Meat pa more?

Netnet Camomot .

A CEBU vacation always means red-meat galore: lechon, lechon paksiw, chicharon, and other yummy dishes. Makes you wish there’s a portable blood cholesterol monitor to warn you of the menu’s effect on your health.

We were in Cebu recently and those five days of a mostly red-meat diet made us wonder if nag-quota na mi sa karne. We forgot about the African swine fever. Gasp!

A Facebook friend lost weight through a veggie-fruit-fish diet. I try to adopt that, too, when I’m home. Eating out, however, is another story. Some Cebu restos happen to offer generous platters good for a maximum of four people but for the price of one serving, thus, leftovers are a given. So, if you’re ordering for lunch, make sure it’s the kind of food you’d still want for dinner.

The weather in Cebu was either hot or rainy when we were there. The kind of hot that needed an advisory to stay indoors. Yes, way much hotter than the hot weather in Cagayan de Oro.

On that Friday when CDO was flooded, we were in Cebu where it wasn’t raining at all, until we started feeling lucky for the sunny weather, and—voila!—it rained there, too. Kung sa Bisaya pa, nabuyagan.

Which is worse—hot or cold weather? I’d say, in between—neither too hot nor too cold, from 10 to 20 degrees Celsius. But since we’re not “The Appointed Son of God” and can’t change the weather by merely pushing a button, one thing that we can do is to eliminate or at least lessen the cause of climate change. The House of Representatives now has the “Graduation Legacy for the Environment Act” which aims to require each graduating elementary, high school and college student to plant 10 trees before he can graduate. Once that becomes a law, expect Pinas to be as green as your green sense of humor, and then, you’ll realize that what Heather Brady wrote for the National Geographic is possible for all.

Brady’s “5 Times People Used Trees to Change the World” features Felix Finkbeiner, now a teenager, who “spoke to the United Nations General Assembly when he was just nine years old about the inaction he saw from adults who were supposed to be preserving the planet for future generations” and “started the environmental group Plant-for-the-Planet, which then partnered with the UN’s Billion Tree campaign. Together, they have set a new planting goal of one trillion trees, or about 150 trees for every person on Earth.”

One trillion trees. Wow.

Cebu may be hot to the nth Celsius degree for now, but Carcar is and will always be our second home. We were in Cebu for our cousin’s silver priesthood anniversary. Since he’s a music fan, there was a free concert at the gym featuring his friends which morphed into a band showdown. Cebu is known for its bands and singers, and that night was definitely not an exception to that general rule. Great live music for more than five hours. Yay!

His seminary batch mates co-celebrated his silver-anniversary Mass with him, with one, a Monsignor, delivering the homily which I listened to despite the humidity and the beads of sweat trickling down my spine.

Here’s unsolicited advice: All Catholic priests should be as witty and/or funny as the bishop to enable the Catholic Church to attract more followers.

Religion is kind of an escape from reality and it can also be a scapegoat for one’s reality, with “Bahala na ang Diyos” as the religious’ favorite mantra. Still, a holy and pious priest who can command respect is what the Catholic Church needs amidst the scandals it’s facing now.

Well, there’s Kabus Padatoon (Kapa) Community Ministry International Inc. as the new basis of comparison for religious groups that are having credibility problems.

A religious group follower may believe that his donation to a church, especially if it’s in millions of pesos, will help him reach heaven once he passes on. If that were true, churches would have a price list for sins and their corresponding fines and penalties, with graft and corruption costing, say, P100 trillion plus all the bank accounts, real estate properties, jewelry, paintings, luxury cars, luxury bags, businesses, ad infinitum, ad nauseam that the corrupt politician and his family and cronies have accumulated.

But will that politician ever confess? Oh. It’s the whistleblower who will tell all, and the madlang pehpohl’s suspicion is, he’s revealing everything after not receive a share of the loot.

In Pinas, the representative of a partylist group is the wealthiest among the outgoing congressmen, and that’s 1-Pacman Rep. Michael “Mikee” Romero with a net worth of about P7.9 billion (“Party list rep is richest lawmaker” by Melvin Gascon, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6/13/19).”

The PDI piece noted that “Romero’s partylist group, One Patriotic Coalition of Marginalized Nationals (1-Pacman), supposedly stands for the ‘marginalized sector, including fisherfolk, farmers, peasants and those involved in other agricultural extension services,’ according to its website.” Tsk tsk. Please define “marginalized.” Paki-explain. Labyu.

Pinas’ partylist system has been misused and abused, there’s a clamor for it to be abolished, and even Pres. Rody Duterte has noticed: “Everyone involved there are the rich. The rich people fund the party list. They are named after laborers, but their nominees are the millionaires so they stay in power there (“DU30: Party list has turned ‘evil,’ abused by the rich” by Julie M. Aurelio and Melvin Gascon, PDI, 6/14/19).”

But with political dynasties controlling some partylist groups, banishing them to Siberia can be as hard as reconciling the word “marginalized” with Romero’s P7.9-billion net worth.

It’s difficult for a politician to relate with the madlang pehpohl when he’s not a member of the madlang pehpohl. He ends up making laws that are beneficial only to him and his equally rich and powerful friends.

Well, religion and politics are the most controversial topics in the world. But if you put lechon on the buffet table, the Pinoy will surely forget about Pinas’ religious and political woes. Meat pa more. Yay.