A meaningful birthday

The vast garden of the celebrator, Gretchen Cojuangco, the beautiful wife of business tycoon Danding Cojuangco and mom of congressmen Mark and Charlie was the venue for her birthday bash.

She was also greeted "Happy Birthday" during the live coverage of the Manny Pacquaio-Erik Morales fight in Las Vegas.

She marked her natal day on January 21, with almost 3,500 friends, students, constituents and parishioners of the fourth district, present, among them were media's Carla Gomez, Yasmin Pascual-Dormido, Dodjie de Oca, Cely Carman, Levy Trio, Carla Cañet and Marlin Sanogal.

We arrived just in time for the first Mass at 11 o'clock, officiated by Frs. Gigi Caraig, Dimitri Gatia and Armand Onion.

Lunch was served picnic style with special dishes of pork lechon and lechon baka, coffee, and her famous homemade ice cream. At 2 p.m. another Mass was offered and everyone listened to Steve Ray and Tim Staples talk on the topic "Blessed to be Catholic: Experiencing the Fullness of the One True Church." Gretchen always has meaningful birthday celebrations. Last year, she had it at the Bahay Pag-asa in Bacolod City and before that, with the farm workers and their children.

Isn't that inspiring? A woman who has everything chooses to share her most important day with the less privileged. May we have more Gretchens!*

Remember: "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plan will succeed."