Old Songs

Iwasfortunate to be growing up at a time when the radio (no TV then) played beautiful songs sung by artist performers who really have “the voice”. Songs of love… songs of victory…..songs of despair. These were the songs with which one can express the feelings that must be declared to the world. In a party recently, the guests were invited to join a game called guess the title or the singer of the song. Fortunately, most of the guests were in their senior years, and they tried to outdo each other guessing the song which were mostly from yesteryears. The younger guests tried their best, but even with the help of “google”, it was still difficult for them to win against the seniors.

Old songs really have a magic of their own. It enables the singer to express his or her feelings. No wonder, there were less incidence of suicides, since the younger ones have an additional venue for communication. In spite of the shouts of teenagers when the Beatles sang their memorable songs, the lyrics were still a reflection of the days when they were around. My favorite was “In my life”. A song which a group of professional musicians voted as the best song of the century.

It is fortunate for music lovers that the program “America…etc. got talent” took off and was accepted by many countries. It gave a boost to the young, giving them an alternative to the depressing conditions prevailing in their countries. Let’s say that the old may not have any use for songs anymore…but old contestants have a better handle of songs. Deep in their hearts, they know the circumstances leading to the composition and the singing of the songs. I really love the rendition of “Wind Beneath my Wings” by 88 year old Colin Thackery who won Britain Got Talent in 2019. He dedicated the song to his late wife.

I had some regrets that the Catholic hierarchy did away with the Latin songs and urged the religious and laymen to translate the Latin songs into English or the native tongue. However, the beauty of the melody in the Latin songs got lost in the translation. Hopefully, we can have more matured renditions of church songs but I do agree that singing the songs in the local dialect makes it more relevant to the singers.

One of the avid subscribers of Mindanao Cross- Moises Milanes- died yesterday and we joined his funeral in Dulawan. We best remember him for knowing the singers of the old songs that we played in a party. A week before, we had a talk at his home, and he expressed agreement to some issues that were brought up in this paper. Our condolence to his family. May he enjoy God’s blessings in the company of God. MC

Laudato

Si’ Week 2023 from May 21 to 28 marks the eighth anniversary of the landmark encyclical of Pope Francis on care for creation.

Dated 24 May 2015, the Roman Pontiff’s encyclical takes its title from St. Francis of Assisi’s medieval Italian prayer “Canticle of the Sun.” The Canticle, Pope Francis says in his encyclical, reminds us “that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. This sister, he says, “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”

“Each year hundreds of millions of tons of waste are generated, much of it non-biodegradable, highly toxic and radioactive, from homes and businesses, from construction and demolition sites, from clinical, electronic and industrial sources. The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” Pope Francis explains.

Weighing in on climate change, he writes, “A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system.”

While much may have been done to make changes to humanity’s wasteful and destructive ways in the eight years since the issuance of Laudato Si’, much definitely still needs to be done.

Only last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that advises the United Nations on rising temperatures, released a report authored by nearly 300 scientists from 67 countries, a summary of research conducted over the past five years. Its key message: “the world is approaching irreversible levels of global warming, with catastrophic consequences becoming inevitable.” It said, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land.” In short, “the pace and scale of climate action are insufficient to tackle climate change.”

While much of what needs to be done to save the planet and reverse the effects of climate change rests in the hands and shoulders of governments, giant global conglomerates and business interests, as well as large financial institutions, it is undeniable that we ourselves as individuals and communities have our role to play.

The Philippines has recently been described in a Washington Post as a nation swallowed by plastic waste. Our population of 114 million people, the report said, produces over one-third of all oceanic plastic waste

Bangsamoro

Fr. Rogelio Tabuada, OMI, Chief-Executive-Officer

Eva Kimpo - Tan, Editor-in-Chief

Edwin O. Fernandez, News Editor

Gemma A. Peñaflor, Administration and Marketing Executive

Julito P. Torres, Circulation Officer

Karl John B. Daniel, Graphic-Layout Artist

COTABATO CITY / ARMM CORRESPONDENTS

John M. Unson, Ferdinandh B. Cabrera, Nash B. Maulana, Mark Anthony Tayco & Drema Quitayen Bravo

NORTH / SOUTH COTABATO CORRESPONDENTS

Williamor Magbanua, Romer “Bong” Sarmiento & Louige Allan Tutor CARTOONIST

Lourd Jim Diazon in the world. A staggering 2.7 million tons of plastic waste are generated in the Philippines each year, and an estimated 20 percent ends up in the ocean, according to a World Bank study.

Over and above that, our country’s current forest cover, according to independent think-tank Ibon Foundation, is only twenty-three percent of land area, below the fifty-four percent needed to sustain its ecosystem. Added to this, land and soil quality is severely degraded, 5.2 million hectares of agricultural lands have been eroded, water stress level ratio is at twenty-nine percent which is way above the thirteen percent global standard.

Being a country that is among those particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of the climate crisis for losses arising from droughts, floods, rising seas and other disasters that are attributed to climate change, we cannot remain indifferent and “be business as usual.”

We need to live Laudato Si’ by living simply, minimizing consumption and actively promoting ecological awareness and action through integral waste segregation and by minimizing the use of plastic and paper, by eliminating single-use plastics, polystyrene and the like, from our homes and institutions. We can also avoid use and consumption of genetically modified agricultural products propagated in plantations and monoculture production, which destroy biodiversity and threaten indigenous lands, as well as participate in efforts to protect and preserve our seas, oceans and fishery resources.

This year’s Laudato Si’ week carries the theme “Hope for the Earth, Hope for Humanity.” In his encyclical Pope Francis said: “Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home…. All is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good and making a new start.”

Let us become part of that hope by living Laudato Si’.

Chief Minister Ahod Balawag

Ebrahim opened Thursday afternoon the weeklong 2023 BARMM Athletic Association (BARMAA) sports competition, the third the region has held since BARMM started to organize governance in 2019. However, we barely caught anything of what he had to say, as it was drizzling, and that the hosting Cotabato State University (CSU) would have better mounted a makeshift press box (small platform) where photographers could settle for the stage coverage and be able to catch sports actions first-hand in the event.

Speaking of Marawi City, a long-term rehabilitation should evolve from areas around the city on issues of security, stronger presence of governance, and infrastructure support to local trading economy, government officials have said.

On orders of Chief Minister Ebrahim of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the region brings development package to towns around the city to strengthen barangay governance and village-based economy where deemed strategic.

BARMM Interior and Local Governments Minister Naguib Sinarimbo said one of those that the region will soon give a standard municipal police station (MPS) building will be Pagayawan town, one of the routes taken by the ISIS-fashioned men of a group later identified as Dawlia Islamia (DI)

In social terms, the local government unit (LGU) of Pagayawan, Lanao del Sur, closely engages the local madaris (Arabic schools) with guidance to keep them off and protected from school lessons devised by extremists abroad for their recruitment purposes.

On May 25 2017, black-dressed and masked armed men passed by Pagayawan to Marawi which they place under siege for the succeeding six months along with others converged there from several areas.

BARMM has built roads for easy access to Pagayawan which has high potential for agricultural tourism development in long-term.

Lady Mayor Khalida Palao Sangila of Pagayawan said her constituents’ names and profiles are protected in a dedicated databank. Whenever residents would spot new faces in public place like a mosque, their identities are checked against the municipal databank files—if they had no municipal IDs to show to authorities.

If the identities don’t match with any of those in the databank, the local unit of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace monitor group (usually unarmed) would inform the mayor, and then she would certify to the police that such newcomers were not residents of the town.

The lady mayor said even mosques are protected from undue influence and convergence: the khutba or sermons were made uniform to keep teachings from some contaminated sources.

Mayor Sangila says Pagayawan does not have yet any private organizational partner to push such campaign to an institutional level.

She said the municipal databank confidentially contain the profiles of each of those age 18 years old and above among more than 6,000 residents.

Decreases by mortality are also monitored for databank updating and to keep the dead from being “risen” to “vote” on Election Day. Such are democratic and peace and security programs that may find match in the development intervention menu of the U.S. Aid for International Development and (USAID) with the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), an official said, but are not yet exposed to the public.

Tunko Mabang is a resident of Cotabato City.