Who really was the 1st Pinoy on Mt. Everest?

When I first heard this on television news, I thought someone was playing a joke on the Filipino people; after all, we have been told by all the media outlets that the 1st Filipino to reach the summit of Mt. Everest last May 17, 2006 was Leo Oracion and he was followed by Erwin Emata and then Romeo Garduce. Well, apparently, there was another Filipino in the vicinity.

So who is this Dale Abenojar who now claims this title as the 1st Filipino who reached the summit of Mt. Everest? His claim to fame is supported by a certificate from the Mountaineering Association of Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China that he reached the peak of Mt. Everest on May 15, 2006 two days before Leo Oracion got to the summit. Photos of Abenojar at the summit of Mt. Everest were also sent to the Philippine Star purportedly to send the record straight.

Accordingly, Abenojar had no big sponsors, unlike Oracion who was contracted by ABS-CBN or Garduce who was sponsored by GMA-7. What I'd like to know is, how come none of the big network TV crew knew of the presence of Dale Abenojar? Come now, I'm sure that there are only a few trails leading to the summit of Mt. Everest, I'm almost certain that Filipinos would have bumped into one another at the base of the mountain. But how come no one even knew that Abenojar was also on the same quest?

My question is who should we recognize as the 1st Filipino to climb Mt. Everest? If Abenojar is indeed the 1st Pinoy climber to reach Mt. Everest and is bestowed the honor, that makes Leo Oracion the second placer. But who would give this distinction to the right climber?

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This is the sixth month in the year 2006 and supposedly, the big news coming from the banking sector is that this month all the big players in the Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) business, ExpressNet, BancNet and MegaLink would finally be interconnected. In the past, they were like cellular telephones, where only service providers would only allow you to call people who had the same company as yours. But then the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) mandated that all service providers should interconnect into each other and this is why today, your Globe Handyphone can call your friend's Smart or Sun cellular phone.

Well, the same thing will soon be happening to the ATMs supposedly this month, where all the major players would also be interconnected. When this happens, if you are an ExpressCard holder, you can now go to a MegaLink ATM and vice-versa. If you ask me, this is a boon to the 14 million ATM users of this country, as they won't be wasting time looking for their "home ATM" anymore and instead deposit or withdraw their money from any ATM teller. While this is great news to ATM users, I'm sure that the respective banks would now be charging some kind of service fee for the use of the ATM, so you can predict that this would be the next battleground in this highly competitive business.

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Didn't we say that the Sugbuak issue wasn't dead and buried yet? For sure, we knew that while we haven't heard much about this issue in the news, the battle on this issue was actually raging in the halls of Congress. But at least, the Anti-Sugbuak stalwarts in Congress led by Rep. Antonio Cuenco, Rep. Raul del Mar, Rep. Eddie Gullas and Rep. Ramon "Red" Durano issued a motion asking Negros Oriental Congressman Emilio Macias, chairman of the House Committee on Local Government to resolve first the pending motions on this bill before discussing its merits.

More importantly, the Congressmen also asked the committee to hold public hearings on this matter right here in Cebu; after all, this is an issue that is close to the heart of the Cebuano voters. Now whether Rep. Macias would listen to these pleas remains to be seen. If I know Rep. Macias, I'm sure he'd refuse this request because I was told that he was in favor of breaking up Cebu so it would no longer be considered the richest Province in the whole country!

The breaking of Cebu process is still far and away, but with the 2007 elections less than a year away, I'm sure that this would be a major political issue especially in the Provinces. With the sentiment of a majority of Cebuano voters vehemently against Sugbuak, I'd like to hear the up and coming replacements of the Congressmen supporting Sugbuak to come out now in the open and declare that they too are for breaking up Cebu so it can trigger the beginning of political debates on this issue. Call this a warning to those candidates that they risk losing the elections if they favor Sugbuak!

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