Spending Christmas

Christmas is the time of giving sharing one's blessings to others, sharing time with God's children who may need our companionship the most, specially at this time.
It has been our habit to be with God's special children during Christmas time, the orphaned and abandoned tots who do not have parents with whom they can spend Christmas.
Since we spent Christmas in Bohol with our grandmother and uncles, aunts and cousins, we visited our little friends at the Sunshine Home, the home of abandoned children and orphans.
Children at the Sunshine Home is a project of the Bohol Catholic Women's League of which my grandmother, Mommy Charing, remains an active member
The Sunshine Home is the project closest to her heart.
She relayed to us her children and grandchildren that they (CWL) have helped take care of abandoned children, specially children of prostitutes who just leave their children with relatives, who also could not properly take care of these children.
The Sunshine Home provides shelter and opportunities for growth for these children.
When we visited Sunshine Home today December 25, there were some training equipment for the children like computers, sewing machines which could help train them and provide skills as they grow.
Many of the children are still young and are in dire need of parental love and care.
So on this rainy Christmas afternoon, Mommy Charing, our aunts, Malou (who is based in New Jersey), Milet and Mamel and my wife Ruby and son Josh, cousins Daniel and Nikka shared our time with God's little children who could not spend Christmas the way many others spend theirs.
We brought them ice cream and cakes, while they performed songs for the visitors.
One child, Reynan, who is among the youngest at three could not escape our attention as he was very very entertaining.
There are twenty five boys and girls at Sunshine Home. They are taken care of until they graduate from high school.
Therafter they leave and look for homes where they can work and study for college as working students.
It is with these special children that I am really able to deeply appreciate the real meaning of Christmas.
The children I met today, Reynan, Peter, and the others, have no parents to spend Christmas with.
Yet, I saw in them incredible joy, all of them smiling, and very eager to perform for us, their visitors on Christmas.
This is in contrast with others who spend their lives complaining almost about everything that come to them.
The children probably receive no gifts on Christmas eve. Yet they were very willing and eager to give us gifts through songs and dances.
Want to know the real meaning of Christamas?
Spend December 25 with God's special children.

Broadcaster gets death threats

While here in Bohol on vacation, I received word that a fellow journalist and broadcaster, doing this thankless job of an information diseeminator in the outskirts of the remote town of Ubay, has receved threats to his life.

Senior management says the threat is serious.

The radio broadcaster received a message through text that he is supposed to be liquidated by a hired assassin for a measely sum of P20,000.

The family newspaper, the Bohol Chronicle (www.boholchronicle.com) published an article on this story on its latest publication:


"Broadcaster gets death threat

By WENNY REYES

Ubay, Bohol. A local radio broadcaster has reported receiving a text message containing threats against his life.
The message he received alleged that the broadcaster was to be liquidated by a hired gunman at the price of P20,000.00.
The mastermind is allegedly a local politician and businessman.
During “Inyong Alagad” program simultaneously aired over dyRD and dyZD, in Bohol province, program host of “Sakada” Quito del Valle disclosed that he received a text message, the sender of whom introduced himself as the contact person, saying in vernacular that he (contact person) was tasked by a local businessman who is also an elected public official (identity withheld) to hire a killer to liquidate a radio announcer (del Valle), in the amount of P20,000.
Accordingly, the contact person was able to find one from Pilar town who asked for an advance payment of P5,000 plus the firearm to be used.
The message continued that the plotter (businessman) issued the gun and gave only the amount of P3,000 and changed the target person from del Valle to a local sanguniang bayan member, kagawad. Isidore “IC” Besas. This, on orders from a high official, del Valle quoting the same text message.
Considering the change of personality as target of the assassination plot, the hired killer would ask for a higher fee even as the advance payment was already handed over.
Three days after the elected official and businessman who ordered the killing asked the contact person why nothing has happened yet. Then, the mastermind allegedly pinned “the blame on me that I kept the money and the gun. For fear of my life and safety I left Ubay,” the alleged contact person for the gun-for-hire disclosed in one of his text messages to del Valle.
The radio anchorman said the sender who is hiding somewhere in Leyte, is willing to execute an affidavit to attest the veracity of the text message.
The same message is now being referred to PNP Prov’l Director Arturo Evangelista and Gov. Erico Aumentado for their appropriate action.
Kagawad. Besas is a last termer lawmaker who is eyeing to run as mayor in Ubay. When contacted by the Chronicle, Besas said he has yet to verify the threat."

Christmas eve

It's Christmas eve. I am spending Christmas in Bohol with relatives.
It was a hectic 24th day of December.
We went to Pamilacan island off Bohol island. We had such a nice time in such a nice island.
The island is a virgin, with everything unadulterated.
Then in the evening we had catered dinner with the relatives who came from all over.
Some just arrived today.
Then we had a Christmas program, and the traditional gift-giving.
My grandmother Mommy Charing distributed cash to her nine children and even to granchildren, and even great granchildren.
I have learned this lesson in life that one of life's greatest blessing is to have generous parents.
Somehow in the event, there is some emptiness still inside me.
I realized I need to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.
It is to remember and commemorate the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He has been my life's ally.
I shall continue to rely on his guiding light in the next year and the years to come.
With this thought, my Christmas is complete.
Merry Christmas.....

19th century Christmas Belen

Part of the Filipino Christmas tradition is the setting up of Christmas Belens. This goes together witht he setting up of Christmas trees to spruce up homes with the scent and feeling of the yuletide season.
We are spending Christmas in Bohol, hometown of my father, and incidentally, the place of my birth.
This will be the first time in decades that we will spend Christmas in Bohol, although each year, we come to Bohol to spend the New Year.
We went to the town of Loay today for a dinner invitation.
In the refurbished ancetral house of our uncle, we saw perhaps one of the oldest Christmas Belens in the province, if not in the country.
A Christmas Belen, by the way, is a depiction of the nativity, where little figures or miniature statues of the main players of the nativity, like Joseph and Mary, the infant Jesus, the shepherds, the three kings, the angels, among others.
In our grandparents' home, we depict the scene of the nativity with a lot of motorized figures just to make the Belen interesting to watch.
It was very innovative that for years, it was an attraction to many people who dropped by our grandparents home.
Anyway, in Loay home where we were invited for dinner, we saw a Christmas Belen which according to our hosts Grace, was a 19th century Belen, as it was the Belen of their great grandparests yet in 1895.
We marveled at this sight, as it graciously portrayed the scene of Jesus birth, with all the angels above.

Criminal liability of a fake lawyer

One who performs the duties of an attorney even if he is not licensed to practice, can be held criminally liable.
First, this is a kind of usurpation which is punishable in the Philippines under the Revised Penal Code.
He can be held liable for "Usurpation of authority of official functions", under Article 177 of the criminal code.
This provision punishes a person who perofrms any act "pertaining to any person in authority or public office of the Philippine government ....or any agency thereof, under the pretense of official position, and without being lawfully entitiled to do so."
Lawyers,at least in the Philippines, are "officers of the court", hence public officers of the Philippine government or its agency.
In the case of a fake lawyer, who executes an affidavit---a sworn statement---he can be held, in addition, for perjury.
Perjury is also punishable under Article 183 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines.
Perjury punishes a person who executes in an affidavit upon a material matter, a willful and deliberate assertion of a falsehood, made before a competent officer authorized to receive or administer oath, which affidavit is required by law.
So a fake lawyer could be facing two criminal offenses.
My client, who was charged by this fake lawyer can initiate this criminal charge.
As a matter of litigation strategy, this would be a counter-move to "break down" the opponent.
However, the judicial autorities cannot act by itself (motu proprio) against this fake lawyer, because he is not under supervision of the Supreme Court, simply because he is not a lawyer.
Once I get that certification from the Supreme Court, this fake lawyer will be in hot waters.