center of San Fernando.

The exigency of San Fernando’s very survival took paramouncy, and the preparations for the cityhood bill had to be shelved, albeit temporarily.

Battling, if not belittling the scepticism of national government officials – they that cried to “let nature take its course”” and called for the abandonment of the province – Oca maximized his efforts in saving Pampanga and San Fernando from the onslaught of lahar, mobilizing citizen participation in lobbying government for engineering interventions. The FVR Megadike stands today as a solid testament to these efforts.

Towards the end of 1996, when the province was assured of relative safety from lahar, Oca picked up anew the pursuit of cityhood. Alas, lack of support from the municipal government took the wind out of the cityhood sails.

Priority was still anti-lahar infrastructure and flood-mitigating measures. The all-important requirements for cityhood took the back seat in the municipal government. Eventually, the cityhood bill gathered dust at the House Committee on Local Government where it was referred after its filing.

Then in January 1997, intense pressure from a cross-section of the San Fernando community prodded the Sangguniang Bayan to pass Resolution No. 97-001 – sponsored by Councilors Eduardo Quiambao and Ceferino Laus – requesting the Congress of the Philippine through Rep. Oscar S. Rodriguez to convert the municipality of San Fernando into a component city.

A separate resolution for the Senate was unanimously approved by the SB a month later.

On April 23, 1997, Oca filed HB9267, “An Act Converting the Municipality of San Fernando into a Component City to be known as the City of San Fernando.”

But as the cityhood movement gained renewed momentum, the election season came. And as is the way of things in the Philippines, everything stops to give way to politics. Cityhood was lost in the cacophony of the election campaign.

Still, Oca would not just be denied: of his re-election, and his cityhood dream. He lost no time refiling the cityhood bill as HB1397, this time ensuring that the municipal government met all the prerequisites for cityhood, starting with the town’s barangay councils passing resolutions “strongly” endorsing the transformation of San Fernando into a city.

In a letter on July 6, 1998, Mayor Rey Aquino urged the SB to pass a resolution endorsing the conversion of the municipality into a city. Two short days after, Resolution No. 98-001, sponsored by Councilor Dennis Dizon, was unanimously approved. The cityhood resolution was endorsed to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan which subsequently made its own endorsement.       

San Fernando had no problem in meeting the other prerequisites to cityhood. It had a minimum population of 193,000 inhabitants at that time as certified by the National Statistics Office and the latest annual registered income of at least P53 million, based on 1998 prices as certified by the Department of Finance.

Oca very well knew that with cityhood, San Fernando’s annual income would further improve and basic services to the Fernandinos would be greatly enhanced.

Aside from the additional income and expanded services, Oca saw in the city greater local autonomy and lesser supervision from the national government. And the subsequent, if not consequent, independence from the province as a highly urbanized city and its entitlement to a separate legislative district in Congress.

For his part, Mayor Aquino formed an ad-hoc committee with Engr. Mike Quizon as head, and then started a town-wide cityhood information drive.

And then a new setback: the penny-pinching policy of the new Estrada administration dictated by international financial institutions for the country to cope with the Asian financial crisis.

Budgetary constraints forced the House of Representatives to suspend all impending conversion of municipalities into cities. Oca’s bill was not spared from the freezer; the city of his dream, on-hold in suspended animation.

But Oca’s tough-as-nails persistence just would not give up. Drawing from the wellspring of goodwill he cultivated through his years in Congress, and with the evangelical zeal of a Dominican on his first foreign mission, Oca moved his peers to see and share his dream. On third and final reading, March 9, 1999, the House approved HB6766 converting the municipality of San Fernando into a component city.

Transmitted to the Senate and presented to public hearing by the Senate Majority Floor Leader at the Senate Committee on Local Government, it took all of 13 days for Senate Bill No. 2192 converting the Municipality of San Fernando into a city to be approved.

On January 5, 2001, a historic event took place in Malacanang Palace upon the signing of Republic Act No. 8990 by His Excellency, President Joseph E. Estrada, creating the independent component city of San Fernando.

But the birthing pains persisted.

The usually warring local politicians, vested interest groups and cause-oriented militants succeeded in forming a tenuous alliance to mount opposition to San Fernando’s cityhood. Their main arguments of increased taxes, prohibitive social costs and dreary urban blights did not dull the sheen of cosmopolitan appeal of a San Fernando City. Never mind the “No more flooding, Yes to cityhood” inanity of the Mayor Aquino campaign.

Thus, in what amounted to a perfect preview of the May 2001 elections, the cityhood was ratified in the plebiscite of February 4, 2001 – and its father, Oca is given his just and due recognition.

YES, IT does not take too much intelligence to know this milestone in the city’s history. Not unless yours is that of a gnat.

Taking trikes off highways again, again, again

LAST WEEK, the Department of the Interior and Local Government press released its Memorandum Circular No. 2023-195 dated Dec. 6, 2023 enjoining local government units to undertake the reinforcement of the prohibition of tricycles, pedicabs, and motorized pedicabs on national highways.

A recurrent refrain from the DILG there displaying its abject failure at imposing its will on the LGUs.

Only in the previous dispensation, there was then-Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Año issuing a similar order, to wit: ““For safety reasons, no tricycle or pedicab should operate on national highways utilized by four-wheel vehicles greater than four tons and where normal speed exceeds 40 kilometers per hour.”

Año’s DILG Advisory No. 2019-0016 is but an iteration of DILG Memo Circular 2007-001, which in turn sprang out of Section 10 of Presidential Letter of Instruction No. 1482 Series of 1985 – harking back to Marcosian times – that tricycles are “prohibited to operate along the national highway or any road which allows maximum speed of more than 40kph, especially on well-paved, high-speed roads, unless special tricycle/bicycle lanes on the shoulder are provided, except to cross.”

Yeah, that is how long has this prohibition been ordered. And here I am, ranting and raving just as long at the inutility of all DILG orders putting trikes in their proper places.

Still, trikes lord over the highways – not to mention even the rural dirt roads and urban alleyways. Truly, they are the kings of the road.

A constant in all DILG orders: “Allowing them on main thoroughfares poses hazards to other motor vehicles, the riding public, and even to the drivers themselves.”

Hazards on the road, everyone knows that. Not the least the trike drivers themselves. Still, on any day, any hour of the day in fact:

Tricycles traverse stretches of the national highways in direct violation of the law, being confined only to crossing them.

Tricycles keep to the innermost – and therefore, fast – lane at processional speed holding traffic and raising blood pressures of drivers behind them.

At other times, tricycles – especially the lowered sporty types – turn the national highway into an Indianapolis 5000, unmindful of all other vehicles.

Tricycles are loaded to the roof with passengers and goods as they ply their merry way along the major roads and highways.

Tricycles have made street corners, many times even whole streets as their terminals, complete with sheds and karaokes.   

Include in this group too the padyak-sikels who virtually hold proprietary rights over city streets – making terminals atop bridges, counterflowing traffic at will, do pick-and-drop passengers wherever, whenever.

Want to undertake a study of anarchy in Pampanga’s principal cities?

Go downtown San Fernando from 6:30 in the evening onward and drive through a maze of jeepneys, tricycles and tri-wheelers parked, idling or slowly moving in all directions, in utter contempt of the right of way.

Personally, I have had three brushes with tricycles – each time I am on the right side of the law, but ending up just the same paying for the damages on my cars which ran to tens of thousands of pesos. The trike driver always going scot-free. Little, if perverse, consolation to me that on two occasions, the tricycles were total wrecks. ‘Dana.   

How did this come to pass?

Blame the laxity of law enforcers rising out of their fellowship – in Tagalog, kapalagayang-loob – with the drivers as members of the same socio-economic class.

Blame the timidity of local government units to enforce the law in view of the “solid votes” of the TODAs and JODAs. Which, in actuality, is more myth than might.

Blame that all too ready scapegoat for everything wrong in this country – the culture of impunity. As I extracted from an old piece here (Immunity index, June 21, 2012):   

Culturization though starts small, petty things, which often repeated, graduate to big things. Like the culture of the lie attributed to Goebbels: If a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the truth.

Hence, if a wrong is done often enough, it becomes not necessarily right, but altogether tolerated, aye accepted as a no-wrong…

…[Jeepney and tricycle drivers] flout the law with nothing more than their stupid grins to flaunt, but nobody dares apprehend them. Not even reprimand them. And these are but the “small folk” far below the ladder of power and influence in local society.

If, in their “lowness” they can get away with these small violations, so can the high and the mighty get away with bigger violations…

…Ending the culture of impunity in this country should be invoked at each unpunished illegality, no matter how seemingly trivial.

Ending the culture of impunity in this country demands the draconian exercise of political will. By all persons in authority. With full respect to the rights of the people, but of course.

Will. Will not. A whale of a difference in the nut.

And we all know who’s that.

 

Why take the crime out of libel?

 

FROM 2004 to 2012, Philippine legislators filed more than 60 bills seeking the decriminalization of libel or at least the abolition of imprisonment with regard to libel cases. But things have not moved.

So, lamented an analysis Rappler published Jan. 4. No, I do not intend to mix my tears with those of the revered online media over libel-as-still-a-crime nor deprecate their stand.

As far back as the day decriminalizing libel entered the public discussion, I have stood on the NO platform – writing about it here in February 2014, reprinting it with updates as the occasion arises like now – and putting me at odds with a number of my media peers.   

I have had no problem with libel, notwithstanding the eight cases I had faced in my almost 50 years of writing. No bragging there, just being matter-of-factly.  

I have always considered a libel case as par for the course in the journalism field. As a recourse – the only legal one – of anyone who felt maligned in print, broadcast, or personal utterance, to seek redress for her/his grievance. Indeed, the exercise of a civil right in our democratic state.

It is precisely owing to this core belief that I never begrudged all those people who took me to court – mainly to the prosecutor’s office – crying that I libeled them. I respected their right to seek my comeuppance for whatever perceived and felt wrong I did them. I respected them for their civility – of going the judicial course instead of taking the extra-judicial shortcut with extreme prejudice.  

It is precisely because no libel complaint bearing my name as respondent ever prospered, all finding closure at the prosecutor’s office, that I have lived well with the reality of libel – until 2010.  

Mid-December of that year, a complaint rising out of my rejoinder to a news story denigrating procedures in the conferment of some awards went beyond the prosecutor’s office, even after its dismissal and subsequent denial of a motion for reconsideration there, to the Department of Justice via the complainant’s petition for review. Only to be dismissed anew. The case ran all of three years. Meaning not to scratch old scars to draw fresh blood anew, I made no mention of names and circumstances here. A slew of stories about it came out in the local media and I recorded my personal account in acaesar.blogspot.com.

19 years ‘warranted’

In November 2015, a libel complaint I did not know still existed came to my knowledge only when I applied for an NBI clearance relative to the renewal of my gun permit and found an alias warrant to my name. The case was filed in 1997. Alas, two co-respondents – Sun-Star Clark publisher Joe Pavia and editor Ody Fabian – had died since.    

I hastened to Angeles City RTC Branch 62 to post bail and seek the reopening of the case. The ink on my fingers and my palms from posting bail had yet to be completely scrubbed off when I got a subpoena from the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for another libel complaint. A Guagua cop felt maligned by a story in Punto! in August 2015 written by the erudite Ding Cervantes alleging irregularities in the handling of evidence obtained in drug buy-bust. As editor, I was co-respondent.

The 1997 case filed by husband-and-wife officers of the Mabalacat Water District was dismissed in August 2016 “for lack of interest to prosecute” as the complainants could not be found anymore. What dragged on – absent my knowledge – for nearly 20 years took but two hearings to be scratched off the court archives.  

People vs. Cervantes, Lacson et al did not go beyond pre-trial for over three years, the complainant showing himself in court all of three times. Raffled off thereafter to another judge, the case was “conditionally dismissed” in August 2020 after only three hearings.     

Grand celebrations

Any dismissal of a libel case is a cause for grand celebrations, as much for the personal triumph of the writer-respondent and his paper or radio-TV station, as for the victory of justice, and the supremacy of press freedom.

At the time of our reporting prime, not too long ago, libel cases were never considered swords of Damocles hanging over our heads in our daily journalistic grind, but rather areas of opportunity to test the bounds of the freedom of expression. The possibility of libel cases never deterred us from the pursuit of the story, any story fit to print, to appropriate the hallowed motto of The New York Times.

No fear factor, no “chilling effect” then as now did a libel case serve as prior restraint in our exercise of this profession. Feeling safeguarded as we were by Justice Malcolm, writing in United States v. Bustos, 37 Phil. 731, 740, 741, to wit:

“The interest of society and the maintenance of good government demand a full discussion of public affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation; the wound can be assuaged with the balm of clear conscience. A public officer must not be too onion-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts. Only thus can intelligence and dignity of the individual be exalted. Of course, criticism does not authorize defamation. Nevertheless, as an individual is less than the state, so must criticism be borne for the public good.”  

Badge of honor

Indeed, there was this somewhat perverted sense Pampanga journalists held then – a number of us still holds to this day – of libel cases as badges of honor, aye, journalism’s very version of the Medal of Valor, to be worn and displayed with pride. So, the more libel complaints, the more effective, if not better, the journalist.

So, it was with Ody Fabian (+) of The Voice who landed himself at the Angeles City Jail over a libel complaint from the Angeles University Foundation Medical Center, and cleared of a P25-million case from a mayor, among others.

So, it was with Sonny Lopez (+) and Elmer Cato of the Angeles Sun, hauled to the fiscal’s office by then Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos (+) over exposes on corruption in the city government, and subsequently cleared of libel.

So, it was with Ashley Jay Manabat of Sun-Star Clark, tagged in a ridiculous P500-million suit over articles repudiating the doubly ridiculous claims of someone owning the Clark special ecozone along with practically the whole of Luzon.

So, it was with Jerry Lacuarta (+) of Manila Bulletin, haled to court by a US Navy man nabbed for international drug trafficking – of a “considerable amount of high-grade heroin stuffed inside imported tuna” coursed through the Subic port. The conviction of the American sailor ended the libel case.

So, it was with Lacuarta again, with Fred Roxas (+) of the Philippine News Agency and Ding Cervantes of Philippine Star, earning a P20-million libel suit over their reportage of alleged anomalies and incompetence in the construction of the FVR Megadike system. The complaint failed to go beyond the prosecutor’s office.   

So, it was with Rizal Policarpio (+) of Balita who, until 1999, held the distinction of being the only member of the Pampanga media to have gone the whole legal course of libel – filed by a town assessor implicated in the murder of three men – and acquitted for absence of malice. 

So, it was with the venerable Toy Soto (+) of Times Journal, who in his senior year was hit by what he evaded through his decades of journalism practice – a libel suit from Angeles City traders inferred in a report of the Clark Development Corp. as alleged smugglers. Dismissed at the prosecutor’s office, nonetheless.

So, it was with Arnel San Pedro of Manila Times, charged over his exposes of allegedly anomalous transactions in a government rehab center; acquitted after 17 years on trial.    

So, it was with me.

As much a vindication – of the correctness of the story, politically and factually – as a resolute re-commitment to the ethics of journalism is every dismissal of libel. So many libel cases we have been subjected to that the Pampanga media is now a proud keeper of a “Libel Tradition.”

Shields

Two basic elements in journalism we have experienced as strong shields against libel: accuracy and fairness.

Precise as precise can be in the facts obtaining in one’s story. While truth is not always a defense in libel, inaccuracies make falsities that open the respondent to utter defenselessness.

Fairness is the antidote to malice – the usually most damning of libel’s four requisites. Evil intent or ill will on the part of the writer will be more difficult to establish in a story that presents all sides fairly.

Be truthful. Be accurate. Be fair. That’s what all the editors I worked with told me on my way up in the pecking order of the Fourth Estate.

I have upheld – did my best to, every which way I wrote – all three. Still, I’ve had my share of libel suits. And I’ve been lucky. Emerging unscathed, and rather stronger, from them.

Even as I joined the voices raised against online libel in the Cybercrime Law, mainly for the harsh punitive provisions, I harbor a fear over the decriminalization of libel.

Not too long ago, at the Senate deliberations on the then Cybercrime Prevention Bill, I was in awe of the honourable senators – Miriam Defensor-Santiago (+), Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Alan Peter Cayetano, Francis Escudero, Edgardo Angara (+) and Teofisto Guingona III – moving toward that direction.     

However, I stand with Sen. Koko Pimentel in his cautionary plea to his peers on decriminalizing libel.

 “It’s a redress for grievance. If you’re libeled, you can file a complaint, and if the fiscal tells you no libel was committed, at least you feel you tried the remedy, and the potential penalty—since it’s a jail term—is sufficient enough to deter indiscriminate libeling of people,’’ rationalized Pimentel. “If we decriminalize it, more people would feel they’re victims of injustice because they’ve been libeled, and they don’t have a remedy. We don’t want people to take the law into their hands because of inefficient justice system.’’

Inefficient justice system. That’s one operative phrase that has not really factored in amid all the noise rising from the Supreme Court’s declaration of the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Law.

Given the Maguindanao Massacre and other media killings even with libel laws extant, it will most certainly get even worse with libel decriminalized.

And the culture of impunity will get the nation in an even tighter grip.

Yeah, I would rather face summons from the prosecutor’s office than look straight into the barrel of a .45. I have been through that too.

No mere chilling effect but a polar vortex there, I tell you.    

 

Plain thievery

 

PLAGIARISM IS defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author’s "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous boundaries. 

The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, particularly with the Romantic Movement, while in the previous centuries authors and artists were encouraged to "copy the masters as closely as possible" and avoid "unnecessary invention."

The 18th century new morals have been institutionalized and enforced prominently in the sectors of academia and journalism, where plagiarism is now considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics, subject to sanctions like expulsion and other severe career damage.

Plagiarism is not a crime per se but is disapproved more on the grounds of moral offence, and cases of plagiarism can involve liability for copyright infringement.

IF THE above brief is bylined Bong Z. Lacson, then I am a damned plagiarist.

Attributing it properly to Wikipedia makes me a “researcher.”

Plagiarism is plain and simple stealing. The scale and scope of what is thieved make the difference between pilferage and plunder. A sentence, a paragraph copied verbatim and passed on as one’s own comprises the former, a whole body of work – feature, essay, research paper, speech, critique, etc. – the latter. Still, and all, a violation of the Commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” And “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods” too.

Mere translation of another’s work in another language does not make it as the translator’s own. Nothing lost in the translation, the original ideas, thoughts therein remain reposited in the author.

As when a former Senate president translated into Tagalog part of a speech of the late US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and appropriated it as his own that instantly merited public denunciations.

Yes, the plagiarist is in no way exculpated by his reformatting of the work, so long as the original ideas are kept in toto. It is like Barbie or Ken – pardon the banality of the analogy – no matter how a child dresses them her way, they remain Mattel’s.        

Even more vulgar, as the Filipino witticism holds: Mag-amerikana man ang monkey, unggoy pa rin. Magpabango man si porky, baboy pa rin. Gone a bit off-tangent there maybe.

In a past not-so-distant, there was this fixation on ethical questions rising from the publication of press releases vis-à-vis plagiarism.

“What is unethical? Publishing a press release or writing for a government agency and for a newspaper at the same time?” So, asked one local paper reporter.   

Replied I: No question of ethics in publishing a press release, so long as you don't claim authorship of it if you did not write it. For then, it becomes plagiarism, plain and simple.

A prize-winning journalist from a national daily totally agreed, but then: “Problem is, young writers these days just delete the names of PIA writers and claim it as theirs in toto. Bad!”

As it happens, it is not only young writers that claim authorship of press releases, whether coming from the Philippine Information Agency, the public relations department of the Clark Development Corp., NLEX Corp., the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, the Clark International Airport, SM malls, or from the information offices of the Capitol, and the cities of San Fernando, Angeles, and Mabalacat.

Outright plagiarism has become common practice here, reflective of the indolence, if not of the incompetence of many in the local media. Bad, really bad.    

Many a time you see the same story bylined differently in other papers but taglined “Press Release” with the corresponding source in Punto!

Yes, it is our policy to attribute the press release whence it cometh. If it is re-written and infused with additional facts and figures by our writers, then we find it meriting of his/her byline or tagline but still carrying PR – for press release.

Writing for a government agency and for a newspaper at the same time, is a totally different matter. Ethics dictates that such writer identifies himself/herself as working with the government so the readers will have foreknowledge of his/her biases.  

Plagiarism though is not always as easily delineated or defined as in the case of press releases. Or as always willful, on the part of the writer.

I have been in journalism since the mid-1970s and still I am in constant dread if I have inadvertently or unwittingly taken parts of someone else’s work and incorporated them in my own without the proper attribution.

It is easy – and I do this diligently – to cite reference works and authors quoted in my articles when I am directly noting them from the internet or from books on hand.

Due diligence however becomes fairly impossible when dredging one’s memory bank while writing, especially nearing deadline. It’s like: Are these sets of words, phrases coming to mind originally mine? Or are they figments of long memorized passages from hundreds of books and periodicals read, or maybe my personal impressions of them?

Authors may have been long forgotten but their ideas are still remembered. Or remembered in name but not in work.

There is absolutely no willful intention in me to take another’s work as my own. If you notice anything in my writings suspiciously similar to another’s, then – please – let me know ASAP.

I will call out that other for plagiarizing my work. If his came after mine.

I will damn myself, don sackcloth and sit in ashes. If mine came after his.

There’s no justification to plagiarism. Once you did it – and are found to have done it – there’s no other recourse but to own up to it and not simply apologize but repent and recompense.

That is the only right thing to do. As much for the writer as for the editor.

(First published in September 2012, republished and updated in the wake of the Rappler apology for academic and journalistic works published elsewhere plagiarized by a researcher-writer)

Home in Him

THIS SEASON of joy, an occasion for tears.

If only for one carol – I’ll be home for Christmas. Whoever sings it – Bing Crosby or Michael Buble, Whitney Houston or Josh Groban – reduces me to a crying heap.
Just the first strains are more than enough to work up the lacrimal glands –  
I’m dreaming tonight of a place I love
Even more than I usually do
And although I know it’s a long road back
I promise you…
Thoughts of toiling fathers in the scorching desert sand, of seafaring husbands amid the frozen winter seas, of care-giving mothers in some retirement home, of child-rearing sisters in some high-rise flats – all of them wishing, longing, pining —
I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree
Aye, presents under the tree, but not so much – indeed, not ever – for snow and mistletoe. As for the parol, simbang gabi, and bibingka, puto bumbong, suman, and tamales.

And, above all, family —   
Christmas eve will find you
Where the love light gleams
At the Misa de Aguinaldo singing Gloria in Excelsis joyfully welcoming with the angels and the shepherds the birth of the Savior.

And then, from the humblest hovels to the grandest mansions, the whole family, in prayerful thanksgiving, partaking of the noche buena feast.   
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.
The overseas Filipino worker sings. And I just can’t help but wail with him. 
Still, he, she can dream of some homecoming.
Alas, that is not so with the folk uprooted, displaced, death-visited, wherever injustice and terror still supremely reign.  
For them, home for Christmas is now all in the heart, pained memories of what once was. Of what can never be again.
Of them, what can we sing?
Only dirges to haunt the barely surviving. 
Suffering deepening. The weeping unceasing.

Still, hope eternally springs.

There in the Book a cause for some soul-uplifting: “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”  
No home at His aborning. Home for all mankind is in Him. 
Rejoice.    

(First published in December 2012)

Fellowship for Clark

 

THIS ANNUAL fellowship has become a platform for the reaffirmation of the relationship, professional and cordial, between the Clark agencies and the media. As well as for the renewal of our commitment of support for the development of Clark.

Lest we forget, this is also a time for thanksgiving. And we have much, much to thank for this year.

For one, the excellence in good corporate governance collectively -- the Clark Development Corp. and the Clark International Airport Corp. ranking highest, and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority raised to the Hall of Fame in the Performance Scorecard of Government-Owned and -Controlled Corporations – is more than enough a cause for a grateful celebration.

Individually, there is as much excellence we have seen in all three agencies this year. Top of mind now –

The BCDA for the multi-billion developments at Hann Reserve starting to rise in New Clark City, the Central Bank mint, among many others.

From its virtual relegation to the backburner with the Clark International Airport operation and management handed over to the Luzon International Premier Airport Development Corp., CIAC has come into its own anew with a multi-modal hub of events, tourism and entertainment, food trading, among others in the pipeline sooner than soon.

The CDC’s rich harvest of awards from just about every corporate and government entity, not the least of which is the jewel in the crown for 2023 – Asia Leaders Awards “Woman of the Year” which is yet another first in the woman of many firsts, CDC president-CEO Atty. Agnes VST Devanadera.

We can only exclaim, thank God, for Clark. And we in the media have a lot of good news to proclaim.

In this great scheme of events, the adverse issues that obtained this year between us are nothing more than the proverbial tempest in a teapot.

Ruffled relationships, that nonetheless took an intermediary to unravel, indeed a mediatrix beloved by all. Motivated only as she is by her unwavering faith in Clark, her unfaltering hope in its potential, and her unconditional love for her people who shall reap rewards from its development. I refer to no other than Nanay Lilia G. Pineda.

Whence this syllogism has become a personal article of faith, a pledge of commitment: Mahal ako ni Nanay. Mahal ko si Nanay. Kaya – sa abot ng hangganan ng mga pamantayan at panuntunan ng malayang pamahayagan – mamahalin ko rin ang mga minamahal ni Nanay. Amor con amor se paga, wika nga ng mga Kastila.

Tiyak ko na ang damdaming ito ay umiiral din sa ating hanay sa media. Katunayan, nitong Nobyembre lamang, sa pagtatalaga sa tungkulin ng bagong pamunuan ng Central Luzon Media Association – Pampanga Chapter, umusbong mula sa maimahinasyong diwa ng doble-bisionaryong si Ginoong Deng Pangilinan ang pinagtagpi-tagping mga titik at bilang na naging pahayag pagpapahalaga na siya na ngayong bukambibig ng buong kapatiran.

Maari bang tumayo si Ginoong Deng para siya mismo ang magpahayag sa atin ng kanyang siniping kawikaan – “143-VST, VST-143.”

Sa CIAC, ay mayroon na ring pagbati ng pagapapahalaga ang CLMA-Pampanga na nabuo naman noong balitaan-talakayan nito kasama ang president ng ahensiya: “Arrey, hooray! Hooray, Arrey!”

At marapat lamang na mayroon din ang BCDA: “For Clark’s sake, it’s Jake!”

Hanggang dito na lamang. Maraming salamat. Mabuhay po tayong lahat!

(Message delivered as chairman emeritus of the CLMA-Pampanga Chapter during the BCDA-CDC-CIAC Media Fellowship held at Royce Hotel and Casino, 14 Dec. 2023)

 

 

 

 

DUSIT THANI MACTAN CEBU RESORT: A peek of Eden-by-the-sea

A hidden Eden -- by its very location at the northern tip of the Punta Engaño Peninsula jutting into Magellan Bay – Dusit Thani Mactan Cebu is – as advertised – “an inviting retreat.” Indeed, a serene sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of…Metro Cebu or any other urban center one may seek to escape from. 

Thai, by nominal association and by its signature restaurant Benjarong, the resort is imbued with the warmth of Filipino hospitality. And yes, it offers dining options – Tradewinds Café for all-day dining and buffet on weekends (the seafood fare is to die for!); The View lobby lounge, wide open to refreshing sea breezes; The Deli, of coffee, cakes and pastries, and indulgences all sweet; and The Sunset Bar, for the spirituous and the sporty alike.

In true Thai tradition, wellness is not just a ritual but a celebration at the resort’s Namm Spa. There is a Fitness Centre – a fully equipped gym with the latest machines and facilities. And a Fun Zone for kids.   

Most captivating feature of the resort – at the very first sighting – is its infinity pool stretching some 100 meters parallel to the beach with a vast sundeck fringed with coconut palms swaying, sashaying to the breeze.

Alas, the resort fully booked for the day, no room tour for the media visitor. Given but a sneak peek, photographs and memories of this Eden-by-the-sea will have to do for now. 

(Dusit Thani Mactan Cebu Resort is one-hour flight from the Clark International Airport via Cebu Pacific Air)