Dr. Jose Abueva at the 2nd Bicol Forum at the USI Auditorium, March 26, 2009
Two days ago, I attended the Forum on Bicol Autonomy organized by Commodore Dante Jimenez of the Mariners Polytechnic Colleges and VACC fame. I was drawn into attendance by my own curiousity and I did not want to pass up seeing Dr. Jose Abueva again.
I was only supposed to attend as an observer... a "miron". However, I found myself suddenly elevated to become a reactor to the resource speakers representing the Academe.
My take on it is quite simple. I am all for Bicol Autonomy, in the same manner that I am for the parliamentary form of government and I am for Federalism. I feel that it is great that we are starting to talk about it and discussing it in forums.
However, before we even start talking about autonomy I think it should be clear what the proposals are. It is important to answer the 5 Ws and more importantly the 1 H first.
As I have pointed out -- are the Bicolanos prepared for this?
It seems a long way to go for this to reach mainstream advocacy, well, at least the first step was made towards this long journey to autonomy.
