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Meralco stockholders meeting, Ka Bel's funeral, the IFI chapel?

I saw the Meralco stockholders meeting in the evening newscast. As a extremely minor stockholder in some big corporations, I never attended a stockholders meeting trusting that whoever gets elected to the board of directors he/she will lead the company profitably. Weeks before, GSIS President Winston Garcia threatened to buy out the Lopezes from the company. This was apparently with blessings from Her Majesty the Queen.

It is not the first time that the King or in our case the Queen has tried to take over a private enterprise. Like Henry VIII who dissolved the Monasteries, Gloria I tried to "dissolve" Meralco by bringing up the spectre of high energy costs. While Henry had his Cromwell, Gloria has her Winston. The only similarities between them is that both royal subalterns are in their faces! But her Winston is no Churchill.

In a globalized economy, doing a Ferdinand I on the Lopezes is nigh impossible unless Gloria I declares martial law (which requires Congressional assent). So she had to do it by proxy. The stockholders saw through this and trooped to the meeting. When Winston queried if the people in the theatre were employees,not a few responded "I'm not an employee!"

This Winston should concentrate on delivering services to government pensioners!

Now for the power cost mess, this is a case of Sesame Street like "What will happen if I...."

What did happen when Cory the Queen failed to replace Ferdinand's energy plans, there was a loooong brownout, then there was Fidel I of Philippines 2000 getting power plants that were so expensive and so to the present problem. Meralco cannot be completely faulted.

Representative Crispin Beltran's funeral was announced in several notices in the blurbs. The one issued by the House said that religious services will be held in the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) "chapel" on Taft Avenue. Now that "chapel" is the Cathedral of the Holy Child, seat of the Supreme Bishop of the Church. The IFI is the only living result of our 1896 revolution and yet it doesn't get the recognition it deserves. Always criical of the government, the nationalist independent church have taken on progressive causes (including ordaining women as priests in the catholic tradition). Unlike their Catholic and some non-Catholic and Protestant counterparts, IFI bishops don't kowtow to the Palace or even to use the Bible as a justification to kowtow!

Another thing. How come when a prominent lefty (opposed to the present dispensation) dies the Palace can only laud him as a "True Filipino"? If Beltran is a true Filipino then the Malacanang tenant is nothing less than a "False Filipino". The Palace should be more less formulaic with its words.

More on Ka Bel's Funeral:

The blurbs report that Beltran's remains were brought to the House for the Necrological service. The Catholic priest Fr Joe Dizon who officiated at the Mass apologized for the Hierarchy for thinking that Beltran was "Aglipayan". Well so much for ecumenism from the Catholic bishops! The struggle for justice in all its forms always has an ecumenical dimension. It was never surprising for me to learn that the nationalist catholic IFI was the first to host funeral services for the labour leader.

Sometimes maintaining communion with the Catholic bishops of the Philippines is extremely difficult. Catholics like me however always have to maintain communion with the Bishop of Rome.

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