Pedro Calungsod second Filipino saint

Another Filipino will soon be proclaimed as saint after the Vatican set the canonization of Blessed Pedro Calungsod on October 21 this year.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, confirmed the canonization of Calungsod and six others on Saturday night (Manila time) after a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican Information Service reported.

During the announcement, the Vatican official described Calungsod as a “Filipino lay catechist and martyr.”

Calungsod, a Cebuano missionary who was martyred in Guam in 1672, will be proclaimed as saint more than a decade after he was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

Last October, the Filipino martyr passed the third and final stage towards sainthood after the Vatican verified a second miracle attributed to him—the healing of a businesswoman from the Visayas who fell into a coma in 2003.

Calungsod’s canonization will come 24 years after Vatican proclaimed Lorenzo Ruiz, a missionary martyred in Japan in 1637, as the first Filipino saint.

Calungsod was killed at the age of 18 while doing his missionary work on April 2, 1627, a day before Palm Sunday that year.

Born in Visayas in 1654, Calungsod accompanied Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores to Guam, then the Mariana Islands, and led a number of locals to convert to the Catholic faith.

Calungsod and San Vitores, however, suffered persecution after a certain Chinese named Choco accused them of spreading poison through the baptism ritual.

'I will if you will': Earth Hour advocates save the planet on a dare

'I will if you will': Earth Hour advocates save the planet on a dare

“I will if you will,” is the challenge the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and other organizers of Earth Hour 2012 posed to residents of the planet on Tuesday, Valentine's Day to jumpstart their preparations for the annual campaign meant to tame global warming and climate change.

The Earth Hour lead advocates urged daring individuals to make YouTube videos of their personal pledges to do simple things that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve energy, and maximize use of Earth's resources such as “recycling, to switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, turning off your mobile charger, or signing up for paperless banking.”

“From 8:30pm to 9:30pm this coming 31 March, WWF-Philippines will again stage Earth Hour to inspire Filipinos to switch off their lights and dare their friends to save planet Earth. The ‘I Will If You Will’ digital platform is the result of an alliance among WWF, Leo Burnett, and YouTube - merging the world’s biggest social video platform with the world’s largest environmental event,” the Earth Hour organizer said.

A library of ‘I Will If You Will’ challenges is hosted on Earth Hour's YouTube platform. Those who commit were also encouraged to share their ‘dares’ through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and via email.

On the WWF Philippines Facebook page, there are various templates of the personal dares which followers can like, share, tag friends and comment upon. Among the image templates are commitments to segregate trash, plant 100 trees this year, and stop using plastic bags.

Some netizens though opted to have some fun with the blank template and sort of committed to do some unusual stuff like "eat a 3lb gummyworm."

Some 1,554 cities and towns in the country joined last year's one-hour lights switch-off campaign and made the Philippines the global leader in Earth Hour participation. The environment campaign has been running since its inception five years ago in 2007.

“We call on corporations, local governments, media networks and other organizations to stand with us for this year’s switch-off. When public and private sector forces unite - then we will be able to effect change on the scale required to change the world,” said Earth Hour Philippines National Director Atty. Gia Ibay.

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