For two days in November, cemeteries around the Philippines will be packed with people - both living and dead. Nope, it’s not a belated Halloween celebration.
November 1 and 2 mark All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, when the nation gets a mandatory non-working holiday to remember the day of the dead, in festive, Thanksgiving-like family reunions.
Scattered families all over the country travel back to their hometowns to be reunited with relatives, the deceased included. The most pack places in town? The local cemeteries.
Relatives would gather in the cemeteries and pay homage to their dead. Traditionally, the tombs are cleaned, and prayers, candles and flowers are offered on the gravesite and in the churches. But what sets these days apart from a funeral or a death anniversary is the festive atmosphere everywhere.
You heard it! Walking through the cemeteries is like going to a fair. At each gravesite, families will be pitching tents and setting the above-ground tombs called mausoleums with food to overflowing. Music will be blaring from stereos, and children will be playing. And yet there is nothing sacrilegious about any of it. For most Filipinos, it’s our way of remembering the good and memorable times with the departed. Any other times of visiting their gravesites, and especially on the death anniversary, and the atmosphere turns to solemn, mournful remembrance.
But on these two days, The Day of the Dead is like thanksgiving. Really.
Filipina Soul would like to congratulate the mega-star Ms. Sharon Cuneta! Her show “Sharon” won as best entertainment program at the 2007 Catholic Mass Media Awards held last October 25, 2007.
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Sharon also appears on the cover of Metro this month. In her interview with Ramil Gulle, which you can read on her blog, Sharon talks about the early days of her career, the secret habit she had for years, struggling with single motherhood, her daughter KC, and a new chapter in her life as a student. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
1. Hugis ay bituin, papel na nagniningning. (Star-shaped paper that shines.)
2. Binatak ko ang isa, tatlo pa ang sumama. (I pulled one, three others came with it.)
3. Walang ulo, walang isip parang isda kung sumisid; gayong wala ni palikpik, kay haba ng naliligid. (It has no head. It has no mind. It’s like a fish that dives. It has no fins, yet it goes a long way.)
4. Kung di lamang sa bibig ko, ay nagutom ang barbero. (If not for my mouth, the barber would go hungry.)
5. Isang balong malalim, punung-puno ng patalim. (One deep well, full of sharp knives.)
This will be my last post about the Estrada pardon. I am tired and emotionally drained. I’m still unable to fathom the decision to pardon a convicted plunderer of millions. The news that thousands of Erap’s supporters welcomed him home saddened me. These are the same people that Erap stole from.
1998 - Carlos Arellano, a childhood friend of Estrada, was appointed chairman and president of the SSS.
October 21, 1999 - Upon Estrada’s instruction, Arellano bought P900 million ($20 million) worth of Belle Corporation stock without authorization from the SSS investment committee.
Government Service Insurance System (GSIS)
October 9, 1999 - GSIS president Federico Pascual, another Estrada appointee, was also instructed to purchase Belle shares, in the amount of P1.1 billion ($25 million).
“I may have committed mistakes in my career in public service, but I assure you corruption is not one of them,” Estrada said at San Juan City Hall to the cheers of some 3,000 supporters who welcomed him home.
How can he accept pardon for something that he continues to insist he never committed?
“a terrible, terrible calamity to the great, great, great majority of the Filipino people who have suffered from the plunder.”
Sen. Richard Gordon:
“I am revolted by the whole scenario … I am not questioning her right to pardon but I am questioning her responsibility.”
Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan:
“It is highly questionable and inappropriate for the Arroyo administration to go into a mad rush to grant the pardon just as her government faces all these serious charges of corruption and bribery”
In all my time writing here at Filipina Soul, nothing, and I mean NOTHING!, has made my blood boil as this news of Estrada’s pardon. It is an embarrassment! A mockery! A !?!@?!?@@! There are not enough words for it!
Just weeks after his conviction, President Arroyo does the unthinkable and sets this thief free. In case you haven’t noticed, Madame President, Erap was found GUILTY by the Sandiganbayan! What of their work now? Don’t you have any respect for the justice system? You have stolen the Filipino’s sense of pride and trust that the legal system works. So now, all the lesser thieves should be set free as well!
In a statement, Ramos said Estrada’s plunder conviction and pardon are “bigger than President Arroyo and/or Estrada himself.”
“…All Filipinos are stakeholders in this case,” Ramos said prior to his departure for Guandong, China where he was attending a business conference. His statement was made before Malacañang announced that Arroyo had granted Estrada full pardon.
As “Heroes of the Environment”, he is in the same list as Al Gore, Prince Charles and Mikhail Gorbachev.
VON HERNANDEZ - former literature professor, activist, environmentalist, and Greenpeace campaign director for Southeast Asia.
Hernandez is one of Asia’s leading activists against waste incineration. Instead he advocates the effective, polluatant-free technology that is recyling and recomposting of the mountains of trash across the Philippines.
So just wait a minute here. What was all that hoopla that the Sandiganbayan went through for six long years?! Estrada was found guilty of plunder, charged with life sentence, required to return about PhP400M back to the government, and sequestring all his properties. Plus the Court ordered the arrest of all his co-defendants in the case.
So, was the plunder case just a show? And along with the pardon, can Estrada now keep his money and his cronies?
Erap has always said he is innocent and a victim of corruption charges and his prosecution “a conspiracy by the powerful elite, the church and President Arroyo.”
I also dug up an old GMANews revealing that current President Gloria Arroyo is open to talks for an absolute pardon, to ease the political crisis and frequent coup rumors that plague her administration. Apparently, the Palace thinks that being in jail for six years, and having an ailing mother waiting for him is justifiable enough to grant the ex-president a pardon.
Why would Arroyo pardon a man who thinks he is innocent and a victim of her administration? All those other political foes of Arroyo are now going to wage war against her and create enough tension so their comrades in jail can be freed and granted pardon too! I mean, Marcos was exiled from the Philippines up to his death, and ERAP gets pardoned?!
This is absolute nonsense, a cause for blackamail, makes Arroyo a laughingstock, and a mockery of the justice system!
Lea Salonga’s run as Fantine in Broadway’s production of Les Miserables has ended. With the last show, Lea has said goodbye to the part she has called “the role of a lifetime”. We’d like to congratulate Lea for her successful time as Fantine! You can read her sentiments on her blog.
Lea did this interview with Broadway Beat about 7 months ago, when she was just starting on the show. You can see it here, along with some clips of her performance:
Can you guess these correctly?
