The Commander and Me
December 31, 2004 
As it was always it had seemed, like mostly what happens, like in the years that passed, Yuri’s birthday was celebrated not on the very day he was born due to scheduling factors. If the day falls on a working day, we have to move it to a weekend date in order that the invited guests may be able come. So much fuzz ain’t it? Ha.ha.ha. I would laugh at myself thinking that in the generation of my kids, this sort of events took us into a lot concerns like the place where to celebrate, how much to spend, and who’s to invite and who’s to come. When I was a kid, our aunts or older cousins would just bake us some chiffon cake (at times without icings anymore) and some Chinese pansit and family-size Coca-Colas and then we neighborhood kids would just troop down to the table, and munch like we never eaten for the longest days. “Take a shower!” said my older cousin Minda as I head home from a torrid afternoon playing session, “ and eat” she would continue, “it’s your birthday today”. Without further adieu and introduction, we just sang happy birthdays and blew candles and ate cakes without icings on them and then we go back to playing like nothing happened. In some birthdays then, when person like Aunt Minda were gone, (she is now in Seattle working as a nurse), and nobody really cared whose birthday is it anyway, I just collect all my friends into our backyard and announce to them that it was my birthday and since it was my birthday, I am giving them one cheese curls one by one. Some would jump would glee while some of ‘em complain what a cheapskate I was. “It’s your birthday and all we get is this cheese curls?” I just said something like (my memory now a little feint) all of you are lucky because it is my favorite cheese curls (the one with a mouse posing as a cowboy and a gun on the package) and usually I informed them, I just kept them to myself in our bedroom and eat them alone. Now shut up all of you and let’s continue to cook the maya bird we just slingered earlier. They taste just like chickens, these birds, you know. When we were lucky in some days, we would cook a dove felled from a neighbor’s birdcages.
We would fish also in nearby ponds and tried to cook our catch in those younger days. The first time we cooked a Martiniko, the taste was just so bad that we puked it out. Despite knowing that we could exactly do nothing with our catch except to stare at it until it dies inside tin cans that we used as makeshift aquariums, we still continue to fish. I bet that’s why fishing is such a major pastime for grown up men in the States because it was just a lot of fun fishing. American men love to fish although most of ‘em need not fish no more to have food on their table.
So in the afternoons, we spend hours after hours sitting by the pond, talking of dreams when we grow up, and of rocketships and satellites in the sky, and aliens and kapres, and boats, while we wait for some fish to pull on our baits. Boats seem to be the favorite topic back then, although I ain’t particular why this was so. Perhaps as kids, we all want to sail into the unknown and see if the people and kids at the other side of the world looks and talks like us or dress like we do and have the same kind of food in their tummies. We had a neighborly friend named Dodong. He was not a regular in our group because of a very strict and recluse of a father. He was kinda weird and stupid that when his around, some of my friends would do some tricks on him when like one day a friend named Michael taught him how to use the sling by pointing it the other way around. And so a fairly size stone struck his forehead and he cried of course, running to his father. I was so worried about that particular incident happened so way back in the past that I could not forget it even up to know. One of the reasons why it stuck in my head is perhaps not mainly because of how tragic it was but it was more to the amazing discovery then of how stupid some kids like Dodong was. At first, I was just relaxing a bit and assume that Dodong was just playing dumb and would not really slinger himself on the face with the sling pointing at himself. But he did for goodness sake. He just pulled the rubber and hit himself. I got scared and felt a little guilty as a conspirator that I could not look him in the eye for days and years to come.
One particular memory is still about the hapless and clueless Dodong. One day he just got brave enough to escape in the afternoon when he thought his daddy wasn’t around the whole afternoon. So he came with us to go fish in a nearby pond. But alas, his father arrived home and immediately came looking for him. He said he was just fishing but his father said what could he do with the fish he caught? His daddy just went nuts and asked for our day’s catch—a milk can full of Martinikos. And for fear, we just gave the whole of them fish to Dodong’s Dad. We got worried about what might happened to our friend and as kids we always like to see some spanking of some other kids. But I believe that day that we were just concerned over Dodong so we followed him and his dad without getting noticed. From a place unknown to Dodong and his father, we sneak and see for ourselves if he would get the major spanking that we foresaw. But he didn’t. What happened was queer enough that it was for the books. Dodong’s father cooked the whole batch of the highly insipid Martinikos in just plain boiling water outside their yard, as if he knew that we were watching them and was warning as of dire consequences. And then he made Dodong eat all the boiled fish. Jesus, it was so achingly awful to see Dodong gobbled all the fish while his tears was running down from his eyes like a flood. Dodong did not play with us ever again even when he did grow up into a young man. By the way, Michael is now in Los Angeles as an emigrant. He sent pictures the last time and we could not believe he drives a red car that looked like a Lamborghini—but I believe he got it from some second hand store.
Back to the present. And so Tony, Russell and Sheva were with me yesterday with their kids celebrating Yuri’s grand day out. We made some discussion on the formation of our organization and when Evelyn finally sat down on our table, we mulled over the possibility of tapping resources from the health sector like doctors and nurses willing to assist us in medical missions in the future. Already, even while our constitution and by-laws are yet to be instituted, we had invites from TESDA for a livelihood seminar in Basilan. And by early January, we are heading to Sibuco for a reconnoitering activity, introducing ourselves to our pilot area and see for ourselves the geographical, societal, and economical make up of the locality. (See the proposed logo for PPRO below)
VERSE OF THE DAY. LUKE 1:37 : “For nothing is impossible with God”.
Jose Rizal : An Icon Management Test
December 30, 2004 
More than a hundred years ago, in Bagumbayan, shots rang out in the western sky and a man fell down without being able to face his assassins. He stumbled to the ground without being able to turn a complete three hundred sixty twist that he had labored to create when the word “Fuego!!!” rattled and hummed into the wind.
What courage does a man has to be able to muster enough resolve in order to face the unthinkable in the very instance of death. I have not known any man other than Jose Rizal, who could retain such composure, writing even what could be the greatest farewell ever written when he inscribed within the dim stonewalls put on him, a paean to this Motherland, a last goodbye. ….Adios patria adorada….Goodbye, my dear Motherland….
Jose Rizal is the man we see as an icon test, the standards we seek in order to size up our character. He has the courage that every Filipino needs in these times of the greatest trial to our nation’s character to rise above these seemingly unending bouts against poverty and corruption, that led the eventual fall of a once great and rich nation. We are still great now, but we have been much more in the past.
In his words, “the youth is the nation’s tomorrow”, and no patriotic words could ever be truer than this. The young amongst us are the rising stars that shall take us surging again towards the sky like a phoenix from the flame. They will be our last great hope to bend this stranglehold of misfortune and desperation that holds us down down like a monkey 
wrench. We, the Filipino people seem to have the perchance of pulling each other down that for every one man that escapes these desperation, a hundred lies naked and homeless in the streets and our daughters become whores that cater to fat-bellied thieves in the government and our sons are pushed to take up the hands of mischief and become hardened in crime and violence.
It is the moment for us to rebel and seek to put an end to this vicious cycle where generation after generation, we grow into a people lacking in extraordinary vigor and persistence. Our youth must survive this test and we must see our hero, the great Jose Rizal as a test of character for all of us, to emulate his discipline as a young shy creative student until the day he became the courageous young man that he had been, without thought to the benefit of the self but always to the benefit of the greater all, even in the very seconds that those murderous shots rang out in the wind-swept shores of Manila.
Every day we are bombarded with false icons and false gods. Movie starlets abound that goes gyrating in half-naked garments and they only instill the more animal instincts of our youth. What becomes then of our young but sex-crazed individuals who only seek the pleasure for the material self and puts away the passion and patriotism to contribute to the greater well-being of our country.
In politics, and in government service, we honor and put on a pedestal those that had fattened themselves with public money. They become our honorees with honoris causa here and honoris causa there. They become godfathers and godmothers to every betrothal there is in town and every loving child that are newly born. They become the toast of the town. The few ones that labor in honesty, like the man who rides a bicycle to congress, do not ever become a godfather to any weddings or a special guest in the openings of some fancy restaurants—at least not in the grandest scheme. We honor those that put us down. They are the cancers of our society.
Rich men within us just go walking past the hungered in the streets. They have lost their hearts towards their downtrodden brothers and sisters. The Lord Jesus Christ had once said: “Whomsoever said he loves God then hates his brother is a liar for how could he love God whom he could not see and yet hates his brother whom he could see”. We see them parading their charities when disasters come. They become listed in some foundations as the donor of this and the donor of that. That makes us wish that every day there is a disaster for it seems that there has to be some news-rich disaster that they come out from their mansions and castles in order to be part of some much talked about disaster.
Everyday, there is a disaster my brothers and sisters. Everyday, we see men and women who sleep in the streets and carry their young in their hungry arms even when it rains outside. We see infant crying in the night for they seek the milk of their mothers that are not there when they need them. They have no roof, no food, no water and no medicines to cure them. Yet, we pass by them like we do not see a daily disaster.
Everyday there is a disaster. Our laborers work for pittance and at times they earned lesser than that what is paid a mule. Yet, we do not see this as an everyday disaster. We see the earnings of these companies skyrocketing to the roof and yet the pay we earn moves like turtle. Net income increase for the year here, net income increase for the year there. Targets overlapped here, target overlapped there.
Yet our icons becomes them, those who seek not the hands of their brothers and sisters but labor and strive only so that they could build another mansion when they already have two, and looks forward to buy another car when they have already seven in their garages.
Our youth must see another form of icons. Of courage and discipline in order that we as a nation must rise from this quagmire of poverty and desecration of spirit. We must find new heroes to lead us forward, to move against the wind, to strive further even if the hill is so steep and the enemies are ever formidable.
Our youth today must become brave and patient. They must be industrious and resilient. Serious in their studies, and they must stop at nothing to gain more and more knowledge. At times we stopped when we see the difficulties are tremendous. We do not stop until we can build airplanes that will fly into the air or even rockets that shall roam and orbit the spaces above us.
We must promise not to recreate the mistakes of generations past. We must learn and rise from the ashes. Even when our young are just children now playing in the fields, we must invoke on them to please prepare themselves to become the people of the future, the builders of a rising nation, and then we shall rise up again like a phoenix from the flame.
And to start this uprising, we must all be prayerful to the Lord God for everything begins and ends from Him.
TSUNAMI! TSUNAMI!
December 28, 2004 
And the world was shook (literally it had seemed) by a legendary scourge known to man as Tsunami. It is a word of Japanese origin just like Haiku. Except for that one singular similarity in the country of nativity, everything else between the two Nippon words is farthest apart like the space that operates between Milky Way and Andromeda.
Unlike the dreaminess of a short lyrical poem, Tsunami refers to a giant accumulation of seawater, rising up steadily from a certain situs point where the earth’s core is violently disturbed—as in an earthquake underneath the ocean—and gradually builds up waves whose force exponentially increases with each nautical mile it navigates. Thus, the farther the shore hit, the higher the water rising to dry lands where the ill-fated inhabitants lay complacent and unawares and thus, the worse of disaster it becomes. Tsunami is one of the most unforeseen among all force majeure, and at the same time amongst the deadliest of all. Like serpents in the field, Tsunamis strikes when nobody is watching.
We grieve with sympathy for those who were lost in this yet another earthly disaster. The rumblings of nature are at times inconceivable but such is the way of the world.
At times we feel drowned into the abyss of disaster after disaster, and yet we try to persevere and survive past each tragedy because man by nature perseveres and survives any hardships he encounters—he has no choice but to rise up again like a phoenix from the sun. That was how man evolved through a prolonged and protracted adaptation to the climate and environment that surrounds him. When there will be a time that humans should wither, that would be the time that we will lost our spirit to go on and persist; to resist and struggle, to live and survive. Thus we see the early man of the ancient world taking each painful and slow step towards the preservation of the specie until he did know fire and the wheel allowed him much more distance in much lesser effort. He have seen fire and he had built arrows and molten wares, and then his existence become more sufferable with more food on the table and better armor against predators and fellow humans who only seek the blood of their own in their calloused hands. And so the specie persisted and humanity today finds comfort and solace that our ancestors have not withered despite the cruelty of their prehistoric environment.
At present, we are perturbed by the landslides and the hurricanes and the menacing super-typhoons that pursue our deepest fears—pursuing it like no other. And now, we are face to face with another juggernaut called Tsunami—one that strikes us from the back, and strikes us in its deadliest form. We must persist and stay faithful to the willings of our Lord. For it may be the harshness of fate that sorrowed our hearts every time we see the piling corpses on the glaring television screens, yet is also fate that allows us to persist and insist and traverse any hindrance to the survival of the specie. If there be a time as I said that we will lose sight on persisting to exist, we may lose the spirit that enlivened and emboldened our ancestors to take each step forward—no matter how difficult, no matter how hard.
We must find a way to survive this menace called Tsunami. Man must persist.
Hey Mr. Tambourine Man!
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy
and there ain’t no place I’m going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song
for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following
you.
Though I know that evenings empire has returned into
sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not
sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet,
I have no one to
meet,
And the ancient empty
street’s too dead for dreaming.
—Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine
Man
It’s Christmas Day! We hope we can have all the gadgets that our hands could ever get—-cellphones, internet, telephone, blueberries, Palm Pilots, walkie-talkies—whatever, so just as we can greet as many friends as possible.
I want to greet Tony and Russell and others but Tony must be at his Mom’s house as usual like in the past years( I spent some memorable Christmases there when we were in highschool) and Russell must be in Sibuco right now. I had some friends in mind whom I could only reach through the cellphone but the darnest thing happened when I lost my unit sometime ago and never had any replacement since then. But Merry Christmas to every one and to every soul that may have gotten lost in the abyss of blogosphere and found themselves lost and peeking into this site.
The wife, Evelyn, as usual prepared the Noche Buena but we were so tired doing some last minute buying spree and it was already morning that the kids were up and about, eating whatever was prepared. There were just a lot of celebrations the past week that I did not feel good eating any meat or any cooked food for that matter and I just wallowed into bowls after bowls of fruit salad. By the volume and variety of food on our table, this year saw us having lesser. There are just a lot to spend for like gifts for the kids and the grandsons and granddaughters—I bet you could not have the best of all worlds.
And we are planning to buy a new bicycle for the second child, Yves. Partly, the reason why the food on our Noche Buena table is much lesser now is because we are planning to have the neighborhood kids in our house today for kiddie games again. Last time they have the most native of pansit that one could ever find, but now they may have some hotdogs and spaghettis, a little occidental dish for them. We may have lesser this year but having the neighborhood kids for a little fun makes the day more meaningful for us—and much, much more eventful than any Christmas in the past. I see my kids growing and I delight to see them starting to have relationships with other kids around. Reminds me how blissful we were in our childhood when there are more kids around to play with us.
Now, that I finally became more and more a Christian, I was dreaming of hams in my sleep, but no hams on the table. I wonder how it taste like.
We all have our Christmas stories but what is this year’s storiest of all stories? What does this day mean to all of us? Is it merely a day of great food and merriment? Do we understand what we are celebrating and whose day we are glorifying? Who is Christ to us and how does He fit into this bedlam of joy and pleasure?
I do not mean to be preachy. I apologize. As what Bono quipped in his live rendition of the U2 song Silver and Gold, “I don’t mean to bug you, huh.”
This afternoon, I was retreating to my bed and put on some MP3 music, the ones I hacked from file-sharing modules. I have stopped hacking lately since my conscience clarified the fact that downloads of this kind may be a form of thievery. Some thief we are at times. Although some Supreme court in some U.S. states decided that file-sharing is legal.
And so I lay there on my bed reading the papers and Bob Dylan got to croon some old-time ditties. His song “Like A Rolling Stone”, the one with “once upon a time you look so fine…” just got recently honored by the Rollingstone magazine as “The Greatest Rock and Roll Song” of all time.
And funny how Bob’s voice reverberated through my head, as I was slowly lulled into half-sleep. He kept on singing in an almost yelping manner, “….Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man sing a song for me….I’m not sleepy and there is nowhere I am going to…..Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man sing a song for me…In a jingle-jungle morning I come following you….”.
Then I saw the streets in my head and many of those homeless people in their dirty and tattered clothes. When I was in Manila, I use to pass by these people through Recto St., a place I frequent almost daily as I head towards San Beda College where I was reviewing for the bar examinations. Through Sta. Mesa, Cubao and Taft Avenue, they go walking and sleeping in the sidewalks that everywhere I see them, they seem to have the same faces and the same clothes, as if they were clones that was generated into a whole specie of man, in order to suffer and grieve, for the sole purpose of letting the world know how grave some suffering of man is.
In my last Sunday in Manila that year, a man with a cart kept on following me as I walk down Taft Avenue towards La Salle where I was to take the darnest examination of all. I panicked a little since it was so early in the morning and the daylight was not yet come, thinking the man in ragged clothes might pull a knife on me and make just another entry in the crime statistic. But I cleared all of my senses and stopped walking, and earned enough courage to ask him why he was after me. He pointed to the food I was carrying in a plastic bag. Without any hesitation, I gave it to him. I was expecting some food handouts from my brods in the Alpha Rho Lambda Law fraternity that day anyway, as part of the bar operations. And I still remember his face. He wasn’t that old but some sanity was lost on his face. I have reckoned then that hunger and desperation could make a person lost sanity slowly bit by bit, day by day and moments after moments as the pangs of hunger gradually eats up the person. I thought then that if I had a lot of more food then, I would have given more. He was singing to me, “…hey Mr. Tambourine Man…sing a song for me…”.
Then I saw Koming in my head as Mr. Dylan repeats and repeats his glorious verses. I do not know why the hell he was called Koming. I have never heard a moniker like that before. Maybe his real name was Nicomedus, in deference to some Greek icon—and it becomes Koming in the shortest breath of the tongue.
He is an old man living on the streets; in fact he rolls his linen in the vicinity just fronting our house. He had no relations, or more particularly he had lost relations, or to put it more clearly, his relations does not tend to him as what was expected.
Koming was a regular tambay in the streets of Lustre St. in his healthier days. If I am not mistaken, the last time I saw him in fair physical condition, he was peddling cigarettes along the sidewalks of downtown Zamboanga. In many previous days and months or years ago, I saw him often with a hammer in a hand and some other carpenter’s tool in another, and a cigarette was always tuck behind his ears. In legends told now by those who knew him well, they said that the old man did gain some wealth in his younger days that he had owned cows and traded rice by the sacks. I see this particular story as mere legend for how could he have fallen so steeply into hard times. Such things are staple of movies, aren’t they? Now as I see him, he has completely nothing and he is as raggedy as any person living in the streets, with dirt darkening his skin and his clothes do not fit him no more.
About months ago, Koming fell ill and stopped selling cigarettes in a corner of the downtown streets. He just fell ill one day and the sickness so bad that he could not tend to his own necessities anymore. He could not even attend to the proper manner of nature’s call, and thus began his downright desperation. The owner of the house where he had rented a room for quite sometime now had asked him to leave as his immediate surroundings became so unsightly with feces and urine. His other relations living in the same barangay refused to allow him shelter mainly for reasons that I have mentioned above (he could not tend on his own). He has no wife and children, that was his main inadequacy; for if he ever did had a child, somebody would have tended to him through a difficult sickness like he has now where only the loved ones could have the patience to care through such often sickening situation.
And so Koming slept on the streets just near us. So near that in the beginning I talked to him for some while and took note that not only was his movement was so weakened and limited, but his mind is already much clouded. He blubbers and talk about things without connection to anything he said previously. The effect of stroke tells on him so gravely but at some moment when I converse with him, he becomes lucid and suddenly talked like his mind is intact. I wonder if he was just making up his blubbering act. I feel at times that it was only his defensive mechanism to stave off the embarrassment of his situation. You see I am insane already so I am excused for looking so dirty and smelling so awful, he must have declared to all of us by pretending to be mentally retarded. At times, he cries when I give him food and I could see that he was trying his best to keep the tears back. I thought for once then, that this man might just be playing dumb.
And now it’s raining outside, that for every drop of rain, my mind imagines how that man must be feeling in the coldness of the night. Among the things that have I delivered to him was a spread of foam, which I cut out in order for him to sleep a little more comfortable, a pail where water could be poured for washing, a pair of slippers and some plate. I think I forgot to give him some blankets.
It is not that the relations have abandoned him altogether. They give him regular food. There are even some richer relations that would pass by and leave him packs of cigarettes and tetra-packed orange juices. When there are days to celebrate in the community, like Christmas, someone would hand him some real cooked food. It is mainly the unsanitary condition of his person that makes it harder for his relations to take him in. So he had been built a little wooden shack nearby us, and he passes these kind of cold nights in a house without a door with only a huge opening and nothing much else. No window, no ceiling. One day I whispered to him “you know, you just have to be contented with these things. Some street people could not even expect food handouts on such a regular basis”. At least, I said to him, he has food on a fairly regular basis.
For once, I felt nothing but scorn against his relatives living nearby for I believe they must at least exert more patience in order to give him some more relief. But there are things that we just could not meddle into. And there are reasons perhaps, that we do not know. They just wouldn’t take him into their shelter.
When Koming sometimes appear near our gate, while I wash the jeep (despite his weakness, he could fairly move around albeit in a very slow pace), I take him in and give him a thorough shower—so thorough that I scrubbed his body with soap and water. I could not believe I was doing it. Dirt I could feel easily in my hands and the smell was at some moment excruciating. But I overcame any inhibitions because every time I see his very dirty figure, I tend to squirm and feel extreme repulsion to the fact that there is a man like him whose body has become so desecrated by lack of attention. I believe that despite poverty and nothingness, no human should live like dogs on the streets. And besides, such pity overwhelms me every time I see the person that he had become.
Yet, hours after I washed his body, he dirtied himself again by just flaying his body all over the muddied ground. I did wash him again after a week when the time to wash the jeep came up again and I gave him some of my clothes. Still, Koming would dirty himself again as soon as he goes back into the streets. I finally gave up and deduce that I just could not have the time to tend for him as much as I desire to for I have some family duties that keeps me until early evening just driving and keeps me wide awake so deep into dawn singing lullabies to my youngest daughter Evette, who is just four months old by now.
I often asked the Lord in the night if I already measured up to what was expected of a Good Samaritan? Of course, I could not take Koming into our house even if I want to for the wife would go crazy. And besides, the apartment space is already too small already for us. I felt that I must help more but what more I could do except to include him in my prayers that whenever soon he would depart this world, certainly Koming shall enter the Kingdom of God, for he had been so poor and suffering while he is here on earth and blessed is he like the Lord Christ said.
Actually, I could see the food being delivered to him had become more regular these recent days but at times I am disturbed thinking that he might not have anything on his stomach in any particular moment. But all I do is worry and become so tired in the night that I just have no time to tend to his needs. At times, I deliver some bread and water to him in the middle of dawn because at times he just comes up into my mind. In recent weeks, my pocket was so tight that I wasn’t more inclined to buy bread for the night. You see, the wife buys bread in the morning. If I want to give to Koming, I still have to buy some bread in the afternoon after I fetch my kids from school. The morning breads are usually gone when I woke up often late into the day.
In rainy days like these, there I go again thinking of that sick old man as if I was his own keeper. This afternoon, I saw someone gave him some Christmas food. I saw some bottles of water. I see that he just needs some blankets. Maybe, there are some unused blankets somewhere in the cabinets.
“Hey Mr. Tambourine Man sing a song for me. I’m not sleeping and there is nowhere I am going to.”
That’s the song of Koming. How I wish our relief organization were already up and about by this time for “Mr. Tambourine Man” is the song sang by many Komings in the streets of our country.
VERSE OF THE DAY. From St James. Chapter 2 and Verse 17: “ Even so faith, if it hath no works, is dead, being alone.”
Another Midweek Mass
ST. JOSEPH CHURCH
Yesterday was Wednesday again, a midweek day that beckons to me some liveliness in spirit. One of the reasons on the high of spirits is the Midweek Mass being held in St. Joseph Church at Nunez St., just five blocks away from home. But ever since, Wednesday is such a day of favor for me due to many other countless reasons. In no particular order, here are some reasons. Wednesday is alive because:
-
–When I was working in the government some years ago and at times felt so drowned in the grinding routines of office work—with tons of paperworks and at times with tons of nothingness—Wednesday gives me a bright hope that sooner or later this week will end one way or another.
–When I lost my job and became a home buddy, Wednesday is the first day of basketball games after non-basketball days of Monday and Tuesday, and from that day, the Philippine Basketball Association games comes every other day. At present, they go three straight days. The ballgames somehow stave off extreme boredom from having nothing to do. Yes, I am a great basketball fan ever since I was in highschool—last night, I was treated with a very well-played game according to Norman Black when the Purefoods Hotdogs stifled off a late run by FEDEX to win by hairline. It was one of those games that was decided by whether the last shot would go in or go out.
–On Wednesday, the people’s mind seem to be in lightheadedness, not as lightheaded on weekend but I have observed that in this day, people tend to go walking on the streets more than any other day outside the days leading to Sunday, that is, on Friday and Saturday. So on this day, I find myself more incline to go downtown because the streets are livelier with many strollers and walkers filling the sidewalks of Zamboanga.
–About four years ago, my favorite TV sitcom was aired every Wednesday(now the re-runs are on Monday night). Wonder what this program is? It’s none other than “Friends” with Ross, Joey, Chandler Bing, Rachel, Peebie and Monica. It is always a happy show, just like “Happy Days” with the very young Ron Howard and “Three’s Company” with old Mr. Apple.
–And when I was so young and so restless—that is, still having a lot of gimmicks with friends from college —Wednesday was a hint that the weekend is about to come.
–And lastly, I just like Wednesday for some reason I could not point at. It’s hard to pinpoint what this reasons are, so I’d better give up pointing at all.
And now I have this fancy for Wednesday midweek mass held at the newly refurbish St. Joseph Church. I just felt homely in that place for one because I have been there before on frequent task for my wife, to pay for an offering for the repose of the soul of her father the late Dr. Domingo Calderon. I have been there so often then that I almost knew the cashier there on a name-by-name basis—she was Saling. When I came from Manila two years ago, my life and views greatly changed by the visions of Christ sitting on the throne and throngs of angels hovering behind Him, I always find some moment to sit in the empty caverns of the St. Joseph church, in a time when church-goers are not around, thinking I must pray to the Lord every time I had the chance.
Back then, I wasn’t as comfortable praying in a Christian way but as the days passed, this discomfort with my new faith has slowly become a passing thing. Now, I planned to frequent my midweek mass for the Lord said, “Pray to the Lord God…and love Him with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy mind”. What is a man of faith then if we do not pray in the churches? How am I spiritually awakened if I isolate myself from the Church that Christ had built through Peter? And how could I imbibe others to follow this path towards a spiritual awakening if I lay silent and enclave in my own unwillingness?
In the days to come, I may frequent the regular Sunday masses but the time may still not be at hand. I have been comfortable with St. Joseph because nobody seem to know me there and nobody would be astounded to see me there and the place is not as frequented as other churches. You see, if for reasons you might ask why these things bother me, I have come from a muslim family and it his highly that some problems might arise if relations would see me praying in the churches. There might be some problems.
The Swordsman Is About To Enter
The Swordsman is About to Enter
(An Elegy: Fernando Poe Jr. 1939-2004)
By Y.B. Masdal a.k.a. The Daily Prophet
The swordsman is about to enter
Make him his way, for neither
witches nor shamans shall be of courage
To seek the flightiness of his saber that was molded
In a fire that burned like the oceans of fire;
There are fist to behold but be aware of his
For it rattles through the roof and the adversary
lays trembling like a pitiful cabbage on a long trip to perdition;
Whereas the lines he made between the stage and
the momentary air we breathe, is farther than we thought,
He is closer to the man who fights the every evil
of greed and selfishness, he was the man of the people
and his courage shall live forever long in the tarmac
of shanties and dirty streets that remains
the isolation of other men who pursuit
honor and vanity for themselves merely,
away from the guidance of the Light.
He sought the perilous road for once,
yet he returns to the Lord as the hero he portrays
In the caverns of our minds and in our hearts,
and not any fallen son
that sought power and self-gloriousness;
And now he returns as a rising son.
Behold, the swordsman
for he is about to make his entrance.
Stand Back and Listen!
Stand back Mr. Murphy—(the guy from the Murphy’s Law)—and listen. We do not need you hanging around. Whomsoever created your law let him or her vanish into thin air.
One day after I have surmised so prematurely that our plans to put up a relief organization may be on a standstill due to significant differences of views, (See previous post “One Fantabolous Night With Mr. Murphy”-Sunday, December 19,2004) the phone rang smacked right at the strike of twelve noon, while I was about to have my lunch, and Tony was at the other end of the line.
“We have a meeting today. Russell is here,” Tony said without any prelude. I did not expect to meet both guys within just a couple of days. Usually, we are so busy with our respective personal tasks that it would take at least one whole week to gap the usual camaraderie we have. When sometimes we play billiards in not-so-glitzy barrooms, our matches could continue for hours and hours even up to near midnight, that after each session, Tony would comment that it was a billiard game that would last us for a month without playing again. And that would mean we could have more time for our families and at the same time save on ever- scarce currency. We have not been to any billiard halls for a long while now.
“I am going take my meal first and I’ll be right there in no less time” I said without flinching although I was nursing what appeared to be the initial stages of a major flu attack. Perhaps, the previous days activities have stretched me far enough. It started with the birthday celebration of Ms. Arlene Care, an officemate of my wife, about five days ago. We stayed for a long while eating luscious fried chicken and I got a couple of bottles of beer. Last Saturday, I was with Tony and Russell at La Vista del Mar and I also had some beer while we talk about matters of faith and God. On Sunday morning, the children had their Christmas program at school and how the children dance. It was such a sight to see Yusef and Yves performed their steps. In the afternoon of the same day, we drove to Divisoria nearly ten kilometers away from the main city for another birthday celebration. This time, it was Tracy Casimiro’s son Lorenzo who is celebrating. Tracy’s husband Bibing prompted me to a table and we sat drinking rhum as we talk about health conditions in connection with FPJ’s sudden but unexpected death. After three glasses of hard drink, I recoiled and we headed back home. Stress perhaps causes the flu virus to gain their glory over the immune system of our bodies.
“I have prepared some chicken. Why not eat here?” Tony suggested but I said that I would try not to take a heavy meal before I leave and see if I can still have some spoonful if I arrive at their house. I was so starving when Tony called.
I rested in bed for a little while hoping my bout with the colds may improve even by just a tad and at nearly three o’ clock in the afternoon, I took a sikad-sikad towards Sta. Catalina, just a barangay away from Lustre St., the street where I lived.
When I arrived at Tony’s place, Russell was with his wife Sheva, sitting in the sofa. I have not gotten acquainted with her so much, yet I was already feeling comfortable with her around after meeting her for already quite a number of times already.
Tony was not around. Russell informed that he was just out on a quick task for a client that needed some urgent computer fixing. He offered me the chicken meal but I said my tongue tasted queer due to some colds. It was a little uncomfortable talking to Russell after we had the fervent debate about God a couple of nights ago. I swept away any inhibitions between us by just not bringing that argument again and he did so as well and we proceeded to talk on some other matters. He said, Bong Edding, a member of the Zamboanga del Norte Provincial Board is in town and wanted to meet us. There might be some project opportunities for us in his place. I was a little glad that more and more people seem to be drawn to an organization that is still on the birthing stage but I knew even before conferring with Bong that private agencies like ours do not have much access to government projects. When I was working for the SZOPAD Social Fund about a couple of years ago, I had learned that the government auditing system have most recently institutionalized major changes in standards and procedures and one of these changes is the minimization if not the eradication of private entities implementing government projects. It turned out that in the 80’s, public funds were channeled through a lot of private organizations, where some were even bogus, and as a consequence to the system’s apparent loopholes, great amount of public funds were mishandled or pocketed unscrupulously.
Russell was in patent high spirits that day that he gave us more news than we could expect. He gave me a list of people willing to help establish the organization some are familiar even. Atty. Wendell Sotto was interested to sign in. I said to Russell that I knew his brother Clarence who is also a lawyer and maybe we could also invite him. The Sotto brothers took over their father’s law office here in the city after the older Sotto died of a gunshot wound from a motorcycle-riding assassins just early this year. The murder was all over the news even weeks after the incident occurred. A lawyer’s murder does not usually happen in this town but like Cebu and Manila, this city has its own bout of prominent killings. It was a sad day for the Sottos and I was in the wake when the incident occurred.
Tony arrived soon and he showed us a logo design for PPRO, the acronym for the soon to be established organization. Russell and I both commented that it was such a fine and exquisite design aside from being colorful. It has a blue back draft and highlights a white dove with wings a-flutter at the center of the image. I requested Tony to e-mail me the image so that I could already start on a web design idea for our organization.
When Bong Edding arrived, the day was nearly over and we got to discuss some issues. Bong was with John and J.J., all three are the sons of Norbi Edding, the mayor of Sibuco.
Bong assured us that if ever there were project opportunities in his locality, he would try to take us in. We all agreed that in the initial stages of the organization, it is most important that we are able to complete a number of projects no matter how small they are. This mode of action is important I emphasized to the group in order for us to build credibility. I have stressed out that in the business of relief works and in the world of NGO’s, the name and reputation of the organization is at the apex of the requirement pyramid. In my short stint in government, I have learned that NGOs and foundations come in such great numbers that one would have to be exceptional in order to get noticed and then, get funding support even from the government in the rare times that it allows private entities to interfere in the implementation of projects.
Despite of the forward things that occur to this plan of ours, I could not help but feel a little pessimistic. I was planning for a Christian fellowship but instead I am building a relief organization. Maybe later on, there would be time and resources for me to do the things that endears to my heart so closely. As the Lord Christ had often said in the early days of His ministry, “the time has not yet come”. Maybe my time has not yet come also.
When the skyline finally gobbled the sun, Bong, Russell, John, J.J. and Sheva asked permission to leave while I stayed a little longer. When I learned that the chicken carte du jour Tony prepared was actually adobo, I did not hesitate anymore and savored the chicken drifted in soy-sauced and vinegar even with cold rice. Tony boasted that he cooked the chicken himself and by the manner I ate them (that is, with much gusto), I was certainly impressed by his cooking prowess. Like mother, like son it seems. And it would be the rarest of time if ever there were a moment that I would turn down a chicken adobo, my most favorite chicken dish.
Batjay, if ever you come around this blog, Happy Birthday to you pre. I saw some greetings of your important day in some other blogsite. Maybe Cath was just playing tricks on you. Maybe not. So Happy Birthday to you.
VERSE OF THE DAY —St. Luke Chapter 4, Verse 4: “It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” This is the word of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Stay (Faraway, So Close)
There is a place and time that lingers like mildew on a wet stone. This longing is so steep that it reaches the point of angst and revolution, while the caverns of my heart attempts to explode in a myriad of dead stars. Dead stars, dead stars they come at night when the moon roars like lions in the desert.
If Einstein was true to his great mind, then maybe then, my soul would rejoice in a thousand nights of songs and dances. If time stops and regresses, to move backward and backward until time becomes my freedom instead of my prison, then my heart would be aglow with a thousand firelights that I shall set fire in the night’s sky. There is the fire that burns without reprieve, it is the Eternal Flame, and it burns in me like nothing else. One day, I shall set free this passion inside, this smoldering desire, that would carry me through the moon and back, like the man in the moon of my past dreams that took me in a swirling magical trip, across the ocean and towards the setting sun in the horizon. But whence that day comes, is the one ultimate question that leaves me gasping for breath.
Her eyes like diamonds and her face like a blossom of heavenly pearls—such lilies in the field. Such lilies in the field.
Fate is such a goddess and man lays naked upon her knees. I have retreated from her cruel hands and yet I find no door that will lead me away from this deadly longing. There are tears that roam like rivers and rivers of blood and yet, the hands of mercy stand farthest like a stone unmoved even by the universal forces that rule and bind us. For once then, she had become my sun, my moon and my comets and meteors; but now she is just a quasar, infinitesimal and so very far, far away that my eyes could not see her even by aid of the most gigantic of all telescopes.
One Fantabolous Night With Mr. Murphy
The thing is almost humming but not quite. It’s like rain on your wedding day, a singer crooned. It’s like a toothache that suddenly gone when you finally reach your dentist’s clinic, humping and sweating from overly agitation. I have some rendezvous with Mr. Murphy yesterday, you know, the one we are on familiar terms with because of some famous universal law. When just I thought we are on, some hindering incident occurred.
I was with Tony Ramos and Russell Tiblani yesterday on a brainstorming session and after a dozen of sample terms on the plate board, we agreed on a simple yet coaxing type of name for the proposed organization. The organization would have been called “Progress for Peace and Relief Organization” or PPRO. It reminds me of logos that read “PROGOD” and “PROGUN” that perhaps the chosen name could ride on the popularity of these two phrases, pasted on many a car back windows.
Our faces shone after we three agreed on the name, and yet I reminded Tony and Russell that the buck does not stopped there; we have a long way to go. So we talked about memberships, project viabilities, initial cost of incorporations, the by laws, and other similar concerns.
Russell went on a business task for a moment when twilight approached and Tony and me went to his Mom’s house for a sumptuous dinner. Eating is such a sublime experience in the Ramos household mainly because of the excellent culinary prowess of Tony’s Mom. We were served the smelliest chicken curry that one could ever find in this part of the world. The Christmas lights were on and the carolers hollered through the cold night wind outside the streets.
After the hearty meal, we proceeded to Russell’s place and we showed him how to navigate through the internet (He was just new to the modern gadget and do not really know how to tinker with it). We discussed a little bit about our initiative’s immediate concerns and Russell mentioned about a viable project wher we could put sour hands into in Sibuco, a southernmost locality of the Zamboanga del Norte Province where he works as a secretary to the mayor of the local government unit there. This was a fine idea Tony agreed considering that the place was just an hour away form the city through the sea route, using a personal speedboat. Both of them were planning to take a trip to Sibuco Sunday morning but they cancelled the excursion due to some unexpected conditions.
Russell mentioned something about a great happening in La Vista del Mar that night and without even pondering whether or not the night has gotten too long for us, we headed to the east coast of the city to check-out some merriment near the sea.
In the days heading towards Christmas Eve, a night market is opened in La Vista, a seaside resort owned by the Lobregat family and a favorite weekend destination for the city inhabitants. As we entered the gates, you could say “Oh, what a night!” The place was lighted all over and the music was all over the place and people were just swarming all over. I have never seen such congregation of nightwalkers in this city ever in my life, except in carnivals and big concerts of major celebrities here. The night was so alive under a cloudless sky, and the moon was half-hanging just over the horizon. We traipsed along the walkways where myriads of commodities were being peddled. At many point, I was gleefully surprised how some items were such a great bargain while on the other hand at one point I was taken aback to be informed by a not-to-eager storekeeper that the ABS-CBN mug cost a couple of hundred bucks. That’s a pricey pot for your coffee I thought. Generally however, the prices of item sin the night market were crazily low that you could see marketers yakking at every item from second-hand pocket books to batik, the stylish and very colorful garments of the ethnic minorities here. There was a copy of Fugitive Nights by Joseph Wambaugh. I wanted to buy it because my copy has tattered cover already and it does not look like a collection material to me anymore. I always mishandle my books often because I read them in bed that they always got thrown at any direction when sleep finally comes to me and my movements become more independent that the books are either thrown or get crumpled by my hands or by my lumbering sleeping body. I did not buy the copy the book after all because there was just no time to think amidst the rush of a maddening crowd.
When we thought we almost scoured every frontier of the night market, we settled on the bayside, sipping some beer near a man-made sea wall.
And as if he knew so much about my present introspection on faith, Russell started querying about the existence of God. I said I believe in the Almighty God, who created all things. The effect of alcohol easily evaporated when I was taken by surprise when he declared to me that in his belief “there is no more consideration of good and evil and that man exist regardless and it is up to man to choose to do good or become evil.” I was even more surprised when he added, “man can be God because man could produce offspring and therefore he is a creator like God”.
I tackled last night’s debate by saying to Russell that to produce a child is not the same as creating a human being; there is a wide gap to both conditions. And besides man could not create many other things. I said further to him that it is blasphemy in many faiths to declare oneself as a God. He answered by clarifying that he meant it merely as a metaphor.
The argument was not as sour as it would sound as we both agreed to disagree.
The night ended while I was thinking whether the differences in our views on faith—especially that of mine and of Rusell’s—would affect the harmony that we direly need in order that our proposed initiative to form an organization would prosper. More minds are always better than one some sages say. On the other hand, some other wise men declare that diversity leads to synergy. I think the problem in this world is that we just have too many wise men when in fact; we only need one—which is Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is sent to the world so that peace and joy would reign forever.
“Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”—the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, ST. JOHN Chapter 3 and Verse 3.
A Joyful Child
She was busy packing relief goods for those who were left unsheltered by the vicious rampage of the Pacific wind when fate beckoned upon her to leave this mortal world. She died in the moment many of those who have passed away crave for, to die while in the moment of kindness. Like a soldier, KC de Venecia died in the heat of battle and she earns a Medal of Valor. To the angels, she earns Eternal Life. And like a saint, we always remember her for her works to those who were left homeless and hungry.
Reeling from the death of a national icon in Fernando Poe Jr., the nation again grieves the passing away of a kind soul, as we also lamented the many deaths caused by the ferocious typhoons. We stood in great shock that a young and vibrant life was taken by the angst of fire, and when the dust was settled, my heart was heavy with sympathy. I condole the family of KC. The speaker certainly faced his own tragedy with courage and composure as a man with great faith in the Lord.
Famous is the statement that “no father or mother should not bury his or her own children” for the pain is heaviest and most heart-rending, and certainly this must be so. Yet, fate is at times mysterious and we can only take faith in the Mightiness of the Lord for whatever His plans for each and every one of us.
To be sure, KC is now in the mothering harbor of Heaven. And with prayers and acts of kindness, may we calm the doubt of her loved ones that one day, In Heaven, she will be as vibrant and as joyful again as she was that beautiful young woman that she was when suddenly she was called by the Lord to depart this world.
PSALM 27 : ” The LORD is my Light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is my strength; of who shall I be afraid?”
