Peace and poverty

Butch Bagabuyo

“I prepare the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.” – Cicero

“PEACE be with you” was the opening intro and closing slogan of my radio commentary here in our City of Golden Friendship and much later in Cebu leading to the People Power of 1986. At that time because a few hated my guts, I thought that the phrase which I copied from the Bible was a fitting act of disarming my critics since everyone wants peace.

That was the time when our country found a flickering hope in the brilliance powered by the uncommon bravery of Attys. Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, Homobono “Bono” Adaza and Reuben R. Canoy. And because the triumvirate was gaining unprecedented success, I kept on saying and writing, by way of pride in them: their hopes were as high as their pockets were empty. It was my way of propagating to my few avid listeners that poverty is not a sin nor justification to be a coward in the face of oppression ad nauseam.

Their triumvirate was founded on their consuming love of country despite all odds and their frequent clash of words in our court rooms, if only to feed their growing families mothered by their respective “Miss Universe” of beauty and brain: Bing, Marge, and Lona

While their struggle to reclaim our lost freedom and democracy started lonely and seemed suicidal, it eventually caught like a wild fire and became unstoppable. It was the first time in years after principle denied our late superhero, Vice President Emmanuel “Maning” Pelaez, the presidency. But because the presidency in our country is providential, the seeming invincible triumvirate suddenly collapsed. And the rest remains a sad lesson in Mindanao’s illusive quest to reach the highest post, not for supremacy but love of country and God’s will for lasting peace and posterity.

As we ushered in the Year of Mercy for Catholics and hopefully for all faiths, it seems, God willing, our dear country is headed for a President coming from our paradise-like islands of Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan-Tawi-Tawi. In fact, the year that was, 2015, became a prelude to the ascendancy of a Mindanaoan President come May 9, 2016

Here’s why.

• Just when the unconscionable conspiracy to sell our sovereignty was almost a certainty, 44 brave SAF commandos were mercilessly slaughtered by the conjoined twins masquerading as armed rebels with a cause when in fact those barbarous cowards are the splinter group of the MNLF that was granted the Armm for lasting peace kuno. But the said constitutional accord was whimsically declared by President Aquino as a “failed experiment.”
• Then waking up, perhaps, from a nightmare, the almost sure-winner in the next presidential elections of 2016 unceremoniously left the PDP-Laban to form his own political dynasty if only to prove to all the Pinoys that he was on his way to his own kingdom where debilitating greed reigns supreme in perpetuity.
• After a short three-minute snafu, the Miss Universe crown was forthrightly transferred to the stunning beauty of Miss Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach of the Philippines. So, by now the peoples of the world are taught that Mindanao is not the haven of warfreaks but is the land of beauty and brains, befitting a country for lasting peace and posterity.
• Providentially, I pray, Davao Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte, the only man who completely changed the largest city of the world from a “killing fields” to the 4thsafest city of the world.

God works in strange ways, indeed.

Duterte pa more!

Tsada, di ba

• •

“God must have loved the plain people: He made so many of them.” – Lincoln

Undoubtedly both dismissed transition Mayor Oscar S. Moreno and all the reelectionist city clown-cilors of the Padayon Pilipino are now making “mornings the nights” to ensure that their sinister plan to fool the poor. And both of them are fighting as though there were no more tomorrow in holding the government coffers for their buying-spree between now and May 9, 2016.

But what they refused to know is that both of them are all, without exception, going to be drowned and washed out of city hall just like the way they maltreated the poor victims of Sendong who are, to this day, without sufficient food and clothing in makeshifts when all Kagay-anons know that there is more than enough money from donations to build homes for the homeless.

Believe you me, the poor Kagay-anons and our loved ones are all disillusioned and cynical over the nauseating blame game overplayed by both dismissed transition Mayor Moreno, and the reelectionist clown-cilors belonging to the Padayon Pilipino of now ailing and disgraced former mayor Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano. The voters of our city have had enough of the empty promises and the unabated greed shamelessly committed by Moreno and Donkoy’s tentacles if not, clones who have enriched themselves in office far way beyond their legal means.

We, Kagay-anons, are earnestly fortifying ourselves so that on May 9, 2016, our most cherished dream of having a leader in the likes of the late Maning Pelaez and Nene Pimentel–towering pillars of compassion cum action for the poor, without counting the cost, and ever faithful and true to their marriage vows with their respective loving wives and families–would win a landslide victory with all the members of his team.

Robust Rufus Team Harus.

Tsada, di ba?