About that Cebu ministerial declaration

Today is the beginning of the 500th or the 5th Centenary of the Feast of St. Teresa of Jesus better known as St. Therese of Avila (no relation to me). St. Theresa of Avila is represented by the school that bears her name. St. Therese of Avila teaches all of us our respective journey of faith or our reunion with God who lives within each and everyone of us. While we got our family name perhaps from the fortress citadel called Avila in Spain, but my aunt, the late Sister Adela Avila was an ICM nun who passed away in 1967.

Allow me to share two of my favorite quotations from St. Teresa de Avila, "Let nothing disturb you. "Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing away. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices." The other quotation goes, "Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours, Yours are the eyes through which he is to go about doing good. You are the hands with which he is to bless men now." These are the two quotes that I live my Christian faith by… and I hope you follow the thoughts of this great saint and doctor of the Catholic Church. Happy Feast Day St. Theresa de Avila!

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I read the headlines of The Freeman yesterday, which blared, "Cebu Declaration". Apparently the Energy heads of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation nations met here in Cebu City to adopt the so-called Cebu Ministerial Declaration asking the APEC Energy Working Group (EWG) to create action plans that would make APEC member nations sort of climate proof by adopting infrastructures and technologies that promote clean energy especially in poverty stricken areas and improving energy trade and investments to member APEC nations.

This sounds great to learned people like you who read The Freeman on a daily basis. However, to the ordinary soul living in our squatter colonies who suffer from occasional floods and other natural disasters, all this sounds like mambo-jambo. They just cannot understand how they could benefit from that APEC meeting or the Cebu Declaration.

As for me, APEC is beginning to sound like the United Nations where resolutions are debated then signed and then forgotten. However I'm not yet giving up on APEC. With this Cebu Ministerial Declaration signed in the Year 2015, I now have a reckoning date by which we can check on whether APEC nations would follow through with that declaration or not. So at this point, we can only say, Good luck and hope that APEC nations are serious in turning the Cebu Declaration into reality.

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Surprise, surprise! Maid Miriam Defensor Santiago has thrown her hat into the Presidential derby. She is running under the People's Reform Party (PRP). I'm sure that her entry into this race makes for one interesting Presidential campaign. During the Senate Impeachment for Supreme Chief Justice Renato Corona, Sen. Santiago spoke with eloquence, literally lambasting her fellow senators on certain procedures that were not followed. She ended up not voting for conviction because just like the late Sen. Joker Arroyo, she believed that the problem of CJ Corona's Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth could still have been remedied.

But since Friday is the deadline in the filing of Certificates of Candidacies I can only hope that Sen. Santiago won't have another bout of cancer that could prevent her from seeking once again the Office of the Presidency. Mind you, this is the second time that Sen. Santiago is running for president. The first time was when she ran against Pres. Fidel V. Ramos, where she bitterly complained that she was cheated in that manual voting. Hmmm, I hope Maid Miriam knows what she is up against. She should know that her number one enemy is not another presidential aspirant but the Optical Mark Reader, which used to be called the Hocus PCOS machines!

This makes me wonder whether or not FVR would support her presidential bid at this time. Meanwhile Mayor Rodrigo "Teka-Teka" Duterte has continued to hem and haw, showing how wishy-washy he has become. I always thought that Mayor Duterte was a no-nonsense person who could make quick decision at the drop of a hat. I've been seeing a lot of Duterte posters in Cebu City, proof that there are people funding his presidential bid.

But Mayor Duterte can't fool me because last January during the Sinulog Festival, we met him with some 70 Cebu businessmen and he told us that if Sec. Mar Roxas is running for president, he will not run against him. Well, the deadline for filing COCs is still tomorrow so let's give Mayor Duterte one more day and a chance to show to his supporters that he can be a man of his own and be decisive in making important decisions by himself.

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