Remembering our departed loved ones is not only a matter of going to the cemetery, offering flowers to their tombs and saying a prayer for the eternal repose of their souls.

Even staying overnight to party with the souls in the cemetery is not the very essence for today.

For us, the best way to remember them is to learn from their mistakes and reminisce our happy moments with them. Then we can only be consoled with the thought that they have already rested from the cruel elements of the Earth.

Woe unto us who are still alive for no amount of self-gratification could surpass the peace and tranquility that our departed ones now enjoy wherever their souls may be now.

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Sadly, remembering our loved ones has become commercialized too. We start with the flowers which could have been simply picked from our gardens and personally prepared for offering to the tomb. Nowadays, the living prefers to buy ready-made bouquets and this has become a field day for flower vendors.

Then the food and drinks. The scenario of cemeteries the day after will be the best dying, not living, witness how the living resort to merry-marking in remembering the dead.

This is not to mention the cemetery being made as the dating place, the drinking rendezvous and other kinds of foolishness that the living does under the guise of remembering the dead.

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So much has been reported on the after-effects of the Supreme Court ruling on the Sigaw ng Bayan petition regarding the charter change via the People's Initiative.

The castigating ponencia of Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, a former associate of The Firm (Villaraza Law Firm closely associated with the President and the First Gentlman) raised doubts whether the latter had a falling out with its valued client, the Malacanang occupant. The uneasy Cabinet environment of Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz who also comes from The Firm and who is the only vocal critic of the People's Initiative among the cabinet members.

We are not joining the fray. We still await the motion for reconsideration to be filed by the group of Atty. Raul Lambino which at this early already sparked speculations due to the impending retirement of Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban this month.

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SP UPDATE. The 9th Sangguniang Panlungsod of Tagbilaran held its session last Monday afternoon in lieu of the regular session scheduled today, a holiday. Acting Vice-Mayor Jose Antonio S. Veloso presided over the session with yours truly as the acting majority floorleader. Vice-Mayor Nuevas T. Montes was the acting city mayor in view of Mayor Dan Lim's trip to China as part of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's party.

The city lawmakers approved a proposed resolution authored and sponsored by City Councilor Lucio Balbin requesting the city's executive branch to fully implement the provisions of Republic Act 9257 otherwise known as the Expanded Senior Citizens Law.

City Councilor Oscar B. Glovasa also found an afternoon session to be a convenient time to hold sessions prompting a referral to the committee on rules for a re-visit of the schedule of the regular sessions of the city sanggunian.

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