My Trip to Cagayan De Oro: The City of Golden Friendship and Iligan City

THE VISIT: OCTOBER 16-17, 2008

Again as part of my job, I went to Cagayan De Oro and Iligan City to conduct a site and project inspection of the projects of my client in the same area, Firm Builders Realty & Development Corporation (FBRDC) and they have been my client since my Maybank days wayback 2005. I left Manila around 8:10 a.m. via Cebu Pacific Air then I arrived at CDO almost 10:00 a.m. then we immediately proceeded to DDD Habitat to check in since I’l be staying overnight in the City.  After some short talks with the officers of the company, we headed to Iligan City for the project visit wherein I was accompanied by two great people of FBRDC, Art and Engr. (sorry i forgot your name)

ON THE WAY TO ILIGAN CITY:

I thought its just an hour drive from CDO to Iligan but it took us almost 2 hours to reach the city.  We arrived there at FBRDC’s Iligan office around 1:30 in the afternoon where I met some of the officers of the company particularly their Project Manager Jong Gomez.  Then they treat me to a sumptous lunch at Sunbursts Restaurant one of the famous restaurant in the area because of their ried chicken, durian cheeze cake, Kinilaw with tabon-tabon (antedote for the lansa factor of the fresh meat of tanigue-Tahnks Jong & Art for the trivia!),calamares and sinigang na tuna.  In the same lunch i got to meet some of the PNB Officers of Iligan Branch who also gave their time to join us in the site visit at Brgy. Pacol. After the business and official concerns, my newly found friends from FBRDC took me at the famous store of peanuts in the City named as CHEDENGS. Thanks for the nuts and suka Pinakurat Engr.!  Then we headed to go back to CDO where will I spend the night.

CDO AT NIGHT:

We reached the city around past 6 p.m. already after 2 hours of rest in my room, my new friends from FBRDC picked me up again for their Dinner Treat.  They brought me at Limketkai complex at Cagayanon Restaurant, one of the popular and must visit place in CDO.  When we arrived there, the Secretary of DepEd was also there for some official functions along with the School Administrators of the Region.  Going back to our dinner, we enjoyed again the Kinilaw na Tanigue with tabon-tabon, pakbet, lapu lapu with tausi sauce, bola baise soup and fish adobo (i forgot the name of the fish-taste like utak ng baboy!), grilled tuna with lots of garlic on top plus fresh fruit salad as desert.  To summed it up, it was realy a great dinner then.  After that? we went home already after a long drive at Iligan.

A day before my Birthday at the City of Golden Friendship:

I woke up around 6am to catch up for the 7 pm mass at the Cathedral of St. Augustine where I also had the chance to take some pictures of the Cathedral’s unique beauty including that of the views of the Plaza and the City Hall.  From my place at the hotel i just walked to experience walking around the place pasing thru the river.  After the short walking within the immediate area, my new friends Art & Jong picked me up again in the hotel around 9:30 am since before my departure I had to visit our PNB branch to meet some of the officers of the Bank then afterwards they brought me at the store where the famous pastel is being sold and cook, the Vjandep (silent “j”) Pastel.  After buying some stuff there we went to SM City CDO for our Lunch and this time at Bigby’s then after the lunch we headed to the Airport in time for my 2:15 flight going back to Manila.  It’s really a great  experience visiting the place of CDO for the second time around.  My first visit was during my stint at Maybank Philippines but the same was not that good as it is very abrupt trip except with that of the fact that my trip then thru an airplane was the first one.  I really felt the golden friendship at CDO with the great and warm reception extended to me by the people of FBRDC!  Im really looking forward to my next visit at CDO hopefully before the year ends. I got back to Manila around 4:15 p.m. October 17, 2008

THE MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER IN VIEW OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS

Dear Brothers in the Episcopacy,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

At the beginning of our Synod the Liturgy of the Hours presents a passage from Psalm 118 on the Word of God: a praise of his Word, an expression of the joy of Israel in learning it and, in it, to recognize his will and his Face. I would like to meditate on some verses of this Psalm with you.

It begins like this: “In aeternum, Domine, verbum tuum constitutum est in caelo… firmasti terram, et permanet”. This refers to the solidity of the Word. It is solid, it is the true reality on which one must base one’s life. Let us remember the words of Jesus who continues the words of this Psalm: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away”. Humanly speaking, the word, my human word, is almost nothing in reality, a breath. As soon as it is pronounced it disappears. It seems to be nothing. But already the human word has incredible power. Words create history, words form thoughts, the thoughts that create the word. It is the word that forms history, reality.

Furthermore, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one’s life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the foundation of our life, how to build life.

The following verse says: “Omnia serviunt tibi”. All things come from the Word, they are products of the Word. “In the beginning was the Word”. In the beginning the heavens spoke. And thus reality was born of the Word, it is “creatura Verbi”. All is created from the Word and all is called to serve the Word. This means that all of creation, in the end, is conceived of to create the place of encounter between God and his creature, a place where the history of love between God and his creature can develop. “Omnia serviunt tibi”. The history of salvation is not a small event, on a poor planet, in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing which happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motive for everything, the motive for creation. Everything is created so that this story can exist, the encounter between God and his creature. In this sense, salvation history, the Covenant, precedes creation. During the Hellenistic period, Judaism developed the idea that the Torah would have preceded the creation of the material world. This material world seems to have been created solely to make room for the Torah, for this Word of God that creates the answer and becomes the history of love. The mystery of Christ already is mysteriously revealed here. This is what we are told in the Letter to the Ephesians and to the Colossians: Christ is the protòtypos, the first-born of creation, the idea for which the universe was conceived. He welcomes all. We enter in the movement of the universe by uniting with Christ. One can say that, while material creation is the condition for the history of salvation, the history of the Covenant is the true cause of the cosmos. We reach the roots of being by reaching the mystery of Christ, his living word that is the aim of all creation.

“Omnia serviunt tibi”. In serving the Lord we achieve the purpose of being, the purpose of our own existence. Let us take a leap forward: “Mandata tua exquisivi”. We are always searching for the Word of God. It is not merely present in us. Just reading it does not mean necessarily that we have truly understood the Word of God. The danger is that we only see the human words and do not find the true actor within, the Holy Spirit. We do not find the Word in the words.

In this context St Augustine recalls the scribes and pharisees who were consulted by Herod when the Magi arrived. Herod wants to know where the Saviour of the world would be born. They know it, they give the correct answer: in Bethlehem. They are great specialists who know everything. However they do not see reality, they do not know the Saviour. St Augustine says: they are signs on the road for others, but they themselves do not move. This is a great danger as well in our reading of Scripture: we stop at the human words, words form the past, history of the past, and we do not discover the present in the past, the Holy Spirit who speaks to us today in the words from the past. In this way we do not enter the interior movement of the Word, which in human words conceals and which opens the divine words. Therefore, there is always a need for “exquisivi”. We must always look for the Word within the words.

Therefore, exegesis, the true reading of Holy Scripture, is not only a literary phenomenon, not only reading a text. It is the movement of my existence. It is moving towards the Word of God in the human words. Only by conforming ourselves to the Mystery of God, to the Lord who is the Word, can we enter within the Word, can we truly find the Word of God in human words. Let us pray to the Lord that he may help us search the word, not only with our intellect but also with our entire existence.

At the end: “Omni consummationi vidi finem, latum praeceptum tuum nimis”. All human things, all the things we can invent, create, are finite. Even all human religious experiences are finite, showing an aspect of reality, because our being is finite and can only understand a part, some elements: “latum praeceptum tuum nimis”. Only God is infinite. And therefore His Word too is universal and knows no boundaries. Therefore by entering into the Word of God we really enter into the divine universe. We escape the limits of our experience and we enter into the reality that is truly universal. Entering into communion with the Word of God, we enter a communion of the Church that lives the Word of God. We do not enter into a small group, with the rules of a small group, but we go beyond our limitations. We go towards the depths, in the true grandeur of the only truth, the great truth of God. We are truly a part of what is universal. And thus we go out into the communion of all our brothers and sisters, of all humanity, because the desire for the Word of God, which is one, is hidden in our heart. Therefore even evangelization, the proclamation of the Gospel, the mission are not a type of ecclesial colonialism, where we wish to insert others into our group. It means going beyond the individual culture into the universality that connects all, unites all, makes us all brothers. Let us pray once again that the Lord may help us to truly enter the “breadth” of His Word and thus to open ourselves to the universal horizon that unites us with all our differences.

At the end, we return to a preceding verse: “Tuus sum ego: salvum me fac”. The text translates as: “I am yours”. The Word of God is like a stairway that we can climb and, with Christ, even descend into the depths of his love. It is a stairway to reach the Word in the words. “I am yours”. The word has a Face, it is a person, Christ. Before we can say “I am yours”, he has already told us “I am yours”. The Letter to the Hebrews, quoting Psalm 39, says: “You gave me a body…. Then I said, “Here I am, I am coming’”. The Lord prepared a body to come. With his Incarnation he said: I am yours. And in Baptism he said to me: I am yours. In the Holy Eucharist, he say ever anew: I am yours, so that we may respond: Lord, I am yours. In the way of the Word, entering the mystery of his Incarnation, of his being among us, we want to appropriate his being, we want expropriate our existence, giving ourselves to him who gave Himself to us.

“I am yours”. Let us pray the Lord that we may learn to say this word with our whole being. Thus we will be in the heart of the Word. Thus we will be saved.

Naga City Trip!

 Last October 10, 2008, I went to Naga City for a Business Trip with my boss to conduct a site and project inspection of a subdivision there in Naga City.  It was not my first time to visit the place and if I’m not mistaken it was the third time I went there.  The initial visit then was during my College years and the City has a big difference now in terms of economic activities and presence of big commercial establishments and not to mention the incomng SM City Naga which is expected to open by early next year.

The visit also gave me a chance to see up close and personal the very famous these days, the CamSur Water Sports Complex or CWC.  The place is now the haven of Wake Boarding enthusiasts, one of the most popular extreme sports for the young people and young at heart.  I also got the chance to taste the unique “laing pizza” in the CWC Resto.  The taste is really good and awesome!

On top of the great food like laing, pili nuts, bicol express and other native delicacies, I cant allow myself not to visit one of the most important destinations in Naga City, the Basilica of Our Lady of Penafrancia.  My first visit then was actually a pilgrimage in the same church but I can’t remember that what I saw the other day is actually the same as that of the place we visited then.  I was amazed with the magnificent glass mosaic that sorrounds every corner of the church.  It is evident with the newly installed wall sculptured that the church is currently undergoing renovations. Unlike the festival days, there were no big crowds in the area and we were able to see the image of Our Lady that easy thru a stairs at the back of the main altar.

The visit is really a memorable one! And yes, I’ll make sure to come back and visit again the place especially CWC and next time I will make sure I will see Caramoan, which other people describe as incomparable to Boracay! Whew! Great to be Pinoy! There are lots of great destinations in the country even superb than the F1 race in Singapore!   By the way thanks a lot to the great staff of our sister company, Air Philippines for bringing us safe home!

BABALA LABAN SA REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH BILL 5043

Nais po naming paalalahanan ang lahat sa panganib na idudulot ng ipinapanukalang Reproductive Health Bill 5043. Layunin daw ng panukala na mas maging ligtas ang kalusugan ng mga manganganak. Masyado raw tayong marami kaya di sapat ang pagkain at trabaho. Kulang daw ang pera ng gobyerno upang matustusan ang pangangailangan ng mga tao. Pero ang totoo, ang nais ay sugpuin ang ating populasyon, sa pamamaraan na sisira sa moralidad, sa pamilya at karapatan.

Pag naisa batas ang RHB 5043, pwersadong tuturuan ang ating mga anak/ apo mula Grade 5 hanggang 4th year high school kung paano makakapagtalik ng ligtas sa sakit at hindi mabubuntis o makabubuntis. Gagamitin ang pera ng gobyerno sa pagpapalaganap ng libreng condom, pills, IUD, vasectomy atbp. Alam po natin na hindi 100% effective ang mga naturang contraceptives  at ang susunod na ipapanukala  ay abortion naman – ganito ang landas na tinahak ng lahat ng bansang nag-umpisa sa panukalang gaya ng RHB 5043.

Pag naipasa  ang bill na ito  ay lalong magkaka ideya ang mga bata tungkol sa pagtatalik, kaya batang bata pa ay mawawala na ang kamusmusan. Nagkakaproblema na tayo ngayon. Lalo na pong lalala. Ang mga pribadong kumpanya  naman ay pwersadong magbigay  ng birth control measures sa kanilang mga empleyado.

Ang mas nakakatakot pa bukod sa paglaganap ng immoralidad ay pag nagpahayag ka ng kontra  sa batas ay  kulong o multa ka.  

Mag-ingat po tayo, magmatyag at kumilos. Taon-taon ay may nagtutulak ng panukalang ito. Medyo matindi po ngayon at mukhang hindi sila titigil. Pero kung magkakaisa ang mga Katoliko, hindi po ito makakalusot. Sa ating pagkilos at pagkakaisa nakasalalay ang kinabukasan ng pamilyang Pilipino, na gusto nating panatilihing banal.

Pag-aralan po natin ang isyu  at makilahok sa mga gawaing tumututol sa RHB 5043. Kaugnay po nito, ang Couples For Christ Foundation for Family and Life ay namimigay po ng mga leaflets sa harap ng simbahan. Nag-aanyaya po sila sa inyong lahat na lumagda sa isang petisyon laban sa masamang idudulot ng RHB 5043.

Higit sa lahat, ating ipagdasal ang mga namumuno ng ating gobyerno.

Maraming salamat po at nawa’y mapasa atin ang pagpapala ng Banal na Pamilya sa Nazareth. Nawa’y sa darating na Pasko, at sa lahat ng Pasko, ay manatiling ligtas sa mapanirang impluwensya ang pamilyang Pilipino.

Pagpalain po tayong lahat ng Diyos!

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