It’s the feast of St. John the Baptist and allow me to greet first of all Mrs. Pie Cabatingan Rosello, my mother-in-law who turns 80-years today. It is also the birthday of my younger brother Juanito Avila and yes, another Juanito is also celebrating his natal day today, our FREEMAN Publisher Juanito Jabat. So a pleasant Happy Birthday to you all.
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The Feast of St. John the Baptist has special significance for me because it is the Fiesta of Parian, where I once lived when I was a young boy. It was a time when we would go in front of the fire station “bomberohan” to have fun and games like a ferris wheel and I remember clearly it was in those days that I first fired a gun, a Daisy pellet gun used to shoot plastic targets for five centavos. In my younger days, we would even walk on the creek near Bonifacio St. because it was still clean at that time.
Today, Parian has become the site of the Heritage Monument, the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation (RAFI) Eduardo Aboitiz Development and Studies Center (EADSC) the Casa Gorordo museum, the 1730 Jesuit House and the Yap-Sandiego House and yes, the Fiesta of San Juan Bautista is still celebrated there. One thing I like in Parian’s celebration of this feast is that they don’t throw water at you, like they do in Erap country in the City of San Juan where revelers are drenched with water, like it or not.
The revival of Parian was given a boost especially during the Gabii sa Kabilin because it retains much of Cebu’s Heritage. Even that high-end resto Café Elysee along España St. offers its heritage cuisine that few can find in restos inside our shopping malls. There’s something about the Feast of St. John the Baptist because when we moved to our present home in Capitol Hills, our neighbors also adopted St. John the Baptist as their patron saint. So in the end, we still have a fiesta in our locality, except we only hear loud thumps of discorral and shrieks of karaoke singers who should not be allowed to hold a microphone. I still like the way they hold the Feast of St. John the old Parian way, more fun with less noise.
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I was with ASEAN Parliamentary Assembly Secretary General Antonio Cuenco and Rep. Raul del Mar with Super Bobby Nalzaro last Wednesday evening during the President’s Circle invitation by Harold’s Hotel hosted by Mr. Harold Go. I congratulated Tony as our forthcoming Congressman in the South District as we read the news report that the current holder of this post, Rep. Tomas Osmeña would support him in the 2013 elections.
One thing I learned from Tony Cuenco is that he had an unread speech against the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill, which means that if he were the Congressman representing the South District of Cebu City today, it would have meant that the entire Cebuano political leadership would have been solidly behind the Catholic Church in its fight against the RH Bill.
I also learned from Tony Cuenco that he still has two years left in his role as Secretary General of the ASEAN Parliamentary Assembly, which is why he has to stay in Jakarta, Indonesia. But I have no doubt that Tony will make a comeback in the coming 2013 elections, more so that he seems to have gotten the nod of Rep. Tomas Osmeña if he intends to run again.
No doubt, the years of being Congressmen in the South District of Cebu City have given Tony Cuenco information that few of us know. One amongst them is his knowledge of the history of what is now the latest controversy called the Spratly Islands. This is something Tony knows like the back of his hand, especially the number of islands in the Spratlys under the control of the Philippines, which is 12 islands at low tide, while China has only a few islands under its control. Of course a discussion on this issue would also mean looking back that the other issue called Sabah, which was part of the Philippines under the Sultanate of Sulu. But that’s another story altogether.
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The glut in the Nursing industry is getting noticed in Congress when Rep. Arnel Ty of the Party List LPG/Ma proposed House Bill no. 4582 which would expand that short-lived Nurses Assigned in Rural Services (NARS) program to enlist some 10,000 nurses from all over the country and farm them out to the 1,000 poorest towns because they just can’t find any jobs especially in the US Labor market.
Research has shown why the US Nursing market has dried up and according to Rep. Ty, “On the supply side, America on its own has been producing an increasing number of nurses. In 2010 alone, US schools produced a total of 167,597 nursing graduates, 26 percent or 34, 410 more than the 133,187 that they produced in the year 2006.” Indeed America’s economic woes have driven their children to take up nursing courses and that has wrought havoc to our nursing industry. So let’s not waste these talents and let them work.
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com