Hearing Jose Mari Chan yesterday morning served as fitting reminder and welcome for this new month of December! Soon, it will be Christmas Day, with Christmas in our hearts!
The lanterns are out in the streets or sold through social media.
The belens, with the Child Jesus in the manger, are also now in many homes. Gift buying yes, not yet gift/card giving though. That’s a check for Christmas lights and trees as well!
There’s also the daily countdown reminding all we have a few more days left before it’s Christmas morn, when the Child Jesus is born.
And this continuing prayer - dear Christ Jesus, let this Christmas be better, safer for everyone, all across the land, all throughout the world.
Dear Lord, stem Covid, omicron and other variants and allow Your grace, Your peace and protection to embrace us all from now on, please. Thank You, amen!
With the pandemic still in our midst, dear God, can You please send Your compassion and care this Advent season especially to the needy, the marginalized, the vulnerable?
A TV report showed a jeepney driver still out in the street begging for his family as Covid had curtailed public transportation for months. A buko juice vendor is back but still praying that more customers come his way so he can bring home steady income and food for his household.
How many more remain unemployed, homeless, hungrier and poorer because of this continuing pandemic?
We offer thanksgiving prayers for the generous hearts, individuals and groups, who share their blessings and care for the needy.
And dear God, may we ask You please to touch those in government, especially to make this Christmas a happier one for the poor and needy?
Can You please have this special appeal reach Mayor Mike, VM Dondon and the whole Cebu City Council?
Dear God, can You please open their hearts to unite and start a city-wide participatory alternative waste management network and system instead of automatically approving and funding this December the conventional truck-collection-disposal system which costs millions of pesos for disposing/dumping unsegregated, smelly, dirty, unhealthy garbage and wasting productive lands that could have been used for housing, food and other productive services for people?
Can Mayor Mike, VM Dondon and the whole Cebu City Council please consider, instead, the following doable suggestions that can bring these immediate and sustainable productive outcomes (within 2 months or less from the program start) that are beneficial for the city’s constituents and environment?
Some promised positive results: a) household/community food gardens using kitchen/food wastes assuring the hungry and poor with vegetables; b) sustainable food supply and response to hunger; c) livelihood and income from management, production and trading of other waste types; d) cleaner, sustainable communities and less waste volume and less budget for collection/disposal; e) sustainable, participative waste management multisectoral network; and f) positive climate action contribution of Cebu City vs global warming.
Three suggestions please:
One. Can Mayor Mike please issue soonest, this December, an executive order reminding/requiring all barangay communities/offices/institutions to strictly and immediately implement city-wide waste segregation as mandated by Republic Act 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000?
Two. Can Mayor Mike immediately call/convene a blended Waste Workshop with multisectoral online/direct participation to facilitate and ensure the collaboration for and smooth implementation of the waste segregation directive?
The Waste Workshop should result in a clear, data-guided, doable Cebu City Alternative Waste Management (CCAWM) Action Plan/Program for the City from December 2021 to June 2022.The resultant CCAWM can also include guidelines governing the terms/conditions for the December WM bidding for Cebu City wastes.
Three. Committed/immediate/sustainable CCAWM implementation.
Lifting all these prayers/suggestions for Your will and grace. Thank You, Lord. Amen.