World Interfaith Harmony Week Award in Amman, Jordan on April 17, 2016 | Photo Ocaorthodox via Wikimedia Commons
Part XIII of “The Filipino Melting Pot” Series
President John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. He delivered the famous line in his 1962 Rice University speech. He emphasized a dictum that “difficult challenges can lead to growth and progress”.
This project initiator has critics that say that his idea of a “Filipino Exodus” for the homeless people in Metro Manila (for a start of a global movement) is a “suntok sa bulan“, the Sorsoganon and Filipino phrase for “like a moonshot”. “Bulan” is the Sorsoganon term for the Moon. It is why this particular column starts with the JFK quote. Why? Because the chosen pilot province, Sorsogon, has Bulan as a strategic town. Ergo, the Filipino Exodus already has a budding destination for a socioeconomic moonshot-like economic projects. This writer distributed a Facebook Note entitled:
Ten-to-20 Priority Projects to “Reinvent” the Quality of Life in Sorsogon & its “Isles of the Future” AND Create 300,000+ Jobs at this link
Sorsogon has a population of fewer than one million people. Therefore, it needs more workers from other provinces. The homeless folks in Metro Manila can provide the required manpower to fill in the vacancies. The Filipino Exodus project can acquire more lands for agricultural, industrial, and commercial ventures via public-private partnerships (PPP) in the adjacent mother province of Albay. Sorsogon can also tap its former sub-province of Masbate, which is composed of three main islands. If more lands are needed, the rest of Bicolandia (Region V) and the nearby Leyte-Samar Islands (Region VIII) can also be tapped. This is why, as early as 2012, this journalist had the visionary drive to organize a Facebook Group called the “BLeSSED Republic (Turning Regions 5 & 8 Into the “BLessed Nation” at this link.
One of the reasons that this author included the islands of Samar and Leyte is that he has kin and in-laws in Samar. And good friends and community supporters in Leyte. This was why, after joining in 1994, the Leyte-Samar Association (LSA), a public-benefit corporation based in Los Angeles, California, amended its bylaws to permit a non-native person from Samar or Leyte to be elected to its Board of Directors. In December 2000, this Sorsoganon journalist was elected an LSA director. It was then chosen by its directors to become the chairman of the Board. He served as board chairman for three years.
Bulan town was not chosen because the project proponent’s mother hailed from one of its barrios called “Danao.” Or for the fact that while he was born in the City of Manila in 1946, he was brought as an infant to Bulan town for his baptism at its Catholic church and grew up there for the next three years.
As earlier mentioned, Bulan is a strategic town. Because it sits far from the Bulusan and Pocdol volcanic ranges. The Pocdol range sits in Bacon town of Sorsogon and Manito town of Albay Province. It is adjacent to Magallanes, a city named after the Portuguese-Spanish explorer Fernando de Magallanes. It is also the place where Spanish explorers and Augustinian missionaries first set foot on the island of Luzon. They also celebrated their first mass in Sorsogon, which is the southern end of Luzon.
“The idea of an interfaith (Christian, Jewish, and Islamic) and multicultural socioeconomic square will be the first of its kind in the world. The Order of Saint Augustine – Province of Santo Niño de Cebu, Philippines, is a logical entity to lead the construction of a Christian ecumenical cathedral in the said first-ever “Abraham Square” in the world.”
The border of Bulan and Magallanes towns (BBMT) may be the site of passenger-and-cargo terminals for the uncompleted Bulan Airport, which this author and his supporters vow to complete in their lifetime. It will have its runway extended to the Magallanes border. Magallanes town used to be the site of a galleon shipyard, which will be revived to construct galleons for tourism purposes. Then, BBMT will be the location of a planned “Abraham Square”, which was conceived in the 1970s at the rectory of the Catholic church of Bulan town.
The idea of an interfaith (Christian, Jewish, and Islamic) and multicultural socioeconomic square will be the first of its kind in the world. The Order of Saint Augustine – Province of Santo Niño de Cebu, Philippines, is a logical entity to lead the construction of a Christian ecumenical cathedral in the said first-ever “Abraham Square” in the world. As stated earlier, Augustinian friars were the first missionaries to set foot in Luzon Island in what is now Magallanes town in 1569.
Many think that the election of the first Augustinian missionary as the pope this year augurs well for the “Abraham Square” project. It may be Heaven-sent. The Vatican may like to give its blessing to the projects in what is now called on Facebook the Bulan-Magallanes Corridor. It prompted this column to write earlier the “Fourteen Letters to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV” series, which discussed in its Part I how the Vatican could address homelessness and violence in the Philippines.
More by next Wednesday on how Pope Leo XIV may bless the coming “Abraham Square”. And more importantly, support all the projects in the pilot province of Sorsogon and in the BLeSSED Nation of the Filipino Melting Pot. How? By the use of more than one billion dollars worth of assets of the Archdiocese of Manila and the Diocese of Sorsogon that can be invested in the “Filipino Exodus” cooperatives-led PPPs.
Yes, Part XIV of this series may be a blockbuster, to use a Hollywood term. After all, Francesco Quinn wanted to build, starting in 2012, a Quinn-Philippine studio in Magallanes town on time for the 500th anniversary of the 1519-1521 Spanish expedition. Francesco, the actor son of the late Hollywood icon Anthony Quinn, also died on August 5, 2011, in Malibu, California. He wanted to play the role of Fernando de Magallanes in a major film production of the 1521 epic Spanish voyage to what became the Philippines. The Quinn-Philippine studio is still on the drawing board.
