Turning a cemetery into a park is ok… but
In the old days, the expression "rest in peace" meant eternal rest for our dearly departed. To folks like me who were born in a different generation, eternal rest means a rest without being disturbed. But apparently the administration of Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama has decided to close the Old Carreta Cemetery, which they also call Doña Pepang Cemetery. This closure means that the families of those who have their dearly departed dead entombed there for their final rest have to be moved somewhere. The City of Cebu has apparently redefined final rest to mean… nothing is really final!
First of all, I really want to know who changed the name of this cemetery to Doña Pepang and when they changed the name of that cemetery and why they changed it? For me, that cemetery has always been called the Old Carreta Catholic Cemetery. The New Carreta Catholic Cemetery is the one along Mango Ave. Yes, the Avila and Segura Families had plots in this cemetery, but we have since transferred the remains of our departed dead to the Cebu Memorial Park. I just hope that the City of Cebu has no plans to turn Cempark into another park. After all, it is already a park.
The reason why we got out of the Old Carreta Cemetery was due to the fact that the living was taking over the dead. But we allowed our poor employees to use our vacated cemetery plot. Yes, the squatters living around this cemetery have encroached then breached its walls and things got stolen this is why today only a few families bury their dead there.
So now we need to ask, when did the Catholic Church whom I believed was the original owner of this cemetery relinquish its ownership to this cemetery? Mind you, I'm not against turning this cemetery into a park. But the City of Cebu just cannot shut down this cemetery like it was a squatter colony and order the families of those who still have their dead buried there to move out and transfer them somewhere. If I recall, we bought our cemetery plots, which means that plot owners have better rights than squatters. Mayor Rama should be very transparent in this case because many of Cebu's known families are still buried there.
I know that Don Mariano Cuenco and Senator Manuel Cuenco, the Escaño families, Briones and many others are all buried there. So if the City of Cebu is turning this place into a park and they are asking all those families who have buried their dead there to move out, is Mayor Rama also asking the Osmeña family to move its dead? These are the questions I'm asking and yes, I need to know those answers before all hell breaks loose!
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In the past, whenever the prices of oil increased or decreased, it usually gets into the headlines. But today times have really changed. News about the decrease of pump prices can only be found in the inside pages of our national dailies. Not many people realize that oil prices have been slashed down seven times this year alone and reaching record lows. The latest to cut oil prices are of course the so-called Big Three, namely, Petron Corp., Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., and Chevron of Caltex. Their price per liter is now down P0.80 per liter for gasoline, while diesel prices are down by P0.50 per liter, and kerosene is down by P0.35 per liter.
So where are those militant organizations batting for the repeal of the Oil Deregulation Law? Hmmm, suddenly they have been forgotten. Those who hate the Oil Deregulation Law go to the streets to protest high prices of oil products… so where are those protesters now that oil prices are down? This only proves that the Oil Deregulation Law has been working to benefit the Philippine economy. Just take a good look what's happening in Indonesia. Just the other day, the Indonesian government raised its oil prices despite the fact that world oil prices are down. That's due to the Oil Price Stabilization Law, which was almost similar to what the Philippines used to have.
But there is a big question that begs for answers. If the Philippine economy is very much dependent upon the prices of oil products, why then are jeepney, bus, ship, and airplane fares not going down? In fact, if you looked into the prices of basic commodities in your nearest public market or in the supermarkets, the prices of basic commodities have not gone down as we all expect them. Why is this happening to our country?
Surely the Department of Trade & Industry can give us a reasonable explanation as to why the law of supply and demand isn't working anymore. No doubt that the world oil production has remained steady and the demand for oil hasn't really gone up. But with shale oil being added into the equation… there really is more oil in the world market that is readily available. All this is happening even when there's a civil war going on in Syria and Libya has remained unstable. In the end, the United States has emerged as the biggest oil producer, which is why oil prices are going down.
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