There will be Christmas Cheers this December 2022, the administration of Mayor Samuel Laynes made sure last week.
It called a meeting of the original members of the organizing committee – Fr. Laudemer Gapaz, Efren Sorra, Engr. Poncing Garcia, former Councilor Juan Paolo Sales and this writer – as well as assistant municipal treasurer Bob Surtida as secretary, Vice Mayor Arlynn Arcilla, and VIWAD Director Choy Lim to plan the initial steps for the return of the Cheers after a two-year hiatus.
Mayor Laynes is responding to the clamor of the people for the staging of the Yuletide extravaganza that could not be held in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic restrictions.
According to him, the Cheers committee and the LGU still have a total of P600,000 set aside for the Cheers that would probably start a few days after the celebration of the Kaaldawan ng Virac on Dec. 7, 2022.
The program subcommittee will invite representatives of participating schools to a meeting about a week or so after the start of the classes in public schools to discuss the scheduling and participation guidelines.
A week after this meeting, the sponsors – Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Marriage Ecnounterers, Virac LGU, Provincial Government, Catanduanes Tribune, Catanduanes Tulungan Club, DPWH, Mountain Cares & Hikers, Abuab Auto Supply, Catanduanes Contractors Association, and FICELCO – would meet to finalize matters, including the assignment of taskings.
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“Longevity is the key. Take care of your health. Don’t smoke, watch your diet and figure.”
These were the first words of advice that National Scientist and UP’s 17th President Dr. Emil Q. Javier, who turns 82 this September 11 but still plays two sets of tennis regularly, told the audience during the meet-and-greet event at the Catanduanes State University last week.
He recited the parable of the three masons then working on the Westminster Cathedral in England during old days who were asked what they were doing.
One said he was cutting stones while the second said he was putting up a wall. The third declared that he was building a cathedral for the Lord.
“Work is easier if you do it for a purpose,” Dr. Javier stressed. “If you have long-term goals, it will be easy to get over problems. Otherwise, you would be like a headless chicken.”
He called Pres. Azanza’s attention to the “2012” on the university’s logo which he said is a mistake, as the institution’s year of origin should be traced to its very beginning like a tree’s deepest root.
The earlier decades from its founding as the Virac National Agricultural Trade School (VNATS) in 1961 and its conversion into the Catanduanes State Colleges in 1971 cannot just be erased by it’s becoming a university in 2012, Javier remarked.
“CatSU’s Foundation Day is not when your university branched out and reached its present peak, like your becoming a university, because in fact your institution will keep on growing. Your Foundation Day is when VNATS was established, not even when it was converted to CSC,” Azanza recalled in a post last Monday.
That same day, to correct things, he issued a presidential memorandum to clarify the Foundation Day of CatSU, which will henceforth be celebrating on June 18, 1961 when VNATS was established, not June 19, 1971 when VNATS was converted into Catanduanes State Colleges, while October 19, 2012 will be marked as University Day.
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A BRITON VISITS AMERICA. A British man visits America and as part of his tour, he is shown the vast corn fields of Iowa stretching away to the horizon and beyond.
“My word,” he says, “What on earth do you do with it all?”
The farmer grins and replies, “We eat what we can and what we can’t, we can.”
The Brit is somewhat puzzled, but after the farmer explains, he laughs uproariously. “Well done, sir, well done!”
When he returns to the UK, a friend asks him what Americans are like. “Oh, they have a jolly good sense of humor. When I asked a farmer what he does with all of his maize, do you know what he said?”
“We consume what we are able, and what we are not, we tin.”