Ka Bel

• Congressman Crispin Beltran of AnakPawis Party-List died yesterday. With his death, I wonder, "how will his proposed legislations, most of them pro-poor, get passed? The lowly representative lives in a very humble home. Perhaps, in layman's standard, just below the middle-class level, or even poor...Being in the position, for nearly 6 years (if I am not mistaken), he never acquired money or so much power to have his lifestyle changed.

• Ka Bel is truly a loss to the maralitang Pilipino, whom he served dearly. His demise, his life, his way-of-living must be challenge to all our power and money-hungry congressmen to re-think their politics and their lifestyles. Look at Ka Bel's home, it was just so simple, very much ordinary like all of us. No wonder he can relate to our needs better even wiser. While on the other hand, many of his colleagues own sprawling mansions in the suburbs of Metro Manila.
  

• I think Ka Bel must be proud with the way he died. He died as an ordinary man, worried about his home during the rainy season, typified a grandfather perhaps who worries his home during times that he has no work to do, he epitomizes the working class, the lowly-paid government servant, the humble labor leader and capsuled every single fiber of a Filipino in his daily struggle to survive, to seek for government reforms, demand for better quality of life, quest for political stability and yearns for a clean and honest government.
  

• For me, the death of Ka Bel, is no simple accident. It is poetic, it is symbolic. No rich Filipino would die falling from his roof because obviously his house is a mansion and he has servants to do it for him, but Ka Bel died fixing his humble abode. No rich congressman would live in a small house with the masses because they reside in high-walled Ayala Alabang or Forbes, San Lorenzo, or Corinthians.
  

• The death of typical man, with his great ideals. I salute Ka Bel for his life and for his service to the Filipino people.