Young Blood
Tapping into my mother’s mind
By: Natalya Patolot - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:00 AM May 12, 2019
My mother and I were in the car. The traffic had come to a complete stop; in front of us was a long
ribbon of taillights flashing red and white.
Tap, tap, tap.
Tapping my fingers on the brown envelope that sat on my lap, I unconsciously produced a rhythm,
each beat rushing after another in an attempt to fill the silence that brooded between us.
Tap, tap, tap.
There was something important that I wanted to ask her. This question had been lingering inside my
head; voicing it out could confirm or disprove the elaborate theories I’d spun in my head, and
perhaps finally unravel the truth that had been hidden from me for 18 long years.
Just the thought of me finally knowing his identity somehow excited me. I could already imagine
myself sharing the information with others instead of smiling awkwardly in response, parading my
knowledge instead of writing “N/A” whenever I had to fill out any forms. Or maybe, just knowing it for
my own peace of mind. I had no plans to look for him. I just wanted a proper answer.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Still, even though I desperately wanted to know the truth, there was a feeling in my gut that told me
not to do it, though there was another part that urged me, almost begging, to just ask her.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
As if on cue, all the reasons to not do it suddenly came flooding in, as if an outside force had sent my
mind a blanket invitation. The more I thought about it, the more pronounced the fear I felt about how
she would react. Would she lash out, ignore everything I say, or just cry? I was definitely terrified of the
last one. I did not want to trigger her in any way.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
I was trying to sort the arguments I had made in my mind, desperately attempting to convince myself
by imagining a positive outcome from this situation. I knew it was better to try now than to have to
regret it later and think of the “what ifs” again. And I also knew I was old enough and mature enough
to know. I had been deprived of knowing this part of my life for too long.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Who is my father?” I mouthed to myself silently. I found myself practicing how I was going to say it.
Tap, tap —
I shook my head. I didn’t want my thoughts to swirl into a vortex of guilt and doubt anymore. I knew I
needed to calm down, to let my thoughts leak into the ether, to snap out of it and regain control.
Then — “Can I ask you a serious question?” I said, finally breaking the silence between us.
“What is it?” She replied casually. She didn’t look my way though; her eyes remained glued on the
road.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I took a deep breath, trying one more time.
“Who is my father?”
The moment those words left my mouth, a flood of emotions rushed into me — doubt, confusion,
curiosity and, most surprising of all, relief. It was as if the years of tension and confusion finally drained
out of me in one big rush.
“You finally want to talk about it?”
Her tone was calm, though there was a hint of shock in it. I noticed that her fingers had started to tap
lightly on the steering wheel as well.
Tap, tap, tap.
I nodded in response, and with that, she gave me a summary of how it all went down: the
disappointment of her parents, the pressures of being a single parent, and the difficult choices she
had to make for me.
She also revealed to me my father’s identity, and explained why his absence in my life was
something she decided on and was initially very firm with.
“I honestly don’t know now if I made the right decision. I didn’t want you to experience the trauma of
living with an unreliable and inconsistent parent.”
Her voice was laced with her barely hidden self-doubt and sadness as the pace of her tapping
increased. I shook my head. I started to feel silly for having hesitated to ask her this question in the first
place.
Her reaction was not as bad as I had imagined, and she even had self-doubts about the situation as
well. I started to think that maybe, if I had asked earlier, she wouldn’t even be feeling this way right
now.
“You made the right decision,” I told her.
As I said those words with confidence, her tapping abruptly stopped. The car began to slow down,
until the traffic caused us to come to a halt again.
“I am happy with the way things are,” I added.
“Really?” she asked in disbelief.
I nodded in reply, a small smile spread across my face.
I looked down at my hands; they lay flat on the brown envelope. My mother’s hands, meanwhile,
were lightly gripping the wheel. Both of us had stopped tapping.
Suddenly, everything just made sense to me — his absence in my life, my mother’s parenting style,
her protectiveness toward me hanging out with boys, her temper and even her maturity.
Though I never met my father, I have her. Life caused me to have a single mother who made me the
strong person I am today. It was always hard for my mom to keep up with other parents, but she still
somehow managed to get me everything I wanted, and more.
She was only 23 years old when she gave birth to me, and because of that, she had no choice but to
grow up fast. At a young age, I saw the effects of being a single parent, and the ways they changed
my mother. She not only had to be a young mother, she also had to find a way to replace the void of
a father, or a father figure, in my life.
I’ve always seen my mother as strong, independent and courageous. Growing up watching her live
her dreams, in the face of all the circumstances she faced, made me want to strive for a better life
for myself.
At the end of our talk, dusk was already gathering; the sun shone a dull glow in the overcast sky. My
mind was clear.
Tap, tap, tap.
I turned to look at my mother; her eyes still looked straight ahead and were focused on the road,
while her fingers lightly tapped the steering wheel.
“Mom,” I said, trying to catch her attention.
Tap, tap, tap —
“You’ve done a great job, you are a great mother.”
And with that, the tapping stopped completely.
***
Natalya Patolot, 18, is a senior high school graduate from St. Theresa’s College, Quezon City, and an
incoming college student.
YOUNG BLOOD
Losing my religion
By: Marielle Lucenio - @inquirerdotnet
05:05 AM May 14, 2019
I know how the Catholic faith began for me. Although I can’t remember it with such clarity as saying
yes to a first love, I know very well how it started. It was just like how every religious faith starts for
anyone. One day you were born and baptized to a certain faith, then, next thing you know, your
religion has become an integral element of your identity.
I was born and raised a Catholic in a very religious family. I spent my years studying in Catholic
schools. Good Fridays meant marching behind the image of St. Peter as a “devotion,” especially for
uncles back in the province who prayed hard to win every cockfight there was. Sleepovers with
cousins and friends were never without a Bible reading segment, and our “morality” was always
based on the Sunday Masses we attended.
I am aware how that traditional Catholic faith came about, but I cannot put my finger on what
exactly changed everything. There were a lot of circumstances that led to ambiguities and moments
of silence, which eventually turned the page and made me no longer the believer that I once was.
The sequences of doubts had always been there, but the dissolve, perhaps, started when I found
myself in a Critical Thinking class in a Catholic university that was miles away from home—an
opportunity to diverge my beliefs from my family’s.
I have always been taught to love and worship God and to preach His truth if you need something,
and more especially
if you do not want anything. But I came to think, what kind
of a vain God do I serve? Isn’t pure love just doing something without getting anything in return? Or
does my God want
me to feed his ego?
A whole term of questions and discourses engendered more realizations. Those days of imposed faith
eventually felt constricting to me, and the instances of broken resolve were more disappointing than
the days that came after.
I remember quite well the unbearable two hours of my life, sitting on a pew during a funeral Mass.
The righteous man of the cloth in his homily referred to people who had committed suicide as
“Judas,” that unmarried women are “wild pigs,” and those who do not go to Mass are animals. Just
when I had presented myself to the possibility of regaining the faith I had lost, I saw my feet once
again stepping further away from it.
I suppose everyone has had that turning point, a curious position. Another moment for me was when
I was clinically diagnosed with anxiety disorder. I’ve had many breakdowns without anyone looking
out for me personally. I have witnessed friends battling depression, spending wee hours inside the
chapel, in the hope that maybe it will only take prayers to heal. Many times, it is the hardest to find
comfort in the silence of the God who had promised to suffer with us.
Now, I simply cannot identify myself as a frequent churchgoer anymore for the main reason that I
cannot support a hypocritical institution. I have learned that the same church that preaches love
denies its people the chance to love whoever they want. The same belief that protects the right to
life is the same that kills the most vulnerable of society—women and children. The very institution that
should liberate us is the one that restricts us.
The Catholic Church struggles to adapt to the reality of the present time. It remains close-minded to
the wide possibilities of an evolving humanity. Understand that I did not mind its failures in the
beginning, as I believe that human institutions are bound by its own fallibilities.
It has, however, become harder to shut one’s eyes from the reality—that some church leaders are
sexual predators, that too many corrupt politicians are also “faithful servants” of the Lord, and that a
president who butchers is listening to the voice of the same God those he killed believed in.
Not being a diehard devotee of the Catholic Church is a personal choice. I do believe there is
something greater than the Church, and that is the mission for humanity. I do not blame the Church,
and I do not plan to rob people of their freedom to express their beliefs. I admit that I still find comfort
in some prayers. Many times, it is only faith that we are left with. I’m just unsure as to what faith I
should hold on to. What I know is that the Lord I believe in these days is different from what they
preach in the churches.
Marielle Lucenio, 21, writes for the Union of Catholic Asian News. She graduated from De La Salle
University-Manila with a degree in psychology.
Young Blood
Mothers’ tough love
By: Jef Warren Queyquep - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:04 AM May 09, 2019
There are many moments I can recall of my mother’s love for me and our family.
In elementary, we had a competition held at the school patio. We had a full audience, but I
stumbled upon a familiar face—my mom’s. Despite her responsibilities at home, she came to watch
me compete.
I was so thrilled that I failed to hear the announcement of winners until a teacher started pinning a
ribbon on my uniform. I waved at her and she smiled at me; she had wanted to clap, but her hands
were full of grocery bags from the wet market. I could tell she was proud of me from her eyes that
were filled with so much delight.
There was a heavy rainfall one time, and our home was submerged in floodwaters up to waist level. I
was at home with my brother, sister-in-law and niece. My mom was out buying food and got
stranded in the house of my uncle. She made a series of calls, reminding us where the canned goods
were stored, instructing us to save appliances, and to switch off the main power to avoid further
disaster.
There was a command in her tone despite our sense of panic on the other line. Later, she confessed
that she had been shaking the whole time she was talking to us on the phone, but she had to keep
her composure to assure us that everything was all right.
When we were heading to UP for my final defense in my graduate studies, she shared that she used
to sell assorted items and food at the Lung Center of the Philippines when she was pregnant with my
eldest brother. She worked twice as hard to ensure that she and my dad could pay expenses at
home while saving enough for the anticipated hospital bills. It occurred to me she has more untold
stories to tell.
Mothers will always be mothers. They are gentle as a dove, but when we are in harm’s way, they
become protective as a tiger. Just like Fahira, a mother of five children, a wife and survivor of conflict
whom I met in Quiapo, Manila.
When the Marawi siege began, Fahira and her family were forced to evacuate their home. She firmly
instructed her family to stash their valuables in sacks and drop everything else. She said it was a
shattering experience running away from her home, along with the beautiful memories that filled that
house: the years they celebrated every end of Ramadan with sumptuous food on the table, the
times she bonded with her children at Lake Lanao, the countless soulful moments of the family
praying before bed.
They found sanctuary and aid in the house of their relatives outside the conflict area. Fahira further
swallowed her pride by borrowing money from them to open a food business in Manila.
Fahira and her family relocated to Quiapo, where they rented a small room with minimal ventilation.
Despite settling in a Muslim commercial community, she found the culture and environment different
from Marawi. Fahira spent the first weeks in Manila sobbing in her bed at night, asking Allah to guide
her family. She recalled being anxious, but had to project herself as undeterred in front of her
children.
Every morning, Fahira cooked food that she would then ration to customers in Baclaran. The work
was laborious—there was tight competition in the area, and there was the extreme heat to contend
with. But she considered every penny she earned as a gem. She budgeted and saved to put up a
small sari-sari store. While selling food in the morning, she spent afternoons inquiring in schools about
her children’s education. Her unending efforts paid off when she was able to send her children to
school.
One time, I messaged her to ask how she and her family were doing; she said her husband had been
hospitalized and her daughter had a fever. It was a tough time for her family, but she was keeping
her faith in Allah.
When I asked her what kept her strong and motivated to move forward, she said: “Ginagawa ko
pong inspirasyon ang mga anak namin—ang pamilya namin. (My children and my family are my
inspiration.)”
Almost two years after the Marawi siege, in April 2019, Fahira and her family were finally able to return
home to Marawi through the assistance of a local NGO. There, they were assessed and eventually
enrolled in the current rehabilitation program.
Before she left for Marawi, she sent me photos of her son during his recognition day in school. Her son
bagged several awards in academics and sports. In the photos, her son was smiling from ear to ear.
No trace of any memory of terror or trauma could be seen on his face.
All I could think of then was how Fahira had done everything to bring back her son’s joyful smile. If I
were face-to-face with her at that moment, I knew I would see the same look my mother had when
she saw me getting an award—proud and delighted.
Mothers will always be mothers. Just like Fahira. Just like my mom.
(Fahira is a pseudonym to ensure her and her family’s privacy. This piece is dedicated to Fahira and
to all the “bakwit” or evacuees of the Marawi siege. Mabuhay kayo!)
***
Jef Warren Queyquep, 26, is the son of Editha Queyquep. He works in the development field as a
community and humanitarian worker.
Young Blood
‘Tiempo muerto’ in Negros
By: Peace S. Flores - @inquirerdotnet
09:03 AM May 07, 2019
Oplan Thunderbolt’s helicopters kept dropping bombs on Negros Occidental’s mountains when
Nanay carried me in her womb. With the first Edsa People Power Revolution still fresh in the nation’s
collective memory, the early ’90s continued to be a tumultuous time for Negrenses. Social unrest did
not stop heaving in Negros, as most residents of rural areas suffered from abject poverty and hunger
brought about by “tiempo muerto” (dead season, the six-month gap between planting and
harvesting sugarcanes when there is no available work in the cane fields).
Peasants and their families flocked to evacuation centers in urban areas, like Bacolod City, to flee
from the chaos of the war waged against the New People’s Army by the government. The military’s
indiscriminate bomb attacks, however, hit civilian properties and disrupted civilian lives, regardless if
the victims sympathized with the guerrillas or not. In its obstinate pursuit to exterminate the NPA in
Negros, the government ended up hurting its own people.
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My parents were among those church workers urged by the late Bishop Emeritus Antonio Fortich and
other clergy under the Diocese of Bacolod to help the evacuees. Nanay and Tatay witnessed the
suffering and struggle of the impoverished in Negros. Even Nanay struggled with two burdens of her
own. One was doing her part to assist with the evacuees’ needs. The other was her pregnancy with
her fourth child.
The strain of serving the marginalized eventually forced Nanay to bring me out into this world
prematurely. A caesarian operation later, a baby boy was born during a time of struggle. My parents
named me “Peace,” after the one thing they aspired for the people they were helping. And yet, the
thing I was named after would also be extremely difficult to obtain. Growing up, I faced many
personal struggles myself, from overcoming mild cerebral palsy to coping with my constant anxiety,
as well as the countless other complications that daily life brings.
Despite those challenges, I became resilient yet compassionate. Nanay and Tatay would use the
situation of the mamumugon (poor farmers or agricultural laborers) to teach me life lessons, and their
struggles became examples of perseverance and courage for me to follow. My deceased Lolo from
Tatay’s side was a poor farmer himself, and hard times often came upon my paternal relatives in the
rural areas. I empathized with the people who work the land, and admired their effort to put food on
the tables of everyone, not just their own families. I would also take part in campaigns to champion
and stand up for their rights to earn more humane wages, to own the land they tilled and to be
protected from oppression. I, too, wished real peace and justice for the sugar workers, peasants and
fisherfolk.
Being a farmer’s grandson and an advocate of farmers myself, I feel uneasy when hearing terrible
news about poor farmers, especially from Negros. In October 2018, the massacre in Sagay was
already worrisome. The killing of 14 peasants in Negros Oriental in late March this year only worsened
the situation, followed by the intimidation and slaying of the advocates for these farmers.
Human rights lawyer Benjamin Ramos was handling the case for the victims of the Sagay massacre,
while Escalante City incumbent councilor Bernardino “Toto” Patigas, a survivor of the infamous
Escalante massacre, also did human rights work in rural areas. The latter was murdered near a school
area in his home city just recently, while the former was shot mere weeks after the Sagay massacre.
Eerily enough, they were killed in similar fashion: unidentified assailants wielding firearms and riding
motorcycles. As if the deaths of these two weren’t enough to scare their living colleagues, members
of progressive groups here in Negros have been receiving death threats through text messages.
The Escalante massacre and Oplan Thunderbolt were traumatic times for Negrenses, but these
incidents have been long gone. And yet, for an island that supposedly upholds the agricultural
sector, Negros remains a highly unsafe place for the tillers of its land. Our farmers, who grow our food
(and help our economy), if not neglected or belittled, are being paid in bombs and bullets. The spate
of recent killings reminded me of lines from an old protest song by Pol Galang: “Pawis, luha, dugo ng
tao/ ang dumilig sa lupang ito/ sa bayan ng Negros, bayan ng Negros.”
Literally, “tiempo muerto” has come. It has become a time of death and suffering for the Negrense
peasants who water the soil with their own blood, sweat and tears.
Peace S. Flores, 27, is a psychology graduate from the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos.
Despite suffering from mild cerebral palsy, he is currently employed by the Department of EducationDivision of Negros Occidental, and occasionally does freelance writing.
Young Blood
‘Halaman Woman’
By: Faith Buenacosa - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:04 AM May 05, 2019
I was in Tagaytay with friends, brainstorming for a new business venture, when one of them asked,
“Why do you like gardening?”
I have given myself the nickname “Halaman Woman” since I fell into gardening two years ago. I
have officialized this claim by making an Instagram account where I chronicle my gardening, both
indoor and outdoor, in photographs.
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I am not particularly gifted in gardening, nor do I believe that a “green thumb” exists. I believe in
learning curves and tenacity — that if one kills enough plants, one is also bound to keep some of
them alive. I also believe in the internet and the gardening knowledge that it doles out for free.
I started with three plants that I kept alive for two months, and then bought 10 at a time until my
house was overtaken by them—the living room first, and then my bedroom. At one point, in my
(futile) attempt to keep my newly purchased plants alive, I removed my bedroom curtains. Never
mind being awakened by the bright sun every single day. My plants needed light.
Shortly after this, I was too overwhelmed by my mother’s death that I stopped watering my plants.
One by one, they died of neglect. I also stopped sleeping and writing my master’s thesis.
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I grew up witnessing the wonderful things my mother could do to a small patch of land. Our house in
Cavite, the one I grew up in and the one that I never returned to after I left for college at 16, had a
yard. The yard was divided into two by a cement path leading to our tiny house. On the left were my
mother’s orchids, and on the right were my parents’ fruits and vegetables.
I have no idea where my mother learned her gardening techniques. Her ways were odd yet
effective. She would talk to her orchids and touch their leaves. Sweetly and politely, she would ask
the waling-waling and the vanda to yield big and fragrant flowers. She would also sing to them
made-up melodies without words. Some days, she would blast the Carpenters in full volume and let
Karen serenade them for a change. In exchange, her
orchids did her bidding.
Although she loved her garden, I always knew that she loved me more because, every March, she
would pick flowers from the orchids that she so painstakingly grew and make a corsage for
recognition day. As other children donned ordinary sampaguita garlands that their mothers bought
outside the school gates, I wore a single, yellow cattleya bloom in a corsage, handmade by my
mother.
The fruits and vegetables were another matter. They were not as meticulously cared for as the
orchids, but my parents spent many weekends working back to back to make sure that our land was
productive. In that 30-square-meter patch of soil, my parents grew tomatoes, calamansi, ginger,
kamote, round eggplants, peppers and tsaang gubat. We also had a couple of fruit trees: avocado,
balimbing, papaya and guava. I have many memories of my parents squatting side by side,
preparing the soil or weeding, a picture of a happy marriage.
So much of our family life changed when my mother got sick. One of the first things she did when she
learned of her diagnosis was to give her orchids away to friends who were deemed worthy of their
care. We also gave away our dogs, but somehow, the loss of the orchids, the ones that my mother
talked and sang to, felt greater. Weeds overcame my parents’ vegetable garden, since nobody had
the time or the energy to maintain them as we assumed our new role as caregivers.
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I can recite my mother’s medical history in my sleep. It all started when her right cheek went numb.
We went to a hospital in Pasay, and the doctor said it might be Bell’s palsy. It wasn’t Bell’s palsy. It
was a brain tumor, meningioma to be exact. In the next 11 years, my mother would undergo three
brain surgeries, the first one being the most successful as it lent her four years of recovery and
normalcy, until the tumor grew back aggressively. It rendered her unable to speak, to eat (she used a
feeding tube), and to walk in the last five years of her life.
In a 7 a.m. phone call, my sister Sydne told me that our mother had died. As she was telling me the
news, I made some snap decisions in my head: We will cremate immediately; we will hold the
services at home, not in a chapel; and we will buy flowers in Dangwa. Others may find it strange that
I would make decisions about flower arrangements immediately after hearing the news of my
mother’s passing, but I knew that she loved flowers and that they should be chosen with care.
So, beside her urn were two large vases, filled to the brim with dancing ladies and dendrobiums. We
chose yellow and white chrysanthemums to complement the orchids, and hoped that those who
would offer their condolences would not bring us any more flowers. After 11 years of illness, death felt
less like a loss of life and more like a homecoming, a shedding of a body that failed my mother for so
long.
In his book, “Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education,” Michael Pollan wrote, “Most of gardening is a
return, an effort of recovering remembered landscapes.”
When I returned to gardening four months ago, I started slow. Miraculously, my golden pothos that I
surrendered to the elements, to the rain and the sun, evaded death. I had one plant. And then my
favorite barista from a local café gave me cuttings of a philodendron. I planted onions and bought
succulents that I placed on my windowsill. And then I brought home a satin pothos, a monstera and
a couple of euphorbias.
According to my mental inventory, I have more or less 40 plants today. I start my day by sticking my
index finger into soil to check for moisture. I learned to water my plants according to their needs, not
according to a schedule. Unlike my mother, my gardening techniques are not very odd. I mist my
plants and use pebble trays for humidity. I read growing instructions and compare notes with virtual
and real-life gardening friends.
But just like her, I talk to my plants. I ask them how they are.
I tell them to thrive and to grow, and when the mood strikes, I sing to them, sometimes with a ukulele,
made-up songs about staying alive.
Gardening is a point of convergence of my mother’s personal history and mine. She did not witness a
lot of my adulthood, so I sometimes speculate about what our relationship would be like if we had
met as strangers in our 20s. I wonder if she and I would be friends. I wonder if she would like me.
For my sake, I keep a list of things that she might like but she would never experience. At the top of
my list is unlimited Korean barbecue. I can no longer ask her about the feeling gardening gives her. I
cannot ask her to describe how flowering vandas make her feel, but at least through gardening, I
could approximate her joy, my mother’s joy, the original Halaman Woman.
***
Faith Buenacosa, 28, teaches communication at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. She
documents her plant
adventures at @halamanwoman on Instagram.
Young Blood
The awkward years
By: Ace Z. Alba - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:05 AM May 02, 2019
In an old graduation photograph, a long-lost artifact of my elementary years, there stood a group of
kids in white togas and white caps, smiling as best as elementary students could to commemorate
this memory for their parents.
All were indistinguishable except for one, who smiled without his hat. That kid never realized he should
have had his hat on for the camera. That kid was me, and the picture was a testament to my
awkwardness.
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I do not consider this cute or unique or dreadful. Social mishaps, insecurities and anxieties happen to
all of us. Yet it is one thing to commit the occasional fumble before somebody that you can just
laugh off, and another to see every person as a bombardment of stimuli.
Small talk isn’t just small talk; it is about the eyes, the handshake, the body language, the gesture, the
slight snicker or laughter, the silence and the timing. The timing! Just the challenge of balancing
between reacting promptly then looking panicky, and letting things sink in and looking oblivious.
And if a person is a bombardment, a hall of people is hell. Granted, it is easy to just tune out the
people around you. Yet when you are in an event like a party or a small gathering where anyone is a
potential chat, you just begin to shatter all over the place and pray to be able to hold it in, as you
would with your bladder or your fart, before it’s done.
I’d wish it is just as easy to learn to fake social graces. Yet socialization is a skill like singing or painting.
Some people get more experience with it than others. Some people are more attuned to it than
others. Some people just fumble with it. Like me. It’s not like I don’t want to; it’s just that I can’t get it
right, or go through it in a comfortable way. I just don’t get it.
And yes, I bought the books, listened to the MP3 lectures about small talk and making friends and
doing conversation. I know about the value of listening, the topics to avoid, introducing icebreakers,
among other things. I made efforts to address comments about my character: “Learn how to be
more polite.” “Learn how to interact with different types of people.” “Learn to be confident.” “Learn
to be humble.”
Life feels like a massive rehearsal for every person you have to talk to, for every situation you have to
attend, which just falls apart into wild swings of arrogance and timidity.
Growing up didn’t help with the awkwardness. There were just so many opportunities lost because I
just could not get what was before me — how I should react to it or deal with it.
But growing up helped with coping. Even when an interaction is just a pile of your actions shattering
into “Huh?” or “What?” or that other person’s stare of bewilderment with matching eyebrows raised,
the best way to deal with it is to not dwell on it too much.
You are doing fine even when you are all over the place, because the mistakes you earn and the
memories of embarrassments past help in some way to try again and get it right with the right person.
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You also realize how useful formalities and social conventions are, such as the “po” and “opo,” the
“mamsirs,” the “kuya,” “ate,” “adings.” These set the tone of the interaction from the start; you have
a means to fall back on when a gesture or reaction fails. You rely on being nice, because it is safe.
And you rely on gestures, because words are a lot easier to screw up, and take more effort to use
than what people give credit for.
It is also great to have friends who let you get comfortable first than put your awkwardness in the
spotlight. For those like me, the best contact is simmered slowly to perfection rather than boiled
quickly for quick consumption.
Letting things sink in and embracing the silences help a lot to ease the panic and the stimuli. You get
to know where to focus, you get to know what matters, and you know everything will be okay even if
you make the occasional mistake.
Yet it never really gets easy. You could never really get comfortable with teachers or bosses the way
some others do. You often second-guess what is appropriate to ask or not, even when you are just
there to let others do the talking. And it can wear you down when you find yourself in the wrong
profession.
But because we cannot deal well with people as much and as well as we could, we awkward
people can easily focus on other things, be it an object, a craft or a skill. It’s a crutch that can force
us to hone other parts of ourselves.
Libraries and books have been my anchor throughout those childhood years; they help me
understand the world in ways no person talking can. Writing kept me connected to the world around
me. It kept a portion of my communicative skills afloat. It reminded me that I am just as passionate
about talking and being with people, even if it refuses to translate into actual talking and socializing.
And what growing up taught me most is that people come and go; what matters is the memories
you had with them when they stayed. You are the constant in this coming and going, so what will
always matter is that you become a better person than yourself, and that you find meaning in all this
clumsy struggling. You just have to build value, either through becoming more well-adjusted or just
becoming more skilled—or just keeping yourself going through the day.
I do not think I can get being socially adjusted, but I get finding and building meaning in this absurd
life we live in. It goes for you and all of us, too, awkward or not.
***
Ace Z. Alba, 26, works as an analyst in between the occasional midlife crisis.
Acting like the boss
By: Knulp Aseo - @inquirerdotnet 05:03 AM June 18, 2019
Do you remember the tagline, “Kayo ang boss ko”?
I remember. It was 2010, I was just a sophomore in high school when Benigno Aquino III, more
popularly known as “Noynoy,” won the presidential elections.
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It was an optimistic time. I was young, but I remember that people were hopeful for change, as they
usually are during a presidential election year. It was in this atmosphere of optimism that, with much
fanfare, P-Noy declared during his inauguration: “Kayo ang boss ko!” We cheered. We hoped.
I remember, everybody repeated that phrase so many times that it became a mantra. A collective
prayer that this administration would finally change the country’s political culture and create a more
people-oriented government.
But within the next six years that mantra, so full of the hopes and aspirations of millions of Filipinos,
became just another campaign slogan, a vessel for broken promises and unanswered prayers.
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We always point to that quote from P-Noy as a symbol of our politicians’ penchant for arousing hope
and then crushing it beneath the reality of their policies.
But I think there is another layer to that phrase that we seem to be forgetting — our role as the bosses.
We seem to forget that bosses also have a responsibility to their organizations. They aren’t supposed
to just sit back and relax as their employees do the work for them. Bosses are expected to actively
manage their organization, most especially their employees.
Yes, politicians are mostly to blame for the inadequacies and inefficiencies of government, but as
their bosses, we are equally to blame for the failures of the government.
In any good organization, accountability always starts at the top. The boss is always accountable for
the actions of his workers. So if an organization’s employees are inefficient, lazy and corrupt, the
blame is put on the boss as well for not managing them well.
The same goes for the country. Sure, P-Noy said we were his bosses, but did we really live up to that
job?
If we truly want to be considered the bosses of this country, we need to act like it. As we millennials
say, “you gotta own it.” Angkinin mo na. Stop the blame-shifting, and start being accountable.
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So how can we become accountable? Well, most obviously, through the vote. Just as corporate
bosses fire incompetent and corrupt employees, so should we.
Corrupt politicians always try to push the boundaries of what they can do without getting kicked out
of office. It’s true everywhere. The difference is, those boundaries are just slightly different from place
to place. In the Philippines, we’re just way more tolerant of criminal acts in public office.
There is only one thing that drives politicians, and that is staying in power. In our country, politicians
are so empowered to do criminal acts while in office because they know they can do so with
impunity. Even if they get caught, charged and, heck, even imprisoned, they know a political
comeback is always in the horizon. They just need to know what’s trending with the masses.
Accountability starts with us, the voters. We are supposed to be the threat that keeps politicians in
place, the bogeyman that keeps them awake at night, the micromanaging bosses that watch their
every move.
They should know that if ever they betray the public’s trust, there will be repercussions. Maybe not in
the form of trials and court cases, but through the loss of votes. We must let them know that they are
dealing with strict and demanding bosses, and if ever they screw up, they will be kicked out of office.
Hell hath no fury like a voter scorned.
I suppose this call to action is a little bit late for this year’s elections, and a little bit too early for the
next one. So take this as an excuse to reflect on our voting habits. A lot of what I’m saying here we
already know. We need to stop taking our responsibility for granted. We need to let our voices be
heard in saying that enough is enough. It’s time for change.
As Dr. Jose Rizal so elegantly noted, “There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.”
***
Knulp Aseo, 21, is a graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman and currently works in
government.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/122039/acting-like-the-boss#ixzz5rBM5JIDO
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Fatherhood at 20
By: Jejomar Contawe - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:00 AM June 16, 2019
The idea of fatherhood did not immediately register to my then-19-year-old self when my partner
broke the news that she was pregnant. I still had a college diploma to secure, a family to financially
support as payback time after nearly two decades of financial dependency, and a self to spoil
before seeking to build a family of my own. Becoming a father before the attainment and acquisition
of all these was never part of my plans.
At the unripe age of 19, I was going to be a father. I found this realization nothing short of daunting, a
constant reminder that my life was to undergo a massive and immediate revision. No more late
nights binge-watching movies, an undertaking that would be replaced by bottle-feeding my little
boy or changing his wet nappy. No more saving up for a book I was raring to buy, because probably
all my scholarship allowance would go entirely to his basic needs.
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But that was just the tip of the iceberg. At least to me, unplanned fatherhood meant signing up for a
mission as a solitary soldier about to go against a battalion of paternal obligations. I was terrified and
anxious big-time, what with how I thought my life would turn out for the next few years, and the
adversities I would have to encounter.
Fast-forward to the reality of parenthood. It became a daily routine of sleep deprivation, parental
paranoia as a rookie dad, and the frustration that came from seeing your child not growing enough
compared to the chubby-cheeked infants at the health center. On many occasions, our baby would
experience projectile vomits, one indication as to why he was not growing to his optimum level. He
would also go into relentless crying that lasted for hours. This scenario gave way to fear so common
among parents. What if he got diagnosed with autism and other speech and developmental
delays?
I lost it one afternoon amid all these unhealthy musings. While feeding my son on my lap, I found
myself in tears. For a person seldom used to this outright vulnerability, I realized how difficult
fatherhood truly was. Since my partner was suffering from her own mental health issues that required
her to have enough sleep, I had to take charge of feeding our baby and changing his nappy late at
night, until he woke up again shortly after midnight.
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I had convinced myself that the greatest thing I could sacrifice was my sleep, since I did not have a
full-time job and so could not epitomize the noble role of a father providing well for the family. It was
a shame on my part that whenever my allowance ran out, I had to swallow my pride and ask my
parents for money to buy our baby milk.
From the latter part of my partner’s pregnancy until our son’s first three months, money was the
biggest issue. I assured myself that I was doing everything I could, as evidenced by my steady weight
loss and unsightly eye bags.
I am beyond grateful that I am surrounded by folks who are a huge help to me. My partner, despite
the daily dose of seizure meds and antidepressants she had to take to combat her own mental
monsters, deserves an award for being brave when she delivered our son via emergency C-section,
and for taking good care of him whenever I go home late from school and part-time work. That goes
for my parents, too, whose voluntary and generous assistance to tend to their apo made me feel less
wary whenever we needed to attend to important academic activities. Without them, I might have
succumbed to the demons I never knew existed and were powerful enough to reduce me to tears
during the toughest of times.
As of this writing, my little man has turned 5 months old, and he is growing healthier and jollier. It only
takes a smile or a laugh from my boy for my exhaustion to be reduced to naught. Nakakawala ng
pagod.
They say life begins at 40. But it began for me at the age of 20. Fatherhood may have dumped a
heavy sack of cement on me that caused hardships, but it also gave me purpose. Finishing my
studies hasn’t been as important to me as it is today, for I now have a more vivid vision of my future.
The journey will not be smooth sailing and the road ahead will be a bumpy one. But I am less terrified
and more driven to cross that difficult but necessary path.
To my little version, Tadashi Quentin, you have a flawed human for a father. But I would ask you to
remember my choice to assume the responsibility notwithstanding the struggles that I knew were an
integral part of it. I want you to inherit from me only the goodness, setting aside my failures and
shortcomings. Because while a father can be noble, he can also become vulnerable, awash with
fear that he might do less than what is expected.
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Above all, I want my son to someday know and understand that, yes, he was born out of wedlock,
and that he was a product of an unexpected and unplanned pregnancy. But never — oh, never —
was he a mistake.
***
Jejomar B. Contawe, 20, is an incoming fourth-year communication arts student and features editor
of The Work, the official student publication of Tarlac State University.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121996/fatherhood-at-20#ixzz5rBN6OkiN
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Regret and forgiveness
By: Sophia Mariz Antonio - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:04 AM June 13, 2019
Nowadays, the act of forgiving has become underrated. We keep the hatred in our hearts and the
pride within ourselves. It is indeed pathetic. We are letting the hate in our mind engulf us. Revenge
consumes our whole being.
I can’t help but get flashbacks whenever I think of regrets and hatred, because I myself had
experienced these feelings.
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When my grandfather was still alive, I felt contented and happy whenever I was with him. Every time I
asked for something, he would give it to me. I was the only one who could make him happy. I felt like
I was his favorite grandchild, the apple of his eyes. He was the doting grandfather.
Then one day, right in front of my eyes, he hurt my grandmother. I did nothing to stop him, because I
was terrified to see him beating her over a misunderstanding. I never imagined that he could do such
a thing, because I viewed him as an angel. But, oh boy, was I wrong.
That day passed. He became cold and rude at times. It wasn’t me anymore who could make him
happy, and that broke my heart. I felt like I was not his favorite grandchild any longer. What was
worse was that he became grouchy, mean and selfish.
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He became a monster in my eyes. He only cared about himself. He would boss people around. And
whenever he didn’t get what he wanted, he got furious. It was like I did not know him anymore. I
really felt disgusted and despised him.
Then came the day he had a stroke. It was not severe, but he still needed care and sympathy. I did
show pity, but I refused to take care of him, for I thought he did not deserve it.
He changed after being weakened by the stroke. He got softer in his ways and words. He was less
bossy. Still, despite that, I did not get swayed with his little act.
He had a second stroke, but this time it was severe. He was transported to a more expensive hospital.
I would visit him from time to time, but I still refused to take care of him. He was getting better, so they
sent him home while he was still recovering. I had moments when I pitied his condition. But hatred still
consumed me.
Not too long after, he was hurriedly sent again to the hospital. He was having trouble breathing, and
we were told he might not make it this time. No words came out of my lips. My vision was blurred, and
the next thing I knew, tears were falling.
Hours ticked by, and then they delivered the news: He was gone. My heart ached, my mind felt
empty, my tears fell nonstop, because I knew I had lost him for good. I wanted him to be alive again.
I wanted him to hear my last “sorry” to him, and to tell him how much he meant to me. But it was too
late. He was gone. Forever.
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A year has passed since his death, but he didn’t die here in my heart. I was blinded by hatred and
didn’t notice that my longing for him was so much stronger than the hate.
I regret everything I have done. However, I have forgiven myself, because if he were here, he would
also do the same thing. I will certainly forever wish that I was there when he took his last breath.
Living with such bitterness will only make life nothing but miserable. The act of forgiving bloomed in
me quite late. Time and understanding healed the wounds.
Perhaps if I understood him during his remaining days, I would not have regretted the past. I should
have cared for him, instead of abandoning him to his pitiful and helpless state.
Truly, love rules the world. Forgiveness, understanding, compassion and acceptance need to prevail
in order for the human soul to glow, and be the best it can.
***
Sophia Mariz Antonio, 13, is a Grade 8 student at Saint Michael School
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121936/regret-and-forgiveness#ixzz5rBNMdCkU
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Weekly visits
By: Iara Paulina C. Raymundo - @inquirerdotnet 05:03 AM June 11, 2019
Mama called out my name and shoved me a little to wake me up. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I
wasn’t mad at her for cutting my trip to dreamland, because I was used to this — Mama does this for
at least once a week.
I looked outside the family bedroom’s window and saw a huge truck parked outside our house. I saw
my name, printed in glow-in-the-dark stickers, pasted on its hood. Iara Paulina, read the letters
placed just above its headlights.
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I noticed a light between the bottom of the door and the floor and immediately got up, even though
it was only past midnight and I needed to have at least eight hours of sleep as a 5-year-old. He’s
here, I thought.
The brightness of the fluorescent light of our living room felt blinding. I knitted my brows, squinted and
blinked a couple of times, until I saw a figure sitting on our sofa. He was smiling wide, showing off the
gap where some of his teeth used to be.
“Papa!” I shouted, giggling. I ran to him and he circled his arms around my body. I felt his calloused
hands pressing against my skin. He kissed the top of my head and I buried my face in his jacket.
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Papa smelled like cigarette smoke and car air freshener. I hated both smells because they made me
dizzy and nauseous, but I still held on to him.
I heard a rustle and pulled away from him, then I noticed that he was pulling something out of a
plastic bag. He fished two boxes from the bag; the first one was the size of a school notebook, and
the other was about as big as a cell phone. Both had a combination of red and blue colors and had
faces of “Voltes V,” an old TV cartoon about a team of five people operating a huge robot to
defend earth from horned humanoid aliens.
Papa and I used to watch “Voltes V” together on weekends, and he said that he, too, watched the
show as a kid. He opened the bigger box first, and it produced parts of Voltes V. I sat beside him and
started picking up the robot’s pieces, happy that I was able to create my own “Super
Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V.”
Papa opened the smaller box, and it also contained chunks of my favorite robot, only smaller. I put
the fragments on the floor and started assembling the foot of the robot.
“Matulog ka na, may pasok ka pa bukas. Bukas mo na gawin ‘yan,” I heard Mama say.
I didn’t want to go back to our bedroom because I wanted to finish building my toy. But I also didn’t
want to be late for school in the morning, and I was afraid that my mother would scold me if I didn’t
obey.
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Papa’s encouragement for me to go back to sleep was the push I needed to tuck myself in. I went
back to our bedroom and left my father picking up little robot pieces from our living room floor.
When I woke up the next day, I saw two figures at the tabletop of our living room’s “lamesita.” Voltes
V was there, standing proud alongside a smaller version of him. I grabbed both and showed it to my
mother who was at the kitchen. I peered at the kitchen door and noticed there was no longer a
truck that blocked our view of the neighbors.
About a week passed before Mama woke me up at midnight again before I smelled that mix of
cigarette smoke and car air freshener again, and I saw the truck that had my name on its hood.
***
Iara Paulina C. Raymundo, 20, is a communication arts student at the University of the Philippines Los
Baños
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121896/weekly-visits#ixzz5rBNeq7BL
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Breakthrough from a scar
By: Troy Roger P. Masaplod - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:00 AM June 09, 2019
Many people pray for a breakthrough. They usually wish it would make them feel ecstatic and
euphoric at the same time. And to tell you honestly, I’ve got my own version of it. But mine was not
something pleasant, it was through a painful heartbreak.
A year ago, I tried to end my life, in what was supposed to be the happiest time of the year —
December. It was the season of holidays. The time to celebrate, laugh and do things that would
simply warm our hearts. But it was the saddest December for me—the coldest and the longest, I must
say.
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I considered 2018 not my year. It was full of challenges, frustrations, disappointments, and a series of
heartaches. That same year, I entered a state of deepening depression. It went unrecognized
because it seemed normal under certain circumstances.
I was heartbroken and trapped in a feeling of guilt, and as the days went by, I realized that I had
hopelessly lost the knack for staying alive.
Every single thing in our body that keeps people going, driven, motivated, and that single drop of
biological instinct for survival, seemed to have simply popped out like a bubble inside me. Immersed
in an overwhelming sense of sadness, I couldn’t get it how everyone else managed to get on with
their lives productively, while I was feeling empty — obsessed with trying to figure out what was
happening to me.
I became friends with anxiety. I couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours. At a time, the sound of the
alarm was a horror for me. I woke up at two or three in the morning in a flood of tears, my heart
racing and my mind overthinking. I felt so restless.
Each day felt endless, with no chances of forward motion. The day began, the sun rose. Yet, all I
wished was for the night to immediately come, because I wanted to see the moon alone in the sky. I
felt somehow comforted with that sight. Looking at the moon without any companion, I tried to
convince myself that I was not the only one feeling this.
Most of the time, I wished I could make time stop, because forcing myself to keep moving forward
was a burden.
One night, I convinced myself it would be better if I were dead.
But then, I remembered my Papa sleeping beside me for a whole week, as he was so worried I might
press that suicide button any moment. He cried buckets of tears as he told me to help myself,
because no one else would do it for me.
Seeing an old man grayed by time because of hardships just to send me to school was so
heartbreaking. I honestly got so disappointed with myself. Then, I told him in the saddest tones: “Pa,
karuyag ko makagawas hini. Karuyag ko na ini matapos. Pero Pa, paunanhun ko? Diri ak maaram
(Pa, I want to get out from this. I want this to end already. But, how? I really don’t know, Pa).”
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My father cried even more and told me, “Idoy, ilubi nagadla kay pira nala ka adlaw magradwar
kana. Paniguruhi gad idoy. Para ha akon. Hunahunaa nga nalagas nala ako paghingyap nga bis’
naman la usa ha iyo may makatapos hit college (Son, please try to endure it, as a few days from
now you will be graduating. Dear son, please persevere. For me. Think about the fact that I’ve
already grown old dreaming that even just one of my children would finish college).”
Hearing those words was so painful for me. It was my painful heartbreak, my breakthrough.
But what made my breakthrough so worth it despite the pain was because I also became closer to
Jesus—my Lord, my shepherd, my healer and my savior.
That painful experience taught me to be prayerful. I remembered the first wish I made on that New
Year’s Eve. “Dear God, please give me peace of mind.” And I realized that the only way to have it
was to remain faithful and stay beside Jesus through prayers.
I am not a religious person, but let me give you two Bible verses that can help us see the positive side
of life.
(1) Jeremiah 29:11—“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you
and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (2) John 15:5—“I am the vine; you are
the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do
nothing.”
I held on to these verses during that season of loneliness. I survived that long night because of God.
And I offer this testimony to His name.
This year has been the grace given to me by God. A continuation of a life that came all too close to
an ending. But to tell you the truth, my monsters are still with me, though more tamed because of
faith.
This is not to sensationalize an illness. This is to raise awareness that people lose their lives in an
unobserved and unnoticed situation. It may either be someone who always exudes a warm energy
or who always seems to be strong, but deep inside conceals scars because he or she is afraid to
come out to a judgmental society.
I was once one of those people. I was once afraid to be branded as “Nag-iinarte lang” and
“Nagdadrama lang.” I was once one of those people who felt sad whenever we tried to reach out
and people seemed to invalidate our feelings by telling us, “’Yan lang ba ang problema mo? Ako
nga mas mahirap pa dyan.”
Such words make us close our doors and isolate ourselves in a dark room. I hope we get cautious at
times. It’s a fact that an uncounted number of us go through this stage in our lives. We get
depressed, but we have different paces and ways to cope.
To people out there who need someone to talk to, who need someone who would listen, my door is
open. I am here. We can always heal our scars together.
The year 2018 was hard, but I thank God for giving me the wonderful blessing of successfully passing
the 2019 licensure examination for teachers. Now that I’m already a licensed professional teacher, I’ll
treasure this responsibility of molding the minds of our future generation. And throughout my life
journey, I will always be proud to celebrate my breakthrough from a scar.
***
Troy Roger P. Masaplod, 21, is a junior high school teacher at Liceo del Verbo Divino, Tacloban City
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121855/breakthrough-from-a-scar#ixzz5rBONMckp
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‘Buro-cracy’
By: Christele Jao Amoyan - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM June 06, 2019
“Buro,” as in “pagbuburo,” is the old Filipino style of fermenting food in high concentrates of salt. The
salt inhibits the growth of microbes by draining fluids from meat, fruits and vegetables, which then
delays spoilage. The dry-salted food can last for several months, or even years, if preserved well.
However, along with buro’s savor is the stink. I remember loathing the stench of buro that my lolo
used to prepare when I was a child. He would rub chunks of pork and fish meat with a thick coating
of salt and store them in jars. The buro stayed there for weeks, and so did the rotten smell.
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It took some maturity on my part to appreciate the taste of buro. “Cover your nose. Take it in,” I was
told. That’s how I learned to stomach the buro’s stink for its hidden savor.
I encountered bureaucracy the same way as buro. Similar to lolo’s salting of meat, bureaucracy is a
lot like being drained and rendered dry. I’ve come to loathe the ministerial tasks and the unending
culture of delay. There are days when I feel the rut brewing as early as 8 in the morning. And just after
lunch break, I would be pleading for 5 p.m. to please hurry up.
State bureaucracy is believed to uphold efficiency. In theory, that’s true. But with how employees
comply with the demands, bureaucracy, as it turns out, is just an overarching excuse for the
government’s defective system. Public service is extended to five working days only to make sure all
documents are printed in triplicate copies and initialed by a long list of signatories before getting the
approval stamp. And there is that age-old wisdom: “Gobyerno kasi. Masasanay ka rin.”
I am writing to the young Padawans — the ranks of job order workers in government. These words
would probably rub more salt on our buro, but let us share the stink and savor of the bureaucratic
republic together, shall we?
In the university we came from, grades are equivalent to the performance and test scores we
earned in class. In the government, however, performance is inversely proportional to grades, or in
adult terms, the salary grade. Bureaucracy sets aside merit for seniority. As twentysomethings, we
should realize early on that working on extended hours and taking more tasks on our plate would
only feed us more cortisol and caffeine.
There might be some credits for a job well done on favorable days. But, hey, no matter how flexible
and expandable our signed terms of responsibilities are, the digits on our monthly payroll are fixed, to
be depleted some more by our unavoidable tardiness and absences at times. Holidays are the
closest thing we get to a bonus. But monetary bonuses are a privilege exclusively enjoyed by the
regulars. Let’s just say they are the Jedi order of the workforce.
Since we have to start from the bottom and our grip on power is nil, all we have to do for now is stay
hopeful and do our job. We are going to be in the Jedi ranks one day, but that one day might take a
while. Or, if we’re lucky, it might happen a little sooner given these circumstances: retirement,
resignation or death.
Fret not, my fellow Padawans, for all these things largely depend on the Jedi who came long before
us. A vacant “plantilla” position in government indeed takes a lot of patience, if hardly any potential.
It’s not our fault there’s a long drought in promotions. In fact, many of those ahead of us would rather
choose to leave and seek better opportunities outside the bureaucratic republic.
Just thinking of the hierarchy and hassles of bureaucracy is frustrating. The longer one stays and
internalizes the trade, the more inevitable it all becomes—from spliced budgets to late salaries; from
tedious administrative works to monthly reports; from TORs to covert “pakisuyo.”
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The proverbial “Gobyerno kasi! Masasanay ka rin” I now clearly understand. Yes, we may feel the rut
once in a while. We may think it is hopeless to shake up the system and make change happen from
within. But bureaucracy is how the republic preserves power.
“Buro-cracy” — allow me to say it — will forever stay with its stink. The choice is upon us if we want to
savor it by simply covering our noses and taking it all in — or leaving before we end up becoming
“buro” ourselves.
***
Christele Jao Amoyan, 24, is a development communication graduate of the University of the
Philippines Los Baños.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121793/buro-cracy#ixzz5rBPqnGi2
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Obsessive-compulsive
By: Patriz Biliran - @inquirerdotnet 05:04 AM June 04, 2019
OC kasi ako, eh.”
Just last week, I heard my coworker say this while she photocopied the same page of the book she
was photocopying because it wasn’t straight enough for her. And although I got what she meant, I
felt the cold traveling through my spine, making me shiver. Thoughts raced through my mind; they
were so fast I could not make a single thing out of them. Needless to say, I was affected.
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I actually have obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD.
When my psychiatrist confirmed this to me, I did not know how to feel. I was “happy” that there was
finally an explanation for some of the inexplicable actions I did in the past. But at the same time, I
was appalled that I was diagnosed with another mental disorder—my fifth one. Interestingly enough,
it was also the most difficult to accept. Perhaps because whenever I hear people use OC, they
actually use it as a compliment, some sort of badge—a proof that they are clean, organized and
meticulous. But none of these are true for me. None of these things can really describe me.
My OCD manifests in a lot of ways. Most of them are unknown to people I care about.
Every day I have to battle with it. It influences the decisions I make, from the most trivial to the lifechanging ones. On good days, I feel like I’ve won against it when the worst thing I did was ugly-cry in
public.
Even things as mundane as commuting are more complicated when you have OCD.
For instance, when I’m commuting to and from the office, I imagine germs crawling on my skin,
contaminating me. I scratch my skin, I spray it with alcohol and, eventually losing control, I cry. But
after doing all these, the clear picture of tiny green blobs with uncountable black feet slowly killing
me remains in my mind.
This is relatively easier to shrug off than those that actually lead me to harm myself.
I vividly remember two commute-related instances when my OCD took full control of my actions. I
remember going home with a friend and she insisted that we take the shorter route instead of the
one I religiously take. I managed to go home without anyone noticing something was wrong. But I
was so obsessed about the change in my route that I had scraped the skin off my thumb. The blood
and the pain took my mind off the change momentarily, and they served as reasonable punishment
for my “wrongdoing.”
There was also a time when I had to take another route, and I was so distraught with my decision that
I crossed two streets without looking. Dying seemed like the only thing that could stop me from
obsessing over the change.
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I wish I could easily accept these bizarre, if not dangerous, actions and reactions with one simple
nonchalant statement: “OC kasi ako eh.” I wish having OCD were as simple as just creating perfectly
aligned documents or properly labeling things stored in nice boxes. But that’s just not the case.
I am still ashamed of having OCD despite the numerous times my psychiatrist, my therapist and even
the resident doctors in the psychiatric ward I was admitted in insist that I shouldn’t be. I don’t think my
family even knows I’m suffering from it.
It’s hard to accept something that no one talks about earnestly. When the thing that actually eats
you alive is trivialized or, worse, joked about, you start to doubt the truthfulness and the seriousness of
your experience. Self-hate and self-doubt creep in, making your already miserable situation
unbearable.
True, there are a lot of steps being done to shed light on mental illnesses. There are already numerous
efforts done by different communities and organizations to educate people about mental health.
Some come in the form of articles, forums and events.
But even small daily actions can also be helpful. Listening to friends who open up about their
struggles is one of the simplest and easiest ones. Another is politely reminding people to be more
mindful about using loaded terms. After all, truth and accuracy in language are extremely important.
Because as long as there are people who are careless with their words, who throw away heavy terms
such as “OC” or “bipolar” or make mental illnesses a punch line, acceptance and understanding will
be far from reach.
Patriz Biliran, 26, is a University of the Philippines Diliman graduate. She currently works as a full-time
writer and part-time tutor in Makati City.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121755/obsessive-compulsive#ixzz5rBQjkRYH
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Where dreams take off
By: Faye B. Zipagan - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:04 AM May 30, 2019
As our plane prepared to fly, I observed others land, take off and wait for their turn.
No matter how mundane the scene seemed, I did not want to miss the sight. This was a flight I am to
remember, forever.
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For the first time in my life, I was traveling to a distant land, with no one else but myself. I would be
thousands of miles away from my loved ones, further separated by time zones. In the next two weeks,
I would walk among people from myriads of races and depend on those whom I have never met
before. I would feed on flavors foreign to my taste, go to places I never imagined visiting, ride trains
underground and wear layers of clothes to endure the cold.
In other words, I was to build and test a completely new reality — even just for a brief stay.
After nearly four years of working, I have grown too familiar with my small comfortable world. Every
day, for the past years, I would deal with the same people and do the same things. I needed to see
what else lay outside of my confines. I had to know whether there was something else out there for
me.
This is why this trip represented a radical yet welcome change in my environment. I had all the
reasons to be excited in experiencing a different world and culture, and a renewed perspective of
myself.
But, equally, I had reasons to be circumspect. To explore possibilities and reimagine oneself do not
always come cheap. They seldom do. In my case, it cost me all I got, or had yet to receive from my
previous year’s hard work. It entailed deferring more permanent and possibly fulfilling transitions. It
meant choosing to spend for insight and inspiration over saving the money and remaining within my
comfort zone.
Against all doubts and odds, I pushed through. That was perhaps the bravest decision I ever made
for myself. The coming days would be among the best in my life.
I must admit, though, that my time in the United States was not all fun. Even before I arrived, pangs of
sadness already struck me as the distance sunk in. The act of braving the world turned out to be
more daring than I had initially thought.
Still, however unsettling, these feelings proved to validate my purpose there: not to be comfortable,
but to be stretched. Not just to lose my convenience, but also to rediscover my strength. Not to
romanticize life there, but to realize how it actually is. After all, the prospect of two or more years of
studies in another country was a huge investment.
Bearing all these in mind, I attended the school events I came all the way there for. My tour focused
on learning about the schools’ master in business courses, but what I gained from my exposure went
beyond it. While I expected a heavy focus on the management industry, what was rather
emphasized was the sense of flexibility the program affords in order to lead in and contribute to the
world — from different perspectives and through diverse practices.
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More so, while the field of business traditionally revolved around profits and winning competition, the
experience let me see the shift toward creating value and delivering impact to society. Interacting
with students, seeing the human side of them, hearing both their hesitations and aspirations, also
fortified for me the fact that being clear with and true to what one cares about, and serving for the
greater good, are mostly what one needs to make a difference.
With these, I felt I was brought back to my core.
As our plane prepared to fly, I observed others land, take off and wait for their turn.
In many ways, this scene resembles the course of dreaming— and the pace with which people go
through the process. For years, I have witnessed peers go far in their career and life, and would land
titles in no time. I am just about to start, my pursuits only about to take off. But I have come to
appreciate the waiting.
I now believe that more than in distant lands, it is in our own minds, hearts and consciousness where
dreams truly fly and, more importantly, gain ground.
As the undying lines of a very dear song go: “Malayong lupain, amin mang marating, ’di rin
magbabago ang damdamin. ’Di rin magbabago ang damdamin.”
***
Faye B. Zipagan, 24, a junior manager for operations at a local bank, is excited to teach psychology
as an incoming part-time faculty member at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121655/where-dreams-take-off#ixzz5rBRRoxMc
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The big move
By: Mariel Andrea Sabandal - @inquirerdotnet 05:04 AM May 28, 2019
The concept of moving homes was something that I grew up knowing, having transferred houses four
times for the first seven years of my life in the Philippines. But early in 2006, I vaguely remember being
sat down at the dinner table with my only younger sister at the time, and asked by our dad about
what we thought of moving to Singapore. With hardly any questions asked, and clueless about the
gravity of that question, we immediately said, Yes!
After only a few months, we had already relocated our entire lives to a new country. Everything was
brand-new. We had a new apartment, a new international school to attend, new friends to bond
with, a different language to speak, a whole different lifestyle and a new baby sister; all of which we
just could not get enough of. Simply put, our life was great. Our childhood was filled with joy and
countless irreplaceable experiences that we would otherwise not have had back in the Philippines.
But as we grew up, we came to a few realizations.
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While my sister and I had little to no worries at the time of our move, our parents’ roots were in the
Philippines. They had to take a leap outside of their comfort zones. While my dad was relatively
comfortable, he needed to stay strong for the family. My mom, on the other hand, found herself filled
with sadness and overwhelming fear that the risk they took would not pay off; that leaving her career
to become a housewife was perhaps not the right thing to do. But, after a few years, she started to
slowly accept her new status and enjoy the life that we have been blessed to live.
Over the years, we have met some interesting people with different perspectives, who have lived
extraordinary lives. We’ve made lifelong best friends from all over the globe, who we now
occasionally meet up with during our travels. But most of all, living overseas has made our life
comfortable to the point where we are able to focus on our family and spend quality time with each
other, and not have to work all the time.
However, as the five-year contract turned into a 10-year one, the list of all the sacrifices that were
made and all the things we had missed out on back in the Philippines had grown long. We had
missed over 10 years’ worth of birthdays, reunions, dinner parties, Sunday Masses with family, and
everything else.
Coming back every year would seem more and more like a vacation than a return to my supposed
home country—the idea of which even confused me. That lack of clarity made my identity crisis all
the more apparent. While I spoke Filipino and looked like a local, my opinions did not resonate with
anyone. I had a really difficult time deciding whether I should be saying that I was from Singapore or
from the Philippines, and to be frank, I still do not know the correct answer to this day.
While, yes, having lived in different countries has undeniably provided my family with more than what
we could pray for (and we are grateful), one question always comes to mind: “At what cost?”
My sister Alessandra did not want to study in the Philippines because she simply did not feel like she
would belong here. My youngest sister cannot speak Filipino and feels uncomfortable with trying. My
parents cannot stand the lifestyle in Manila anymore, to the point where they have stopped planning
yearly Manila trips and instead plan holidays elsewhere. As the only one living in the Philippines, I not
only agree with all of them, but the fact that the Philippines is no longer my home, and has not been
for the past few years, also becomes more obvious every day.
When people talk about the overseas Filipino worker, more often than not, it is the one parent who
works away from his or her family who is highlighted more rather than entire families, like mine, who
relocate their whole lives abroad. Certain stereotypes also cloud perceptions toward OFWs, i.e., that
they are rich or that they make a lot of money.
These perceptions tend to sugarcoat certain realities. While they have their own struggles that should
not be undermined and are arguably graver than what I and my family have experienced and are
currently experiencing, I only wish to share that ours is also a part of the OFW family narrative, though
one rarely talked about—the story of an entire family’s big move to uproot itself because of work,
and rebuild somewhere else.
Mariel Andrea Sabandal, 21, is a student at Ateneo de Manila University.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121615/the-big-move#ixzz5rBTcZoEz
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Life is a meal with my mom
By: Aaron Tristan M. De Vera - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:00 AM May 26, 2019
“How many of our food memories are connected with our mothers?” Doreen Fernandez, a Filipino
cuisine scholar, had posited that interesting question in one of her essays.
When I think of my mom, I find myself attaching images of kare-kare, palabok and turon, and a
general feeling of warmth, to the idea of her. Aside from her golden brown hair and manicured nails,
what also comes to mind is the strong and rich smell of sautéed garlic and onions wafting from her
kitchen.
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Relatives, friends, neighbors and even acquaintances would always praise my mom’s cooking,
emphasizing her roots as the main reason.
“Kapampangan kasi,” they would say, and mom would only flash a smile.
But I knew this wasn’t the only reason. Before she had my elder sister, my mom didn’t know how to
cook aside from shallow frying. It was after she asked for my Aunt Nida’s help that she started to learn
how to prepare more complex dishes.
From there, she explored, experimented, persevered and practiced until she was able to master
cooking. It is this diligence and patience that has always fascinated me about her. I want to believe
that it is motherhood that has made her a great cook. It is her gift.
The sound of the chopping of onions on the cutting board, and the pungent smell of peeled and
minced garlic, are familiar to me; my mom does this ritual in almost every dish she cooks. Cooking
involves intricate processes; it takes a lot of patience, talent and passion. Since my father was almost
always away working overseas as a seaman, mom was the one in charge of us and the house while
we were growing up. It was her cooking that kept us energized and whole every day of our lives.
There are times when I see my mom cooking from morning until sundown, especially during fiesta,
Christmas Eve and other family holidays. I remember her scanning through the illustrated food images
of “Let’s Cook with Nora,” her damp fingers grazing the smooth white pages. She once told me that
in cooking, it isn’t necessary to follow the recipe step by step or to strictly measure the ingredients.
One must learn the technique of estimation or pagtatantsa.
Eventually, this taught me not only how to play by the rules but also how to break them creatively.
Cooking is an art, I’ve realized. And mom is an artist.
Naturally, I’ve become accustomed to the taste and flavor of her cooking all these years. Mom often
says that children eventually come to love their own parents’ cooking because they have no other
choice; they just have to get used to the taste of the food they always find at home. She also
admitted one time: “Sometimes, I get satiated with the taste of my own cooking.”
That was an immense revelation to me. Ever since I was a kid, I’d always seen her working in the
kitchen. I wasn’t allowed to meddle in her kitchen activities except when she would ask me to have
a taste of the food she was cooking. So I heaved a sigh of relief when she spoke to me about
wanting to taste other people’s cooking. She could also be quite sick of the taste of her own food,
and that made her even more endearingly human to me.
ADVERTISEMENT
I do admire my mom for a lot of things, and that goes especially for her cooking. Every dish she whips
up is an enchanting experience for me, and for other people, too. Recently, however, I’ve noticed
that her hands already tremble, her memory seems to be fading and her flavors are no longer as
consistent. “Maybe it’s too savory? But your kind of savory is so good,” I said, trying to reassure her
about the lumpiang shanghai she had made. “Yes, too savory. Too much spice,” she replied in a low
voice.
The late chef Nora V. Daza said, “Life is a meal.” One must live it with flavor, spice it up with stories
about people, places and things, then serve it with a feast of color. This way, life becomes full and
rich.
No question about it: My life is a rich one today because of my mother’s cooking.
Before I turn 30, I hope to get to know my mom even better. Perhaps I will never know her in her
entirety — her stories, her secrets, her recipes. I just wish I could continue her legacy of nurturing and
feeding her loved ones in the best way she could.
***
Aaron Tristan M. De Vera, 20, is a senior communication arts student at the University of the Philippines
Los Baños.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121574/life-is-a-meal-with-my-mom#ixzz5rBTuWRa8
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Life is a meal with my mom
By: Aaron Tristan M. De Vera - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:00 AM May 26, 2019
“How many of our food memories are connected with our mothers?” Doreen Fernandez, a Filipino
cuisine scholar, had posited that interesting question in one of her essays.
When I think of my mom, I find myself attaching images of kare-kare, palabok and turon, and a
general feeling of warmth, to the idea of her. Aside from her golden brown hair and manicured nails,
what also comes to mind is the strong and rich smell of sautéed garlic and onions wafting from her
kitchen.
ADVERTISEMENT
Relatives, friends, neighbors and even acquaintances would always praise my mom’s cooking,
emphasizing her roots as the main reason.
“Kapampangan kasi,” they would say, and mom would only flash a smile.
But I knew this wasn’t the only reason. Before she had my elder sister, my mom didn’t know how to
cook aside from shallow frying. It was after she asked for my Aunt Nida’s help that she started to learn
how to prepare more complex dishes.
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From there, she explored, experimented, persevered and practiced until she was able to master
cooking. It is this diligence and patience that has always fascinated me about her. I want to believe
that it is motherhood that has made her a great cook. It is her gift.
The sound of the chopping of onions on the cutting board, and the pungent smell of peeled and
minced garlic, are familiar to me; my mom does this ritual in almost every dish she cooks. Cooking
involves intricate processes; it takes a lot of patience, talent and passion. Since my father was almost
always away working overseas as a seaman, mom was the one in charge of us and the house while
we were growing up. It was her cooking that kept us energized and whole every day of our lives.
There are times when I see my mom cooking from morning until sundown, especially during fiesta,
Christmas Eve and other family holidays. I remember her scanning through the illustrated food images
of “Let’s Cook with Nora,” her damp fingers grazing the smooth white pages. She once told me that
in cooking, it isn’t necessary to follow the recipe step by step or to strictly measure the ingredients.
One must learn the technique of estimation or pagtatantsa.
Eventually, this taught me not only how to play by the rules but also how to break them creatively.
Cooking is an art, I’ve realized. And mom is an artist.
Naturally, I’ve become accustomed to the taste and flavor of her cooking all these years. Mom often
says that children eventually come to love their own parents’ cooking because they have no other
choice; they just have to get used to the taste of the food they always find at home. She also
admitted one time: “Sometimes, I get satiated with the taste of my own cooking.”
That was an immense revelation to me. Ever since I was a kid, I’d always seen her working in the
kitchen. I wasn’t allowed to meddle in her kitchen activities except when she would ask me to have
a taste of the food she was cooking. So I heaved a sigh of relief when she spoke to me about
wanting to taste other people’s cooking. She could also be quite sick of the taste of her own food,
and that made her even more endearingly human to me.
ADVERTISEMENT
I do admire my mom for a lot of things, and that goes especially for her cooking. Every dish she whips
up is an enchanting experience for me, and for other people, too. Recently, however, I’ve noticed
that her hands already tremble, her memory seems to be fading and her flavors are no longer as
consistent. “Maybe it’s too savory? But your kind of savory is so good,” I said, trying to reassure her
about the lumpiang shanghai she had made. “Yes, too savory. Too much spice,” she replied in a low
voice.
The late chef Nora V. Daza said, “Life is a meal.” One must live it with flavor, spice it up with stories
about people, places and things, then serve it with a feast of color. This way, life becomes full and
rich.
No question about it: My life is a rich one today because of my mother’s cooking.
Before I turn 30, I hope to get to know my mom even better. Perhaps I will never know her in her
entirety — her stories, her secrets, her recipes. I just wish I could continue her legacy of nurturing and
feeding her loved ones in the best way she could.
***
Aaron Tristan M. De Vera, 20, is a senior communication arts student at the University of the Philippines
Los Baños.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121574/life-is-a-meal-with-my-mom#ixzz5rBU6xY8O
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Of guavas and cakes
By: Syrine Gladys C. Podadera - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:04 AM May 23, 2019
My parents’ 25th wedding anniversary was on April 23.
My father courted my mother for two years and, based on what she told me, he brought her three
guavas that he picked from his neighbor’s backyard. She only received two. In his defense, he said a
kid asked for one and he gave it to her.
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My mother had a lot of suitors, but she chose my father. I think it was because she felt bad for him —
thanks to the kid who asked for the guava. They got married in a small barangay in the province
after some time. I still get amazed whenever I remember Mama saying she baked their three-tier
wedding cake. The first time I heard the story, the only thing I said was, “That’s a lot of cake.”
Now that I’m 24 and have already witnessed the hassle and stress of planning events, I wish I said,
“That’s a lot of cake. Why didn’t you hire someone to do it?”
My parents couldn’t be more opposite. They had different interests, backgrounds and personalities.
When my father was angry, he wouldn’t shut up. My mother, on the other hand, wouldn’t talk. I
couldn’t figure out which was worse back then—his thundering voice or her absolute silence. I just
know that both were deafening.
I remember waking up to my mother’s nagging early in the morning while Tatay was in the backyard
feeding his chickens. As the eldest, I was expected to go to my sisters’ rooms to wake them up. I’ve
always loved it, because when a simple nudge wouldn’t do the trick, I had my mother’s blessing to
bring a glass of cold water and splash it on their innocent sleeping faces. If we fought the previous
night, I would dump the entire glass of water and the catfights would begin.
It was a simple life, and I used to wish it didn’t have to be like that because it was boring.
As a child, I couldn’t understand our setup. Unlike my classmates’ parents, my mother went to work
and my father was at home and did household chores. When I was in grade school, I didn’t like it
every time I had to write down my father’s occupation. My answers would vary. Sometimes, I wrote
down “farmer,” and then after a few years, I changed it to “househusband.” I thought of every
possible answer, because I didn’t want to write “none.” It was really frustrating, because I wanted a
working father and that’s why when fights happened, I always sided with my mother.
They had arguments that made me cry. They would throw dishes down in anger, and the sound of
plates and glasses crashing and smashing on the walls and floors made me tremble. I hated it when
they fought, so I wrote them a lot of letters because I felt braver whenever my words were written on
a piece of paper. I told Mama I love her, and I told Tatay he needed to stop loving his chickens so
much because my youngest sister was already getting jealous.
I can barely remember the reason for those fights, and looking back, I’m not sure whether I’m going
to smile or cry.
Today is supposedly their 25th wedding anniversary; I only remembered because Tatay told me.
Mama died six years ago, and I can’t ask her any more questions.
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My father didn’t have a regular job, a fact I wasn’t proud of, until I realized how much his presence
mattered when Mama got sick. While we were in school, both of them stayed home. He gave her a
bath, combed her hair and spoon-fed her her meals. I know it was difficult, because my sisters and I
took care of her, too. But I naively thought he was strong enough to handle it, because for four years,
he didn’t say he was tired. And he never cried — except during her funeral.
I wish I asked Mama more about her life. Aside from the stolen guavas and the wedding cakes, I
want to ask mundane questions that may seem silly to some, but those answers are the ones I will
remember when all is said and done.
I’ve grown much closer to my father as the years have passed. I don’t nag him about his chickens
anymore. He sends smileys whenever I ask how he’s doing, and when I ask about his roosters, he
sends a lot of dancing stickers.
He’s happy, and that’s all that matters to me.
The crashing plates, crowing roosters and early-morning nagging are gone. My memories about the
guava stories and three-tier wedding cakes are slowly fading, so I tell these stories now because I
don’t want to forget the trivial things that always make the biggest difference.
Most of the time, we are asked to let go of the past in order to hold on to the future. But I think the
past, the present and the future can coexist without diminishing each one’s significance in our lives.
There are no guarantees in love and in life. Not everyone finds love, and those who do may not even
reach their silver anniversary, just like how my parents didn’t. But who knows what will be? My father
and mother taught me how to love even when fights arise and, most importantly, even when death
arrives.
All throughout our ordeal, my father never stopped reminding me to pray and be grateful every day,
even and especially when it was difficult to go on. I’m glad I listened to him, because despite all the
times I said I didn’t want to continue anymore, here I am today, remembering guavas and cakes on
their 25th wedding anniversary.
***
Syrine Gladys C. Podadera, 24, wrote two essays included in Young Blood books (sixth and seventh
editions) and currently manages The Diarist Projects, an online platform for aspiring writers around the
world.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121516/of-guavas-and-cakes#ixzz5rBUNO2XQ
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Election face-off
By: N.M. Ramos - @inquirerdotnet 05:03 AM May 21, 2019
I went home from my precinct with my chest filled to the brim with pride that I did something right for
my country. The recently aired “Game of Thrones” episode that, in my opinion, ruined seven seasons
of character development did not in the least bit dampen my spirit.
This was until a few hours later, when I saw Facebook statuses and various tweets regarding the
election results. My frustration started to build up, much like Daenerys slowly going mad in the show.
People were arguing online again, blaming each other for what they said were stupid choices for
candidates. At this moment, I realized that the social media world we reside in actually has very little
reach.
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In all honesty, we should stop blaming those who voted for plunderers, apologists or, worse, human
rights violators. They simply did not know better. These were household names they were choosing—
celebrities, relatives of past lawmakers, or candidates with bottomless money to get their names in
the news a lot, even if voters had no idea why they were in the news in the first place.
Our tendency is to stick to what is familiar. Science has discovered that we were herd animals that
later developed into social ones. It’s rather ironic, though, that in this day and age when social
media platforms are so commonplace, many people still follow the herd.
Still, despite the rise of social media, not a lot of people have the means to read about the current
events in our country. And even when they do read or hear about what is going on, there is still a
high chance they do not understand how this will affect the country and their individual lives.
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These people are our families and friends who think that if events do not affect them directly, they
can just ignore them and let the people in office settle these things themselves. Because God knows,
they have problems of their own. They can’t be bothered to spare a few minutes of research or
engagement in discourse, because they have to do overtime to pay overdue bills and put food on
the table. Priorities, right?
This is the part where we dropped the ball.
There is no doubt that voter education in our country is not a priority. I saw obliviousness in the eyes of
some voters at my precinct as they went over the names on the ballot. I saw it again in friends who
messaged me a few hours before election day, asking about the different platforms of those running
for office. I saw it in my family, who just copied from the list of a relative they deemed as
knowledgeable just because he was older, not even questioning if the qualifications and values of
the candidates on that list would be the same as theirs.
It’s our job to educate. Not to ridicule and act as if we are superior because we voted for people
who, to our minds, are capable of being just and honest lawmakers. If anything, we failed in our role
as educated voters. We didn’t fail in making our votes count, that’s for sure. But we failed in making
our voices heard and understood by those closest to us—those with whom we share our homes and
rides and workplaces daily.
Being aware of and talking about national matters do not have to be confined to social media. Let’s
stop this elitist mindset of feeling superior or relevant just because we supported someone with
legitimate credentials. If anything, we should take the election results as a massive hint that we need
to initiate a healthy dialogue with other people around us on what a responsible voter should
consider in choosing leaders for our country. Open up
conversations at the dinner table even if it means receiving looks that all but shout “you’re too
young, you would not understand!”—despite my having voted in two elections now, anyway.
The votes have been tallied and my heart aches for the worthy, capable candidates shunted to the
sidelines. We yearned for change, but our modern methods of communication and dialogue are not
as effective, or as far-reaching, as we thought. Just because something is trending doesn’t mean the
rest of the nation gets to see it as well.
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Are we brave enough to set aside our differences, turn off our phones for once and discuss our
country’s future with each other face to face?
N.M. Ramos, 22, is a medical technology graduate.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121479/election-face-off#ixzz5rBUc6Ril
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Carry on
By: Christian Lee R. Roque - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM May 19, 2019
“Magpahinga ka na, Elmo. Nakamit mo na lahat ng mga bagay dito sa mundo. Huwag ka magalala sa amin. Mahal na mahal kita. Mahal na mahal ka ng mga anak at apo mo (Rest now, Elmo.
You’ve achieved everything you wanted in this world. Don’t worry about us. I love you very much.
Your children and grandchildren love you very much).”
Those were the exact words my grandmother Corazon whispered to Tatay in his final few seconds.
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I thought it was only like that in the movies, where a monitor shows how much a struggling person
loses his life slowly. I saw the jumpy and jagged lines from the monitor slowly turn into a straight and
quiet one. It was in that moment that it hit me: The world had lost Ka Elmo. I had lost my grandfather.
He was diagnosed with Stage 4 bone cancer last November. He would brave five chemotherapy
sessions. Our family knew that death is a relative of cancer, but he confronted it head-on with his grit,
much like the way he faced all the hardships he had gone through in his life.
In his mind, he never really had bone cancer. He would jokingly say he was only suffering from
rheumatism and he would overcome it easily. This was because he was raised through hell and back
as a kid, from witnessing firsthand the events of World War II with his young eyes, to his struggles as a
citizen during the Marcos regime.
The day before he died, I was the one who signed the form that permitted his transfer to the intensive
care unit (ICU). Only one member of the family was allowed to accompany the patient inside. I went
first. Inside, there was a deafening silence. The only thing I could hear was my Tatay’s deep gasps of
air as he struggled with every breath, as if life was slowly drifting away from his already unresponsive
body. The doctor arrived and told us that cancer cells had already spread in his body and that he
only had less than a day to live.
At 3 p.m., I went inside the ICU. I held his hand that was full of little scars and calluses — proof of the
long, hard life he lived and how he had made his own success.
I talked to him for an hour. As I held his hand, I told him
everything — how I idolized him as a writer, and as a man who always prioritized his family. Each and
every scar in his hand was an attestation that all he had achieved and did in his life was the product
of honest, determined toil. From the time he used to write in Liwayway magazine, to winning three
Palanca awards, serving as a local correspondent for the Inquirer, and building a strong foundation
for our family, he was always the fighter.
At 4:30 p.m., we were called by the nurses and told that we should accompany Tatay, for he had less
than an hour to live. The end was here; we thought we were prepared for it. But the truth is, we can
never really be ready for goodbyes.
This time, the nurses permitted two members of the family to go inside. Our family sent me and my
grandmother.
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The first thing I saw was the monitor indicating his breathing and the beat of his heart. My
grandmother was already crying. She held his arm and started to pray the rosary.
I held my Tatay’s hand, for I knew that death was near and it was inevitable. I held his hand knowing I
might not have the chance again. I held it the way he held mine as I grew up with his guidance and
fatherly love.
I was looking at the monitor as his heart stopped beating at exactly 5 p.m. He was pronounced dead
at 5:01 p.m.
But cancer could not even put him to rest. A miraculous wave of heartbeats was detected by the
monitor at 5:03 p.m. He was a fighter; even cancer could not put him down that easily.
Dr. Roque was a lot of things. He was a newsman whose craft allowed him a firsthand view of critical
periods in our history. He was an educator who taught generations of young minds, an agriculturist
who aimed to change people’s perspectives of the carabao as not a beast of burden but a beast of
fortune.
I had idolized him ever since I was a little boy. He gave me the warmth of a father’s love when no
one really cared. He used to tell me that I should study and read the newspaper often, as he tried
and molded me to be like him one day. His are the biggest shoes I have to fill.
He told me two weeks before he died that his final wish was to accompany me on stage during my
graduation. I laughed and told him that we were going to do so much more after that. He replied,
“No matter what happens, carry on.”
He was my mentor; he taught me how to write, and he showed me his passion for his craft. But in his
final moments, I did not see him as a writer or an educator. I saw him as my dad, the man who
shaped me into who I am today, and who I will yet be one day.
Back to that moment at the ICU, when a miracle seemingly happened and he started breathing
again despite having been pronounced dead two minutes ago. He was still struggling, but my
grandmother and I could not stand seeing him suffer some more.
He had fought countless battles all his life, and behind
him throughout those years was the love and support of a
woman — my grandmother. Now my grandma stopped praying the rosary and, in a broken,
stuttering voice, said those unforgettable words: “Magpahinga ka na, Elmo. Nakamit mo na lahat ng
mga bagay dito sa mundo. Huwag ka mag-alala sa amin. Mahal na mahal kita. Mahal na mahal ka
ng mga anak at apo mo.”
And that was it.
I only hope there is sunshine wherever my Tatay is right now, the way there had been, always, when
he was here. Life must continue, and I do wish to live my life the way Tatay lived his.
Because Ka Elmo always said: “Carry on.”
***
Christian Lee R. Roque, 19, will soon receive his degree in education from Central Luzon State
University in Nueva Ecija. He is the grandson of the late Anselmo Roque, Inquirer’s longtime
correspondent for Nueva Ecija.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121440/carry-on#ixzz5rBV9nVoO
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The color pink
By: Syd Pascua - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM May 16, 2019
My favorite color is orange, but lately I’ve been drawn to all things pink. I just recently bought pink
socks, a pink food container, a pink tumbler, and even a pink phone case. At first, I didn’t really put
much thought to it, thinking I just wanted to mix things up and own pink stuff. However, it has taken
over everything I own.
I bought them in different circumstances. It wasn’t a decision I made instantly or planned
beforehand. I didn’t wake up one morning and decided that I wanted a pink phone case. I selected
them from shelves and racks that had other colors. I didn’t decide I wanted the pink ones because I
liked the color, I chose it for some reason I couldn’t completely decipher. And only now have I
realized why.
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I came out when I was halfway through college, but before that I was a conservative Christian living
in a small town in Pangasinan. I was confused about who I was becoming as I slowly came to terms
with my sexuality. My family isn’t strictly religious and they rarely have anything bad to say about the
LGBT+, but they were leaning toward a more conventional son. My struggles came from the fact that
I believed I was going to disappoint my family because of my choice.
I heard a lot from other people that it is a sin to be gay, and that I will forever be damned in hell
when the time of judgment came. It scared me from coming out much earlier. I denied myself
anything that might suggest I was a homosexual, so I avoided anything too feminine — specifically,
the color pink.
I am now 21 years old, and prior to my recent epiphany, I’ve never owned anything in that color. I
have been conditioned to believe that pink is a feminine color. I was afraid that if I ever owned
anything pink, people would see through me and out me before I had even realized who I really was.
I was afraid, because I wasn’t really honest with myself.
I now know I don’t have to be afraid anymore. I can own pink things without caring about what
people will think about me. It feels liberating and empowering to finally be comfortable with my own
sexuality and feel secure to the point that, regardless of any item I own, it won’t matter one bit
whatever it supposedly says about me.
In my own way, buying, wearing and using pink stuff is a revolt against every person who told me it’s
wrong to be who I am. I want to respect everyone’s beliefs and religion, but I will no longer hide from
those who shun and put down others for not living up to their heteronormative standards. I refuse their
idealization toward the LGBT+.
Discovering my sexuality came with discovering who I am and what I stand for, and now that I have
come to terms with it, I no longer see any reason why I can’t own anything pink. I am at peace with
my life and my sexuality. I am enjoying the life I have chosen. I like the color pink, but it doesn’t define
me. Neither does orange, blue, gray or white. At this point, the only thing that should define me is my
progress, and I am happy with what I have become.
But, here’s another thought: Maybe colors shouldn’t be at all gendered. Boys should be comfortable
owning pink things if they like the color, and girls should be able to own anything blue or green if they
like the color, regardless of their sexual orientation. We put too much pressure on children, and even
people, to be strictly how we want them to be, without realizing that it might affect them too much
as they grow up, even in the slightest.
I don’t consider my experience a harrowing childhood trauma, but it did affect my perspective
growing up. It was a good thing I was smart enough to realize I was being forced to believe in
something wrong. I hope the next generation of children won’t have to feel uncomfortable with
whatever color they prefer because of how the world around them works. I hope people become
more accepting and open to the possibility that a color or preference shouldn’t define a person,
their sexuality or their choices.
***
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Syd Pascua, 21, works as a broadcast monitor for a company in Ortigas and wants to become a fullfledged writer.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121380/the-color-pink#ixzz5rBWcKIyZ
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Losing my religion
By: Marielle Lucenio - @inquirerdotnet 05:05 AM May 14, 2019
I know how the Catholic faith began for me. Although I can’t remember it with such clarity as saying
yes to a first love, I know very well how it started. It was just like how every religious faith starts for
anyone. One day you were born and baptized to a certain faith, then, next thing you know, your
religion has become an integral element of your identity.
I was born and raised a Catholic in a very religious family. I spent my years studying in Catholic
schools. Good Fridays meant marching behind the image of St. Peter as a “devotion,” especially for
uncles back in the province who prayed hard to win every cockfight there was. Sleepovers with
cousins and friends were never without a Bible reading segment, and our “morality” was always
based on the Sunday Masses we attended.
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I am aware how that traditional Catholic faith came about, but I cannot put my finger on what
exactly changed everything. There were a lot of circumstances that led to ambiguities and moments
of silence, which eventually turned the page and made me no longer the believer that I once was.
The sequences of doubts had always been there, but the dissolve, perhaps, started when I found
myself in a Critical Thinking class in a Catholic university that was miles away from home—an
opportunity to diverge my beliefs from my family’s.
I have always been taught to love and worship God and to preach His truth if you need something,
and more especially
if you do not want anything. But I came to think, what kind
of a vain God do I serve? Isn’t pure love just doing something without getting anything in return? Or
does my God want
me to feed his ego?
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A whole term of questions and discourses engendered more realizations. Those days of imposed faith
eventually felt constricting to me, and the instances of broken resolve were more disappointing than
the days that came after.
I remember quite well the unbearable two hours of my life, sitting on a pew during a funeral Mass.
The righteous man of the cloth in his homily referred to people who had committed suicide as
“Judas,” that unmarried women are “wild pigs,” and those who do not go to Mass are animals. Just
when I had presented myself to the possibility of regaining the faith I had lost, I saw my feet once
again stepping further away from it.
I suppose everyone has had that turning point, a curious position. Another moment for me was when
I was clinically diagnosed with anxiety disorder. I’ve had many breakdowns without anyone looking
out for me personally. I have witnessed friends battling depression, spending wee hours inside the
chapel, in the hope that maybe it will only take prayers to heal. Many times, it is the hardest to find
comfort in the silence of the God who had promised to suffer with us.
Now, I simply cannot identify myself as a frequent churchgoer anymore for the main reason that I
cannot support a hypocritical institution. I have learned that the same church that preaches love
denies its people the chance to love whoever they want. The same belief that protects the right to
life is the same that kills the most vulnerable of society—women and children. The very institution that
should liberate us is the one that restricts us.
The Catholic Church struggles to adapt to the reality of the present time. It remains close-minded to
the wide possibilities of an evolving humanity. Understand that I did not mind its failures in the
beginning, as I believe that human institutions are bound by its own fallibilities.
It has, however, become harder to shut one’s eyes from the reality—that some church leaders are
sexual predators, that too many corrupt politicians are also “faithful servants” of the Lord, and that a
president who butchers is listening to the voice of the same God those he killed believed in.
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Not being a diehard devotee of the Catholic Church is a personal choice. I do believe there is
something greater than the Church, and that is the mission for humanity. I do not blame the Church,
and I do not plan to rob people of their freedom to express their beliefs. I admit that I still find comfort
in some prayers. Many times, it is only faith that we are left with. I’m just unsure as to what faith I
should hold on to. What I know is that the Lord I believe in these days is different from what they
preach in the churches.
Marielle Lucenio, 21, writes for the Union of Catholic Asian News. She graduated from De La Salle
University-Manila with a degree in psychology.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121342/losing-my-religion#ixzz5rBWzSmWS
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On Thanos, the White Walkers and postapocalyptic futures
By: Karla Patricia D. Cristobal - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:06 AM April 30, 2019
Now that the end of an era is signaled by “Game of Thrones” and, ostensibly, the “Avengers”
franchise saying their goodbyes, I’ve come to some realizations. Not only are these shows ending,
they (among others) have also dealt with iterations of the world’s end, of rebuilding and of dystopian
futures.
I suppose that in the past decade or so, it’s safe to say that popular culture — and geek culture, in
particular — has always had this ominous sense that the world is ending.
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Actually, I might extend my argument here and acknowledge the vast number of literary and media
forms which have dealt with civilization ending prior to this period (from H. G. Wells, modernist
literature, pulp stories and early comics, to early science fiction/fantasy writers and disaster movies).
Have comics, genre fiction and sci-fi/fantasy movies and shows replaced the Greek oracle, biblical
prophets, and, yes, even that man on the street with a sign saying “The End is Near”?
Have these popular media forms, both denigrated and wildly enjoyed, been foreseeing an ominous
future?
After all, the threats and what they represent are all arguably interchangeable and incredibly
interesting. Replace your zombies with frozen zombies (read: the White Walkers); with dystopian
futures set in virtual reality, or with handmaids in Gilead, or with every male creature on Earth dying
(leaving the planet only with women), or with Immortan Joe; with Milla Jovovich as Nimue the Blood
Queen. And let’s not forget Thanos and his MO (modus operandi) of wiping out populations, getting
to act as both judge and executioner.
With every comic, series, book or show, there’s this undeniable sense of dread and fear. If the world
hasn’t ended yet, it’s on its way. And soon. I may be overreacting, but I think this dread and fear is
quite palpable in our own world. From right-wing politics in the West and the threat of global warming
to the spread of hatred yet again, religious or otherwise, it appears as if those fears are justified.
It’s ironic that our sci-fi/fantasy movies, series, books and comics these days are havens of escape
and momentary pauses in reality despite their dealing with very serious subjects, all veiled in CGI and
plot points. Why? Watch “Doomsday Preppers” on National Geographic or read about nuclear
weapons testing. Think about Elon Musk. People really are keen on preparing for a future—or in this
case, a nonfuture.
The characters who may take the form of villains or antagonists always tell the heroes or protagonists
something. That humanity has made terrible choices and mistakes, and that these villains have
decided to take on the roles of tyrannical repairmen and leaders. We have let the wrong people
gain power, thereby losing our own. At other times, we get caught up in greed. We’re not very able
managers and caretakers of our own world and of each other. And that’s when things go terribly
wrong.
So what must we do? What could we do? How do we bridge the gap between the world of
superheroes, imagined futures, fantasies, and the real world? I read H. P. Lovecraft, so I’m tempted to
give in to his ideas of cosmic and temporal horror.
Let me bring up Thanos again and address the elephant in the room (not quite a spoiler). In
“Avengers: Endgame,” even superheroes give in to despair and hopelessness. As we’ve seen in the
previous movies, even they can be defeated.
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But in our world, there are no superheroes. There’s death and poverty, meaninglessness—and
politicians. There’s a lack of justice, a staggering amount of pain, a resurgence of blind hate and a
lot of people who don’t care and may never will. There’s an onslaught of information, threatening to
disorient and distract us from what’s really important.
This is the actual reality we’re living in. But there will always be literature, film, television and even
music to serve as our modern-day Tiresias. And we can think about these things and do what we can
to choose another direction, no matter how many people, real or imagined, preach about the end
of our world.
Karla Patricia D. Cristobal, 27, is pursuing her MA in English at the University of the Philippines Diliman
after giving up on digital marketing. She has written stories for comics sold at Komikon (and
collaborates with illustrators), writes songs and, if her schedule permits, performs at open mic gigs.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121038/on-thanos-the-white-walkers-and-postapocalypticfutures#ixzz5rBY0T7Bj
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Scroll. Refresh. Repeat.
By: Philip Go - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:00 AM April 28, 2019
Scroll. Refresh. Repeat. These three words have come to define a generation — our generation.
Social media has piggybacked on the explosion of the internet and the widespread use of
smartphones to reach unprecedented levels of popularity.
Global statistics show that there are over 3.2 billion active social media users. Facebook alone, the
world’s largest social media network, has over 2.32 billion monthly active users, a number that
accounts for nearly 30 percent of the worldwide population.
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It’s easy to see the allure of these platforms and why people sign up for them in the first place. They
seemingly fulfill a fundamental part of our social needs as human beings. Facebook, for instance,
provides us with an easy and convenient way to keep in touch with the people we care about (and
those we absolutely don’t).
But when the question shifts to why people stay and spend so much time on these platforms, that’s
when things take a turn for the interesting. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and just about every other
social media platform there is have become, in the words of techno-philosopher Jaron Lanier,
behavioral modification empires. And they do this by capitalizing on a vulnerability in human
psychology we all share.
Aristotle famously said, “Man is by nature a social animal.” Social concerns are not aspects of the
human brain that were brought about by social media; they are primal features deeply ingrained in
our evolutionary past. The survival of our hunter-gatherer ancestor depended greatly on his social
standing with other members of his tribe. If he didn’t manage this social aspect well, he could very
well find himself at the wrong end of a spear.
We’re far removed from our hunter-gatherer days, but this social drive, honed over millions of years of
evolution, remains a central part of what makes us human. To quote social psychologist Adam Alter,
“We’re social beings who can’t ever completely ignore what other people think of us.”
But like many things, this social drive can be a double-edged sword. And social media platforms
understand this. By cleverly crafting features and services meant to exploit our psychological
tendencies, they’ve been able to monetize our time and attention to the tune of billions of dollars.
At the heart of what makes all this exploitation possible is the neurotransmitter dopamine. Discovered
in 1958 by Arvid Carlsson and Nils-Ake Hillarp at the National Heart Institute of Sweden, dopamine, or
otherwise known as the feel-good hormone, plays a role in pleasure and is central to the mechanism
of behavior change in response to getting rewards.
Drug addicts are not necessarily addicted to the drug itself, but rather to the dopamine high that
results from taking them. When that high eventually subsides, your brain begins to seek and crave for
it again. And this is basically how addictions form. You become trapped in this vicious cycle as you
repeatedly chase that dopamine high.
By the same token, little cues here and there on social media platforms — a like here or a retweet
there — ensure that you’re constantly fed with these little dopamine hits that form the foundation of
what makes these services so addicting. By doing this, these companies make sure you stay
addicted and spend more and more time on their platforms.
Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, put it best at an Axios event in 2017: “The thought
process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them… was all about:
‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means
that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked
or commented on a photo or a post or whatever.”
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The dopamine hits Parker talks about are further reinforced by a precept in psychology: intermittent
positive reinforcement, a fancy-sounding phrase that basically means “delivering rewards in an
unpredictable manner.”
Unpredictability in the transmission of rewards have been found to release more dopamine, a
psychological fact integrated into the services and features of social media. Every time you post a
photo, tweet out something or refresh your feed, you’re making a gamble of sorts, because you
don’t really know what the response or reward is going to be. You don’t know how many likes your
latest selfie is going to get; you don’t know how many retweets your latest tweet is going to fetch;
and you don’t know if you’re going to get the latest viral post or another photo posted by your crush
the next time you refresh your feed. The unpredictability of it all, as the psychology of intermittent
positive reinforcement teaches us, makes it all the more addicting.
Social media usage statistics reveal the user’s general unawareness of what these services are doing
to them and their brains. And a major reason for this is because these technologies have done a
great job of lulling us into believing that there are no downsides to using their services and that by
using them, we are somehow only fulfilling some of our deepest social needs as humans.
Facebook’s mission statement is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world
closer together.” Given how much it has changed our society and the relationships we have with
each other, it’s easy to see how it’s doing the exact opposite.
Social media services have been tuned to give you a constant stream of information about how
much (or how little) people are thinking about you at any given moment. The rich and complex
offline social interactions we’ve evolved to crave have been replaced by a set of low-value social
approval indicators — likes, hearts, retweets — that hijack our brains and dominate our time and
attention. Social media, ironically, has made us less human.
On May 12, 2017, Bill Maher ended his HBO show “Real Time” with a monologue that perfectly
encapsulates everything wrong with social media: “The tycoons of social media have to stop
pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco
farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your ‘likes’
is the new smoking.”
To borrow a page from Maher’s book, Marlboro only wanted your lungs; Facebook wants your soul.
***
Philip Go, 23, is a computer engineer
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120997/scroll-refresh-repeat#ixzz5rBYSOOFT
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We need more than a throwback
By: Rvie E. Macalisang–Santillan - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:06 AM April 25, 2019
It was one of those days when, out of nowhere, an idea, a question or a memory just rings into your
head, plants itself in front of your mind’s eye and refuses to go away.
“Sa Negros ang kwarta gina piko, gina pála.” (In Negros, the money is pick-axed, shoveled.)
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“Sa Negros ang kwarta gina piko, gina pála.”
“Sa Negros ang kwarta gina piko, gina pála.”
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These words were ringing in my head as I walked my way to the office. I immediately shared my
thought to my colleagues when I arrived.
Surprisingly, a discussion was triggered because of it.
We talked about how the statement has become iconic of Negros, such that it has placed the
Negrenses in a bad light among those who are not natives of the island, since it paints them as a
tikalon (boastful) bunch.
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There was even this tall story about a certain female politician, who, when she visited Negros for the
first time, looked at the houses that her car passed from the airport and remarked in surprise how
destitute the houses looked. All the while, she had thought the Negrenses were all filthy rich because
of that expression: “Sa Negros ang kwarta gina piko, gina pála.”
There’s actually an explanation on how that line is supposed to be understood. It’s meant to show
the Negrenses not as a boastful race, but as hardworking people who say that in order to earn
money, they have to use the pickaxe and the shovel.
My conversation with my colleagues over this matter would take an interesting turn. We began to
reminisce about the different songs, stories and other forms of entertainment we used to enjoy with
our elders before technology took over.
These forms of simple entertainment were once loved, cherished and nourished, but now they’re
largely gone.
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The conversation created in me a deep longing for the things we had enjoyed as kids, and about
which the current generation seems clueless.
My Lola would often sing to me “Ili-Ili Tulog Anay” when I was a kid. My favorite, though, even now, is
“Dandansoy.” “Bakya Mo Neneng” is still the most heartbreaking song for me.
I remember the radio programs in Hiligaynon, like “Toyang Ermitanya,” “Condorilla” and “Provincial
Jail,” and me as a little girl sitting on my Lolo’s lap or on the floor combing my Papa’s hair while
pulling out with tweezers his white hair (a very easy job, since most of his hair was already turning
white).
Oh, those memories — fond ones, sweet ones — during the days of innocence and play. Where are
they now?
It’s been a long time since I heard any of our vernacular songs being broadcast on radio, much less
on digital platforms. Now, the airwaves are dominated by songs from foreign countries and those in
Filipino; very seldom do we hear radio channels play any song written in the language of the
different islands in the Philippines.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not hating on the songs we have now; I love them, too. But I always get
confused when a certain vernacular song coming from the provinces goes viral, but then gets
translated into Filipino when sung on mainstream TV. The magic tends to get lost in the translation.
Can’t we just provide Filipino and English subtitles instead?
I’m actually happy the Department of Education brought back the mother tongue to mainstream
education. Now, kids greet us “Maayong aga, ma’am!” rather than the typical “Good morning,
ma’am!” It’s proper and, at the same time, it’s authentic. The sentiment, and the language, are truly
and proudly ours. It feels different in a nice way when it’s spoken in your own tongue. Or maybe
that’s just me?
I know no language is superior to the other, so I hope the time will come soon when we will hear
“Dandansoy” and other vernacular songs, old and new, played on stations again. I hope the time will
come, too, when vernacular literature and culture will be celebrated just as much as we celebrate
the culture of others. For these little molecules that make up our culture do not deserve to be shelved
or forgotten. Rather, they should be told, retold and recorded for generations and generations to
come.
***
Rvie Macalisang-Santillan, 28, teaches creative writing in Nonescost. She also writes about the people
and places of Negros in her blog www.veemacalisang.com
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120943/we-need-more-than-a-throwback#ixzz5rBYvI3yZ
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My child will be colorblind
By: Niza Mae Cañedo - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:16 AM April 18, 2019
I was born and raised in a society where being fair-skinned is marketed as a necessity.
Growing up, I noticed that being mestiza saved a girl from comments and criticisms often received
by a morena. A mestiza was always prettier and therefore more ladylike than her counterpart. I was
told to “keep out of the sun” like “good girls” did.
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When you’re fair and you show your bare face, you’re called beautiful. But when you’re colored and
you let people see you raw, you’re called brave. Why is that? Beautiful and brave are such different
contexts for two women who made the same decision — to show skin.
I know it’s a vague assumption to claim that mestizas have it easy. Some of you might still have to
face other beauty standards — body silhouettes, hair types, the height of your nose, etc.
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At a very young age, I was told I’d be more beautiful if I were whiter. There were people who pitied
me because I didn’t take after my mother’s complexion. She has fair skin. That became my biggest
insecurity. I would scrub harder in the shower, thinking that if I rubbed off my outer skin, a whiter one
would show. But, of course, it never happened. Like a lot of Filipino girls, I turned to whitening soaps
for help. But they were no good as well.
For a country whose majority is brown-skinned, we Filipinos seem to find every possible way to ridicule
our own kind. Sales in whitening products have been booming, coming from a society that proudly
sings we are kayumanggi in a lot of Filipino songs. The use of whitening products is so prevalent that it
has become a norm. Products containing glutathione take up a lot of space, or even a whole aisle,
in grocery stores. They’re advertised widely in all campaign platforms. Products promise that you’ll
get whiter in just seven days to a month of continuous use.
For a girl being called names like “Baluga,” “negra” or “pusit,” that promise will sound like an answer
from God. Because of this, girls have accepted the repetitive messages of these ads to be true: That
it is absolutely necessary to be white. Sure, being white is just one of the things in the long list of
standards on being beautiful, but here in the Philippines, it’s right at the top.
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Another factor contributing to this phenomenon is the fact that Filipino movies and teleserye often
cast fair-skinned actors and actresses, even for roles that would have been more appropriate for
those with darker skin. The fact that these dramas often cast mestizo and mestiza actors has a huge
impact on our culture and mindset. It sends the message that fair-skinned people can have better,
more interesting lives. The characters, although faced with many challenges, get their happy ending.
This is not to demean the traits of a character, only to say that their being invariably white contributes
to the notion that fair-skinned people are happier and more successful.
So, yes, after years of having been called names and told that my complexion should be lighter, I
also turned to whitening products. Not because I thought that I would be more beautiful, but
because I knew that having a lighter skin tone would make people address me properly, not through
demeaning nicknames. What’s in a name? Names speak multitudes and attach a person to an
identity. It can haunt you everywhere you go.
Someday, if I am blessed with a daughter, I would tell her that there is so much more to her than her
skin color. I would encourage her to play under the sun and enjoy the beach without worrying about
getting a tan. She would see beauty as a treasure more everlasting, not as fleeting as skin. Her eyes
would seek personality over complexion, and that is where she would decide whether a person is
beautiful or not.
If I would have a son, I would tell him that respect and admiration are due everyone, not just the fair.
His eyes would see people, not their complexion. He will see beauty only after digging deeper into
someone else’s soul.
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Shouldn’t we all be like that? In fact, shouldn’t all our children, even those who have not been born
yet, be colorblind? If we are all colorblind, how truly colorful the world would be.
***
Niza Mae Cañedo, 21, is mass communication student at the University of the Philippines Cebu.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120843/my-child-will-be-colorblind#ixzz5rBbhdUGx
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The myth of work-life balance
By: Mariel Balitao - @inquirerdotnet 09:03 AM April 16, 2019
Almost a decade into the workforce, I have come to the realization that I have wasted all those
moments reciting the “work-life balance” mantra for all the times I felt guilty at having chosen
anything else besides work.
Sure, most of us spend majority of our waking hours at work due to the nine-hour workday, including
the extra hour for lunch break, plus give or take three hours in traffic for the commute to and from
work.
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It is impossible to not give priority to something that gives you sustenance, harnesses your skills and
gives you the occasional ego boost for every job well done.
But remember, there shouldn’t be a balance between life and work, because they are not coequals
to begin with.
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A job is a task or piece of work we are paid to do. Surveys reveal that people get jobs primarily for
the money. A chosen few are lucky to be working just to pass time. Others would say they do it to
earn back the years and effort spent in school.
Basically, people work to improve lives — their own and their family’s, and perhaps that of the larger
community.
But what happens to the life you wish to improve when you have no time to spend nourishing it, and
the intangible things you need for a happy existence are ones you can’t afford with your salary?
I used to take pride in being called a workaholic, punching in longer overtime hours than the number
of man days required of me, or bringing work home to impress the boss who wouldn’t even bat an
eyelash if I resigned the next day.
In the process, I lost quite a lot of things — moments I could have spent with a dying family member,
milestones achieved by younger siblings, friends who suddenly became strangers, potential lovers
who left because I was “too busy,” and maybe the most cliché of them all — myself.
I was too busy working that I forgot to take care of my internal self. I used my job and the demands
that came with it as an excuse for an unhealthy lifestyle, along with increasingly bossy behavior and
lousy relationships.
The reckoning happened after I got diagnosed with a medical condition recently. I thought about
what remains of my life, and how I intend to spend it prudently.
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Of course, I shall remain faithful to my work ethic, as long as I can physically do so. I value the quality
of work that I do, and that is never going to change.
I’ll probably just set a mental alarm every time I time out that, although work ends daily, it gets to
reset the next day. Something the time in my life won’t have.
Work is just one of the many aspects of life. One of the many things we can spend our precious time
on, like family, friendships, education, religion, romantic relationships, hobbies and other passions.
Since that eureka moment, I have been trying to make up for lost time by nurturing remaining
relationships. I’m realizing that there are yet far too many things to learn to improve myself, and also
a thousand and one ways to make other lives better, without slaving myself away.
Today, I vow to be more present where and when it matters.
Because, after all, life is but borrowed time. We never know when it will be taken away from us, so
better choose how to balance it. Yes, with work, but with everything else as well.
***
Mariel Balitao, 28, is a corporate slave turned government employee, with a degree in
communication
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120800/the-myth-of-work-life-balance#ixzz5rBbtoCsN
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Summer job
By: John Ray Pucay - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:00 AM April 14, 2019
One wistful summer afternoon, I came across a group of university girls in their preppy summer
dresses, and I realized that my prospects looked very dark.
The “summer girls” were on one side of the pedestrian lane, and I was on the other. As we crossed
the road, a gentle, sweeping gush of wind blew past us. Their dresses fluttered with the breeze, and
the girls emitted youthful giggles brimming with the summer spirit.
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This scene of youthful enthusiasm, energy and hope under the fading glow of the summer sun
suddenly made me acutely aware of my own bleak-looking future.
The summer girls were on their way out of our residential building, probably off to some hip, summer
weekend party with friends. I, on the other hand, had $23 in my pocket, the only money left in an
otherwise empty bank account. I had exactly 15 days left to muster enough funds to pay my $250
rent (while feeding myself at the same time); otherwise, I had to move out. The countless job
applications and freelance project proposals I had sent all over were either rejected or ignored.
In contrast to those girls in their designer summer dresses and carefree days, I was broke,
unemployed and alone. I reached home and ate rolled oats with dried fruits, raisins and milk for
dinner. At least dinner tasted nice.
I was suddenly hit by the realization that I might have to move out soon. I packed my bags, not
leaving a trace of myself in the unit. The reality started to set in deep. I could already imagine myself
having a difficult time with my heavy luggage, applying for local meager-paying jobs back home,
and missing my own apartment. It all felt inevitable.
It’s been almost a year since I moved out of my parents’ home. I was very scared, yet excited to
finally be independent. I got a job at a startup in the capital, moved out, did amazingly well at my
job for the first three months, stagnated for the last two — and then got fired.
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In the three months that followed, I went through different phases of self-discovery, took online skillsenhancement courses, built and published two websites, started writing again, and pitched to and
got rejected or ignored by countless employers and clients.
Writing all these now, I think to myself that maybe the past three months haven’t been totally wasted
after all. Despite the lack of clients or jobs (and money), maybe I wasn’t exactly doing nothing. Still,
there’s nothing in my bank account; I have nothing to show financially.
I was mooching off a coffee shop’s free Wi-Fi, searching for articles that can give me a better
perspective, when I started typing: “How to fix a failed career.” Immediately, Google provided
suggestions: “How to fix a failed career at 30… 40… 50.” It was both scary and reassuring.
It was scary, because it felt that my failure was all too real; and reassuring to know that so many
people out there were experiencing the same thing (or worse).
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In all honesty, my current worst-case-scenario (living with my mother) is not all that bad. Sure, there’s
the humiliation and inconvenience. But thankfully, my family is not experiencing any major bad stuff
like illnesses or accidents. We’re still poor, but I think they can accommodate me. Besides, there’s
also a chance that I can find good opportunities and clients in my hometown.
I have two main options: get a job and stay, or go back home. For other people, they may use their
connections or status to keep themselves afloat, but I have neither. Getting a job in order to stay is
highly dependent on my abilities. So I’ve made a new option for myself: Get a freelance project.
I’ve learned that successful folks have gone through very erratic and epic low points in their careers
and businesses. But what made them stay and eventually become successful was their grit: their
persistence and ingenuity in making and finding ways to survive and grow. It’s like a sword fight:
parry, feint, slash forward, slash back. Your opponent might overwhelm you, but you have to keep on
fighting, deferring blows to beat the opponent back.
Right now, being broke and being unemployed are my main opponents, and I’m losing badly. I’m
gradually being overwhelmed. My guard is slowly breaking. I try changing tactics with my proposals
and applications, but the constant rejection I’ve been receiving has made me lose my footing.
I’m worried that if I lose to this opponent now, I would spend the rest of my life fighting an uphill
battle, struggling day in and day out to make money and keep a decent job. I’m afraid that Fate,
seeing I can’t handle it, would eventually hand me less favorable options in life.
If I live long enough (this is already my “third life” after two near-death experiences), maybe life will
give me another chance. Maybe, with all the lessons learned, I can have a better shot at
succeeding with that new chance in the future.
But the Now is very important to me. There are many factors present in my Now that I may no longer
have in the future. I have my Now dreams, my Now desires. I don’t want to forfeit them in the hope of
a future chance.
I wonder what the summer girls would do in my position.
***
John Ray Pucay, 23, is a Google-certified digital marketer providing freelance services to smallmedium enterprises. His portfolio is available online at: www.johnraypucay.com
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120774/summer-job#ixzz5rBcBMBMW
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Defeating D
By: Jack Lorenz A. Rivera - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:04 AM April 11, 2019
It was June 9, 2018, at 1:48 a.m. when the Devil came. I did everything to prevent its coming, but all
of my efforts were in vain. It won; that midnight, it won, again, for the nth time.
It first came when I was in fourth grade. I ended up in our school clinic. The nurse scolded me for
what I had done; she didn’t know it was the Devil who made me do it. The slash on my wrist was the
Devil’s first victory.
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The victor had support from my father, the one who abandoned me, the reason why my life hit rockbottom, the very reason for the Devil’s coming.
It was quite some time ago when the first crack in the marriage of my parents appeared. The crack,
the entrance of the Devil, soon became bigger and bigger. As the fealty of my father to our family
faded and his vows burned to ashes, the slashes on my wrist appeared. Suicidal thoughts lingered in
my mind more and more.
At 1:56 a.m. on June 9, 2018, I gave up on my personal battle. I knew that I needed help. I dialed the
suicide prevention hotline in my country, endorsed by the Department of Health (DOH). No one
answered. I dialed a foundation that promised to help victims like me of the big D, of the Depression
that had plagued me since fourth grade. But I was met with the continuous mechanical beeping of
my phone.
I messaged the Facebook account of DOH; it told me to contact them. I did just that. Someone
answered, I aired my concern, but he wasn’t helpful. He asked me my name so that he could report
me for making a ruckus. I cried and said, “I’m sorry for being a bother, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” I
hung up. I cried myself to sleep that night. The DOH never called me back.
If the Devil’s force had just grown a little stronger that midnight of June 9, 2018, I wouldn’t be here. A
miracle saved me, but let’s face it, a miracle was nowhere to be found when Anthony Bourdain,
Kate Spade and countless other people took their own lives. We can’t gamble human lives on
miracles, prayers, talks. Yes, they’re helpful, but Depression is a real sickness. We need real solutions.
Those hotlines could have saved countless lives, but they failed. The world is failing to save millions of
lives from the Devil, from mental health illness. And this growing list of losses is what I want to change.
A lot of people see mental health illness as taboo, as something prayers and sunshine can solve. We
need to work out these common misconceptions and misinformation first. We need to educate a lot
of people.
We need world leaders to enact change in their countries and provide substantial funding for mental
health programs and advocacies. Young people can help each other; we have social media, let’s
make mental health advocacy go viral. Let us tweet, post, write blogs about pertinent information on
mental health.
Moreover, supporting and simply checking on our peers are little steps that can save lives. We can
send love, and we can stop hate. Those discriminatory, insensitive and bullying posts and other vile
things directed at mental health sufferers should end.
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Someday, the D’s victories will be things of the past.
***
Jack Lorenz A. Rivera, 17, is a student of Manila Science High School.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120690/defeating-d#ixzz5rBcSHfVw
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Distance
By: Juvelle Villanueva - @inquirerdotnet 09:03 AM April 09, 2019
I don’t particularly like birthdays. They remind me that I have grown a year older. As people grow
older, we become more forgetful, they say. I’m 19 now, yet I still remember that particular day in my
childhood that might have sparked my disinterest toward birthdays.
It was the day I turned 8. I had been hearing “Happy birthday” since that morning, but I wasn’t
exactly feeling happy about it. By noon, I had decided to lie down on the floor. Mama scolded me
for being stubborn because I wouldn’t budge. I did not want to. The coldness of the marble tiles felt
comforting, and the sight of the four tiny wooden legs of the lamesita I had been staring at overhead
seemed interesting to me.
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“Mama, do you think Papa knows what day it is today?”
“Of course.”
Her words added to the list of things I had found comforting at that moment. I focused my sight once
again on the four wooden legs. On that small table was our telephone, and it was the one thing that
was making me feel uncomfortable. I was waiting for it to ring; all day, that’s what I did.
By night, I finally decided to move to my own bed. I wasn’t exactly sad; the warmth of my blanket
and the sight of neon green stars looming over me as they glowed in the ceiling seemed comforting.
It was 2 or 3 a.m. when I was awakened by Mama’s eager voice telling me there was a phone call
for me. As soon as her words
sunk in, I did what I had been imagining I would do since the day before: I rushed to the lamesita,
picked up the phone, and held it close to my ear.
“Hello, Neng, si Papa ’to.”
It sounded jolly and shaky at the same time. A distinct tenor voice that I had not heard for so long,
but strangely felt familiar. Maybe because I had been trying to reconstruct the exact timbre of his
voice and playing it over and over inside my head.
“Sorry, Neng, ha. I was supposed to call you yesterday, but
there was no signal.”
I felt like not forgiving him for that excuse, but it was only years later, when I had grown older, that I
understood.
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When people are oceans apart, it becomes hard to communicate. You now belong to different time
zones and different surroundings, which make you perceive things a little bit differently from each
other. Connecting the two ends of such a distance can prove to be challenging, especially when
stable phone signals and/or internet connection are inadequate, even nonexistent.
Papa practically lived in the ocean, on huge cargo ships that traveled across the world. It started in
the early ’90s, after my kuya was born. Since then, we’ve had to make do with handwritten letters,
phone calls, and, later on, emails and video calls for the nine months or more that he is away.
“Hello, Neng. I got you something I bought here in London for your birthday. Have you been eating
and sleeping well?”
Whenever he came home, we’d have pasalubong of bags of chocolates and piles of toys and new
gadgets, to make up for the time we had spent apart. Then, after some three months of rest from
work, it was time for him to go out into the seas again.
The cycle of Papa leaving and coming home went on. And most years, on my birthdays that we
unfortunately had to celebrate apart, he would almost always send the same greeting—whether it
was two times warmer because he was in Africa, or seven hours
later because he was in Belgium.
“Happy birthday, Neng. You’ve grown a year older now. I hope you have been eating and sleeping
well. If you do, you must be growing a lot bigger and taller, too. When I come home, I might not be
able to recognize you easily because you’ve grown up so much.”
Eventually, I stopped growing at 5’1”, and my weight just shifted around 43 to 45 kg. I was easily
recognizable, even when I changed into a new pair of eyeglasses, or when I got a bit more tan from
being under the sun. Just minor physical changes here and there.
But I did grow up in a lot of other aspects. I grew more understanding, and I grew out of asking for
toys and new gadgets for my birthdays. I wonder if Papa had found it easy to recognize the
constantly changing me that he would arrive to every time he came home all these years. I wonder if
he knew that pink wasn’t my favorite color anymore, or that I liked playing soccer over volleyball.
Eventually, I realized that, with time, people were allowed to grow. But distance — physical distance
— can cause people to grow apart, too.
In less than two months, I’d be turning 20. It’s something I am not particularly looking forward to.
Meanwhile, Papa has been spending his time at home, and I have been hearing him say he wants to
take a break from working overseas.
I hope he does this time. I would not ask for a better gift than to finally close the distance.
***
Juvelle Villanueva, 19, is a communication arts senior at the University of the Philippines Los Baños
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120648/distance#ixzz5rBcfIiVI
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‘Daya-betes’
By: Chlarine M. Gianan - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:00 AM April 07, 2019
I continue to remember my Lola Doring through my mother, whose round visage, pixie cut and
dignified stance greatly resemble her. But when I rely on my brain for my own memory of my Lola, the
first picture that comes to mind is cheating in a game of Trip to Jerusalem with her.
I knew back then that we already lost — we were standing embarrassingly among the throng of
families celebrating Grandparents’ Day in my nursery school. I thought that we were already going
back to our table, but Lola tugged on my chubby hands with her own chubby ones and we spun
with the players again like we were not yet losers. We continued to dance around the chairs. Though
we still did not win the second time around, Lola was able to receive a baby pink rose, and I had a
loot bag of candies as our consolation prizes.
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It was my mother who broke the news to me years after the incident that what Lola Doring and I did
was called cheating, and it was wrong.
“Cheaters never win in life, anak, ah,” Mommy reminded me. “Ginawa lang ’yun ng Lola mo dahil
mahal ka n’un at gusto niyang manalo kayo.”
Diabetes had been a part of my grandmother’s life long before I, along with my Lola’s other
grandchildren, were in it. When she was still alive, all of our Sundays were automatic visitations to her
quaint home in Taguig. Before we ate lunch, Uncle Jojo would take out a syringe, a pack of baby
wipes, and a vial of insulin from the buffet table across the Lazy Susan where we were all gathered
around, waiting for the “ritual” that would commence our mealtime.
I had to be wide-eyed and so concentrated to observe this quick procedure: the needle went inside
Lola’s tummy faster than Uncle Jojo inserted the needle in the rubber lid of the vial. After this, we
could already say our graces and then eat the dinuguan that Lola prepared — a special request
from me, the seemingly favored granddaughter but only because unlike my other Ususan-born and
bred cousins, I lived in Biñan.
“Mamayang merienda, sopas naman na may utak ng baboy,” she would whisper to me as she
poured some black sarsa on my white, malatang kanin. In retrospect, I should have uttered “Thank
you, Lola” and not just smiled at her, just so she would know that I was not only happy for the
sumptuous food, but also grateful for her existence and her cooking skills.
There are so many should-haves that I carry with me when I think about my maternal grandmother
and how diabetes and its complications ate her away from us, like children slowly but surely licking
their sweet candy with all their tiny might, enjoying the taste of saccharine landing on their taste
buds. I should have stayed until the weekend that one summer to spend more time with her, Lolo
Mando and my cousins in Taguig. But by Wednesday I was crying and begging for my mother’s
physical presence.
I should have asked Lola for her recipes of masabaw na dinuguan (with lots of green papaya), leche
flan na may dayap (plus that bittersweet syrup), lutong ibon (more dahon ng oregano, please), and
bahay itlog (cholesterol who?), so that I can cook them for Joj, who will never be able to meet our
grandparents in this lifetime; or for myself and my future family, so they will be able to understand my
great love for preparing and eating food.
I should not have called on the nurse to apply the ointment on the bed sore on Lola’s buttocks, from
having been bedridden three years before she died, and should have done it myself. I should not
have taken it against Lola, that time when I got scolded by Ninang Mil because I gave her some
longganisa. (In my defense, I was unaware that she was prohibited to eat that.) I should not have
been selfish and felt bad whenever my mother was in Polymedic as my Lola’s bantay, whenever she
was confined for a sudden attack of pneumonia.
I should have seen the look of pain in Lola’s eyes for having a needle go inside of her before she
could eat. I should have used all my strength to help carry her from her bed to the chair with a
detachable arinola, because the short distance from their room to the door of the bathroom was
already so tiresome for her. I should have pushed her wheelchair when she insisted on going out to
the mall, despite the risk of contracting a viral disease or getting a wound that would take a longer
time to heal than usual. I should have asked my mother about the chubbiness of Lola’s hand that
time we cheated in a game of Trip to Jerusalem, so I could have known at an early age that this
chubbiness was called edema, one of the many side effects of diabetes, where the hands and feet
look like the clinical gloves that my classmates and I would fill up with water after our basic
experiments in the laboratory.
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But as a child programmed to detect optimism and optimism alone, all I took in was Lola’s smiling
face, her mischievous tactics to be able to eat a piece of an Oreo cookie, and her reassuring
presence on Sundays after being confined for almost a week or two.
Sometimes I feel like Lola cheated on me, in a sense that she had always chosen to put on a brave
face whenever we were all around her, even when she was already in deep agony. After her nap
postdialysis, she would wake up, smile and ask how I had been, as if she had not said goodbye to me
before going to the dialysis center. I was waiting for her to scream in pain, to utter obscenities to ease
the tireless ins and outs of needles in her body during her last weeks in the hospital, but before she lost
her sense of consciousness that Saturday night, she was just calm, and even asked for kamatis from
me.
What I’ve realized from all these is that I am in no position to demand the actuality of pain from
someone feeling it, when it is not mine in the first place. All I can do is say, “I am here to help you
whenever you are ready.” I am sure those were not the only times, and I was not the only person, for
whom Lola had to feign being okay. That is also something Mommy has in common with her mother,
besides her face, preferred hair length, and body structure.
The month of love began for me this year with the news of my mother having an added prescription
besides her maintenance for hypertension—Metformin, for two months.
I do not want to lose another person that I love because of diabetes again, so I think to myself that
it’s time for a reversal of roles: It’s now my turn to reprimand my mother and say, “Oh ’wag
masyadong mag-sweets, nasa lahi natin ang diabetes.”
But she is still my mother, and her words ring of much more experience, wisdom and love than mine. I
hope that one day, I will be able to provide for her with no compromise. I will do my best to save
money so we can travel together and make her dream pilgrimage to the Holy Land a reality.
But as of writing, I am still a few weeks shy from hopefully graduating from college, and
unemployment will follow suit. So whenever I go home and we hear Mass together, I can only hold
my mother’s hand as tightly as Lola Doring did that time we cheated in that Trip to Jerusalem
game—a gesture now speaking words that I can only write and not utter, for the fear of them being
too sweet: I love you, Mommy. We’ll beat our sickness and pain and give them a fair fight, together.
***
Chlarine M. Gianan, 20, is a communication arts student at the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120620/daya-betes#ixzz5rBd1gCwe
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My paid science education
By: Pinkle Therese Evangelio - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:12 AM April 04, 2019
When I was in third grade, I had a 5-inch-thick deck of colored index cards that I used as my science
quiz bee reviewer. Each color corresponded to a type of question: green for multiple choice, orange
for fill-in-the-blanks and pink for essay-type questions.
If you will ask me now what chlorophyll is or why lighting comes before thunder, I can still give you an
answer straight from a textbook. That was how I passed my science subjects and aced quiz contests
in grade school — through memorization of textbook definitions.
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Science was easy, at least for my 10-year-old self who was studying in a public elementary school.
But little did I know that I was not that good in science; all I had back then was a reliable memory.
In elementary, all we had were general science textbooks that were so outdated, Pluto was still
considered a planet. We even had to rely on the rusty drawing skills of our teacher to illustrate the
butterfly’s metamorphosis on the board.
We were lucky if our teacher would let us touch the lone microscope that had already collected dust
from having sat in the cabinet for years.
One science workbook existed for the whole class, so the class president had to painstakingly write
everything on the board for everyone to see.
There were no other references like modules or encyclopedia, no computer and internet for updated
information, and no laboratories for further application.
It was this lack of science learning resources and facilities that probably prompted the objectivememorization type of science instruction that I got accustomed to.
It wasn’t until I transferred to a private Catholic high school that I realized science was not just about
memorization. I was introduced to a new learning approach — one which required application,
exploration and a lot of questions.
Of course, I learned a lot in grade school, and some knowledge was still helpful until high school. It
was just that, in my private school education, we all had access to fast internet connection, a
monthly subscription to scientific journals or magazines, and laboratories where the microscope to
student ratio was 1:1.
I did not top my science subjects in high school, but I definitely enjoyed learning more than I ever did
in grade school.
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For the first time, I was able to view and observe a blood sample under a microscope. I touched and
used an actual laboratory equipment, and it was way different from simply viewing a black-andwhite photo on textbooks. I had fun presenting our own science project on hydroponics at the
annual science fair, and got exhilarated while launching our DIY water rockets.
The teaching style of our science teachers was also a lot different. We were introduced to the
Socratic method, wherein we were encouraged to ask questions and answer with more questions,
rather than simply memorize concepts.
In my senior year, we were required to present a scientific research paper which would be fully
funded by the school if deemed outstanding. This whole new approach was challenging, but at the
same time more encouraging for me.
I was happy with the thought of learning with the new perks that my paid private education gave
me. But I was also saddened by the fact that all of these could only be experienced through
privilege.
I cannot help but imagine how many Filipino scientists can be produced if the foundation of their
science education is more experiential in nature and supported with adequate resources and
facilities, just like what I had in my private high school.
I was fortunate enough to experience this duality in my science education. But deep in some remote
province in the country, a fifth grader is probably dreaming of becoming the next Neil Armstrong, or
perhaps dreaming of launching his own rocket.
But in the meantime, that student has to be contented with the worn-out pages of the science
textbook he or she is viewing under the light of a burning candle.
***
Pinkle Therese Evangelio, 21, is a senior communication arts student at the University of the Philippines
Los Baños.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120542/my-paid-science-education#ixzz5rBetPoPI
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Births and deaths
By: John Thomas Miranda - @inquirerdotnet 05:03 AM April 02, 2019
There is nothing momentous for someone turning 28. You’re too young to be jaded and cynical, yet
you’re too old to be a naive idealist. This age is not the turn in poker or climax in fiction that can alter
the outcome of a story; 28 is just a chapter.
But fate twisted my Chapter 28, changing forever how I will look at my birthdays to come. Because
on my 28th birthday, my sister died.
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Teng, the fourth among six siblings, succumbed to cardiac arrest at 34. Teng and her son were
supposed to be at our nephew’s birthday a day after Christmas. They were terribly late at almost 5 in
the afternoon. Sanse, the third eldest, phoned with a hint of irritation over the usual tardy sister. The
boy picked up the phone, saying Mommy won’t wake up. Only the two of them were in their rented
house. There was no alarm, as we knew our sister was a deep sleeper.
But all hell broke loose when my mother’s cousin found her unconscious, lying in her own pee. There
were signs of a stroke. After she was brought to the hospital, she showed signs of improvement while
in the ICU. Our family discussed recovery plans — her forthcoming therapy, the renovation of our
parents’ home to be wheelchair-accessible, the mental preparation for a new life not just for her, but
also for everyone.
But, after a successful second dialysis for her kidney failure, my sister’s heart suddenly stopped
functioning. The massive cardiac arrest destroyed all our hopes and dreams for her recovery. It was a
steady decline from then on, and she ultimately passed away on my birthday.
Her health didn’t deteriorate overnight; it was, frankly, the result of years of neglect and abuse,
brought about by working conditions that go against your body clock and natural instincts.
Stress is an unavoidable occurrence that helps humans develop coping mechanisms and effective
problem-solving skills, but too much of it also destroys your ability to think clearly and judge correctly.
Hands down, Teng was the best in what she did, but she overworked herself without realizing she had
limitations.
People can die without rhyme or reason. People die, and together with them, their frustrated dreams
and shattered hearts and nasty secrets. People die because we are just a bunch of meat and bones
vulnerable to horrible diseases and freak accidents. It’s just a question of when and how, never a
question of why.
My sister was a solo parent to Marcus, who was turning 4 years old. On the last day of the wake
before her cremation, everyone was singing happy birthday while the child shied away from blowing
his candle on a chocolate cake in front of her mother’s coffin.
This was supposed to be a joyous moment, a celebration of life and love. But the child knew there
was something wrong, that there was someone missing, though he didn’t have the capacity yet to
articulate his raw emotions.
I didn’t grow up celebrating birthdays because we were really poor back then, and there was no
money for such things. I remember that on Teng’s 18th birthday, she came home from her college
classes and there was just a cake. No party, no sumptuous feast, no friends invited over, just one
cake. I don’t know how she felt at that time, but what I know is that memories can really become a
painful thing.
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The death of a loved one can only be truly mourned after all has been said and done. Everyone
becomes so caught up with the funeral arrangements and new living arrangements that things don’t
sink in right away. When the normal everyday routine is back and you have the time to reflect on
things, that’s when the realization of permanent loss becomes unbearably enervating.
Losing a loved one is like running a lifetime marathon while carrying a 50-pound baggage. At first you
can carry it; you can even say it’s easy. But as the miles go on, it becomes harder and harder. Every
step is a punishment, and the baggage seems only to get heavier. If only you can stop carrying this
weight—but you can’t, because life goes on while the dead stays. All you can do is pause, breathe
and carry on.
When President Cory Aquino died 10 years ago, a former classmate questioned why the hell people
were saying nice things about a dead person — why those sweet words of appreciation were only
spoken when the person couldn’t hear them anymore. Maybe she was right, but she missed the point
entirely.
Eulogies are not messages for the dead, but stories meant for people they are leaving behind.
Eulogies are spoken not to please the dead, but to ease the pain and longing of the ones grieving
the loss. There is a catharsis in reliving the habits, nuances and imperfections of a loved one before
everything abruptly ended.
Quantum physicists postulate that time doesn’t happen in a linear way, and past and present events
have no difference. So, for me, that last Christmas when Teng was with us singing and laughing and
full of life didn’t end; it will never end. It’s always happening and will always happen in another world,
in an alternate universe, in another time.
I don’t believe in heaven, but I really do hope my sister is in a good place, where all wounds have
already turned into wisdom.
***
John Thomas Miranda, 28, is co-owner of Bado ni Buri clothing store. His sister’s tattoo, “turn all
wounds into wisdom,” is engraved on her urn.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120501/births-and-deaths#ixzz5rBf5rqrF
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My straight best friend calls me ‘jowa’
By: Ross Manicad - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:16 AM March 28, 2019
We were on a bus heading to an LRT station when he told me, “Yesterday, when I picked up my
second girlfriend from work…” I was shocked. I didn’t know that my closest straight buddy has
another girl.
“Wait, what ‘second girlfriend’?” I asked.
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“Aren’t you the first one?” he replied. Of course, how could I forget our running joke that we’re so
close people mistake us for a gay couple sometimes? That setup has been normalized that even his
(one and only) girlfriend joins in on the fun, too.
In one of our conversations, we noticed how girls could hold hands in public without suffering from
prejudice, unlike if guys did it.
So, whenever we feel silly, we do it as a social experiment — to check if people would notice or,
worse, stare. We think it’s a good exercise that gives us confidence and helps us promote tolerance.
Sometimes we also call each other “babe” or “jowa” in public to see who minds — and someone
always does.
Girls can poke each other’s boobs and it looks funny, even cute and silly. But if boys touch each
other’s crotch or behind, the reaction is different. Suddenly, people forcibly unthink what they just
saw.
In the new world language, girls being touchy and clingy get all the cute emojis, while guys receive a
punctuation mark. Make that plural if one of them is straight and the other isn’t.
I’m lucky enough to have a bond brother who puts up with the complexities of having a gay friend.
We don’t treat “I love you” as a World War code that cannot be disclosed lest countries fall apart.
We can say such a vulnerable phrase as a joke, a postscript to a birthday greeting, or an alternative
to “I got your back.”
“I miss you” is not a rarity for us, either. The same is true with “Ingat ka” and “Kumusta?”
We play board games with friends and, like boys (who will always be boys) secretly outwit and
outplay each other. When someone loses, he can easily joke, “Lagi naman akong pangalawa lang
sa’yo.” And when someone wins, he is free to guarantee, “Hindi ka naman galit sa ‘kin, ’di ba?”
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“Oo nga, seryoso.” More than a decade has passed since we became friends, and I can share that
the secret to our bond is honesty without a hint of malice. I repeat, without a hint of malice, so that
every time I intentionally hit or touch his crotch and he does the same to me, it means we’re playing
as brothers, not as daydreaming confused adults. We don’t do it to make each other feel
uncomfortable; we do it because we are comfortable.
“It’s a guy thing,” and our female friends understand.
Thankfully, I have a nonhomophobic team that reassures us that what may be different in others’
eyes is not wrong but just that—different.
Hopefully soon, what is considered uncommon can be more visible. But, fine, perhaps less of the
playful crotch-touching now, because we’re both in our late 20s.
***
Ross Manicad, 27, paints, writes and talks a lot. He has a neglected blog,
whenpencilwrites.blogspot.com
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120393/my-straight-best-friend-calls-me-jowa#ixzz5rBfOTVc7
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Science and poetry
By: Pauline Jean G. Vercaza - @inquirerdotnet 05:04 AM March 26, 2019
“Eyes, nose, lips…” Ma’am Caling taught in a sing-song voice. The class parroted her movements: We
touched the eyes, nose and lips and called them “eyes,” “nose” and “lips.” Our hands grazed the
different parts of our faces as our mouths identified their names.
“Very good!” she said, clapping.
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One by one, she called us. We needed to enumerate at least five parts of the body and explain their
function. When it was my turn, I finished the activity with a perfect score. I went home smiling from
ear to ear and reported my five stars to my mother, like a diligent officer.
It did not last long though. In high school, I grew to despise the memorization and the names. I
thought they were useful only because my grades added a measurable value to my efforts. But if I
had to choose between answering and not answering, the latter began winning in a heartbeat.
I felt conflicted. Good grades can buy you a ticket to a bright future, I was told. Never mind the
inadequate facilities in school, the incompetent instructors, the nonexistent support for science
programs. Stick to the theoretical and textbook definitions. Stop asking why we don’t have
spaceships. Focus on calculating the velocity. No erasures. Your time starts now.
But there was hardly a minute. In a test, I hastily wrote letter “A”, since for the three preceding items
my answer had been letter “C.” Instead of feeling upset at my mischief, I left the classroom relieved.
The vivid memory of my final science examination in high school made an imprint. I veered away
from taking hard sciences in college. My academic background in communication arts solidified my
appreciation for the arts and further steered me away from science.
However, the more I read and wrote, the more I found similarities between them. The strange terrain
of science began appearing in poetry.
Cataloging is a writing technique used for emphasis and defamiliarization. Under an umbrella idea,
the poet will list associated words to make a point or categorize them. The insistent repetition invokes
not only attention, but a new invitation for meaning.
In science, I read that Aristotle had devised a system of grouping for animals. He classified them
under genera, and under genera was another classification called species. Today, this system is
commonly known as taxonomy.
The two (poetry and science) seem to manifest the inherent human inclination to look for patterns
and commonality. They are methods that highlight the human urge and motivation to interpret the
world. If science conducts experiments to arrive at an observed truth and reality, poetry tweaks
language to arrive at different levels of stating truth and reality.
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The seemingly insipid act of identifying arbitrary names with bodily parts in primary school now makes
sense.
The way we express our condition is limited by the lexicon we have at hand. We need words — ideas,
names, explanations, interpretations. Both science and poetry provide a vast array of opportunities to
grasp and play with that most human need.
***
Pauline Jean G. Vercaza, 20, is a communication arts writing major at the University of the Philippines
Los Baños.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120348/science-and-poetry#ixzz5rBfXq6sl
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One Sunday ride
By: Joseph Mary P. Balbuena - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:00 AM March 24, 2019
It was getting dark when my bus arrived at the Avenida Terminal one Sunday. As I stepped out, I
knew another challenging week awaited me as a college student. I hurried along, knowing I needed
to review once I arrived at my dorm.
Even on a Sunday night, the streets were filled with people. Some were on their way to Mass, some to
dinner, while some were trying to make the most of what remained of their weekend.
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Finally, I got seated inside a jeep; it was half full. A mother and her young daughter, maybe around 6,
were seated in front of me. The two piqued my interest. The mom carried a plastic bag with some fish
and vegetables while the child held her own bag of mandarin oranges.
I was amused with the girl, who was wearing matching pants and top. Her facial features reminded
me of my favorite anime character, Cardcaptor Sakura. She had short brown hair, her eyes were
round and glowing, and her lips were bright red just like Sakura’s. So I decided to call her “Sakura” in
my mind.
I sensed something was different with Sakura. She tapped her mother’s elbow and her hands danced
as if they were speaking, in the same way that lady on the bottom right corner of Sunday TV Mass did
her hand movements. I realized Sakura was using sign language.
During the ride, Sakura was restless. She constantly looked outside and tried to entertain herself.
When another mother and daughter got in, her eyes were glued on them as the pair talked.
When I arrived at my destination, I alighted the jeepney and took one last look at Sakura.
Unexpectedly, she and her mother got off as well. The three of us waited for the light to turn green so
we could cross the adjacent street. I could not miss this chance; I had to interact with her.
As an occupational therapy student, encountering people like Sakura was something familiar. In the
future, part of my job would entail working with pediatric patients just like Sakura. Next semester, I will
start my internship, and having a firsthand encounter with them would help me understand their
needs better.
I took the chance and politely asked the mother, “Hi po ’Nay. What’s her name?” The mother smiled
and didn’t hesitate to give her daughter’s name — Jessa. I smiled at Jessa and waved my hands to
say hello. She returned it with a sheepish smile, a sign that she may not be used to interacting with
other people.
Through asking Nanay Minda, her mother, I confirmed that Jessa is deaf — a condition that limits the
person’s ability to hear and, sometimes, speak. At school, I learned that disabilities such as Jessa’s
should not be a barrier to achieving the highest quality of life possible.
“Sometimes, kids include her in the game. But most times, her playmates would push her off. They
don’t want to play with her because she’s deaf,” Nanay shared in Tagalog. Jessa would then go
home crying. To calm her down, Nanay would give Jessa her only doll, which was given by a
nonprofit organization three years ago.
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“It’s challenging to have a child like her. When she cries or she needs something, I need to stop what
I’m doing and attend to her. But it’s okay. I care for Jessa and I’ll do everything to give her the best,”
Nanay said. “So my husband and I attend sign language and free workshops so we can teach her
how to communicate easier.”
I asked Nanay if Jessa can do things expected of her age. “Yes, we need to teach her. She’s our only
child. When we grow older, Jessa must know how to stand on her own and mingle with people. Just
like earlier, I told her not to be shy when passing our fare to people inside the jeep. Jessa did so after I
said ‘bayad po’ and gave her the signal.”
Nanay also shared that Jessa, like any other child, has dreams of her own. “She wants to go to a
regular school and be a doctor someday. But because she’s deaf, she can only go to a special
education center that’s far from our school.” This somehow limits Jessa from interacting with many
people, because the only friends she knows are those from her school.
I agreed with Nanay Minda that people in our country tend to undermine the abilities of persons with
disabilities (PWDs). This, in turn, can limit the opportunities available for them, especially when they
are in the working class. However, I told her that it felt reassuring that there are supportive mothers
like her who believe in their child’s abilities and support them all the way.
Nanay smiled and said it might still take a long time for people to be educated and accepting of
PWDs. She hopes that when Jessa grows up and needs to commute on her own, the public system
would be more inclusive and provide her the means to be better understood, “like in passing the fare
or telling the MRT ticket person where she’s going. Simple things like that are a daily challenge for
deaf people like my daughter. Accepting and respecting PWDs doesn’t make us any less of a
person. It even makes us more human,” she said.
I looked into Nanay’s eyes and saw hope radiating from within. I couldn’t agree more.
As I reached the street heading to my dorm, I had to say goodbye to my two new friends.
Before leaving, I asked Nanay Minda to teach me how to say goodbye through sign language. She
gladly demonstrated the sign. I then knelt down and faced Jessa, my hands telling her “goodbye.”
She responded with a smile.
I arrived at my dorm feeling blessed to have met the two of them. Indeed, we still have a lot to work
on in terms of creating a more PWD-friendly environment. At the very least, we should be more
sensitive to their needs. If the key to seeing a shy girl like Jessa smile is to have an effective way of
communicating with them, I hope we can take the effort to learn how best to understand and
interact with them with compassion.
I opened my reviewers. A challenging week awaited me. But I also knew that, through my degree, I
can help advocate for equal opportunities for our PWD brothers and sisters someday.
I am more inspired to learn. To Nanay Minda and Jessa, wherever you are, I can’t thank you enough,
and I hope to meet you again on my next Sunday ride.
***
Joseph Mary P. Balbuena, 21, is a third year occupational therapy student at the University of the
Philippines Manila.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120321/one-sunday-ride#ixzz5rBfkHZui
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Elvira
By: Yanna Regina Mondoñedo - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:16 AM March 21, 2019
My grandparents took me on a trip out to Pampanga that one weekend in February, the month
before I turned 8.
“Who are we seeing?” I asked.
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“To see a friend,” my grandmother replied, swiping her lipstick over her thin, glossed lips.
I don’t remember how long the drive to Pampanga took; I was asleep for most of it. I was lying down
on the backseat of their old maroon sedan, with a Walkman in my fist.
My grandfather stopped by an old, concrete house where several other cars were parked outside.
The exterior walls were painted white but waterlogged from rain, its roofing and gate a dated green.
I took my headphones off, pushed it along with the Walkman and tucked it underneath a pillow in
the car, and stepped out.
There was a crowd huddling in the porch, some with Styrofoam cups of coffee, others eating biscuits.
My grandmother took my hand and I walked with her to the door. By the door stood a podium,
where a photo of a middle-aged woman was pasted beside her name: “Elvira [redacted].”
Underneath it was an open guest book. My grandmother quickly wrote our names and address
before passing through the door.
My grandmother tugged at my hand and she led me through a sea of black skirts and pants, and
green bamboo poles with white flower wreathes perched above them. The smell of stale coffee
started to waft up my nose as we went farther into the crowd, while hushed prayers grew louder and
louder as we got closer to where she wanted to take us. My ears started to ring.
We ended up in front of a long, white coffin with silver inlays. She lifted me by my waist and held me
by her side.
I saw Elvira, a middle-aged woman, encased underneath a thin glass pane. She had skin as pale as
her white-laced gown, in contrast to her thin, jet-black hair. Her freckles and liver marks have turned
into dull brown. I looked at her face and noticed the large, stitched lump just above her temple. I
remember it was as large as my fist. A mole sat underneath her nostril, and her mouth was curled in a
carefully crafted smile.
My grandmother put me down and took my hand once again. She settled the both of us on an old,
dusty couch, ironing out her black dress before sitting me on her lap. When we settled, I asked her
who she was. She looked at me and patted my hair, ignoring my question, before turning away to
talk to the person standing in front of us.
I’d never met Elvira — Eves, as I heard my grandmother call her — nor had I ever known of her until
we went to see her that day. They didn’t tell me what had happened, and they refused to tell me
when I asked.
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So instead, whenever they disregarded or ignored the things I said, I did something else: I listened. I
listened to them talk to the others in and around the house. My grandparents had whispered out
“condolence” to a few of the people by the doorway, each word enacted with a hug (from my
grandmother) or a handshake (from my grandfather).
I heard my grandmother say that Elvira was one of her good friends. Turned 45 that year, married,
had two daughters. My grandmother would then say to every person she spoke with how well-loved
she was, how kind-hearted she was, and that the last time they spoke, she thought Elvira was getting
better. The conversation that struck me the most was with the one who asked the same thing I’d
been wanting to know since we got there: What happened?
“She just couldn’t handle it. I told her it’ll pass. I said, ‘People have gone through worse, Eves.’ ‘You
wouldn’t believe what I went through.’
“We sat her down and told her, ‘It’s not that bad, Eves! It’s all in your head.’”
I remember the ride home was quiet. Dionne Warwick’s “The Windows of the World” was playing on
that old, dusty Walkman disk player, but the sound seemed to dull into a low hum in my ears. I
remember getting home and tucking myself to bed. The conversation I overhead never left my
head, and I tried to make sense of what I was feeling. There was a heavy weight on my chest that
didn’t seem to go away no matter what I did, and I felt tears well up under my eyes. I didn’t know
what I was crying for, and I knew no one in the household would be able to help me understand
what it was. I cried myself to sleep.
That night, I met Elvira in a dream. She sat me down the pavement beside her house, in the exact
same place where she died, and told me what grief was.
***
Yanna Regina Mondoñedo, 22, is a communication arts senior at the University of the Philippines Los
Baños
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/120251/elvira#ixzz5rBg0QJU7
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He’s getting married (Youngblood, Philippine Daily Inquirer)
TODAY, I will attend an execution: my own. I will watch it with both eyes open and I will not cry. I will
not break down just because the man I have loved since forever will marry someone else. I will watch
him promise himself to a woman who will never love him like I have. I will watch them bind themselves
to a vow I should have taken.
I have loved Oliver almost all my life. I have known him since I saved his six-year-old hide from a bully
named Ricardo who wanted to rid him of his two yellowed front teeth. I was five at the time, but
having grown with five older brothers and a hellion of a sister, ”Totoy Cardo” was a piece of cake.
Oliver was so overcome with embarrassment at having a girl to protect his scrawny neck that from
that time on he made it a point to be the rescuer, not the rescued. As time passed, muscles filled out
this lanky frame and those two front teeth began to sparkle. He combs his hair, and he takes a bath
daily now. In short, he has become a fine specimen of manhood.
The best part is, he lived up to his promise: he became my self-appointed guardian (well, I don’t
know if that’s the best or the worst part). He was just always there, sticking to me like glue. It used to
drive me nuts that he never let me out of his sight.
When I was 12, I ran from the infirmary on my way home. I had found out in the most humiliating way
that I had become a woman: there was a big red stain on the back portion of my skirt. The jeers and
the taunts followed me through the school corridors. Oliver dashed after me and offered to
accompany me home. I declined, of course. He seemed to understand my discomfiture and
promised to drop later with the things left in school. When I reached home I was told that I needed to
jump three times on the stairs (which I did) and to wash my face with my blood (which I didn’t do).
Oliver dropped by in the afternoon, sporting a black eye and a bruise on his arm. When I asked him
what happened, he said he had walked into a closed door. I believed him. But a few days later,
minus the dysmennorhea, I found out that Oliver got into fisticuffs because some guy made a
disgusting remark about me.
Nobody had ever fought for me before that. And when you’re 12 and discussing in class how King
Arthur and fairest of them all, Lancelot, fought for Guinevere’s love, you tend to get ideas. I loved
Oliver then.
When we were in high school and I found out that the school’s heartthrob and one of my most
ardent suitors, Richard, was involved with a bustier girl, it was to Oliver that I ran. When I didn’t
graduate as valedictorian and I got so drunk, it was Oliver who took me home. He didn’t even mind
that I barfed all over his dad’s car (which he borrowed without permission).
When I decided to go to UP and he went to Ateneo, we celebrated by partying. When I lost my mom
in a car accident, he took care of everything. When my dad followed my mom less than a year later
after a heart attack, he was there again. By this time he was an appendage of my life. He used to
check out the guys I came to know. Nobody dared to get serious with me–not when Oliver had a
black belt. I didn’t know how to define our relationship.
I didn’t know what we were. We definitely were more than friends, better even than best friends. It
was like we were a couple, but formally not one.
We did all the things that couple did like hang out and neck but always stopped when things got too
hot. Since we never defined what we meant to each other we never said ”I love you” or whatever
serious couple told each other.
As a result, I remained a chaste princess while my prince caroused and sowed wild oats, but still had
the energy to monitor my movements. I didn’t mind. After all, I was so sure we’d end up together. I
always thought that in the end, it would be us. I loved him. I managed to convince myself that he
loved me (what else could it be?). Little did I know that love doesn’t conquer all, it only conquers the
weak.
I didn’t think he’d be so stupid as to get a girl pregnant on the same night they met at a party. I
didn’t think he’d be so stupid as to forget to use some form of contraception. After all, he had given
me a lecture on safe sex. And I didn’t think he’d be so stupid as to marry the girl. But maybe I forgot
that after all he was a man, and men have been known to be stupid about these things. Their brain is
located in a region other than between the ears.
What could I do? Kicking him in the groin and punching him in the eye seemed like a good idea
then. Don’t blame me; he was the one who enrolled me in a self-defense course. But I did not feel
better. Seeing him bent over in pain only made me angrier. I wasted my life for this lousy excuse of a
man? I could not believe it! I wanted nothing more than to run to him and beg him to wake me up
from the stupid dream. I wanted him to take me some place where we didn’t know anybody.
No pain, no memory, no humiliation. I wanted to just forget it ever happened but since I flunked in
the School for Martyrs, I couldn’t, for the life of me pretend, it didn’t happen. I couldn’t pretend he
didn’t hurt me.
I couldn’t pretend everything was fine and dandy and exactly the way it was before. We didn’t talk
for a month. For both of us who were practically inseparable, that was like an eternity. I ducked into
corners whenever I would see him. I wouldn’t take his calls. I wouldn’t see him. And for some time
hate was my reason for getting up in the morning, for breathing, for living.
Hate and I became good friends.
“God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them but to cleanse them,” somebody once wrote.
I didn’t want to be cleansed. I just wanted to drown in pain and misery and utter desolation. I
wanted to wallow in the dark and deep pit of despair. I know a thousand and one clichés that say
this can be a blessing and that I should be thankful. But thankful is the last thing I’m feeling right now.
I’ve always thought that there are three kinds of women: those who break, those who mend and
those who are broken themselves.
Before this hit me, I assumed that I belonged to the first or second category. Now I know I’m in the
third–so hurt and broken up inside. My grandmother used to say that there is nothing you can do
about pain when it gives you a silly grin except grin right back. All I could manage was a wry smile, a
killer headache and the worst hangover the day before his wedding.
Evidence of that is the disgusting sight of mashed potatoes and barbecue, thrown up not three
meters away from where I was lying prostrate on the floor and the awful stench of cigarette on my
hair. Frankly I don’t want to go. I want to wallow in misery in my messy room, crying, retching and
stinking, surrounded with Michael Learns to Rock (whose songs are dedicated to the broken-hearted)
CDs. But I have to go and attend the wedding. I have to bathe and prepare and put on that
atrocious peach (it’s not even my color!) gown.
I’m not doing it for the groom, my one true friend and love, Oliver. Neither am I doing it for the bride,
my younger sister, Sandra who needs me. I’m doing it for my unborn niece who has the great fortune
of having me as her aunt. Call me stupid, but I’ve always known my place. If it isn’t beside the man I
was destined to marry, if it isn’t behind my sister, who will take his name, wear his ring and bear him a
child, then it must be with my niece, cradled close to my heart so that she will know both of our love.
He’s Getting Married is a Youngblood article published in Philippine Daily Inquirer. Forgive me but I
can’t remember the exact year when this article was published. It’s been a while since this article
was published and I’m still moved every time I get to read it. This may be old but I’m still posting it
here because it’s one of the articles that I like most among all the Youngblood entries I’ve read.
Youngblood is a section of Philippine Daily Inquirer that publishes true-to-life story or experiences that
the sender would like to impart to readers
February 16, 2018
Coins In My Pocket
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There are several words that fascinate me and being fascinated is only one of the two faces of the
coin because the other side is about being bothered.
Death is one of these words. Jealousy is another one. And the most recent word is success, but just
like a two-faced coin, success is a word that will predictably lands on the bother side. Unlike death or
jealousy which I can physically and emotionally able to grasp, success is a hologram of a heavy
moon that floats in the sky of the ocean world called my mind. It can cause tides, eclipses, and
rarely—serenity. Sometimes in my lonesome way home, I will muse about it and always ask: what is
success.
I have no answers every time.
I was online on Twitter one day. I was mindlessly scrolling when I saw Lonely Planet's tweet about
Elizabeth Hawley. I don't know who was Ms. Elizabeth Hawley, and the tweet was not fashioned to be
clickbaity enough to send a few numbers of neurons firing to pique my interest. In my own words, if I
remembered correctly, I said to myself what do I care about a chronicler?
Out of nowhere, the coin of the word success was tossed in the air. I've wondered if Elizabeth can be
considered successful, then I've thought if a tweet about/of Elon Musk was posted next to the Lonely
Planet's, there was a chance, neurons will fire for the later. Suddenly the shell, the heavy hologram
moon, displayed the cracks.
The ugly image of success today that I cling to: Success is Elon Musk. Elizabeth Hawley is not. It is clear
as daylight coming from a Sun that is shining a billion years from now. They say the sun by then will be
ten percent brighter than the sun today. It will boil the oceans of the Earth. For a longtime, its charring
heat I do not feel. Its blinding light I fail to see.
I said cracks. Because sometime ago I saw another crack and that was: I-don't-have-enough-failures.
(This requires another space to explain. It is ugly and demands berating myself.)
I once heard that Bill Gates is great being Bill Gates. It is likely true for Elon Musk being great being
Elon Musk. And potentially will ring true for Elizabeth Hawley being great being Elizabeth Hawley. I will
never be Elon Musk. I will never come even close to what Ms. Hawley was. And I have to remind
myself to see people holistically as well and not to idolize them. A friend said success for him is
achieving the goals he sets for himself. That simple, that practical. But-but I want to grasp it like death
or jealousy.
If I don't get it today, it is like I'm zipping these files—corrupted files—compressing and sending them
to some future time, where my future self will open it, and unleash the corrupted codes and scripts on
top of an already dysfunctional hardware and OS.
June 29, 2017
Slow Dance in a Large Circle*
No comments: tags: musing
Nostalgia has a certain weight but one can carry only as much. The thing about nostalgia, we can
measure it in grains of sands. But these sands are special, because they are collected from broken
hourglasses.**
Nostalgia falls from the sky, therefore it is a function of randomness. I apologized for this deep seated
belief of mine.
Nostalgia never crashes. It softly lands on our naked shoulders and a lot of times find its way in to the
magical void of our hearts. The bottomless pit where we wallow can be amusingly filled to its rim.
Suddenly, our emptiness makes sense—capable of conceiving a new element out of the
nothingness, a being gaining consciousness, and a landscape claiming attention.
The thing about nostalgia, when one is patient enough and had enough of it, some invisible hand will
drill a hole in the walls of this chamber in our heart. Slowly, the tiny grains start spilling. The weight
begins to mellow, the particles gravitates to the Earth—streaming mini-stones in a continuous flow.
And if one listens to nostalgia leaving the heart, it has a soothing sound of emptying sack of rice or
wheat being poured in a smaller vessel.
*"But that's how nostalgia is: a slow dance in a large circle.'" - My Invented Country, Isabel Allende
**Antoine de Saint-Exupery said that, "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your
rose important."
May 2, 2017
Parroting
1 comment: tags: musing
Recently, every workday morning I can be found deeply immersed with thoughts of a family member
perennial debt problem, or of the boredom I experience in my day job. Sometimes I also wonder
about my country and how screwed things seems to be. Annoyed, I will just keep on rolling my eyes
for every slide my mind was presenting. When I had enough, I go on and remind myself to let go of
these thoughts because it is not doing me good.
You see, I should be grateful. I always sit in the front, at the 2nd level of two-decker bus, and this gives
me a premium view of the lovely the suburbs. Majestic trees in the middle of the road, rich shrubs
fencing the houses and a brilliant morning sun showering the whole trip to the office with delight. Not
to mention the blue skies and cotton clouds. Most of my attempts to shift focus from the negative to
positive are always successful.
But thoughts and attention are flowing water. Sure. I will admire the shrubs and trees but soon
enough I will wonder if the public housing I see can be replicated in my country or I will ask myself
when I will be able to afford my own flat. Suddenly, I welcome myself back to my original hideous
state of mind. Arms wide open. Like a teary wife after seeing the ships have returned.
It is my inescapable morning vortex.
One February morning, I was so frustrated with my inner world and moving my attention outside was
not working. Even the music I was playing was not helping. So I decided to launch my TEDtalk app
and played Pico Iyer’s TEDtalk about The Art of Stillness. During those times, it was my “bath”
companion at night; listening to it while taking my shower. There is something soothing and
comforting with Pico’s voice that helps me relax a bit after a long day from work.
In the middle of the talk, Pico described a kind of stillness he witnessed on his co-passenger in the
airplane:
“I once got on a plane in Frankfurt, Germany, and a young German woman came down and sat
next to me and engaged me in a very friendly conversation for about 30 minutes, and then she just
turned around and sat still for 12 hours. She didn't once turn on her video monitor, she never pulled
out a book, she didn't even go to sleep, she just sat still, and something of her clarity and calm really
imparted itself to me.”
Right then, I craved to achieve this form of serene surrender.
Then it hits me.
Most likely she does not have the same pattern my mind is always exhibiting daily. Just when I am
convinced that I’ve already understood with all my heart the wisdom behind the phrase “what you
focus on grows,” and many other similar maxims to live by, it dawned on me THAT I was not really
thinking of my dreams most of the time. I am just parroting the negative thoughts I already have from
yesterday and these thoughts are always accompanied by strong emotions like hate, anger or
despair. And even if I can triumphantly shift my attention to something fancier, I admit now I was
more incline to let a sigh out.
In other words, when I think about my dreams and goals, they rarely carry strong convincing feelings.
I used to read my life list that I wrote in my notebook every waking morning but I really sounded like I
was just reciting them silently.
Maybe many successful and passionate people did not just daydream about what they want but
most likely they were haunted by it. I used haunted in the best sense of the word. Their desires haunt
them in the waking hours, on their way to work, during their lunchtime, at the grocery, or before
going to bed. Not to mention they are exerting effort or action. Their mind and physical reality are in
sync.
And here I am bothered by my hideous thoughts and procrastination. They get so many points for
always showing up in my psyche. :(
---
“If I want to change my life, I have to change mind.”
- Pico Ayer, The Art of Stillness
April 17, 2017
In Hindsight
1 comment: tags: musing
There are words or phrases that can be adorned with words yet devoid of intensity or surprise. No
heart skipping a beat. No shade to hide the lapses in memories.
One of such words or phrases I believe is: in hindsight.
A recent article in New York Times debunked the beginning of a historical event that help shaped the
end of the 20th century. It was a news story about Guteas Dugas, who was infamously tagged by the
media as Patient Zero or the person who brought HIV to America. This is my first encounter with such
fact which was considered legit for more than three decades.
AIDS was first coined in 1981. During those times, an unknown disease was spreading commonly to
homosexual men. Scientists who were tracking the spread of AIDS noted that many patients in San
Francisco and New York had sexual encounter with a particular flight attendant identified as Guteas
Dugas. Soon he was called Patient Zero. "Mythified" to infamy by the media. He was not just only
accused but was also documented for bringing HIV to America. Mr. Dugas was at one point had 250
sexual encounters in a year.
Fast-forward 2016. New York Times reported that Patient Zero is after all is not THE Patient Zero. One of
the doctors interviewed in the article, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, reflected, “it is seeming plausible at the
time that one person was responsible. In hindsight, the idea now seem absurd.”
I guess in hindsight can be utilized for redemption. We, maybe, necessarily say it to vindicate us from
our previous forgotten judgment, after wickedness or kindness has been flaked away by time or by
distance. It is like regret whose only function was to be confessed at the later part of an event.
In hindsight is our answer to a dare, maybe from the conscience who calls us to stick out our head
above the parapet; to peek over; and eventually to stand witness once more to the view the
graveyard where our best judgments and wisdoms laid peacefully.
I wonder how many times I would be able to look back and nonchalantly be able to say in hindsight
about the many things that happened in my life?
For now let us find comfort from Steve Jobs because he said that we could only connect the dots by
looking backward.
Note:
April 28, 2017. While listening to Tim Ferriss podcast interview of Debbie Millman, Debbie mentioned
"gift of hindsight." Interesting.
April 16, 2017
The Sensation of Losing You
2 comments:
I extended my arm and reached for the smooth surface of the mirror. The tips of my fingers pushed
and passed thru it. What is in front of me was no longer my reflection. That vision was gone. I swear I
felt the breeze. Air was running through between my fingers on the other side of the mirror. I closed
my palm and I gripped the breeze. It felt the air over there was mine. I saw images of clouds, and
these clouds were made of breath I held for you.
I grabbed on to the rush of the wind again, like a rope. Nothing. Grasping nothing yet feeling
everything. I wanted to be pulled out of this place and be brought into that dimension so I could
breathe because on the other side the air was mine. And coldness does not bite. And the voices
from the depths do not vibrate. They do not howl and peel the physical skin and the imaginary skin.
They do not hunt in my sleep. On the other side, these tears were not ocean.
I pulled back my arms away from the broken pieces of the mirror. I saw you in the hundred copies of
your world laid on the tiled floor. And you were the blue sky with a jet cruising on your face. The sun
was resting on your shoulder but the air was no longer mine.
January 28, 2017
Writing Pro
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It is afternoon and the clouds outside are fairly scattered palette of gray and white. There is no blue
sky to be seen, not even a trace. The ground and the pavement ten story below are wet from the
previous shower the last time I look out of the window. Many people will find this kind of afternoon
perfect time to cuddle or to prepare tea and maybe nibble the chocolate cupcake they have in the
fridge, then launch the Netflix app and to chill.
Cuddling is far from my priorities, I consider this as an ancient artifact hidden somewhere in the
Amazon rainforest, covered by layers of roots and moss, decaying branches of trees and carcasses
of animals. (I am not sobbing yet).
I have a Netflix installed in this device. There is a chocolate cupcake in the refrigerator - a loot from
last night lunar New Year dinner; but it also dawn on me I am on a 24 hour fast. I am punishing myself
for my latest episode of gluttony.
So I come to the conclusion maybe this is the perfect time to write and tell the whole world how
boring my afternoon is. And here I am, facing a laptop, fingers hovering above its keyboard, trying to
make sense of the blank white space in front of me.
But guess what? I ended up planning for a new blog with the following ideas:
1.) To hone the basic writing and editing skills expected of a professional writer: "Would the New
Yorker publish this shit?" as opposed to my personal blog, where just I post anything.
2.) To be my home blog as a struggling writer.
3.) To build the habit of writing: to show up and do my job, whether I am motivated/inspired or not;
whether the Muse will be there or not.
4.) To publish creative outputs about things that fascinates or bothers me.
5.) To create good content worth of reader's time and short stories that begs the question wouldthe-new-yorker-publish-this-shit.
6.) Hopefully the blog will receive money at least USD 100 monthly, to keep up with expenses.
7.) To gather 1000 true fans as David Kelly put it in his interview with James Altucher. Gasps!
Yes, a new blog on top of this BARELY UPDATED blog. Some years ago I trimmed my life list from 18
major goals down to eight goals. Number one goal in this list is to be a writer and tell good stories.
Hate to admit this, but there are days -- a lot of days -- I feel this dream is always slipping away. That I
am squandering my limited time in this world.
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