Keeping pace

Netnet Camomot .

MANY tributes and pieces have been written about Gina Lopez since her passing, and one of these was the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s “Gina Lopez: Breaking the norm, she made friends and foes”:

“After she left the Duterte Cabinet, Lopez continued her work on the environment and other projects, but coworkers said it wasn’t always easy to keep pace with her energy.

“Susan Afan, managing director of ABS-CBN Foundation, recalled one time when Lopez was ‘having one of her days.’

“The foundation was planning to build its 18th ecotourism project then, but Lopez wanted to add five more sites, including her ‘Yolanda legacy project,’ despite their limited resources.

“‘It just so happened that I was also having one of [my days]. I shut the door and told her: We needed to talk. It was too much. We needed to streamline our operations, we needed to focus, we were reopening our children’s village again,’ Afan said she told Lopez.

“And then, she got a dose of Lopez’s can-do spirit.

“‘In Gina fashion,’ Afan said, ‘she took a deep breath, she closed her eyes, made me wait and anticipate, then opened her eyes and said to me: Susan, as long as you think it’s hard, it will be hard. We can’t think so. We have to think big. Let the others take the easy task, we need to take on the most difficult.’

“It was like Lopez wanted Afan and everyone else to live the words of her favorite song:

“‘If I can see it, then I can do it/If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it/I believe I can fly/I believe I can touch the sky.’”

Environmentalists, who found their voice through Lopez, are asking if their groups would continue to have that voice now that Lopez is gone.

Surely, there are times when you quit even before you can start, overwhelmed by the enormity of the task at hand. If ever that happens, think, What would Ma’am Gina do?

Well, Lopez belonged to an influential, powerful and wealthy family, and their resources definitely helped her in her advocacies, and yet those were not enough to convince the Commission on Appointments to confirm her re-appointment as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Or perhaps those were exactly the reasons they rejected her, for if she could already accomplish so much sans a DENR position, what more once she’s DENR secretary? She would close mining companies? Government officials would lose the perks they’re allegedly receiving from these companies? DENR would have its own martial law? Question marks hovering above people whose one and only concern was their perks.

Vested interests have ruined so-called friendships when a so-called friend chose her perks over her friend. And that so-called friend even convinced other so-called friends to choose her over that friend—nangimbitar pa gyud, as if she’s celebrating a daily fiesta.

If it could happen to so-called friendships, it could happen to the government where friendships are as volatile as showbiz relationships, thus, the thin line between politics and showbiz, with showbiz stars even morphing into politicians and vice versa. Which now inspires a question mark to hover above the Pinoy’s head: Are Phillip Salvador and Robin Padilla politicians? Because wherever Sen. Bong Go goes, there they are. Their Cagayanon fans would have loved a concert featuring their trio for the city fiesta.

So, how was the Cagayan de Oro fiesta? Well, same old same old. If you’ve seen one Pinas fiesta parade, you’ve seen them all. Ho-hum.

But the Cagayanon had something new for this year’s fiesta—the five-day weekend. That is, if he also considered Aug. 27 as a holiday. Sarap ng buhay!

I was at city hall last week when it had the Diskwento Caravan at its Mini Park. I also went to the Kahimunan Regional Trade Fair at SM City CDO where I bought roasted peanuts, banana chips, and ube tarts. Yum!

And perhaps it was the fiesta that inspired me to watch three movies in five days. “Just a Stranger” on Wednesday last week, “The Angry Birds Movie 2” on Saturday, and “Angel Has Fallen” on Sunday. What was I thinking! Tsk tsk. I wasted precious pesoses.

Like the same old same old fiesta, movies tend to have the same old same old plots. At least, “Angry Birds” has the green piggies.

Books, on the other hand, always manage to be unique from each other, unless it’s because I forget a story right after reading it, thus, making all other books seemingly unique and unfamiliar to my selective-amnesiac brain.

If there’s one book I wanna read, though, it’s Lopez’s biography. I gotta feeling her story is unique from the rest, and that’s definitely not due to my selective amnesia.