While anxiety and grim expectations grip the people of Albay with Mayon Volcano's imminent explosion, and while grave concerns of inundation due to a dam project flood the populace of the First District of Camarines Sur, Christmas comes. While the nation remains outraged and grieving over the murder of the "Ampatuan Massacre" victims, and while apprehensions regarding the automation of the 2010 elections become keener with news of delays in its preliminary implementation phase, Christmas comes.

I like to believe my good friend, Howard Tate, brother under the skies because of the great late writer, Socorro Federis Tate, believes there is Christmas. Still, I offer this column to all those who, like Howard, reads, and is conscious of the coming Christmas even as he is bothered by the dam being constructed somewhere in our province. Howard wonders " why some stinking politicians and their rah rah boys are moving heaven and earth for its completion when the Pangasinenses are cursing those people responsible for constructing SAN ROQUE DAM which brought havoc to some parts of Pangasinan a few months back. I'm not being paranoid, but I assume there's a lot of money at stake here not only for the contractor but also for some people who are recipients of what we call SOP. As the saying goes, When money talks, people listen. Dae na bale kung magkaralamos ang mga taga Pamplona."

This Christmas is even more special since it comes with our celebration of the Year for Priests that Pope Benedict XVI opened on June 19, 2009, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the 150th anniversary of the death of Saint John Mary Vianney, patron of parish priests. The Holy Father then exhorted all priests: "God's heart calls to our hearts, inviting us to come out of ourselves, to forsake our human certainties, to trust in him and, by following his example, to make ourselves a gift of unbounded love."

I am writing you in connection with the clamors and public disgust over the political and politically motivated advertisements currently being aired on local radio stations within the scope of your chapter. I am very much concerned especially with those radio spots employing children as voice talents primarily because these spots have nothing to do or not in any way connected with the very nature of childhood. On the other hand, these political and politically motivated advertisements come as a way of exploitation, miseducation, and misinformation, in many manners, of our children.

Philippine politics is riddled with fraud, deceit, corruption, bribery, and manipulation. Politicians have been used to capitalizing on the weakness and powerlessness of the poor, and profiting from the silence and poverty of Filipinos. The son and daughter of a dictator mustered the callousness to run for senator and governor. An ousted president has filed his candidacy in a desperate attempt to go back to Malacanang.

MANILA, Dec. 16, 2009─A formation program for pastoral workers under the auspices of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has recently been adapted by neighboring Asian countries for training their migrant workers.

NAGA CITY - Bikol writer and Vox Bikol columnist Victor Dennis Nierva has asked the Camarines Sur chapter of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) on Monday to act immediately on the "political and politically-motivated" infomercials aired in radio stations in this city and in Camarines Sur that use children as voice talents.

LEGAZPI CITY, Dec. 17- The National Food Authority (NFA) regional office here assured local officials of Albay that there is a sufficient rice supplies not only for the province but for the entire Bicol region.

LEGAZPI CITY, Dec. 19 --Harmonic tremors continue to shake Mayon volcano, an indication that the volcano is in the brink of a volatile eruption expected within weeks or days.

LEGASPI City, Dec. 10, 2009- The transfer of Masbate Bishop Joel Z. Baylon to the Diocese of Legazpi brought sadness to his parishioners. But the diocesan clergy suffered another blow when one of its priests died December 8 in a motorcycle accident along the National Highway at Barangay Cayabon, Milagros, Masbate.