Happy New Year to all our readers!

Exactly a year ago for our first column of the year, we veered away from our yearly tradition and reprinted the New Year's Message of Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma. So for the very first article of the New Year 2014, we go back to our old tradition and check out whether what we wished for last year was granted…or should we make more wishes?

Actually our New Year's wishlist last year, which I wrote in the Philippine Star, was about the unfinished business under the Presidency of President Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III, which I wrote was nearly "a reprint" of my first column for the Year 2011, which means that nothing happened to us. And, no, I didn't get my New Year's wish. It just makes me wonder if I should continue with this tradition because apparently we are not getting the wishes that we should be getting.

But then, we are a hardheaded bunch, so damn the torpe-does and let's give it another try! So for my first New Year's wish, I offer it to the victims of Super Typhoon "Yolanda" that what the Aquino Regime has promised will be given to them. But then as we have already seen, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council has all but stopped the counting of the dead for no apparent reason.

So in the interest of humanity, we urge the NDRRMC to resume its counting of the dead, more so that all the national news media outlets came up with that report that hundreds of the dead inside cadaver bags have yet to be buried. Again we ask the question, why didn't the NDRRMC bury those dead bodies? A friend of mine told me that they cannot bury the dead for as long as they cannot identify the remains. So we go back to our New Year's Wish List for the NDRRMC to resume the counting of the dead even if it exceeds the 10,000 mark.

Another New Year's wish goes to the victims of two major typhoons. Those of  typhoon "Sendong" in 2011 and typhoon "Pablo" in 2012. I already gathered a lot of information that a great number of those typhoon victims have yet to receive their relief aid in order to rebuild their homes. If we used these two examples, the nagging question that needs to be answered is: Will the same thing also happen to the victims of typhoon Yolanda? Therefore, another New Year's wish for the year 2014 is for the Aquino Regime to fulfill its promise to help the victims of typhoon "Sendong" typhoon "Pablo" and typhoon "Yolanda"…and let me add, the earthquake victims in Bohol.

For Cebu City, my New Year's wish is that the year 2014 will finally see our first infrastructure development from the Aquino Regime. It may be too late in the hour, but we haven't lost hope yet. But in the meantime, we earnestly and sincerely hope that the Department of Public Works and Highways would finally finish the two small infrastructure projects; the road widening along M. Velez  st. beside the Provincial Capitol and that side road along the flyover on Arch. Reyes Ave. Surely those projects would finally be done this year!

Still on infrastructure development. I earnestly hope that DOTC officials will not award the Mactan Cebu International Airport project to Megawide Group just because they are the lowest bidder. If they do, I'm sure that there would be a huge howl by Cebuanos on this project…and we could still block it by filing a case in court and let that case rot in the judiciary for years until a new government replaces the Aquino Regime.

Next in our New Year's wish list, we can only hope that the Bus Rapid Transit, which was a project initiated by former congressman Tomas Osmeña, would finally get the green light. Perhaps he doesn't believe it, but the delay of the BRT is one of the reasons why Tomas Osmeña lost to incumbent Mayor Mike Rama in the 2013 elections, despite the fact that being allied with the Liberal Party Tomas benefited from the 60 percent Liberal Party, 30 percent United Opposition and 10 percent also ran election results that Ateneo Professor Alex Muga discovered that it was used inside the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines. This is the whole truth and nothing but the truth that happened in the 2013 mid-term elections.

My last two remaining wishes for the Year 2014 are that the Supreme Court would have the courage to scrap that highly-controversial Reproductive Health Law and render it as unconstitutional. We will be celebrating the International Eucharistic Year in the Year 2016 and we should never have those negative issues hanging next year. Finally, I hope that CITOM can double or even triple its efforts to apprehend jeepneys without lights, trucks with out any lights and those pesky violators who park illegally in our streets. They are the principal cause of traffic jams in Cebu City.

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