Dear Mr.Celdran:
I am a travel writer and have in fact, promoted your walking tours in one of my assignments. However, I was appalled after reading about your birth control agenda at the Sunday Inquirer. If I knew that you use your tours to promote your social agenda and not the country’s agenda, then I wouldn’t have recommended your tours in the first place. Now I know better.
Please re-think your strategy as it serves to divide the people. As a tour guide, your role should be to provide a good historical and cultural overview, not to moralize. While you may think that the people around you are amused, there are those who have taken notice and are sorely disappointed.
Please try to unite not divide the country. After all, the role of a tour guide is sensitive because you do represent the country to the world. If you can bring the people to a common ground, then you may become more renowned than you’ve ever been.
Sincerely,
M**** R****
Huh? My own "agenda"? The country's "agenda"? What? Oh my. I have nothing to say to that. I will leave it all up to everyone else to fill in the blanks with what I might say.
Meanwhile, peace to you Miss M. Your opinion, though unwarranted, is totally valid. I am really quite sorry for disappointing you, I really wish it could have been otherwise.
Meanwhile, back to my, ahem... "agenda"...
Updates: Hey, remember Dinlay? The lady from the shantytown near San Agustin Church who begged for me to pay for her ligation? Well, good news. I checked up on her a few days ago, and she got one. Frankly, I was really afraid she was gonna run off with the Php500.00 I gave her but she actually went out and got one. See? She kept her word. Not all squatter folk are wretched beings willing to steal your cellphone and sell their first born for a packet of meth, ok?
And it seems that my "agenda" is gaining ground. Since my "poverty" tour and press conference for the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) in Intramuros last August 14, (above - view of press panel, organizers, and a few of the attendees), I heard that ten (10) more congressmen have signed on to approve the bill. Thank you very much Dr. Azucena Suplido, Former Health Secretary Dr. Alberto Romualdez, UNFPA Representative Ms. Suneeta Mukherjee, and UP Economics Prof. Philip Medalla for speaking so eloquently during the forum. I also learned from this event that this conservative stance against contraception (Humanae Vitae) was only picked up by the Catholic heirarchy only recently (as in 1968) and it's passing was not unanimously approved within the heirarchy itself. So this letter, which has resulted in the oppression of Catholic women/mothers for the last 40 years could just be a product of inter Vatican politics and drama pala? Well, I guess that's true. All the laws and rules of the heirarchy are written by human beings at the end of the day. And human beings, unlike God, are not perfect.
Best of all, Miss Lisa Macuja Elizalde joined the meeting and volunteered to be the face of a new movement called Speak Out! Catholics for Reproductive Health. She is so brave to publicly show support for such an (undeservedly) controversial topic. And she is also really glamorous. Once again, I look like a giggling idiot in the photo.
And of course, a Carlos Celdran tour of poverty would not be complete without the mandatory giving away of condoms like candy to the city's less privileged (above, me looking for people to throw condoms at).
Finally, watch RH DEBATE at 8:00pm ANC tonight and watch Atty. Jess Sison, Congressman Zialcita, and Cong. Liwayway Chato talk themselves into a hole in a debate with Dr. Alfredo Romualdez, Cong. Edcel Lagman, and Prof. Philip Medalla of UP Economics Department. Be sure to send your text votes in at the end of the show. Support the speakers that make the most sense, OK?
Oh, and one more thing. I have in my grubby little hands the names of the 
congressmen who are UNDECIDED about the RH Bill. Hmmm. Perhaps we should send them a nice note saying that they should do the right thing and vote the right way? Tell them things like , "The Reproductive Health Bill is not pro-abortion" and that "The RH Bill is absolutely integral to the improvement of Philippine society as a whole."
And you can quote me on that. Email celdrantours@hotmail.com and I'll send you the list. It's way too long to print on this blog.
And on other completely unrelated matters, thank you so much Dot for the great feature in the Davao Sun Star, and thanks Vonjobi for the post. See y'all later.
