ANTONIO V. FIGUEROA FAST BACKWARD COSMOPOLITAN, THE FUNERAL PARLOR

Funeral Homes, CFH), at Junquera Street, Cebu City, then that city’s red-light dis-trict.

The use of ‘cosmopolitan’ is not a chance but an anticipation given the term fits the differ-ent people the funeral home services. With foresight, he opened branches in Mindanao and, decades later, in Metro Manila under the handle of his son and namesake, and the third-generation descendants of the Dychangco family.

The first memorial chapel outside Cebu was opened in 1960 in a two-story building at corner Leon Ma. Guerrero and Francisco Villa-Abrille Streets, Davao City, inside the 44-hectare Chinatown. This is the enterprise’s first branch outside Cebu and the first in Minda-nao.

Just a stone’s throw from the city’s main bus terminal, a few hundred meters away from the defunct International Harvardian University, and a walking distance to Ateneo de Da-vao, Davao Chong Hua High School (the city’s first Chinese institute), San Pedro Hospital, Holy Cross of Davao, Santa Ana Church, and the now deserted Taiwanese consulate, the funeral parlor’s chapel and morgue were situated on the ground floor. In the 1990s, it was torched to the ground.

Historically, CFH is the country’s first memorial chapel to enter franchising and possibly the world. In 2007, the franchise cost for a CFH branch ranged from P10 million to P30 mil-lion and required a space of no less than 1,500 square meters. If operated in a leased proper-ty, it should be under contract for a minimum of eight to 10 years.

CFH is also the first Filipi-

FRED C. LUMBA SPECKS OF LIFE

“Think no vice so small that you may commit it, and no virtue so small that you may overlook it.” - CONFUCIUS.

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We should be wary about the persistence of the ICC to continue looking into the human rights violations in the Philippines viz a vis the illegal drugs campaign during the previous administration.

At the same time, the quiet and creeping Chinese build up in the contested islands in the West Philippine Sea indicate in no uncertain terms another serious threat to our national security even when Xi Jin Ping and his minions profess to high heavens that there is no such thing.

Are some people born congenital liars?

The first is a direct interference in our exclusive national affairs and thus an assault on our integrity as a sovereign and independent nation.

It is well and good that PBBM has put his foot down on the matter thus ending speculations that the insistent ICC probe will make a progressive march into our judicial syatem that it deems to be mal-functioning..

However, the political opposition, especially those responsible for elevating the EJK complaint against ex-PRRD to the International Criminal Court, is stubbornly hoping to score a double whammy by unceasingly agitating the UN agency to compel the Marcos II administration to address and take up the matter.

The enemies of the State and the incumbent leadership would not necessarily mind if the issue drags on and on.

To make itself relevant, the opposition can unite to use the developments in this front as its ammo against the establishment in future electoral exercises.

After several electoral setbacks,the opposition and anti-government forces have been reduced to isolated ragtag groups that will find it difficult to raise vital issues no funeral home accepted by the National Funeral Directors As-sociation (NFDA) and the Cremation Association of North America (CANA), and is allied with Batesville Casket Company, Inc., an American firm known for making caskets, urns, and keepsakes, and Dodge Chemicals, an industrial chemical company based in Maryland, USA.

In November 2002, another Cosmopolitan chapel was opened--the most ambitious Min-danao project—at the junction of J. Camus and Jose Abad Santos Streets, Davao City. Known as the Camus branch, the parlor offers amenities and facilities that upend in terms of luxury many of Manila’s popular and upstate funeral homes.

Calling itself “the specialists in family care and service,” CHF introduces itself as tender-ing “world-class comfort and care,” adhering to “a philosophy of respect and kindness,” and bringing “leading edge care with kindness, courtesy, and compassion.”

Years later, the funeral chain expanded by opening two more branches in Davao region. It acquired the old Patalinghug Funeral Homes at Cabaguio Street, in Davao City, and an-other branch at No. 54 National Highway, Visayan Village, Tagum City.

Competing with Cosmopolitan in the 1990s was the Toril-based Villa Funeral Homes, through a branch found along Santa Ana Avenue, beside the defunct Mason Bowling Lanes. Later, Angel Funeral Homes, owned by the Brillantes family, opened along Florentino Torres Street, Davao City, and has since opened branches as far as Santa Barbara, Iloilo City.

Threats To National Stability

against the incumbent.

This and the inability of the present government to stop Chinese encroachment in the country’s EEZ could help revive hopes for the political opposition to return to power.

That is why the Marcos government is tactfully careful in making pronouncements on the ICC status unless it was staunchly certain of the position it was taking.

But the incumbent regime may be unwittingly dragged into the US-China power rivalry by allowing the EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) to make a parallel use of the country’s territory as the Americans did when they were actively ensconced at the Subic Naval and the Clark Airbase.

China does not like this set up because the US is extending “military” protection to Taiwan in an EDCA-kind of way.

Whether we like it or not, we are like pawns in a world championship chess match between the US and China.

And i have not yet mentioned the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty where one (or the other) will come to the aid and defense of the country that is being attacked by a foreign aggressor.

As you have probably noticed, the local insurgency no longer pose a threat to our national security. But our political stability is being shaken because some power-hungry blocs are soliciting external help - by hook or by crook - to see that this government fails to deliver its promises to the people.

Let’s face it. The tenant in Malacanang is the namesake and son of the dictator the Filipinos kicked out in the 1986 EDSA uprising.

This situation is a hard pill to swallow for all those who fought against the Marcos dictatorship.

Did anyone of us (100 million Pinoys) ever imagined that a direct descendant of the late Ferdfinand Marcos would one day rise to be legitimately elected president of this coun- try?

As the late feisty senator Miriam Defensior Santiago eloquently exclaimed: “The sins of the father are not the sins of the son.”

Would you see it germane that the ICC probe of EJKs should become part of a sinister plot to organize ouster moves against the present duly constituted authority?

The China row on the WPS is a pestering issue and the expanded EDCA are certainly contributing to fears the Philippines could suffer huge collateral damage if an idiot in Beijing or in Washington presses the wrong button.

Yes, believe it or not there are idiots and morons occupying sensitive positions and authority in high echelons.pf government.

We don’t have to search far actually.

Just look around you. Scan the government horizon and you’ll find them one too many. (Email feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.). GOD BLESS