What would compel a man- and a decorated man at that- to take his own life?

Surely columnists and bloggers will expend reams of newsprint and precious bandwidth to contort themselves in trying to explain the religious and moral wages and sociological significance of such an act, but we will never know if anyone captures in precise words and images the murmurs of that which burdened him. Many will toss around the names of Hume, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, but only one can explain what did him in.

Many will say it is a sin; others will counter that it is an act of bravery. I think it is cowardice: is it not more heroic to stay alive and suffer? But what do I know- I am only a blogger. If we could ask any one who took the plunge, any one who held the cold comfort of a gun to their chest, then we would probably hear them say: "You don't know my name."

Only your own heart can define funny, and only your heart can illustrate tragic. The questions you ask will not necessarily be the same as those we do, and who is to say you have not found the answer?

In the meantime, here we all are: sociable yet desolate, each of us waging our own war, looking for our own separate peace.

For years Lamplighter, Polaris and MJ have been meeting just before Chinese New Year and exchange tikoy among themselves. What is a tikoy, you ask? (How do you translate tikoy to English, I ask.) It is a delicacy made of flour and sugar, fried after you dip it in a beaten egg. This year Rai and I joined in.

MJ coaxed Rai into gracing us with tales of woe, his heartbreak in the last year. Rai had been missing in action until recently, when he resurfaced on Facebook. Last week he showed up in the flesh with his hair at shoulder length. Many times he is mistaken either for Jesus Christ or a drug addict.

MJ, on the other hand, regaled us with the tribulations of motherhood, asking tips on how her baby can get a lighter skin tone.

MJ said she was surprised to find out on her wedding day that the wedding ring is worn on the right hand. Lamplighter and Polaris protested, until The Fiancee's mother chimed in to affirm that it is, indeed, worn on the right hand. (She makes it her business to listen in on all of this, and I report this not with amusement or contempt. Tell me who your friends are, my child, and you tell me who I am.)

Lamplighter and Polaris are shocked.

With this damning evidence, I deduce, through my immense powers of observation and reasoning, that when a woman says she did not know that the guy is married, then it must be true, since women have been looking at the wrong hand.

Of course, it could be that the guy is not wearing the ring at all- but still, this observation is a breakthrough. Something worthy of a tikoy celebration.

With the advent of Facebook, the global village got even smaller.

I applied once to be a customer service representative in a contact center in Shaw, and I got along well with this guy who was recruited from Bicol. We got to be Facebook friends, and I have since found out he has a friend who happens to be the brother of somebody I worked with in the previous company I worked for.

In the past four to six weeks, I have been getting many friend requests and invitations to reunions from grade school and high school mates. One may place the blame on the holidays and the nostalgia they evoke- with Christmas parties and family reunions in abundance- but the holidays have passed and the frequency with which I get these Facebook requests has not declined. Some of them I don’t remember: not the face, not the name.

Which bothered me a lot. I mean, these people added me as their Facebook friend, so I must have made some impact on them. One may argue that they hate me and want to find out where I live so they can exact revenge, but still- that means I made an impression. And they don’t register, which means a) I was an insensitive, self-absorbed lout; b) I have a really crappy mental bank; c) my childhood was very painful, so I blocked out many memories; d) I should watch out for Alzheimer’s; or, more likely, e) they were wallflowers back then. (Not that I was a very popular kid myself.)

So I thought, Whatever happened to all those freaks and geeks I used to know? And those dorks who might have known me, but I didn’t know were worth my time?

By typing names and clicking on their friends lists, I got myself up-to-date (well, as up-to-date as a social network would allow anyway).

I found out that some of friends are working abroad. Most of them work in Doha or Dubai, but I don’t know what kind of work they have been doing. One guy looks like he is an engineer, and there is a girl who listed herself as a waitress in a European cruise line.

Girls I was romantically involved with are married or have children. Oh, and girls I did not have romantic interests in (even girls you thought nobody would take an interest in), they also have a family of their own. And that got me into thinking, What have I been doing with my life?

I’m 29 years old, but it has been only four years since I got out of college. True, I stopped going to college for a couple of semesters, and I took units in Education along the way, and, at one point, I worked while studying at the same time, but I feel like I should have done more.

Look at me. I have been in the call center industry for five years, and what do I have to show for it? I don’t have a car, or a flat of my own. This is why people don’t go to reunions. You don’t get to show off. You think, “All those years I toiled in college, thinking about how I was pushed around by the bully, how I’m going to show him, and all I got are these pimple scars.”

Well, not just pimple scars. I have a license to teach in secondary public schools, and I have boxes of books.

And I’m happier to inform you that, after being seven years of being together, my girlfriend and I are getting married in May.

It's that time of the year again when everyone pretends to make New Year's resolutions.

When you've reached 29, you must have heard them all: I'm going to save up this year, I'm going to be committed to my diet, I'm going to quit smoking, I'm going to do this, I'm not gonna do that anymore- but you know that everything will be forgotten even before Holy Week rolls around. Which should give you a reason to flagellate yourself. Hey, there's a New Year's resolution you don't have to keep the whole year round.

All this began a few decades ago, when a teacher- possibly an English teacher or a Values Education teacher- having come back from Christmas vacation, had this brilliant idea to make her pupils list resolutions.

Compelled to teach yet still reeling from the daze of the holidays, the teacher comes up with a task that would allow her to take on a supervisory position. The pupils would be quiet in their seats, and she would be able to instill morals in her pupils. Presto! the perfect task!

Since then, this task has transformed into a hollow tradition. In all likelihood, the invention of the New Year's resolution was meant to reflect on the past year and to take away what you can from it to be a better person in the coming year. But why wait till the end of the year, when you can also do that on your birthday. And isn't that what Holy Week was supposed to be for?

Also, what could be so possibly wrong with you that you have to make resolutions every year? Does it mean that every year you fix something wrong with you, you also acquire something new- something wrong- to fix the next year?

Really, the only resolution worth keeping....

The acquittal of Hubert Webb et al brings more pain than joy.

If you were in the shoes of these seven guys- or any one of their family members- and you have been innocent all along, how extremely frustrating it must be to have spent all those 12-15 years in prison, away from your family and stripped of your freedoms.

If they were guilty of the crime, regardless of what the Supreme Court says, then it is still unfair because they are getting away- no matter that they have served time.

And if you were Lauro Vizconde, how are you supposed to feel? What if you have built wells of hatred? Now you're being told you have been wrong to harbor all these ill feelings toward these people all these years? Where do you go from here? If they are innocent, then that means the criminals are still on the loose. Then we are all back to zero.

Which makes it even more disheartening for the public. How do you believe in a justice system like this?

All that being said, I am glad that the Supreme Court has decided to bring down a decision, rather than wait indefinitely for the DNA evidence to turn up.

Despite the great number of people taking the Metro Rail Transit, it seems like nobody is discouraged to ride the train. You may hear complaints about how hard it is to squeeze yourself in and to get out of it, but Php10-14, ten to twenty minutes of train ride saves you a lot of time (when compared to a bus ride) and covers a long distance. So you can say your money goes a long way ha ha.

This month, though, commuters have been complaining that you can't get in if you have presents with you. You'll have to unwrap it, so it's as if you've wasted your time trying to pack it.

Many question how effective this policy is, given that all the guards seem to do is poke their stick in, without actually looking at the contents, and without seeming to know what they are looking for. Despite all this, may I just say: It's a business and it is their prerogative to conduct such inspections. You may yell till you make yourself hoarse, but it is their policy to make. No one is forcing you to ride their train, so you can take the bus. Let us please stop feeling entitled to everything, as if the universe owes its existence to us.

Plus, you can work around it. You can wrap it in such a way that it will be easy to unwrap and to wrap it back. You can do the re-wrap in a mall's food court or a bench in the train station.

Anyhow, you might want to start not taking the MRT now, as plans have been afoot to hike the fares, with the government intending to stop subsidizing your rides. That's one more thing to be grateful for in the Noynoy administration, and one more thing to begrudge Gloria Arroyo.

Every man
is a world
unto himself,
complete and unfinished.

It is not as simple
as Mars and Venus,
though, that, too,
is true.

I may not know
how long you grew your hair,
or how far, or how hard
you combed;
but I know
you endured,
and that your fireworks
can not be contained.

You cannot touch
the depths of my wellspring,
or the sores of my sole;
but know
that I have fortitude,
and that my reach
can not be arrested.

You may be Garcia Marquez,
and I, Vargas Llosa,
but we are all
made of stars.

Gravity will constantly
pull us
all together-
that we may be
lodged
in the same firmament.

In a vote of 10-5, the Supreme Court yesterday declared the establishment of a Truth Commission by President Noynoy Aquino through Executive Order No. 1 unconstitutional.

Naturally, the decision was met with mixed reactions.

But few were as brazenly arrogant as Noynoy's own: "Nananawagan ako, sa mga nagbubulag-bulagan at nagbibingi-bingihan sa malinaw na panawagan ng taumbayan: huwag po sanang harangan ang aking tungkulin (I call on those playing blind and deaf to the clear call of the people: please do not keep me from doing my duty.)," said the president.

When somebody does not agree wholeheartedly with Noynoy's vision, they will only be good for name-calling: "nagbubulag-bulagan, nagbibingi-bingihan." The Supreme Court decision on the Truth Commission can only be unfair, even as the SC has ruled that the Executive Order is just that- unfair- for violating the equal protection clause provided for by the Cory Constitution.

If they truly have a box full of evidence, why don't they go to court?

Surprisingly, appointees to this commission who have agreed to be part of it, have been noted legal luminaries as well. Juan Ponce-Enrile expresses doubts that even an act of Congress would do it.

As Joker Arroyo has been saying over and over again: Noynoy should get his act together by choosing the right kind of advisers. His mother had Joker Arroyo, Jovito Salonga, and many others on her side. Who can he count on?

Some people have also been carping about the fact that 14 of the 15 justices were appointees of Gloria Arroyo, as if she was not bound by law to make those appointments, and conveniently forgetting that four of the five dissenters were also Arroyo appointees. All 14 of those appointments were well within her privilege, and, possibly excepting eventual Chief Justice Renato Corona (who was once her chief of staff), acceptable.

Of course, nobody blames the system that allows one president to field appointees to a full court; we only want to find fault with personalities. Why would Noynoy want to tinker with the system? That would be tantamount to an admission that the Constitution promulgated under his mother's administration has been deficient and defective.

"Hindi ako marunong sumuko pag palagay ko nasa tama ako," he says.

The Supreme Court vote, on this and other matters, will always be a political decision, as long as it does not conform to Noynoy's ideals of the true, the good and the beautiful.

In his Twitter page, Tim Yap announced that the winner of the jackpot prize of Php 741 million in the lottery is named Miko Morelos. The news, of course, was re-tweeted many times over.

Apparently, Yap based his declaration on a tweet from the Inquirer, possibly thinking that the Inquirer is a reputable source. And it is- except that the winners' names are not announced, for their own safety.

The tweet from the Inquirer read: "One winner from Luzon confirmed (Miko Morelos).” Subsequently, Yap posted: “Eto na, PCSO confirms one winner—his name is Miko Morelos. He gets to take home the P741.2M peso Grand Lotto 6/55 Jackpot! #magtagokana!” He followed it up with: “And guess what? Miko Morelos is on twitter! @mikomorelos I already sent a request. He protected his tweets already. #afraidforhislife.”

As it turns out, Morelos was the Inquirer reporter who broke the news that the prize has been won finally. Read how it affected his life here, and you may also want to check out the Facebook fan page created for him.

Yap did apologize eventually, but what rankles is that he enveloped his apology with this: "Hindi ko po intensyong manggulantang ng buhay ng tao." (interview in Saksi, the TV newscast) Given those tweets, what did he expect he was going to cause? What would it benefit him- or anyone else, for that matter- to disclose the identity of the winner of the pot? Was he sorry that he leaked the name, or that he leaked the wrong name?

One remembers that when Justin Timberlake flew in, Yap announced that Jessica Biel was with him. Which was later proved to be untrue. It looks like in his bid to be prime paparazzo, he has only succeeded to show he cannot be counted on to check the facts, or to be mindful of the grave consequence of his actions, or to show regard for another person's well-being. He is not worthy to be part of the media, and he is losing credibility, if he had it to begin with.

There are very little but crucial things that aren't understood about friendships. 

Friends should not leave their friends for anything that isn't greater than friendship. Note: There's nothing expressly greater than friendship.

Friends don't grow up. Friendship is the human equivalent of the fountain of youth. 

Friends are indispensable. 

Time is the best gift you give your friends. Only occasionally rivaled by the latest Ipod or a killer scarf.

Friends should not be made to do anything. Friends and friendships are simple and simply the best things in life.

***

"For John was running, and this was terrible. Because if you ran, time ran. You yelled and screamed and raced and rolled and tumbled and all of a sudden the sun was gone and the whistle was blowing and you were on your long way home to supper. When you weren't looking, the sun got around behind you! The only way to keep things slow was to watch everything and do nothing! You could stretch a day to three days, sure, just by watching!"
- Dandelion Wine

***

"It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up."                                                                                  - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Yesterday afternoon The Fiancee's sister, Gladys, asked if we were inviting any ex'es to the wedding. Naturally, I'm not inviting anyone, and I teased The Fiancee that hers have run into problems of- among other things- portliness, that she wouldn't want to invite any of them. She said, though, that she wouldn't mind inviting Diether Ocampo, after Gladys reported she thought she saw Diether Ocampo in a mall, and, knowing how The Fiancee is crazy about him, asked her if she is inviting him to the wedding.

McKinley High School had had a glorious past, they are the leader in this field. As the years went by, the choir continued sex scandal, scandal, many talented young people have quietly left. Now, the choir became the "South Guo" and eccentric student's "safe haven." Will optimistic by nature to accept the principal task entrusted by this daunting: reshaping the image of McKingley choir to create another brilliant. Will not alone - because he has a beautiful female teacher Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays played) the "full adjuvant."

No posts for three months now.

Legacy of An Adopted Child
Author Unknown

Once there were two women,
Who barely knew each other.
One is in your heart forever,
The other you’ll call mother.

Two different lives,
Shaped to make yours one.
One became your guiding star,
The other became your sun.

The first gave you life,
And the second taught you how to live it.
The first gave you a need for love,
And the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality,
The other gave you a name.
One gave you the seed of talent,
The other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions,
The other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile,
The other dried your tears.

One gave you a family,
It was what God intended for her to do.
The other prayed for a child,
And God led her straight to you.

And now you ask me
Through your tears,
The age old question through the years.
Heredity or environment…
Which are you a product of?
Neither, my darling… neither,
Just two different kinds of love.



(blogger's note: i read this poem from cribs orphanage philippines... i felt
inspired when i read this and i just want to share this to all of you...)

=polaris=

On Friday night I went to sleep after having been awake for nearly 24 hours. At 1 a.m. I found myself half-awake with an itchy left eye. I got up and saw that it was red and swollen. I told my mom about it and she said I could try applying vapor rub on the rings under my eye. I didn't think that would do anything, but she and my stepfather assured me it would alleviate the pain.

Have you ever hated the ending of a drama/movie so bad you ended up depressed like all your endorphins were sucked out of your body? I have.

Bidam was the most pitiful character I have ever known, I never thought that he will end up like that, he just didn't deserve it. If anyone deserved a happy ending, it’s him. It was just so awful, after everything that happened to him and after the way people treated him, to kill him like that in the end was just too much. Give the guy a break! Sheesh.

He had never known love. He was abandoned by his mother when he was just some days old. Then he was taken under the wing of his master who had treated him quite nicely at first, but after a horrible incident, he lost even that. After that incident, his master never trusted him again, always expecting the worse from him. I really felt for him in this part, granted what he did was really horrible, almost unforgivable actually, enough to rival Hitler’s cruelty. But to abandon the child emotionally was just heartbreaking. More than ever, Bidam needed his master then, more than ever, the master should have taken careful understanding of the child to put him in the right path. Wasn’t that what masters were for? To admonish when you made a terrible mistake? To guide and to help? More so, when he was the closest thing to a parent Bidam had ever had. But no, the master chose to subject the child to a self fulfilling prophecy when he put a cold emotional distance between them. It really tore at my heart.

Then there was his mother, the mother who even in her last breath never acknowledged him, refering to him as something she had already thrown and had no need for. Ouch, really.

All his life what he only wanted was acceptance. He struggled so much, always trying to prove himself worthy of people’s affection and trust, but sadly, nobody gave that to him.

And then there was the ending. Sheesh, talk about forced tragedy. Fine he needed to die, but was there really a need to make it so brutal? What with like fifty stab wounds, with your intestines spilling everywhere while the woman you love can’t do anything but watch? Was there really a need for that except to vainly make the ending as tragic and as dramatic as the sinking Titanic? What exactly did it add to the theme? The brutality of his death was just unnecessary.

I just can’t stop protesting, the writer was just too cruel to him because even at the end, nobody even reached out to him to atleast give him a semblance of acceptance he so desperately needed. I would have been pacified if he was given something as simple as a hug to let him know that he was actually loved. He deserved atleast that much.

=polaris=

(blogger's note: it took me a long time to write this because I was really pissed off.)

On Monday morning, Sen. Jamby Madrigal was a guest on Mike Enriquez's radio show.

On early Monday morning, we were watching a TV variety program deliver some of the news.

An actress-politician's car was stolen, and she said: "Kinuha nila ang kotse ko nang walang kagatul-gatol." (They got my car without a fuss.)

To which Lamplighter's mother shot back: "Para namang magpapaalam pa sila na nanakawin nila 'yung kotse nya?" (Does she really expect them to tell her that they are out for her car?)

Upon which the scenario fell upon me: Three thugs ring her bell and say, "Good morning, ma'am. We're hear to steal your car."

Then the anchor tells us about a palaboy (a woman living in the streets), which she pronounces
pa'-laboy, the stress being on the first syllable. Or is that syl-la'-ble?

The reporter tells us the palaboy is a regular palaboy. Which makes Lamplighter wonder if there is a probationary palaboy, which then prompts me to ask if there is a semi-palaboy.

So here comes Sen. Jamby Madrigal saying she has seen the error of her ways.

In trying to paint a bad picture of presidential hopeful Manny Villar, she took potshots at his propensity for hiring celebrity endorsers. When confronted with the fact that a celebrity endorsement had helped her get to where she is now, she claims to believe that it was a mistake. In alienating Judy Ann Santos as a voter, and her tiny gang of followers, how many votes did she think she was gaining?

Let's skip that numbers part. By her very position as a presidential candidate, this was obviously not a simple expression of ethical beliefs. If she had expressed regrets at such campaigning strategies, say, a year ago, then her remarks may bear consideration. Now she's just trying to get herself out of a mess she created for herself, although it was meant for another contender.

Moreover: Just because you're a vegetarian does not mean you shouldn't know what your people are eating. It behooves her as a public servant- and more so as a candidate for president- to know these things. Who knows how far this excuse can go? If I were running- and I am Catholic- does it mean I should be unaware of how other religions work, and therefore be insensitive to them?

Here's hoping she now knows how much salted eggs and a kilo of galunggong (a variety of fish) cost.