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The year 2010 for me is more of a series of continuities ? a time for strengthening whatever I have been doing productively and a period of participating in preserving beautiful traditions, continuing good and meaningful projects, and sustaining relationships.
In the order of this series of continuities, I have listed the completion of the town history project of Cebu province as the top priority. This covers 55 volumes of the history of the municipalities and component cities of the province of Cebu and includes the history of the province and the Cebu Provincial Capitol building.
As one of the cluster editors (the task is divided into six clusters, with each cluster comprising of nine towns in geographic arrangement and is headed by a cluster editor), the past year was a heavy test of my threshold of patience, following up the town writers of the cluster for their accomplished chapters or manuscripts, or editing and copyediting whatever was submitted. The year ended with only a handful of completed and copyedited manuscripts. By the first quarter of this year, all volumes shall have been completed and copyedited.
Despite the delays of the submission of manuscripts, a number of town history writers have expressed their desire of establishing or reviving the historical association of Cebu which had been dysfunctional since the 1980s. This is one thing to look forward to after the 55 volumes shall have been published and made available to all high school students in the province.
This year is also the centennial of the ICM Congregation and I enjoin all Catherinians (especially those who have been nurtured by the ICM sisters of St. Catherine's School in Carcar, Cebu) and Theresians (particularly St. Theresa?s College) to join us in paying tribute to the ICM's contribution to the education and formation of women and men, not only in the province and city of Cebu but the whole country.
I have been told that Sister Consuelo Varela, ICM, is writing the history of the ICM Congregation in the Philippines and at present is in charge of the archives at De Meester Residence, the mother house of the congregation. I look forward to reading the history. Sister Consuelo was one of my good history teachers in college.
Regarding women's issues and concerns, the first quarter of 2010 will highlight the second year of the search for the most gender-responsive local government unit in the province. A project of the Cebu Provincial Women?s Commission, the search is being implemented by the Legal Alternatives for Woman, Inc. (LAW Inc.), which is also the PWC secretariat. In preparation for the search, a briefing on the assessment tool was given to the focal persons, social workers, health workers, women's desk officers and municipal development planning officers last October.
There were groundbreaking activities that the LAW Inc. held for women in the second half of 2009. After the passing of the Magna Carta of Women, it conducted a series forums and discussions on major points of the Magna Carta through the broadcast media. It also conducted a legal literacy seminar for Cebu City barangay officials on the CEDAW (convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women), the Magna Carta of Women, and the Anti-Human Trafficking Law.
The culmination of all these activities to empower women came with the two-day seminar on the Enforcement and Prosecution of Human Trafficking Cases for women's desk officers, social workers, police investigators and prosecutors of the province on Dec. 8 and 12, 2009.This was a joint project of the PWC, LAW Inc. and Cebu Women?s Network, which also launched the Blue Heart Campaign against human trafficking.
On the heritage front, there are interesting developments, particularly on the promotion of the use of Cebuano language. With the environmental theme of the coming Sinulog, a group called Permaculture has thought of coming up with a prayer to the Santo Niño with an environmental text and context and I was asked to help translate it into Cebuano. Since the prayer was quite profound, I have asked the assistance of a Bathalad writer. Together with the prayer was the ?Citizen's Pledge to Protect the Earth.?
I just hope that with the 30th year of the Sinulog, more of the Cebuano character is reflected not only in the dancing and pageantry but in the promotion since the Sinulog is a marketing phenomenon. We continue traditions but let us not deface the meaning of these traditions.
