Oil in Cebu?

Not so fast kid!

Despite the gloomy and rainy days that we are getting at this time, we greet with elation the news coming from the Vatican when Pope Francis named Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato as the newest Filipino Cardinal. I have met with Msgr. Quevedo in a few meetings that I had in Mindanao and I found him to be very amiable person and a holy man.

Cardinal-elect Quevedo hails from Ilocos Sur, thus the Arch-diocese of Nueva Segovia can now claim two Cardinals coming from there, aside from Cardinal-elect Quevedo, there's Jose Tomas Cardinal Sanchez who was Archbishop of Nueva Segovia, although he hails from the island of Catanduanes. He is the least known of the Filipino Cardinals because he was appointed to the Roman Curia as Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. He died on Mar. 9, 2012 at the age of 91.

Please don't ask me why our very own Arch. Jose Palma, Archbishop of Cebu whom we expected to be named Cardinal wasn't in that latest list of 19 new Cardinals from the Vatican. But don't dash your hopes yet as the Vatican needs to elevate more members to the College of Cardinals because their numbers are dwindling due to numerous retirements.

Even Cardinal-elect Quevedo will soon be retiring when he reaches the age of 75 this coming Mar. 11, 2014. But Msgr. Que-vedo's elevation as the first Filipino Cardinal appointed by Pope Francis is also a vindication for him. He was one of the so-called seven "Pajero" bishops whom Margarita Juico of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office accused of getting vehicles from the Arroyo Administration. Those seven Bishops returned those vehicles and the whole thing backfired against the Aquino Regime.

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As the American's would say, "Not so fast kid!" Yes I'm referring to the news reports that gas or oil deposits were discovered in the town of Aloguinsan. Our Freeman reporters also went to Aloguinsan at the site of the Malolos-1 Oil Rig to check out and verify this news.

But the Freeman news team found out that Gas2 Grid Ltd have stopped their exploration work since September last year. Now there could only be two reasons why they stopped opera-tions; either they already found oil and are trying to be secretive about it or they didn't find anything and is looking for a scheme to recoup their drilling expenses.

Mind you, just because you can find gas leaks from the ground, it doesn't necessarily mean that there are huge quantities of gas or oil under the ground. But what we need to watch out for are those scammers who might want to use this opportunity to put a scam into effect and cajole people into investing in their drilling venture so that they could recoup their drilling expenses. This has happened in the past in other places around the world.

In the late 50s and early 60s there was that oil company called REDECO, which was listed in the Philippine Stock Ex-change, which gave a report of an oil find in Toledo, Cebu. We were so excited by this report that the members of the Cebu Rotary Club (Mother) made an excursion to Toledo City and we the children of Rotarians tagged along. Yes I do remember seeing blobs of oil seeping from the ground. But it wasn't a gusher like what we saw in the movie "Giant" when actor James Dean had his oil rig gushing out oil into the sky due to the high pressure down below.

Later, we learned that the stock prices for REDECO went up so high, smart people cashed in on this report and a few days later sold their stocks when they realized that all this was a big hoax… then the stock market prices fell down making REDECO officials red in their faces. I'm positive someone made tons of money from unsuspecting investors. Those that lost money were the Johnny-come-lately's who plunked their money just before the scam was uncovered.

Mind you, there was a similar report way back in the year 2005, so I also wrote a column warning the people that that report could be another hoax. While The Freeman editorial yesterday greeted this as "good news" forgive my skepticism because previous reports of an oil find in Cebu have blown up on our faces. I just hope that we've heard or seen the last of that story about the boy who cried "wolf" and that oil in commercial quantities can be found in Cebu. In the meantime, I will take the stand of Thomas Didymus… "I will only believe it when I see it."

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It's been raining here since Friday without any let-up and yesterday, the rains never stopped falling, thus giving us an idea that we could be expecting another wet Sinulog Week. At this point, we can only hope and pray for better weather so that we could celebrate our Sinulog Fiesta in hot weather.

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