Leadership Knows No Age

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120 Gawad Kalinga houses to be built for Sendong victims in NegOr town

120 Gawad Kalinga houses to be built for Sendong victims in NegOr town

A New Year's Resolution

I am not one that believes on New Year's Resolution (NYR). For me, it's one of the world's most sacred phrases that have been taken for granted. Who started it anyway? Thank God, I'm now way passed my Formal and Informal Theme writing years. Perhaps requiring students to write about it is a band-aid remedy by English teachers who were not able to prepare a lesson plan during the long break. It's like a topic of last resort between two bored friends in a coffee shop. It comes handy when there's nothing else interesting to talk about. Or has it become a force of habit? I think the very reason that I am not liking it is that it was being imposed on me since I started writing my ABCs in school. Like a bitter pill stuck into my throat, I was not given the chance to decide whether I'd like to taste it or not. Meaning, every year in all my years of learning I was made to come up with New Year's resolutions because the English teacher required it. Whether, I meant it or not, it didn't matter. Whether there were genuine resolutions that took place, nobody cared to know. I have yet to hear people claiming to owe their life's successes to the NYR habit, among other factors.

Don't get wrong. I am not totally against NYR. I am for its real intent. As a commitment for reform of one or more aspects of self,  NYR is a sacred thing.  If taken seriously, one NYR to another leads to the actualization of one's highest potential. It brings nothing but goodness.

Through the years, I've been pessimistic about it until recently. Since it's 2011, I've decided to give NYR a chance for a change. I will only make one resolution and try hard to keep at it.

So I hereby resolve to practice writing by typing my random thoughts for at least 30 minutes daily! I hope that by doing so, I'm able to keep my passion for writing burning. It is my dream to write a piece of work
that  may bring goodwill to others and perhaps, world peace (I thank you).

My 30-minute writing practice for the day is up. Let me now put the cursor to rest.

Giving Birth

I was not professionally trained as a writer. But writing assignments have never escaped me since I can remember. I said "assignments" because they were either given to me in exchange for bread and butter or "forced" on me in exchange for a psychic income. Either way, it is beneficial to both my body and soul no doubt about it. But no matter how tremendous and incalculable the good that producing an article offers me, it is never without pain. Coming out with appropriate words, much less arranging them to form a sensible idea and not to appear like something that is cut out from a lunatic 's perspective, to me, is intense labor. It feels like the cells of my body are trapped in a dark cave of nowhere, searching for a tiny spark and gasping for fresh air. I need to come out from the pit of silent cry. I need to be transported to a special place where the rampaging and crisscrossing of thoughts are finally given expression and meaning; where the squalls are finally heard. If this is not a virtual preview of what giving birth to screaming babies is, then what is.

Clark and Carie: A Toast

Dear Clark and Carie. Dear Carie and Clark.

I am not yet married but I have witnessed a hundred and one weddings and marriages and how weddings and marriages are ought to be. Now, I guess that's my only qualification to propose a toast.

For me, marriage is an adventure of a lifetime. It is a journey toward uncharted territories so that there shall be bumps, curves, twists, turns and of course smooth pavements along the way. There shall be an endless discovery of character--good and not-so good, and if you wish, also a constant building of personhood of one for the other so that the union of two hearts is seamlessly perfected through time. Since the process involves a multitude of dichotomies of every aspect of life, strengthen your hearts. That is, hope for the best but prepare for the inevitables. While you are at it, may you not forget that you are friends and lovers in the first place so find time to do what you love to do, like travel once in a while or go out on a date regularly. The latter is a must.

Now, let me share with you the best advice of married couples to newlyweds that I've gathered so far (told ya, I'm a wedding junkie): Hold hands every time you get a chance. More importantly, never let go of each other's hands at times when you don't see eye to eye and you have to fight. It's quite a skill to master but it can be done, as told based on experience.

So here's to a lifelong of beautiful, blessed and blissful union of Clark and Carie, let's drink to that!

some random musings about life

one significant person once told me that i am naive. was i shocked. i could not believe what crashed into my eardrums. i thought i was just too dense to get it. perhaps being dense is naivety to the highest level. i have no idea. but what i am quite sure at this very moment is that i just don't get some people who seem to be happy at making other people's lives (MY LIFE , actually and those have to be in capital letters though i want it appear less obvious) unhappy. why can't they just tell you ( I mean, me: the open and close parentheses here signify discreetness) straight to your blank face what in the world they really want from you! for sure, not all people are born fortune tellers ( and that's with a resounding: helloooooo!@#@?) or maybe life is a guessing game. guess 'till you freeze. how's that? am i born in this planet to figure out things everyday of my life until eternity? i need another palm reader to foretell my destiny, anyone?

isn't it that gift of knowledge is ought to be shared for humanity's advantage? so the unlearned may learn..or maybe the adage that i once read in a chamomile-flavored herbal tea box that goes: "Knowledge is power" has motivated others to gain knowledge, more and more of it every step of the way, because that would mean more power for them. what power? power to dominate over the weak, the stupid, the ignorant? power to spawn some disease called intellectual arrogance?

i am now beginning to believe that in the greatest scheme of things called universe, everything is really, really complex. i used to think it's just complex (that comes with a shoulders' shrug), not something really, really complex because with the former there are no-brainer easy chicken ways to weather the complexities of things. case in point: if i were a waitress, and you are a VIP diner and your order a steak which is cooked with 1/2 cup soy sauce , 1 clove garlic (mashed) 1/2 cup water,1/4 cup salad oil, 2 md. green peppers (thinly sliced), 1 md. onion( also thinly sliced), 5 stalks celery (again, thinly sliced), 1 tbsp. cornstarch and 1/2 cup water, 2 tomatoes (cut into wedges), and serve over a hot java steamed rice . well, it sounds complex but i can figure it out because you've told me exactly what you want in your steak. little did i know that such kind of situation can become really, really complex---that is, if you want a Chinese pepper steak, which is not in our menu and you want the beef fresh from China and you and I happen to be in a steak house in Iqaluit, Canada; and that type of things happen all the time!

whatever happened to the old saying: "Be kind to animals" that i used to read in my grandma's apple lemon pomegranate rooibos tea box? did it go down with the trash loading the drain?

in this world, i only have lots of questions. but no answers.

The Anatomy of Silence

It just gets me wondering down to my toenails why some people can be damn quite for eternity. It seems that an invisible thread tightly stitched their mouth so that no amount of word can escape from it. It's not that they are not gifted with well-functioning vocal chords, larynch, esophagus, tongue and everthing else that the Great Maker put together for Adam and his descendants to produce sounds that turn into words that turn into phrases that turn sentences that turn into paragraphs. It only takes a little effort to utter any of them. It looks like they are not too happy to be endowed with such an amazing gift of speech! It's just ironic that those people who have difficulty in speaking try their might to utter words that are hard to decode, not to mention spend tons of money to get the aid of professionals and technology. Perhaps, the most powerful messages that humankind has ever produced are communicated without a word.

To Vote or Not To Vote

Destined thousand miles away from the place where I am a registered voter, to vote or not to vote in the upcoming May elections suddenly becomes a major decision to make for me. It brings me back to Good Friday since it entails a lot of sacrifices that for one thing bores a hole in my already worn-out pocket.

I hate to admit it but it gets easy to be carried away by a despondent view that whether or not one exercises right to suffrage, nothing good comes out of it. Many people might think that whether we vote or not we still belong to the “most corrupt country in Asia” as Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PBRC) 2007 survey reveals.

Some rationalize voting as a “negative ROI (return of investment)”. They calculate that both financial (e.g. plane tickets) and sweat equities that they render in going through the tedious voting process do not just pay off. All these misgivings are not expressed without a huge sigh coming from the diaphragms of citizens who are frustrated and deeply troubled by the country’s filthy political landscape. I claim not to be an exception. However, letting myself to be punished for being governed by pseudo-leaders, those who are only motivated by self-interests and greed, because I did not cast my vote is an added burden I can not bear in the near future.

For a government system that has taken shape out of seveal molds of colonialism, effecting change into it seems to be a herculean task, close to impossible. They say that there is nothing wrong with the system; the flaw lies on the people who run it. It takes a foreigner in Paul Hutchcroft, author of Booty Capitalism (1998), to remind us that for centuries general type of people that we are electing into office are those that adhere to “rent capitalism” which describes “systems in which money is invested in arrangements or appropriating wealth which has already been produced rather in arrangements or actually producing it.” These people are either bureaucratic elites, who are benefiting rent extraction within the state apparatus or oligarchs, who “have an economic base quite independent of the state apparatus, but access to the state is nonetheless the major avenue to private accumulation.” Talk about the never-ending presence of political dynasties and the octopus-like reach of elite families’ networks in government, business, education, and other key sectors. Talk about the huge economic divide between the rich and the poor. Talk about poverty.

In my class in Philippine Bureaucracy, my professor observed that the problems within the system are deeply rooted in history so that bringing about change has to be radical. Dismantling the oligarchy dominating both the country’s economic and political arenas could well be a potent step towards a transformed Filipino nation. He said that Cory Aquino under a revolutionary government had such chance but missed it. “Ramos, who neither qualified as political aristocrat nor oligarch, had all the chance to do it . Well, he started it when he liberalized major trades and monopolies but when he danced Cha-cha his career indeed so was the pursuit to dismantle the oligarchs ,” he quipped.

Listening to my professor, a despondent and desperate side of me that desires for change in this country thought of radical change as not limited to bloodless revolts. But having been taught to value humanity and fear of the Almighty, I decided that it is best to leave bloody thoughts within the confines of the cerebrum. Nevertheless, I may not become a radical change agent in this lifetime but I am trying to live out words of Mahatma Gandhi when he proclaimed: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Thus, I will take part in a ballot next month.

Truly, my vote is just a pebble cast into a vast ocean. Alone, it won’t create a ripple. But it makes up the millions who decide that effecting change in this country affords no more delay. And isn’t it that it “only takes one man to do nothing for evil to triumph?” For anything, if there’s only one reason that I need to vote in this year’s election, it is to squeeze out my psyche any drop of hopelessness for the “Pearl of the Orient Seas.” I believe that there are more people teeming with hope in this country who may have just been waiting for the perfect moment to unleash it from their heart and make it come alive. May 14, 2007 can be just that moment.

After all, giving witness to hope, which is one of the amazing gifts given to humankind, is the essence of Jesus’ Resurrection. It lives on as long as it takes when every Filipino decides that his or her vote does matter. To vote is a stride taken by millions upon millions towards the fulfillment of the collective desired change. It stands to take the whole nation to a path embraced by sunshine. Once we get there, then we’d know that it’s Good Friday no more.