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It pours, literally, flooding our streets, swelling our gullies, streams and rivers, and triggering landslides in our uplands. But rain also brings with it soothing coolness after a spell of hot weather, and nature thankfully drinks it in, relieving the drought in our fields and forests to green up the environment. Hopefully, in this Fire Prevention Month of March, rain should help to reduce fires, which still flare up to devastate the needy, particularly in our congested areas.
So rain does bring both boon and bane. As does March this year, when we observe International Women’s Month, look to the joy of Easter after the solemnity of Holy Week, and celebrate the graduation of our youth. But March this year has also brought up the confirmation of what we have been suspecting that “all’s not (entirely) well” in our national affairs, triggered by the initial revelation of lone whistleblower Jun Lozada that has cracked open the stone wall of denials and cover-ups of manipulation, double-dealing and corruption – and now, with the deluge upon us, of even more of the same, as many witnesses (or non-witnesses) are now “coming out (or pressured) of the woodwork.” Thanks to media for keeping us updated on this flood of information available to us, the ball is eventually in our courts.
As responsible citizens, it is our obligation to discern the truth from all this, to recognize as distinct or definite, to discriminate, and then judge and let our voice be heard, through media itself, by way of information forums, through our government and civic representatives, and, yes, through peaceful and rational protests sans violence, partisan politics and name-calling – and eventually through the ballot in an orderly, fair election. Then, “the truth shall (and should) set us free.
Now for more on our Women’s Month activities which I have been able to attend and participate in…
Our very successful and well-attended 8th Provincial Women’s Congress (PWC) last Friday, before the International Women’s Day, at CICC was fully covered by local print and broadcast media. As a participant and “Bystander” at the same time, I felt proud to witness the overwhelming response of the crowd, which completely filled one of Cebu’s largest auditoriums, to our women leaders who spoke: Gov. Gwen Garcia, our hardworking first woman governor; and Mariquita Salimbangon Yeung, unassuming but highly successful entrepreneur and her report on her eight-year Operation Smile for needy children with facial deformities, and for which she was awarded by the Congress, witnessed by two other successful government officials: Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz and Provincial Board Member Agnes Magpale.
Our Cebu Women’s Network (CWN) Kapihan the following day, International Women’s Day, which I hosted, included fellow CNW members Fe Cabatingan (retired from DSWD, and just back from a year-long vacation in the United States with her children there), Connie Gestopa (recently retired from the DILG), Heddah Largo (of DILG), and Lori Fernandez (of the LAW Inc. secretariat). The subject was the gains of the 8th PWC Congress the day before, with focus on its assistance to the livelihood project assistance to the GWEN project.
In keeping with “Women’s work is never done,” Thursday, the 12th, was busy, busy, with the 7th UPVCC Centennial Lecture at UP Cebu, where Dr. Fe Reyes read her paper, “Women Media Practitioners in Cebu: Pioneers and Pacesetters.” Cited from among Cebu’s many women motivators in media were the late columnist and writer Concepcion Briones, who wrote for the paper La Revolucion in the 1940s and co-founded CENEWOF with Pachico Seares; the late radio newswoman Nenita Cortes-Daluz, first woman newscaster in Cebuano, first woman radio station manager in Cebu, arrested and detained in 1980, and elected Assemblywoman in 1984;
Columnist Nini Cabaero, who heads the Sun Star Network Exchange, edited the Independent Post, the first newspaper owned by media workers and pioneer of the on-line Journalist; Atty. Ma. Jane Paredes, columnist, pioneer in newscasts on AM radio, and commentaries on FM radio, and now with SMART communications; Atty. Bingo Gonzales, who launched Cebuano programs on TV, a news reporter and now a correspondent for the Philippine Daily Inquirer; Eileen Mangubat, first woman publisher of Cebu Daily News, and a founding member of the Cebu-Citizen’s Press Council; Tata Cinco-Sy, first woman manager of ABS-CBN Cebu, started as a news reporter for GMA, and later served as marketing and sales manager of ABS;
Michelle So, executive director for administration of Sun Star Cebu, head of the editorial services exchange of six Sun Star affiliates, and columnist; Isolde Amante, Sun Star Cebu News Editor, News Editor of Independent Post, 2000 Palanca Awardee for Fiction, and Sun Star columnist; and finally, this Bystander, pioneer and first woman radio announcer over DYRC after the war in 1947-1971, received a Smith Leader grant for Radio and TV in the States in 1954, served with Labor Station DYLA Radio 1975-2001, received a 1977 ILO grant in Turin, Italy for labor union information personnel, taught Speech Improvement at the University of San Carlos, and then MassCom subjects at UP Cebu.
I still anchor the monthly Women’s Kapihan on DYLA and have been writing a weekly column since 1998 on CDN. The Perlas Awards, which I attended that night, will be taken up here next week. Until then, God bless us all!
