CENTRAL LUZON FOLK BRACING FOR
NEW STORM
[PHOTO
AT LEFT - This resident of a riverside community in Bustos, Bulacan tries
to salvage anything reusable from his typhoon-battered home.
JONJON VICENCIO | SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga ,
Philippines]
MANILA, OCTOBER 17, 2009 (STAR) By Ding Cervantes - Still reeling from adversities caused by tropical storm “Ondoy” and typhoon “Pepeng,” thousands of Central Luzon residents, particularly those living near the Pampanga River, were told yesterday to brace anew for an approaching “super typhoon.”
“We have not even had the time to fully lift the alert in still flooded towns, particularly in the fourth district in Pampanga, now we have to tell them we are raising full alert again because of the approaching typhoon,” Filipina Sevilla, chief of the Pampanga Disaster Coordinating Council (PDCC), told The STAR.
Chief Superintendent Leon Nilo de la Cruz, Central Luzon police director and Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC) head, said, “We are now on the watch. We will enforce evacuation anytime if we see that the situation would warrant this.”
In Nueva Ecija, PDCC officer Efraim Leonardo said all evacuees, except the 19 whose homes were buried by landslides in Barangay Puncan in Carranglan town, have gone home.
“But we are again raising the alert in towns affected by the pathway of water releases from the Pantabangan Dam, particularly those traversed by the Pampanga River,” he said.
Because of the approaching typhoon, evacuation alerts were again issued to residents in riverside communities in the towns of Rizal, Bongabon, Quezon, Zaragosa and San Antonio, he said.
Nathaniel Cruz, deputy administrator of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, said the tropical storm with international name “Lupit” was expected to enter the Philippine area of responsibility last night or early today.
Said to have the potential to become a super typhoon, the storm would be named “Ramil” once it entered Philippine territory. It would be the 18th storm to enter the country this year.
Sevilla said Masantol, Macabebe, San Simon, San Luis, Candaba, Sto. Tomas, Minalin, and Apalit towns in Pampanga’s fourth district have remained flooded since Ondoy battered Luzon last Sept. 26.
Civil defense authorities have also raised an alert for Ramil in disaster-prone areas in Baguio City and other parts of the Cordillera region. – With Artemio Dumlao
FROM CEBU:
Why did a monk sue the Cebu prelate? SHOOTING STRAIGHT By Bobit S. Avila (The Philippine Star) Updated October 17, 2009 12:00 AM
Our beloved eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal has been sued for libel before the Cebu provincial prosecutor’s office by a wayward former monk, who exposed alleged acts of lasciviousness in the famous Marian Monks of the Eucharistic Adoration monastery in Upper Lindogon, Simala, Sibonga in Cebu province. The former monk is Venancio Cabillon, who is known by his religious name as Frater Paul Mary. His criminal suit also named his former prior superior Frater Martin Mary, Rev. Fr. Marnel Mejia, and Msgr. Cristobal Garcia as respondents.
This case started when Cabillon wrote the Cardinal sometime in early January to inform his eminence about alleged acts of fraud and sexual misconduct that the brothers, including himself, committed, thus violating their vows of poverty and chastity. Cabillon virtually accused his fellow monks of “living in a world of lies and deceptions like creating seeming miracles on Mama Mary shedding tears of blood, crying and other shenanigans.” He also admitted to have fallen prey to the temptations of lust and worldly and sinful weaknesses by engaging in sodomy. There was also an alleged “Miss Gay Beauty Pageant.” Naturally, this makes for juicy news headlines!
So last Aug. 9, the “Bag-ong Lungsoranon,” the official organ or publication of the Cebu Archdiocese, published a story that Cabillon committed grave faults against the religious vows of his order, as a trafficker of members of his own religious formation, and also violated his vows of chastity and obedience. This publication is really a public announcement as to what’s happening in the Cebu Archdiocese and a way of warning the laity that this priest or that brother has been defrocked.
Libel, as we in the media know too well, must be accompanied by malicious
intent and in my book, there was nothing malicious in the publication by the
“Bag-ong Lungsuranon.” What Frater Paul Mary a.k.a. Venancio Cabillon ought to
do is seek repentance for his sins… a repentance that can only come from a
contrite heart. Filing a libel case only proves that he is out for vengeance
against his spiritual leader in the Cebu Archdiocese.