For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky, we bring you a special guest who is unique in the sense that he is the Honorary Consul of the Philippines to Austria. We have many close friends who are Honorary Consuls, like Honorary Consul for Spain Jaime Picornell, Honorary Consul for Canada Robert Lee, Honorary Consul for Sweden Cheling Sala or Honorary Consul for Austria Arcadio “Dodong” Alegrado, but rarely do we meet someone who represents Philippine interests in their host country.
So for tonight, we are honored by the presence of Prof. Christian Traweger, Honorary Consul for the Philippines in Austria where he gives us an idea of how he promotes the cultural ties between our two countries. So please watch this very interesting show in SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm.
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It’s a holiday today because Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III declared to celebrate Eid’l Adha or the Muslim “Festival of Sacrifice.” Since we’re not Muslims we know not much about this celebration, which I can only second-guess is similar to our season of Lent where we Christians offer some kind of mortification in order to commemorate the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no question that this Catholic country has bent backwards to make our Muslim brethren feel a sense of belonging.
We can only hope that those armed groups like the MILF would realize that their call to fight the Philippine government will once again end with their humiliating defeat, which of course depends on Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III, if he has the guts to fight those lawless elements in the same way that former Pres. Joseph “Erap” Estrada did in 2000 where AFP troops captured Camp Abubakar, the MILF headquarters and many other MILF camps. That victory had MILF Chairman and founder Hashim Salamat escaping to Malaysia.
It is for this reason why I’m against the holding of any peace talks within Malaysia simply because they are biased for the MILF. The fact alone that they harbored the fugitive Hashim Salamat should tell us volumes. Incidentally, Time Magazine reported the death of Hashim Salamat way back in August 2003. The report said, “Three weeks before he died, Salamat renounced terrorism, a condition for attending the talks.” But despite the peace talks with the Aquino administration and the P5 million that the President gave to Al-Haj Murad, the MILF still went on a rampage killing 19 soldiers.
Pres. Aquino has apparently shown our people that he is a weak President. More so that the MILF has already declared that they would never surrender Commander Dan Laksaw Asnawi, who is responsible for killing the 19 soldiers a couple of weeks ago. So now Mr. President, where is the country headed as far as this conflict is concerned?
As if he didn’t have a potential war on his hands, this President seems to have all the time to appear in YouTube’s World View series. It also gave us an idea of his present mental state because when he was asked whether he believed in Santa Claus, Pres. PNoy said, “Santa Claus perhaps is a personification of how people see the idea of generosity and idea of caring. It does come out at least for Christians during this period.” Hmm, he still believes in Santa.
Once more, the President used that forum to lash out at his critics saying, “People, especially those still in the criticize-anything-and-everything phase, should transform themselves into how they can assist their neighbor, sister, brother or anybody. What can we contribute towards the improvement of the whole rather than how do we concentrate on envy or concentrate on our ability to criticize daily to an infinitum that leads to nowhere.”
I submit that I’ve been a staunch critic of the President from day one because we believe that he is not fit to be president. The fact alone that he gave P5 million to the MILF without the Filipino people knowing beforehand speaks of utmost irresponsibility on the part of this Santa Claus believing President. Before he asks Santa Claus to transform us, perhaps he should ask Santa to transform himself first because we haven’t seen anything new about Pres. PNoy… except his continued media bashing.
There is an old American saying that goes, “If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen!” This President no doubt hates his critics. He is no different from the ancient emperors, rulers or despots who, after getting bad news from a messenger, instantly orders the killing of the bearer of bad news. Just read all the national or local dailies and you will see that even the columnists that supported PNoy during the elections are already very critical of his administration except perhaps those who are staunch supporters of the Aquinos. Finally we should ask our readers if they still believe in Santa Claus? I know my grandchildren still do.
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com.