The Catholic Laity Conference of the Phils

Tonight, I’m off for my first real vacation since the year 2006 with my family where I’ll be going to New York City, Orlando, Florida and Houston, Texas. Of course, I will be writing advance column for most of the week, however due to the 12-hour time difference, I’ll ask for your understanding if I might miss some deadlines and my column won’t appear. But rest assured, despite my being on vacation, I will try my best to write about my travels in the US. At least it’s a bit refreshing to write about the US especially about its economy and people, rather than writing about the bad things happening in our nation today. May I ask my faithful readers for their prayers for a safe and fruitful and enjoyable travel. God bless you all.

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Last Thursday, the group that used to be known as the Task Force for Family and Life headed by my good friend, Engr. Douglas Gacasan motored to the Theotokos Center in Perrelos, Carcar for the final review of the draft constitution for the newly formed Catholic Laity Conference of the Philippines. The creation of the CLCP came about after a meeting in the residence of Mrs. Fe Barino just before the Holy Week, where it was agreed that the TFFL which was created to fight the Reproductive Health Bill, which has since been signed into a law, should now move forward.

Somehow the Holy Spirit guided the members not to disband the TFFL, but instead shift its focus to help the Catholic Church in where it is in its weakest - the laity, which as most of you already know have become nominal Catholics or worse, cafeteria Catholics. Sensing that the clergy needed a stronger laity organization to strengthen it, it was then envisioned to create the CLCP and the TFFL members agreed to take on its new role as the ad hoc Secretariat for the CLCP.

During luncheon hosted by Fr. John Roña at the Theotokos Center, who agreed to have the Theotokos Center as the temporary headquarters for the CLCP, assisted by Fr. John Orat of Daanbantayan, we finally ironed out the kinks in the draft Constitution as written by our dear friend, Atty. Makilito Mahinay. That hard work in Carcar, ended with the final draft which was signed last Sunday in Atty. Mahinay’s residence.

Call it timely that the CLCP constitution was approved during Pentecost Sunday, which was also the first anniversary of the Consecration of the Philippines to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Call it a Divine coincidence if you will. We will be sending anyone interested to join the CLCP our final constitution. You can email the CLCP in these two email addresses, [email protected] or at [email protected]. Ms. Michelle Yap will answer all your queries.

Let me point out that the CLCP will have its first Congress this coming Dec. 8 and membership is open for all lay organizations that have a good track record in supporting the Catholic Church. At this point, while we have done our work with special thanks to Atty. Lito Mahinay, the task ahead is even greater and you will get to know more about the CLCP in the coming months. While all this began with the twelve members of the TFFL, but then lest you have already forgotten, our Lord Jesus Christ started his Galilean ministry with only twelve Apostles. From this mustard seed of twelve people, there are now a billion members of the Catholic Church.

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We wrote last week about the controversial bidding for security services at the Cebu Provincial Capitol and apparently we learned that many fellow media personalities in Cebu, columnists and radio commentators apparently lambasted this questionable deal. We have always thought and believed that Cebu Governor Hilario “JunJun” Davide III was a paragon of good governance, so we expected him to at least have this security deal investigated by a special panel. How wrong we were!

So instead of having Bidding and Awards Committee  Chairman Atty. Orvi Ortega who doubles as the Provincial Attorney and Jone Siegfried Sepe, Provincial General Services Officer-in-charge, investigated for any possible misdoings, Gov. Davide suddenly called for a presscon exonerating his “bata-bata” without any investigation at all. In fact during that presscon, Gov. Davide sounded like he was alarmed why the issue of security guards having no guns became an issue at all?

If the Capitol hires security guards without guns, then it exposes itself to possible armed robberies, especially in the South Bus Terminal, which has daily cash collections. What if there is an armed robbery today and money would be taken from the South Bus Terminal, the question we would ask would be whether we should blame the robbers or should we blame the Capitol BAC because it allows guard without guns? If you ask me, the reaction of Gov. Davide is very similar to Pres. PNoy Aquino. Birds of the same feather?

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Email: [email protected] [email protected]