The Sinulog Festival finally ended last weekend with a fluvial parade on Saturday dawn, which was successful despite the strong winds fanned by Typhoon Agaton where three ferry boats ran aground in Barangay Ibo, Lapu-Lapu City a few days ago. For the fluvial parade, the Holy Image of the Sto. Niño de Cebu was taken from the St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Mandaue City and placed on board a boat through the Mactan Channel early in the morning and reached its destination in the Port of Cebu without incident.
This was followed in the afternoon by the very solemn (as compared to the boisterous devotion that the devotees in Manila have for the Black Nazarene) procession for the Senyor Sto. Niño that brought some 2 to 3 million pilgrims to Cebu City to join the procession. If those figures are correct, then it must be the biggest Sinulog celebration that Cebu ever saw.
On Sunday, despite a cold and blustery day, the Sinulog Parade or mardi gras began with the same unprecedented crowd, where almost all hotels in Metro Cebu were fully booked. Again, if those figures published by the local dailies are correct and each pilgrim who came to Cebu spent just a thousand pesos each, that would amount to a couple of billions of pesos flowing into the Cebu economy. As the Tourism figures show, the Sinulog Festival has been dubbed as the nation’s biggest tourism drawer.
Those millions of pilgrims that swooped down into Cebu City for the Sinulog Week caused Manila-like traffic jams even if it wasn’t rush hour yet. It is this humongous traffic jams and the blustery weather that made me decide to skip walking to the Sinulog Parade and instead watch it live on SkyCable TV, which included MyTV Channel 30 that I manage. It was the first time we did a live feed… and since it was on HD TV, the pictures were crystal clear. At least we still saw the Sinulog Parade in the comfort of home.
If Typhoon Agaton didn’t stay for nearly a week in the country, where eight provinces were affected by the bad weather, there could have been more people coming to Cebu. But as it is, flights from Mindanao were cancelled and many interisland ferry services were stopped due to strong waves. But despite Typhoon Agaton, Cebu City celebrated a very successful Sinulog Week, which officially ends the Christmas Season in Cebu. Next festivity is the Chinese Lunar New Year that ushers the Year of the Horse.
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It’s just the beginning of the New Year 2014 and I just learned from Mr. Eric Manalang, president of the Pro-Life Philippines Foundation, Inc. and Douglas Gacasan, president of the Task Force for Family & Life (TFFL) for the Visayas that today the Philippines plays host to the 7th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSH) that will be held at the Philippine International Convention Center on Jan. 21-25 where close to a hundred Anti-Life non-government organizations (NGOs) are expected to participate in the next three days.
Who are expected to be here for this conference? On top of the list is International Planned Parenthood (IPP), which is dubbed as the number one abortion provider in the world. There’s the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights, a pro-abortion group, long suspected to be the brains behind the One-Child Policy in China.
Then there’s that highly-questionable organization that calls itself Catholics for Choice; the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership and Marie Stopes International and those local Filipino pro-abortion groups amongst the many others. These pro-abortion organizations would never have had the guts to do their international convention in the Philippines unless they got some kind of an invitation from Philippine government officials.
True enough the keynote speaker for this international conference is no other than President Benigno “P-Noy†Aquino III, who has now earned the moniker as the nation’s number one promoter of Reproductive Health (RH) products, like birth control pills, condoms, etc. etc. This is a stigma that P-Noy can no longer wash his hands from because he not only supported, but literally used the now unconstitutional Priority Development Assistance Program (PDAF) to cajole the members of Congress to vote for the RH Bill, which Congress approved and P-Noy signed into law on Dec. 8, 2012.
While this staunchly Catholic nation is still anxiously waiting for the Supreme Court (SC) to rule whether the RH Law is unconstitutional or not, these pompous pro-abortion groups arrogantly holds its 7th Asia Pacific Conference on the RH Rights in our shores. At this point, the Pro-Life groups will be holding a prayer rally today in the hope that God would listen to our prayers in support of the weak and the defenseless unborn babies. So this spiritual battle in this fight between good and evil continues in this country, which has now been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM).
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com