Win some, lose some

This is one lesson we learned all over again in the aftermath of the country’s midterm elections in the hottest summer season we have sweltered through in years. And on a most auspicious date yet, last Monday, the (lucky?) 13th of the month.
Early on, with my helpers, a married couple, we hied off to the to the Guadalupe Elementary School where our clustered voting precincts were located. The early crowds of voters reflected the mass interest in choosing our local, representative and senatorial officials. While my helpers took some time locating our precincts in the spreading school campus, I sat under a shady tree in my walker-chair, since I am not so mobile as I used to be.
Thanks to one of many officially assigned young voters’ helpers, Cecilia, a second year Cebu Technological University education student took over and led me to my precinct, along left-turn-right-turn ways where, as a partly disabled senior citizen, I was led in, filled out my voter’s list as I sat at a low elementary-classroom desk, went to the precinct count optical scan machine which accepted my vote, then got a printed “Thank you.” message for this information technology-neophyte voter. The older of my helpers breezed through as a senior citizen, while the other took some time standing in a lo-o-ong line before voting.
I must confess that I voted for a mixed list of candidates, considering experience and past records, as well as the new and younger ones manifesting dreams and plans for a better future with and for what they represent or stand for.  As I started writing this in midweek, some early unofficial results, as well as those already officially proclaimed, were already being reported in television broadcasts as well as in the press.  By the time this piece comes out, things should already be definite with acceptances, thanks and congratulations and objections and complaints, too. Like me, how did those you voted for fare?  Won some and lost some?
May 13th was also auspicious for being the 96th anniversary of the first in a six-month series of appearances in 1917 in Fatima of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin  to three young children at Cova de Iria in Portugal. The appearances to Lucia dos Santos and to Jacinta and Francesco, ended with the phenomenon of the “dancing sun” on Oct. 13th.
In these currently troubled and troubling times, of pre- and post-election activities, news reports of varied crimes and restlessness, and even of calamities natural (like Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano acting up) and man-generated (like crimes, fires, displacement of informal poor settlers, among others), thanks for recent reports that goodness still matters and is recognized.  From Rome, Pope Francis has canonized as first saints of his reign: 800 Italian martyrs who refused to convert to Islam in the 15th century, as well as a Columbian and a Mexican who founded congregations.
Back to the  home front  in Cebu City. In our monthly ”Women’s Kapihan” presented by our Legal Alternatives for Women (LAW) Center, Inc and the Cebu Women’s Network, and which I host 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. every second Saturday of the month on Radio Statio dyLA, last May 11th our subject for discussion was “Human Trafficking in the Philippines,” particularly of women and children. Sadly we learned that among other cities in the southern Philippines, Cebu “is one of the sources, transit and destination points of women and children trafficking”  in the country.
In a most lively and spirited discussion among our panelists of Cebu Women’s Network officers, board, and members, among the main causes cited were the conflict in Mindanao, including thousands of undocumented Filipinos there; poverty, population growth, and financial dependency burdens; presence of a large informal economy; an established and organized crime network; and persistent law enforcement officials’ complicity in human trafficking, among others.
Our special guest resource person, Vic Abadesco, Visayas coordinator of the Visayas Forum Foundation, Inc, spoke about their campaign for cooperation of task forces against human trafficking. We also received a number of telephone calls from listeners, contributing their outlook and ideas on the subject.
Do listen in tonight, Friday, May 17th, at 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., and tomorrow, Saturday, May 18, same time, on Cable News Network (CNN) for “The Fighters vs. Human Trafficking.”
Another active civic womens’ organization belong to, our Zonta Club of Cebu I, held our monthly meeting yesterday. I shall report on this in next week’s Bystander-ing.
For  more significant dates this month, May 10th, Friday last week, the Church remembered St. Damien, Patron of Lepers. He volunteered to work for and with the lepers in exile in Molokai, an island in central Hawaii, preaching and serving them until he died, an infected leper himself.
Mother’s Day last May 12th, which I already mentioned last week as Mothers’ Day (did we not use to celebrate it on Dec. 8th in the good old days?) was also the Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord, as well as World Communication Day.
Last Tuesday, the 14th, was the Feast of St. Matthias, the Apostle, chosen by the Holy Spirit and the 11 apostles to replace the traitor apostle Judas, who committed suicide by hanging himself. May 15th was .the Feast of Saint Isidore, the Worker and Farmer (San Isidro Labrador), the patron saint of Talamban in Cebu City. Sunday, the 19th, will  be Pentecost Sunday. More on these, the 15th and 19th, in my Bystander-ing next week.
Till then. As always, may God continue to bless us, one and all!