Great we're No.1! But can we hold it?

We have very interesting stories coming out of The Freeman yesterday. Let me start with yesterday’s editorial entitled, “Talisaynons Must Look Before They Leap”. This is about that stupid recall exercise where Mr. Cris Saavedra who doesn’t even live or vote in Talisay is using has-been Barangay Captain Avelino Labajo to bring their month-long signature drive for the recall of the Talisay Mayor Soc Fernandez.

Will Talisaynons fall into this stupidity hatched by Mr. Saavedra using a political has-been barangay captain who couldn’t even win in his own barangay? If there was one major reason why I wanted the 1987 Constitution changed, it is precisely because it allows for recall. Many losers in the last election wait for the one-year period then launch a recall move against the winners in the last political race.

This recall allowed by this constitution doesn’t give the winning candidate a breathing space. After a year in office, he now has to fight for his political life. When that is done, he’s got only a year to go before the campaign season begins. No wonder this country is run like hell by Filipinos. Americans at the turn of the century found out that we were unfit to rule ourselves. Well, sadly, we still don’t know how to rule this nation properly, which is why the Philippines is still a 3rd world country!

Mind you, we’re not saying that Mayor Soc Fernandez doesn’t have personal problems, which spilled into his public life and beyond his control. I know what some people are saying about my Brod Soc, that if he is a man of God, then he must punish his son Joavan for all the bad things that he did. That Mayor Soc is a very religious man is the very reason why the evil one has targeted him using his son to drag him down. As Fr. Jerome Cayetano told the Sons of David after the Mass at the Country Club last Monday morning, the closer you are to the Lord, the more that the devil tries to destroy you until you fall in disgrace. As for those who have already fallen, the devil no longer bothers to tempt them as they are now on his evil side!

Now why do some people just cannot understand Mayor Soc’s extreme patience with his son Joavan? In truth, they are the people who cannot fathom the patience of our Heavenly Father. Christianity is a very tolerant religion. As our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us, “If someone slaps you on your right cheek, show him your left cheek as well. If someone robs your cloak, give him your tunic as well.”

We are all sinners and by our Christian faith, we are saved by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet despite our baptism into the faith that assures us our salvation, we still fall into sin, even those of us who are renewed or have had a conversion. But our Heavenly Father is so patient with us that he even sent his only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to die so that we could be saved from eternal damnation.

It is this same faith in God that has kept Mayor Soc going despite the harsh criticisms and I’m sure that Talisaynons aren’t a gullible bunch of people. As for Mr. Saavedra, his ploy will fall flat on his face because of his haughtiness and braggadocio where he intends to gather some 30,000 to 40,000 signatures all in one month, a figure that’s even bigger than the 25,000 votes that Mayor Fernandez bagged in the last elections. But as they say in a democracy, everyone has the right to make a fool out of himself!

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The other interesting story was written by Ms. Edha Dagooc that Cebu City is now the world’s number one emerging global outsourcing destination taken from the latest survey made by Global Service-Tholons Study. Cebu bested all the other outsourcing destinations like India, Vietnam, China or even Poland. I learned about this a couple of weeks ago when my sister-in-law who works in a Call Center revealed this to me. I thought that this was some kind of one-sided gimmick to make Cebu look good for foreign investors. The last time I talked with Cebu Investment Promotion Center (CIPC) Executive Director Joel Mari Yu, Cebu was number three in the world. How fast we have moved forward and up!

However, I must warn our readers that we should not sit on our laurels just because we’re in the number one spot. A decade ago, Cebuanos were agog to learn that AsiaWeek magazine dubbed Cebu as the 8th Most Livable City in the world. But because we did nothing to improve ourselves, we lost that spot. Eventually even Davao City overtook us. It’s a good thing that AsiaWeek magazine folded otherwise we would have known how far we have slid down. To maintain our newfound status, let’s encourage Cebuanos to speak in proper English and read as if our lives depended on it because we really are dependent on it! Let’s keep Cebu number one, always!