The telephone lines are back at the DFA. Malacañang was reassured after seeing the “Welcome to H.E. PGMA” sign still up 45 days after it was put up for her visit at the DFA foundation day on August 11 at the Roxas Boulevard Bldg.

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PGMA to bring home 120 OFWs stranded in Saudi. Sakay na, Ro-Ro.

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Boy Abunda selling his house for Noynoy. Is that a Manny Villar house?

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We lost an icon last Tuesday. The Muse of Environment, Maria Lourdes Rosario Fatima “Odette” Alcantara died of aneurism at St. Luke’s hospital.

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She would have been 69 next week, and they would have party-ed on Oct. 1. She still wants them to come.

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She would love to hear the baritone of Alan Cosio and the static tenor of Ambassador Jimmy Yambao.

Her house at 43 Hillside Loop in Blue Ridge opened to artists, activists, NGOs, sopranos, diplomats, chess kibitzers...

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On incessant rains, Sonny Valencia told DENR Usec Tessam Castillo that even the heavens weep inconsolably at the passing away of this Earth Saver.

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Odette told activists that the highest human right is to have a hospitable environment and a planet saved.

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The environment is like the snob ad of a Patek-Philippe timepiece: you do not own it… you take care of it for the next generation.

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Odette was never confrontational, but persistently persuasive. She and Lita Salvador went gung-ho to convince PGMA to save the trees.

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They convinced our pro-Blue Eagles President that outside of UAAP going GREEN is the best deodorant to the administration.

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Odette could have led the “bolo battalion” of Secretary Heherson Alvarez’s phildel to the Copenhagen Climate change conference.

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She was “baptized ‘Ramona’” after leading a legion of “Ramon’s” to Mt. Manunggal in Cebu to plant trees at the bald mountain top which took the life of the late President Ramon Magsaysay.

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In cameo role as himself was an also balding former Senator Ramon Magsaysay Jr.

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Another honorary “Ramon” was Nestor Mata, the only survivor in that ill-fated flight.

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Odette was a fan of Vicente Manasala, before Mang Enteng became hers. They were both chess aficionados.

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She checkmated Bayani Fernando to do a U-turn on cutting the trees at Katipunan.

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Please omit flowers. Instead, from each of us as, she would wish as many samplings planted…today, and every day hereafter that we would remember her by.

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There is no more Odette. Prose won’t do her justice, because she was born to be a poem: it just waits for a Joyce Kilmer to write an Odette into Ode.

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DIPLOMATIC NOTES: South African Ambassador Pieter Vermeulen is making inroad in Cebu with festival of “Calabash of Cape Wine, Cuisine and Culture” from Sept. 24-29. I hope Cebuanos do not remember only “calabasa” in the alliteration of “C’s.”

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South African wine is excellent and French vinters with provenance like Madame Lancquesang now grow huge hectares of grand appellation vines in the Cape.

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Attempting to reclaim office, deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya sneaked into Brazilian Embassy in Teugulcigalpa. Government blockaded food and water to force him and 300 supporters to give up. Zelaya will counter with hunger strike to force putschists to give up.

Feedback: jaz@mb.com.ph