Time magazine’s person of the year

For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky, we bring you something that you would not expect to see in December, it is called “Kalag-Kalag in the Philippines.” It is a photo presentation of our All Souls and All Saints Day by Dutch photographer Prof. Ubo Pakes of the University of San Carlos. What makes this photo presentation unique is that, it is the first time we interviewed a foreigner about our Kalag-Kalag. We usually interview locals about our Kalag-Kalag, but never a foreigner who apparently has a different perspective on this celebration of death.

I had this show for December because it is far from morbid and is quite an interesting insight from a foreigner who has already lived in Cebu for the past ten years, but is still amazed by our culture. So watch this interesting discussion on the Kalag-Kalag tonight on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.

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Time magazine has finally announced their “Person of the Year” and it is not a single person, they are the “Silence Breakers” the women who finally went out in the open to expose high-profile celebrities, politicians, and other famous personalities for sexual abuse, misconduct, or attempted rape. Indeed, before the exposure of Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, such incidents were talked behind closed doors or in hushed tones. Then famous movie stars like Ashley Judd and Alyssa Milano came out in the open and the floodgates against Weinstein opened.

All told, some 83 women came out accusing Harvey Weinstein and when the #MeToo hastag came out in social media, the dam literally broke and the story about sexual predators in Hollywood, politics, even in the churches were not spared the embarrassment as they became news headlines all over the United States. I’m sure that we are looking at the tip of the proverbial iceberg. For sure, next year there will be more public exposures of sexual misconduct.

What is more embarrassing is that most of those accused adhere to their Liberalist ideals. Yet they end up showing how they disrespected the very women they are supposed to protect. Kudos to Time magazine, they did right for their “Person of the Year.”

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With the news last week that Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte finally declared the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing the New People’s Army as terrorists you can expect clashes between them and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The AFP has had clashes with the NPA terrorists in many parts of Luzon and Mindanao and this is to be expected because those blind followers of Jose Maria “Joma” Sison know nothing better than to carry a gun and fight our soldiers, not realizing that the Filipino soldiers are the real People’s Army.

Here in the Visayas, we too can expect clashes with the NPAs. In fact, last week, the Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division had a firefight with the NPA terrorists in Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental, just across Guihulngan City, which has always been a hotbed of NPA activities. Two soldiers were hurt in this firefight, but they are not in serious condition.

Apparently in this encounter, the 62nd Infantry Battalion believed that those NPA terrorists belonged to the NPA training camp that they seized last December 5 in Barangay Buenavista in Himamaylan City. After a 30-minute gun battle, the NPA terrorists withdrew in different directions. The NPAs are still using “hit and run” tactics which is already passé.

In my book, these maybe minor skirmishes between the AFP troops and the NPA terrorists give us an idea that the AFP has not really gone into a full-blown battle campaign against these terrorists in the Island of Negros. If you ask me the AFP should already design a campaign where clashes with the terrorists can have air cover so hot pursuit operations can easily detect these terrorists running away from a firefight. The AFP must have a military campaign that will make the NPA terrorists move out of Negros Island.

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