Fiesta and More. . .

August is here and so as the busy days for the preparation of our incoming town fiesta in honor of Our Lady of Fatima and Sr. San Roque. The Town Fiesta has been celebrated every 15th-16th of August that is why every working committees are very busy preparing and fulfilling their assigned task.



At the start of April I observed that many barangays in Calubian and even in the neighboring towns started celebrating their fiestas. In the barangay where I was born, we celebrated our Fiesta in April 3-4 instead of 4-5 since 5 was the start of the Holy Week which is the Palm Sunday, hence barangay fiesta was celebrated in advance. Celebrating fiesta is sometimes advantageous especially if we are already living in far away places. This is the time where we can visit our home place, meeting old friends, reviving old ideas and introducing something new to the minds of others while passing a few glasses of the favorite filipino wine or beer or whatever like what we had been doing in the picture, we're still ordering beer anyway (Upper Photo:From left to right: Ricardo "Ricsan" Sanoria, My Brod Romy, Myself and my Pare Arnulfo "Ebe" Sanoria, Ricsan's older brother, Photo above; Baby Leann, Mommy, Daddy, Ninongs and Ninangs after baptism ceremony).


In my present homeplace, we celebrated also our Barangay Fiesta in April but in later date specifically April 20-21. It was not just an ordinary occasion since we just simultaneously celebrated the baptism of our new member of the family, my son's daughter and my first Apo-Baby Leann. It was really a very happy occasion, although quite showering the singing and merrymaking even extended till dawn. In behalf of my family, we were very much thankful for all our friends, kumares and kumpadres and friends who shared our happiness for the said occasion.

Marine Turtle - An Endangered Species

I just would like to share the effort of the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist (OMA) in the Municipality of Calubian in saving some endangered species usually seen in our area- the Marine Turtle. Actually, it needs perseverance and dedication to do advocacy efforts in order to inform the marginal fishers who thought catching the said animal is just comparable to ordinary fishes. Fishermen in the area just slaughter their catch of this kind before they were informed of the consequences since according to them its meat is palatble and others claim it to be appprodisiac.

It was the late Mayor Salvador Po, Sr., the former mayor and the father of the incumbent mayor of Calubian Hon. Hazel "Dayday" Po (Photo above holding a turtle) who ordered a massive information campaign in saving one of the endangered treasures in the ocean, the marine turtle. In fact, he was the first local chief executive who freed a marine turtle to the wild together with some personnel from the "Pawikan Conservation Project" based in Quezon City who just visited in Calubian just to make lectures regarding the importance and the need to intensify the campaign against illegal catching of this "Pawikan" the local name in dialect of the marine turtle.

With strong coordiantion with OMA, CLAD- an NGO operating in the municipality and the different organizations, cooperatives and fishermen association, the campaign was so successful that everytime a pawikan had been accidentally caught in the fish corrals of the fisherman, the incident will automatically be coordinated to the OMA for freeing the pawikan back to the sea. OMA will also submit report to the PCP in Quezon City so that the trail of the animal would be traced since before freeing it is being tagged with number for future identification. PCP and OMA is providing some incentives for fisherman who turned over the pawikan in the form of token and some cash.

Pres. Arroyo's Last SONA-Its Significance to the Filipino People

Today, Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will deliver probably her last SONA to the Filipino people. According to her economic managers and planners, her SONA will highlight the economic gains this government have in implementing economic reforms. In an interview with Pinky Webb during her morning show "Umagang Kay Ganda" over ABS-CBN, both Senators "Kiko" Pangilinan and Escudero admitted they will not be attending the President's SONA since they do not want to become part of the "Moro-moro" that the government wanted to happen in Congress. However, they will be closely monitoring the developments of the event.

Filipino people are very much anxious of whether Pres. Arroyo will declare from her own lips that she will not be interested in extending her term in the highest post and that "Cha-cha craze" will be put to its end. The running sentiments of discontent towards Pres. Arroyo's reigning of this government as evident to her continued negative ratings will probably poured on the streets during this very important event. The Filipino people however has put their hopes in 2010 National Election for a genuine change but without Pres. Arroyo's presence. It is therefore a challenge for every Filipino to be vigilant and be knowledgeable enough of is happening around us. After all, the success of this adminstration is for me can easily be measured by looking through the situation of Juan de la Cruz' life, whether he is suffering or having good life; everyone of us could probably answer.

Eternal Wealth?

Becoming reach is the ultimate goal and the main reason why a man strive for power. The feeling of security and assurance begins when he has in his position plenty of wealth that a man wanted to possess. The consequences however of having great wealth is for a man to become tied up with material things, grabbing for powers to acquire prestige and honor, and sometimes he slowly and mistakingly felt he has the power to control others lives. Man never realized that after all these merrymaking and satisfaction of the flesh, life is but too short for him to spend. And all these pile of wealth remains in earth once his life expires.

But why wealth eternal? Can we really bring our wealth and our richness to heaven? Yes, there is wealth that we could probably bring to heaven, that is, depending on our performance on earth how we nurture this wealth to become worthy in heaven. We, being the procreator of Gods ultimate product were being given the power and wisdom to reproduce our own kind through the union of man and woman with God's blessings through marriage.

In a Filipino family, we considered our children as blessings and wealth. Our ancestors considered wealthier and richer when a family is blessed with many children. By considering our children as wealth, we therefore could probably bring these wealth to heaven and become eternal. The challenge therefore lies within us- parents. Through parents good influence and children's development of good moral values, we could probably bring our wealth- our children to heaven (Photo shown is my wife Carmen with my granddaugther Baby Leann)

Anthurium - A treasured beauty

Last year, when we brought the leaders of our assisted cooperatives and people's organization in the mountain barangays of Cebu specifically at Brgy Guba where we visited the different farmers' association and cooperatives assisted by the Mag-uugmad Foundation, we came accross a small anthurium garden owned by one of the founders of Mag-uugmad. He shared to us some secrets on successfully caring this very special plant. For me, one important factor which would contribute to its successful production especially its very attractive flowers is the farm elevation. I remember one of the sites I visited before which intensively grow anthurium is in the Province of Bohol, especially the Escaya tribe in the mountain barangays of Sierra Bulliones. I have seen such a huge Anthurium plantation that almost all the plants underneath the big trees were anthuriums.

According to Mr Conrado "Condring" Brigoli who was the previous Program Coordinator of the Soil and Water Conservation Foundation (SWCF)-an organization assisting the Escaya Tribe of the aforementioned location, the project was painstakingly conducted by the members of the tribe. Year after year they continuously plant and manage the farm until it widened its area which is now giving livelihood to its members. Twice a week, tribe members harvest the very attractive flowers and the bulk of its harvest were marketed in the neighboring province of Cebu by the middlemen who often earned a bigger income than the tribesmen.

The technology is quite simple, the thing we must first consider in establishing a project like this is finding the appropriate location. Although anthuriums thrive in lower elevation, a cooler place is very suitable for them to grow healthy and bear more flowers than in hotter area. No wonder why tribesmen of Escaya successfully grown such thing.