Moving on

March this year is proving to be a particularly hot and fiery month. The weather bureau has not only recorded the highest temperatures in years of over 30 degrees, but March is proving to be an unusual Month of Fires, its traditional designation as Fire Prevention Month notwithstanding.

In Cebu City alone, since the beginning of March, we have alarmingly had one daily, two once, and even three reported the other day. But we must credit our Fire Department people, even this late, for their stepped-up campaign on fire prevention awareness and preparedness. With the advent of summer, and even during unusual rains and flooding before that, we had already been warned about an ironic breakout of fires.

Equally, if not even hotter, have been news developments with the current impeachment trial in the Senate of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, covered live and reported on in media, on its 30th day yesterday. I have been following it daily and comments and reactions about it by people, listeners, commentators and editorials, also in media, with my own personal reactions and opinions that I prefer to still keep to myself, considering the fluidity and changing aspects of the case, until there is a firm resolution to it.

Other news developments this summer are a warning from the Health Department about the outbreak of gastro-intestinal diseases like typhoid in the wake of the recent 6.9-magnitude earthquake seriously affecting the food and water supplies of the affected regions in the coastal areas bordering Tañon Strait in eastern Negros Oriental and western Cebu Provinces, as well as the danger from rabies from rabid dogs. Thankfully, hospitals and medical facilities and personnel are now prepared to meet these threats. This also provides an opportunity in this pre-election for those intending to run in next year’s election to help, while being careful to avoid being blatant about it.

One news development that caught my eye this week was the unhappy rift within the nation’s largest trade union, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) and the formal expulsion of its long-time secretary general, Ernesto “Boy” Herrera. Boy was the one who recruited me to work for the labor radio station dyLA, owned by the Associated Labor Unions (ALU), an affiliate of TUCP. He made it possible for me to attend a three-month labor seminar with Southeast Asian grantees in Turin, Italy, sponsored by the International Labor Organization.

Because of these, I came to understand and appreciate the rationale regarding labor, workers, their rights and their labor unions. In my 26 years working full-time with ALU, that was the main thrust (and still is) of the only labor station in the Philippines, dyLA, and over which I continue to anchor a monthly program, “Women’s Kapihan.”

This leads me on to the monthly program we held over dyLA last Saturday in this Women’s Month of March. The theme of the program was “Women’s Role in History Month,” with Cebu Women’s Network (CWN) officers, board members and members who make up our panel. One panelist, an active Cebuana Trailblazer herself, Purita “Babes” Sanchez, was absent, having passed away quietly last month. We opened the program with a half-minute silent prayer for her soul before we moved on to the main discussion. And what a lively discussion it was, threatening to go into overtime if we were not limited by our designated hour!

CWN president Thelma Chiong, who lost her two daughters in Cebu’s earlier reported abduction, abuse and killing by some five young men, now behind bars, spoke about how it set her off her current involvement in women’s rights, campaigning not only locally but nationally as well. CWN secretary and University of the Philippines Cebu professor Portia Dacalos spoke out on her role in promoting women’s rights at UP. Board Member Madrileña dela Cerna, a fellow Cebu Daily News columnist, shared more of her opinions and activities in the Women’s Movement, as did CWN’s Fe Cabatingan with her longtime involvement in the subject at the Department of Social Welfare and Development from which she has retired. So too, with CWN member Frohnie Cagalitan, a Southwestern University professor dealing with her students and colleagues.

Speaking of Cebuana Trailblazers, educator and The Freeman newspaper columnist Eladio Dioko paid tribute to the late Cebuana Traiblazer Josefina “Inday Pining” Rivera Gullas on her 107th birth anniversary last March 9th. Her picture appears on the front of the 3rd edition deck of 100 Heritage Cards of Cebuana Trailblazers exhibited and available during the exhibit from March 1 to March 10 at the Ayala Art Center. Dr. Dioko’s column, as well as her card in the deck of cards, write at length about her achievements. A lengthy personal remembrance of her and her life written by her son, former congressman and one of the top movers in the Gullas’ University of the Visayas, Jose “Dodong” Gullas, also appeared in The Freeman last Monday, March 12th. Personally, I had the privilege of meeting her years ago during a business visit.

This leads me on to other significant dates this month. March 15th is historically “The Ides of March,” a fateful date for the great Roman general Caesar. Earlier, March 11th marked the first anniversary of the disastrous earthquake that hit Japan and wiped away life, property, towns and cities. What a date are the following: 3/11/11, the day 11 reminding me of another fateful date, 9/11/01, marking the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York City. Then last Wednesday, March 14th this year, another earthquake of 6.8 intensity this time, hit Japan. Tomorrow, the 17th, marks the death anniversary of the late president Ramon Magsaysay when his plane crashed into our Mt. Manunggal and we lost the best President we ever had. With me standing by on board at dyRC while all announcers were in the field following up the case, I was able to first report on air the initial discovery of the wreck from a call by barangay captain Nuyad of the place.

Let me share with you next week reports on our Girl Scout and Zonta I activities this week. For now, I have just learned of three who have passed on, moved on, actually to the next life: high school and Cebu Normal School classmate, co-graduate and best friend, Inocencia Momongan Tudtud; Jesus Lazaro Meca, husband of our past Cebu Girl Scout Council executive director Tita Meca; and Edgardo Olivares, husband of a dynamic dyRC broadcaster Ninez Cacho before she married him. Do remember them in your prayers.

Till next week, then, may God continue to bless us, one and all!