Coming soon to Cebu: Team Patay vs. Team Buhay

The 888 Forum yesterday started with the presentation of the Special Mayor's Award given to the 888 Forum by the City of Cebu during its Charter Day celebration last Feb. 24, 2013. This was presented by 888 officers, Inday Malou Guanzon, Jenny Franco, Ricky Poca and Eli Baquero and proudly presented to Marco Polo General Manager Hans Hauri for sponsoring this news forum for the past three years. MyTV channel 30 has been showing the 888 Forum on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 8:00pm for more than a year now.

The 888 Forum yesterday had Atty. Raymond Garcia of Kusug, Efrain Pelaez, Jr. of Lapu-Lapu City, Lito Roden of the mango industry and Dr. Rene Bullecer of Human Life International (HLI) as their guests. I started the ball rolling asking Dr. Bullecer if the highly successful Team Patay vs. Team Buhay campaign initiated by the Archdiocese of Bacolod would be brought to Cebu and Dr. Bullecer told the media that this would be coming to Cebu soon, right after the Holy Week, regardless of what the Comelec says about its legality because of its size.

At any rate, Dr. Bullecer submitted that when this happens in Cebu, they will ensure that their posters would follow the Comelec rules on sizes of tarpaulins. He also added that they would start releasing the tarpaulins with the names of candidates, whom the pro-life groups will be supporting. As we've already mentioned, the Catholic Church is now in a fighting mood, after it failed to muster Catholic votes during the anti-Reproductive Health Bill campaign, which is why the RH is now a law of the land.

Dr. Bullecer pointed out that right after the RH bill was passed, the atheists who supported the passage of the RH Bill spared no time in presenting the divorce bill on the table, even if the ink of the RH Law hasn't even dried up yet. So I don't blame the Catholic Church for moving to ensure that those senatoriables and congressmen who voted for the passage of the RH bill and are asking the Filipino people for their votes will never get reelected again. Indeed, election is the perfect time for the Church to fight back.

As Dr. Bullecer said, “It is a do or die for Catholics because of the threat of the up and coming Divorce bill… that what happened with the RH law was more than a wake up call for the Catholic faithful.” Indeed, the lawmakers against the RH Bill were cajoled into approving the RH bill by their absence during the voting. Finally, Dr. Bullecer said that “Cebu is the most pro-life Province in the country… it motivates us to move harder and stronger to ensure that Cebu will continue to be the pro-life capital of the Philippines.”

Meanwhile, Kusug, according to Atty. Raymond Garcia, held a democratic convention last week to lend their support to Team Rama. But someone asked a question, parroting the statement of Rep. Tomas Osmeña whether the Kusug Convention was a gathering of losers. Atty. Raymund Garcia answered it correctly when he said that Mayor Rama and Councilor Edgardo Labella are not losers. Now whether Kusug is a spent force or not, we will know in the 2013 elections. If they campaign vigorously, who knows?

But just in case you forgot… during the 2001 mayoralty elections, Kusug mayoralty bet Mayor Alvin Garcia lost to challenger Tomas Osmeña because of overconfidence… something that Atty. Garcia humbly admitted during the 888 forum. If at all, Kusug's strength comes from the reality that Rep. Tomas Osmeña just burned too many bridges…alienating so many of his friends along the way with no hope of reconciling with them. Check out your surroundings and you'll be surprised that in this election, Rep. Tomas Osmeña is not leading by a huge margin against Mike Rama. It's a neck-to-neck battle and my hunch is, the votes coming from the pro-life groups might just tilt the balance in favor of the pro-life candidate.

As far as Efrain “Jun” Pelaez, Jr. is concerned, he is once again taking the Radaza's for the mayorship of Lapu-Lapu City complaining about the “Clean & Green” scam or the computer scam, which is moving in a snail's pace. For the past three years, Jun Pelaez has been exposing the ills of the City of Lapu-Lapu especially in their clean up campaign, but it's been 7 years since this campaign to awaken the people of Lapu-Lapu City and nothing is happening, especially in the corruption front.

I can understand the frustrations of Jun Pelaez… after all, I submit I joined him in that ill-fated campaign. This is why I asked Jun Pelaez, that being under the Liberal Party (LP) headed by Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III, is clear proof that under PNoy, nothing has happened in Mactan and I guess it also goes for the rest of the country. If under the almost three-year leadership of the LP nothing is happening here in Cebu, what then can the LP do in the next three years? I guess, I should let Jun Pelaez answer this query.

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