Life Is Short

Life is short, but why work for longer life expectancy? Why take care of your health to live beyond 60 or 50? We all know that senior life is a pain to the knee (and back). Even if we have a faithful partner (and complete life insurances), we just cannot enjoy life as much as we were at 20s than at 60s. Do you think you could still trek mountains at 60? Can you still walk around a foreign city the whole day or play a sport? So, why live longer?

Society should not design health programs to extend life. Health programs should develop body that could take advantage of an active young life.

But of course, you will live longer if you have a healthy body when you were young. Senior life is a bonus. Senior life is not meant to be enjoyed like youth. It should be rested and settled peacefully.

Family, Friends, Frisbee and all the F**king Fs' in the World

While skimming photos to cut for my father’s work, I stopped on one old Sunday Inquirer magazine. It covered Rica Peralejo. Nope, it did not feature her skin (via Balahibong Pusa movie). Rica’s transformation from bold starlet to simple student amazed me. Suddenly, I was on a personal recollection.

I also love to write like Rica. I shop and read books. I love rock, frisbee, lomography, politics (especially democracy vs. martial law), saving earth, beaches and Mati. I love art and architecture most. I draw good caricature and cartoons back in school days. And I am proud creator of Atenews’ knight-armored Tinyo and founder of Ateneo’s first art club, ArtCo. They are both decade old now.

I am not a Fine Arts graduate, but Economics. I am a development worker after school. So, where is my life heading with incompatible passion and post-graduate experience?

Complicating it more, they say I am funny, smart and overcritical, but I am not.

I do not think however that I am likely living a “skewed” life. God put me into this, I believe, and He introduced me to great people to implement His plan for me. I do not know His funny plan, but I think I have a hint. It is a perfect blend of my incompatibilities. I am excited now and wanted to thank all God’s great people.

Mama – for not pushing me to study Fine Arts or Architecture;
Ate Mia – for enrolling me to Economics, without me knowing;
Macoy, Manggob, Dax, Jb and Milans – for cofounding ArtCo;
Teng, Atenews editor-in-chief – for pushing me to re-create the shirt-clad Tinyo;
Ms. Pastrano – for teaching good economic analysis;
Ms. Rose Sanchez – for recommending and introducing me to research work, which is still my profession;
T’bel and Ms. Alpha Lajato – for sharing research and project management skills;
Elsan – for educating me on Islam, I almost converted;
Edwin – for re-educating me on Christian faith (and convincing me to stay, but do the Ramadan)
Peter Walpole – for opening me the real environment actions;
Inday Arcenas – for teaching us a new way of changing the country (contract naming, day hehe);
Juan and Monci – for inspiring me to cook and rock more; Id cook for you one day;
Dax – in any way, you inspire me to live against odds;
Ipe – for introducing me to frisbee; pre, boardmate gihapon ta ka;
Jerson, Mark, Juan and Cocoy – for cofounding Davao Disc Squad;
Greta – for changing my life and teaching me impatience, temper and washing my feet with laundry clothes;
Papa – for inspiring me to always love and let God do everything;

They are great people because they “formed” me. Whatever success (and failures) I had and will have, they would forever deserve my gratitude.


Oops, this is not my obituary, but you can have me killed. God will not kill me yet, anyways hehehe

Grow your own gnome

Grow your own gnome

Thank God Its Feeding Day (Poker Is So Overrated)

today is really a great day!

i joined juan and rica and the gang to feed around 150 undernourished grade schoolers in SIR elementary school. it was fun, worthy and fulfilling, swear. taking photos of happy kids was....undefinable.

it was long that i was into this volunteer community outreach with very informal group-the barkada approach of philantrophy or say, giving back.

i was (we were) happy (really happy) at the end of the feeding program. thanks juan and rica. i really look up to you as cool couple. dont worry, id be a regular to your social program :) hope we could do the public library, urban farming and frisbee for the kids. it will be big but humble in depth

but not only the kids made my (our) day. a bit of margie cake, tong-its and vodka and paul masson did! though i ended up losing PhP60.00 (card game loser me!hahaha), i walked home with giggling.

thank God its friday!


juan: tag me when you post the photos ha :) til next!

Success Is Hard, But Harder When You Are The President

"unsa kalainan sa SONA ug fairytale? ang fairytale kay istorya nga dili tinuod nga naay duwende. ang sona kay naay duwende nga naga-istorya og dili tinuod"

o c'mon! stop filibustering! you all know personally how hard to reach the top. and six (6) years is not enough for one personal dream. not even geniuses like bill gates and the beatles achieved their greatness in less than 10 years. and ye, to all my college batchmates (1999), please stand up if you are already earning millions now, it would be a big pleasure to know your secrets in reaching the top for a very short period.

one (1) presidential term-six (6) years-is certainly not enough to make our republic a wealthy nation (again)

singapore did not just became rich in six (6) years, not even in china. singapore prime minister built singapore for 25 years!

so, c'mon! don't be fooled by our president's critics (again). let us help her. let us start working together towards one direction and not pulling everyone down.

i mean, honestly, i didn't vote for her last election. i voted for eddie villanueva because i thought it was moral recovery that is foremost needed for our country. now, im even tempted to vote panlilio because i still believe on that moral-based governance or do-well-do-good principle. but society practically has necessary evils that a united, not moral, country is more necessary to defeat those evils.

so i cooperated...to fill-in my political frustration of placing in a more-moral-than-the-church president. i paid taxes even though some of it were pocketed and even though some evaded it. i even believed on every government project. roro system made my lanao-misamis trips cheaper and faster. i own a house through a very affordable and easy housing program. i even met people who freely studied vocational courses with monthly allowance under tesda program. ive also seen more teachers in isolated and inaccessible barangays. ye, most working public services i have mostly seen are in "inaccessible" areas. this is why people interviewed on tv and most inquirer readers, who have mobile phones, fax and emails and graded gma has done little or none at all, considered gma unpopular because they did not see the project! (ever wondered why you have not been a respondent in those public polls?)

i believed that our president really built schools, roads and provided jobs, but not everybody in six (6) years. all global philantrophists and the richest have not even solved malaria for decades. i believed her sona but acknowledged some margin of errors in the data that her statisticians processed.

yes! cooperation (or participation, per se)! participation best defines democracy and precedes unity. with unity, i believe, and not filibustering, will cut-short our nation's way to success. with unity, we might not even need another presidential term.

i am both hopeful and hopeless though. hopeful, because it is what is needed for our country. hopeless, because i know one (1) presidential term is not enough to become a wealthy nation (again) especially with the presence of barking and power-hungry dogs. hopeless, because even the most intelligent and visionary president marcos did not achieve his bagong lipunan in his second term.

i am definitely not for martial law, but i am for extended term or reelection. and i believe there would be no martial law anymore. it is so out na kaya; so old; so outdated. and ye, more than half of the globe would certainly be against gma if she will declare one.

Thieves and Liars

last monday i sent one thief to the police station. i caught him walked to our apartment compound with ease. though he never stole anything, i locked him up and talked.

he is 12 years old, as he slyly told me. i asked him but he ended up lying. he said he lives in Piapi then later told me he lives in Agdao. and the worst part is, a boardmate of mine told him to pick the garbage. i called my boardmate and said she never instructed any kid to pick the garbage

O SHET, ANOTHER LIAR! Couldn't i live without liars and hypocrits around? well, i could be merciful to thieves because they can stop stealing. but liars (and hypocrits)? they forever be lying and be hypocrits. i do not have mercy on them. i leave my mercy to my ghetto boys and to God.

though our law prohibits imprisoning minors, i still took the boy to the barangay then to the police station for them to verify all the information that the boy told me.

i still felt pity on the kid, but what can i do. he needs to be rescued.

cotabato

I left the city without joyous goodbyes, except the recent Sunday "exit firework". Though i would love to have one but something grim told me not to. I met more than a handful of good friends in and near the city, but the few evil residents of the city i met are really.....well......evil.

The city will never deserve any claps from a single reformed pessimist, not even a grateful consolation.

But i always look at the bright side (so bright, it looks like twilight).

Cotabato City offered me a dose of adult lessons (not all were kinky ones). I learned to be firm with decisions, be angry, be confronting, straightforward and politely frank; I now mastered to separate profession and personal stuff; To be more patient and be impatient; To be merciless;

Pastil (rice with beef/fish strip wrapped in a banana leaf) and Manong's mango shake are my favorites. i love the cathedral, especially the glass mosaics, door grills, the aisle (longer than Sta. Ana Church) and the biblical messages pasted in a large wall banner. the messages were always answers to my divine conversations with God. And ye, William's batchoy too.

I love our compound neighbors, all our partner barangay captains, Friday, Meloy, Al, Zaldy and the rest of The Ultimate Players Across Cotabato (TUPAC), Vine, Datu Mimi, the Ebrahim brothers, Toytoy, Linggit, Bai Baisa, Councilor Datudido, some friends and my project team especially Norwin.

There are actually so much to love about Cotabato City. But one particular value i found to be really relevant and obvious but remained not widely noticed is the "strong family bond" among residents. Groups in public places were mostly family and relatives. Families in Cotabato are closely tied. They know how to enjoy their weekend without going out of their houses. And ye, they closely know and help each other (not just the clannish Muslim families, but also the migrants.

So, what made this strong family bond? Well, the grim environment of the city itself made them. without the dark harm, families and children could most probably be going out in separate ways on weekends.

As to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "every sweet has its sour, every evil its good."

Then there, I left the city with a smile