Life, Day by Day

In August 1972, I remember a big flood happened also in Luzon . For more than two weeks, heavy rains pummeled Luzon before then President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. Floodwaters merged with the Pampanga and Agno rivers and submerged most of Central Luzon. This became known as the Great Flood of 1972. I remember working in the gym with classmates preparing relief goods. Classes were suspended in some subjects so that students can help instead. Less than a month after...Martial Law was declared. I don't know why I suddenly remembered this fact...maybe because like Marcos then, GMA's popularity and approval rating is at its lowest today. It's like deja vu...the atmosphere of political conflict, the morale of the people, the air of discontent among the people is eerily similar. Is this a sign? I am not saying that GMA is going to declare Martial Law...but somehow I feel a great change coming. Maybe this is our second chance...maybe God is telling us somethi...

A truly heartbreaking video made by Glenn Omanio .

Last Thursday, Tropical Storm Ketsana (better known in the Philippines as Typhoon "Ondoy") entered the Philippine area of responsbility. It was not even a storm yet but a tropical depression. The next day Friday, it was declared a typhoon and signal no. 1 and 2 were raised in parts of Luzon including Metro Manila. However as it swept across Luzon on early Saturday morning, packing winds of 85 kilometers per hour, or 53 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 100 kilometers per hour, "Ondoy" dumped 42.4 centimeters, or 16.7 inches, of rain in just 12 hours, said Nathaniel Cruz, the government’s chief weather forecaster. He said the rain that fell in those 12 hours was equivalent to the amount of rain that Manila received in the whole of September. To make matters worse, it was high tide and the water levels of 2 dams, Angat and Ipo were at critically high levels as well. By sunrise Metro Manila and it's environs were underwater. And for the first time, places t...

My Dad would have turned 77 years old today August 25, 2009 except that he passed away 18 years ago. We have celebrated his birthday every year since then by attending mass, visiting his gravesite, offering flowers. It is not often that I would feel his presence and I'd like to believe that this is because he is happy in Heaven. But today, it seems to me that Daddy was making his presence felt in more ways than one. It seems that he knew I needed him because looking back in the events of the past few days, people I needed to aid and encourage me were suddenly there...people whom I rarely see but they were just the right people to help me! It was like I had a special angel looking out for me. Everything was falling into place...I felt so cared for and supported. Serendipity? I don't think so. This is a time in my life when I really need my father to be there for me, to guide and to fight for me...and he came through! He could not be here physically so he sent angels in the...

These days life gets much harder and there is really not much to smile about. Maybe because I feel that there are just so many things beyond my control and the purity of my intentions is often misinterpreted and seen as intrusion. Then in a sort of roundabout way, a friend's friend said something that triggered a memory and all of a sudden I feel, hey! it's not that bad (^^) I remember the feel good times of my life and I was surprised that I have forgotten many of them...like the fun christmas vacations in Manila spent with my maternal grandparents...the feeling of awe and wonder on opening my presents...the carnivals and Holiday on Ice at the Araneta Coliseum...the pleasure I felt when eating ice cream at Dairy Cream...the excursions at Balulan Beach and the effort I put in to get a tan and the allergies that resulted afterwards(although how that could be classified as feeling good escapes me at the moment...but yes, remembering those times make me smile)...the stories my...

It's been more than 2 weeks since Michael Jackson's sudden death on June 25, 2009 and since then there has been relentless media coverage in the US that has not waned to this day. I am not a Jackson 5 fan nor am I a big MJ fan. But his death has made me realize how unfair the world was to Michael Jackson. Michael from the time he learned how to talk was conditioned to become an entertainer. This was a boy who grew up without a normal childhood. He was surrounded by people who over-protected him and limited his human interaction to his family, his record producers and people who all had a bested interest in him one way or the other. It is no wonder that Michael Jackson went into adulthood in a suspended state of childhood. His emotional maturity was probably near the bottom of the chart. Like a child who has not much experience in dealing with adults, he was full of trust and wonder. And because this is the big bad world...Michael was exposed to the wolves in people's clo...

I know I have been neglecting my blogs since the tail-end of April and there's no valid excuse, really...just poor time management and plain laziness. There are so many things happening all at the same time that somehow "inspiration" and "motivation" get lost or buried among all the other daily issues and concerns that come my way. And what are these issues and concerns? Well, some are indeed urgent and important, a few can be life changing, others I would consider abuse of authority but most were just petty. The most important one for me...the CON-ASS. Now, I am not a radical person and basically, I have a rather high tolerance for politicians but this...this takes the cake for the most " walang-hiya " house resolution ever cooked up by this congress. The motivation here obviously is to get into the good graces of GMA and probably get that much coveted funding for the 2010 election...plus of course, let us not forget the pork barrel. This particul...