With so much happening in this busy month of May, let me go by the calendar. May 15th was the Feast of St. Isidore the Worker, San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint honored in many towns and churches in the country, especially in Cebu.
Years ago, after my three-month Visitors’ Travel and Observation Award for Radio and Television in the United States, I opted to come home via Europe to sightsee along the way. In a tour through Madrid in Spain, we visited a simple farmer’s residence where San Isidro worked as a farmer’s helper in his fields. The story was told that one early morning, when San Isidro went to the daily morning Mass when he should already be working in the fields, the farmer checked and saw an angel at work for San Isidro while he was at Mass!
Then, May 16th this year, we of the women’s organizations in Cebu, particularly of the Zonta Club 1 of Cebu, were especially proud that fellow Zonta member Tess Chan has been elected, inducted and duly honored as the first woman president in 112 years of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Congratulations and best wishes, Tess. Zonta 1 honored her yesterday at our Zonta 1 general membership meeting. More on this next week.
May 17th was Environment Day. We learned more about the Coral Triangle in our seas, and a disturbing international concern, the militarization of our Mabini Reef. With the current water scarcity, rising sea levels and climate change which accounts for the current searing heat (in Cebu to almost 35 degrees Celsius), an El Niño seminar will be held in Cebu’s mountain area barangays on Saturday, May 31st. Also, let us continue to cherish and safeguard our unique wildlife of sharks, sea turtles and those we have unkindly pent up in cages in our zoo.
On May 19th, the University of San Carlos (USC) High Education observed its 20th anniversary through the 24th. As an alumnus of USC, I obtained my BSE in Elementary Education and had a year of Masters of Arts studies, which I unfortunately didn’t complete due to my then full-time involvement in radio broadcasting.
With a week to go before classes start in the first week of June (some with the new K +12 curriculum), many communities are busy with Brigada Eskwela, cleaning and sprucing up school rooms preparatory to the school opening.
A current concern of parents with school opening is the projected tuition fee hike in over 200 Central Visayas private schools. Some consolation is that the Department of Education (DepEd) projects a tuition subsidy for schools. The Mandaue City Mayor, for one, is tapping private firms to help support DepEd initiatives.
In this connection, of educational as well as historic significance is that last May 20th was the 38th death anniversary of the late lecturer, writer and former Senate President Camilo Osias. We of the country’s earlier generation of pupils remember that the standard book for elementary grades reading at the time were his Osias Readers. Born on March 23, 1889, Osias was elected senator in 1925, became the first president of the National University in Manila, and authored many books about Rizal. He died in 1976.
Then last May 21st through today, May 23rd, the World Economic Forum held in Manila had some 2,500 delegates who got to know more of the Philippines, especially our economic and business prospects and opportunities.
In local events, Cebu City is tapping support of the private sector to build a new Cebu City Medical Center to replace the building that was rendered unsafe for occupancy after last year’s devastating earthquake.
More on the environment, back to the subject of trees eulogized by Joyce Kilmer in his poem “Trees,” following that brouhaha about the disappearance of about 80 fire trees on S. Osmeña Boulevard, this time it was an old “balete” or “dakit” tree along M.Velez Street that was uprooted. I used to admire this tree on my way downtown from Banawa. It would have been in the middle of the now widening street. The tree was superstitiously believed to be occupied by a respected but feared creature whose “permission” had to be secured before it was cut. The tree was already gone when I passed by the other day. Protests of environmentalists and tree loverss, like those over the “missing” fire trees, remain either unheeded or “unanswerable.”
“Mysteries” still remain in these modern times, including the “taped baby lips” cases, the pork barrel scam involving officials in high places, and the “proliferating lists” of those allegedly responsible! “Pwera lang niadtong iladong mga tinahod ug nga mga buotan.” God bless them.
And now, for thankfully good news. In sports, Cebu’s “Golden Archer” of Central Visayas Vicente Villa in the recently concluded 57th Palarong Pambansa, is now hopefully in the national training pool in Dumaguete as he shoots for a higher goal in his sports category.
Congratulations to Nini Cabaero, fellow Cebu columnist who writes for Sun.Star Cebu who graduated yesterday (today in the Philippines) in a one-year fellowship grant from the Benigno Aquino Foundation at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I learned this from her sister Grace Ferreros, my former barangay Banawa neighbor and good friend, who, together with all their sisters and their husbands, left last weekend for the States to attend Nini’s graduation.
In next week’s Bystander-ing, I will share a personally important visit during the weekend from close family and relatives visiting from the States and Australia. Till then, as always, may God continue to bless us, one and all!
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