Christmas 2014

Maligayang Pasko po sa ating lahat!

Just a little share...

Just a little share...

2012, I had both Christmas and New Year's eve dinner at the steps of Puregold Molito having a sandwich and a soda by myself...

At the time, I thought I was kind of a tough s.o.b., roughing it for the sake of the job.

Now, when I look back, I still think it is awesome to be able to sacrifice for the sake of a good job but I no longer think I'm a tough s.o.b. for doing so.

Truth is, no one wants to be away from family on a Noche Buena or a Media Noche...

No one... including yours truly.

Even if I were to be throwing it down with the best team in the universe... no team beats the team you were born into... especially on Christmas or New Year's eves.

Thems the breaks though, as they say... Such is such, my darling dear, until such a time that it is no longer such... or until the last pence is paid.

In short, ganun talaga ang buhay, parang life lang... paikot-ikot... ang mahilo taya! Lol.

Life isn't giving anybody lemons because life totally sucks. Actually, when life gives one lemons, many a time life is only teaching one how to make good lemonade.

So here I am again this year it looks like... 

I'm going to make me some good lemonade.
---<--@

My mom and I did some Christmas shopping yesterday. We were on a meager budget but we managed to stretch it. We had a nice lunch after.

In the afternoon, my mom did all the wrapping for me as I was so tired. I came back from my Friday shift in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, you see. Anyway, I didn't know my mom was really fast at wrapping gifts... she was like a gift wrapping machine! Lol.

Right now, when I think about it, I'm really glad I got most of my Christmas presents wrapped and ready. It makes me smile inside when I recall how my mom and I made it all happen in a day.

The gifts themselves are not that much but all my thought went into them with the simple hope of making my loved ones smile inside this Christmas.

I say they are "not that much" not because of what they cost but because I don't like giving gifts I myself do not like. When it comes to the principle of gift, my attitude is: If God decides that I should keep what I am giving, that I should be just as happy (i.e. in keeping them as I am in giving them away). For I would that I neither give nor like the act of giving rubbish gifts.

Because the giving is the gift. 

Therefore, if I were able to get what I really want to give to the all people I love this Christmas (and there are so many), I'd have gotten something different and incidentally, because the world is still the world, a tad bit more expensive. For now, however, such is such. 

Receiving gift is another matter, mind you, involving another aspect of liberality.

When the miracle of sharing is reversed and I am on the receiving end of gift, my focus when I meditate on those things is: That I should always be thankful as if the joy of the giver were added to my own.

(One can not fully "see into" the essence of these moments of sharing - in the exact moment - because these moments usually involve the welling up of many different emotions and therefore, are no so quiet... I guess that's why there's Boxing Day, December 26. To be thankful, save for pure miracles of grace, we often have to remember to remember).

In short, when on the receiving end, there is no such thing as an unworthy gift given in the true spirit of giving. There really are no rubbish gifts, both in giving and in receiving, only rubbish attitudes of sharing.

Because the giving is the gift. 

And this Christmas, the message shall be made known, once again, to all hearts of humanity that "The Giver is the gift", alleluia.

These things are a wonder to remember, are they not?

I guess this is the spirit of Gaudete Sunday which is the 3rd Sunday of the Advent Season. Joy in the midst of hope... Summer in the midst of winter...

Yes indeed, it's Gaudete Sunday today... it's going to be a great Christmas this year.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for precious memories like these!
---<--@

Freedom for Sale

Corruption is not inspiration.
Corruption is trouble and ruin.

Do not give in to corruption!

Citizen, who you are is why you work.

So just be the best you can be... 

And it will be well for all in the world.
---<--@

Is your freedom for sale?

Do not sell your vote. 

Those who would buy your vote
would buy your rights and your freedom too
if they could...

So don't sell yourself out, Citizen - reserve the vote.

If you can't vote or if you feel disinclined to vote,
for any reason you may think compels you, abstain. 

Reserve your vote.

Vote only when you are convinced of the power of the vote.

- selah -

Your vote counts. 

So vote to win!

A single vote might seem to you insignificant
and should tomorrow you came to believe this true, Citizen,
then tomorrow our democracy too might perish.

Consider the reliance of the stars,
how entire stars rely on the action of their most fundamental elements
to complete their life cycles.

Can we not shine bright as those stars, Citizen,
through the Three Foundation Stars of our Country?

Therefore,
whoever one may choose to elect by way of the ballot,
understand that when we, the people, vote...

we vote to win.
---<--@

End Modern Day Slavery

The poverty of war
and the poverty of hunger...

These are forms of modern day slavery
that weaken and impoverish the life
of entire human communities.

The former is a wholesale form of bondage
arising from lack of spiritual remembrance,
the latter from a lack of temporal means...

Both are evils that lend their strengths to each other. 

We can not effectively defend against one
and forget the other.

Think about it.
---<--@


I am committed to ending modern day slavery.

Immaculate Conception 2014

Let us implore our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, 
to help see our Country safely through Typhoon Ruby. 

May the Blessed Virgin Mary watch over our communities 
and keep our families safe...

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

---<--@

20141212 Friday 306H: Salamat po mahal naming Ina sa ibinigay ninyong awa, ang Bagyong Hagupit sa ami'y hindi naging sobrang lupit...

Thinking Forward 30 Years

So in a future world 30 years from now... 

When our technology has developed widely enough and deeply enough that the sum of all these innovations combined have become applications fully capable and mature enough to replace us in those fields of human endeavor traditionally reserved for the human professional...

What then?

If the maturity of our remembrances do not keep abreast with these advances, not to mention keep ahead of the evolution of the spirit of War, our own technology might eventually forget who we are and soon after become hostile to our common humanity.

Instead of being in our common service, our machines may become our masters and through them, War will gain another way of entering into our times.

The human realm is a temporal realm - time is for us what the timeless is for the angels. Time is the sea we human beings were created to swim in and prosper through - as a family of Nations.

Our exile was also a time not a place. Place is relative to time... 

Choice is important... The choice for peace. The choice to love. The choice to remember. The choice to accept. The choice to change and to be... The choice to say, "yes". 

Awakened freedoms awaken dreams and bring them forth in time.

These choices take us places... places arising from things we think about and do everyday.

Small indeed when compared to the immensity of the universe we inhabit...

A universe that itself was birthed from a single choice... a choice our Creator made for us... still makes with us and through us and for us - for the glory of His Name and for our good.

Here things rise and fall, but in the midst of all it's comings and goings, we know of things that stay and are for always - and these are not things.

Machines can never be made to understand or comprehend these deeper things of the Spirit. How can they? Our technologies are purely temporal constructs. But we human beings are not machines - a part of us shall always transcend, now and forever, of the physicality of all things temporal.

For we are the stewards of this realm of God's creation. This is how He made us. If we forget, it is our loss.

But how can we? All things seen and unseen proclaim His Peace.

Religion proposes this to our hearts - we react as if it were an expectation already in us, so that if we are generous to the call of faith, we are then made to discover the wonder of faith seeking understanding...

And we make a choice.

But even if one is not religious or have chosen to have no religion, it stands to naked human reason... If we do not take care of what we have on this planet, what little we do have left will soon leave us with the ebbing of the tides of time.

We are how we treat each other, and that is all.

- selah -

Here in the Philippines, our path in the short term as regards these takes us through to 2046... Half-way through, we have to prove our peace and pass the test, that we may carry on safely, assured of better times ahead.
---<--@

Bansa at Bukluran at Sambayanang Kanlungan

This is my most current attempt at expressing in the Filipino language, the key elements that by my accounting give rise to the particular character and sovereign being of our Republic undertaking of Country i.e Nation, State, Society = Country.
---<--@

Ating Pagka-Bansa
(Our Nationhood - Sovereign Foundation)

Pangngalan: Bansa na sa ati'y Sarili

Gawaing marunong: Pakikipag-kapwa tao (o ang Pagiging-makatao) at Pakikipag-diwang totoo (o ang Pagiging-makatotoo)

Lamang dunong: Kapayapaan at Katotohanan
---<--@

Ating Pagkaka-Buklod
(Our Statehood - Sovereign Expression)

Pangngalan: Buklurang Panglipunan

Gawaing marunong: Pakiki-bahagi (Pakikipag-ugnayan) at Pakiki-isa (Pakiki-atin)

Lamang dunong: Katarungan at Katiwasayan
---<--@

Ating Pagkikipag-Ayunan
(Our Society - Sovereign Motion)

Pangngalan: Sambayanang Ugnayan

Gawaing marunong: Pakiki-bayan at Pakiki-bayani

Lamang dunong: Kapatiran at Katapangan
---<--@

Bansa at Bukluran at Sambayanan ito ay ang -

Ating Pagka-Republika
(Our Country - the Filipino Spirit)

Pangngalan: Republikang Katigan o ang Republika ng Pilipinas

Gawaing marunong: Pakiki-baka o Pakiki-Pilipino

Lamang dunong: Kalayaan at Kasarinlan
---<--@

Pinoy Magiting

Sino ba ang mahal? 

Ano ba ang minamahal?

Galit ba o Pagmamahal, Pilipino?

Katapangan sa Pilipino'y
bunga nitong puso na sa ati'y likas
may bisa at bigkas, may ganda at lakas
kung mag-alab ay wagas...

Puso na sa ati'y
kung magmahal ay mabagsik,
na sa mata ng lupa't langit ay tunay,

at sa isip ng mga makakata'y napakakulay, 

na kung magpatunay ay masipag at mahusay 

pero kung magbigay ay mapag-angkin...

Dahil ang kagitingang taglay
ng ating pusong mapagmatunay,
marami man niyang anyo
ay mula lamang
dito sa iisa nating puso.

Pagmamahal Pilipino
na sa ati'y laging sumusubaybay
ang sa puso din sa ati'y pumipintig;
pagmamahal na sa para sa Minamahal
pa lamang palaging pinahihiwatig...

Dahil kung sa galit at kabuktutan
tayong mga Pinoy ay likas na sa puso'y dala,
wala na ring lungkot na dapat
sa puso nating mga Pinoy bumibisita.

Kung galit ang sa puso nati'y mas likas
at kung galit na rin pusong Pinoy
dito sa lupa pinaglihi't ipinanganak,
marahil ito'y isang bulag.

Dahil puso na sa galit lamang nakalagak
kailan man ito'y sa atin ay mag-alab
ay puno ng dilim na mapagwasak
at hindi ng mapaganking liwanag
na sa pagmamahal natin ay puno.

Sa minamahal ito'y bulag,
sa pagmamahal ito'y duwag,
sa sarili ito'y huwad.

Pero kung sa puso tayo'y sa pagmamahal
nang Minamahal nating Diyos ay itinagi
sa tapang ang giting ng Pinoy
kailan ma'y di pahuhuli.

Tapang na sa ati'y
may dalang bait at dunong,
tandaan natin na sana
kung mula saan isinusulong
dahil ito'y mula sa puso natin
na kung magmahal...

Ang paalala na lang sa Pilipino ay ganito -
parang alab na kung araw ay matindi uminit
at kung gabi nama'y liwanag na matahimik.

- selah -

Tapang nati'y pinapayagan
ng puso na rin nating
pagmamahal ang dahilan.

Hindi ito nadadala ng bilis
at hindi ito parang walang tulis,
malayo't maluwag magbigay tanaw
at walang kasing tindi ang tamis...

Dahil hindi kailanman sa galit
ang puso ng Pilipinas naging tapat,
ni kahit minsa'y hindi iyan naging
sapat sa puso nating lahat.
---<--@