Welcome to October, the month honoring Our Lady of the Rosary, also observed as Pink October to raise awareness about breast cancer, primarily in women. This first week in October this year, the country faced the devastation in the wake of the almost successive typhoons Pedring and Quiel that struck Central Luzon and adjoining areas starting the last week of September.
Thanks to on-the-spot reports and media coverage, the country responded right away with heroic efforts to rescue and provide countless victims with temporary shelter, food, and health care. In this connection, an editorial in the Philippine Daily Inquirer said “government officials have warned the people to brace themselves for more devastating storms, flooding and drought unless policies and programs are adopted to mitigate climate change.” Science and Technology Undersecretary Graciano Yumul said “in the next 20-50 years the dry seasons would be drier and the wet seasons wetter.” The editorial concludes, “We cannot avoid storms, rains and floods which are natural occurrences (aggravated by current global warming), but we can do things now that will help mitigate the death and destruction that they cause” by active concern and care for the environment and conservation.
Thanks to the many in media, civic, community and religious groups, as well as individuals, for their efforts for the unfortunate victims of disaster. I do not remember such an overwhelming outflowing of aid and support in the aftermath of such a disaster, from those of us in the country, particularly here in the Visayas where we have so far been spared, thanks to our dear Sto Niño! Special mention here of sports heroes, the Philippine Dragon Boat team for their saving and rescue efforts and Philippine Boxing Champion and Rep. Manny Paquiao for organizing a benefit run for unfortunate victims. God bless you all!
God bless, too, our many silent, but equally heroic, teachers honored by the country last Wednesday, Oct. 5th with the observance of Teachers’ Day. Hopefully, we have not forgotten our first informal teachers, our mothers, elder relatives and experienced friends who taught us about life, even though the day was declared for our formal teachers from grade school through high school, college and beyond. Among the countless many, we surely remember some who figured in our lifetime, vocational and career decisions, among others.
Without naming them here and now, I gratefully remember a teacher in teacher-training college who made me realize and appreciate the value of the teaching profession; a college professor while I was working for my Bachelor of Arts degree who suggested that I might be interested in radio work, moving me to apply for the first radio station re-opening in Cebu after World War II, which I did, temporarily giving up teaching with the time demands of radio work. I spent most of my long working years in radio.
Then another teacher invited me back to teach part time in college while I continued full time in radio. Another college professor in a state university invited me to teach in the Mass Communication program. I happily and satisfyingly balanced all three jobs until time pressure forced me to cut down to one part-time teaching job and full time radio work until mandatory retirement time from both.
But shortly before then, and I name names now, shortly before Cebu Daily News started publishing, then editor in chief and now publisher Eileen Mangubat invited me to write for CDN, this my weekly column, which I have been doing since. At first, I was hesitant to write, never having done so for a newspaper, until good friend poet, writer, and fellow CDN columnist Judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. assured me I could do it. Today, my grateful thanks to him and Ms. Eileen for believing in me, like my earlier teachers did. God bless you all!
Now, after my years of full-time involvement in radio as a practitioner, I rely heavily on mass media, TV and print particularly, to keep me in touch with the world as things happen in places I have either visited before and those I may not go to and see anymore. And with modern media technology (which I must still catch up with), I can now keep in touch with friends and others this way besides old fashioned (and passe) postal service communication and expensive long distance telephone calls, among others.
But thankfully, I still keep in touch personally in visits with others, and in the various community and media groups I belong to. One of them is the Curta, (Cebu United Radio and TV Artists) meeting I unfortunately missed last Saturday, because my Manila-based son and his family were on a three-day visit with me shortly before they migrate to Canada in November. More next week on this, the meeting reports I asked for regarding Curta and my hosting of “Women’s Kapihan” on Breast Cancer awareness tomorrow at 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on dyLA.
On religious observances in this first week of October, it was the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus on Saturday, the 1st; of St. Francis of Assisi last Tuesday, the 4th; of St. Faustina, to whom our Lord of Divine Mercy appeared, commemorated last Wednesday, the 5th and of Our Lady of the Rosary today, the 7th (my late husband’s birthday, too).
Till next week, then, may God continue to bless us, one and all!