Gaita Raid!

How anNOYing!

I feel for everyone who has to cancel travel plans and get withholding taxes for doing so in light of the just-canceled non-working holiday. Even my church had to shorten a 3-day retreat and refund everyone because of this. Any kind of changes to something like this have to be made next year, so people can plan accordingly. This was a petty act on the part of President Aquino to announce to the world that he is no GMA. I, for one, think it was way inconsiderate of him to assume that people can just easily adjust plans like these. If they can’t cancel, then they have to rush filing of their leaves. Really bad for the hotel/airplane/tourism industry. 

Apologies to friends who are Noy supporters, but I think there are bigger problems we need to be tackling as a nation.

As for not celebrating on the day itself as a means to trivialize things - what about Christmas? Are we not celebrating Christmas on the wrong day? I don’t hear God complaining about us trivializing Christmas’ solemnity just because we celebrate it on the wrong day.

Personally, I believe that it is impossible for Jesus Christ to have been born on December 25, because the bible says that shepherd were watching their flocks by night when our Savior was born. Will any shepherd in his right mind be out in the snow in Bethlehem in the winter? 

Catholics and bible-believing Christians celebrate this on Dec. 25, while people of other faiths celebrate in January. Does this take away from the people’s thankfulness their Savior was born and became flesh?

Here is the article that inspired this entry:

http://www.ivanhenares.com/2010/08/malacanang-cancels-august-23-2010-non.html

The problem with blogging

You know the problem with a blog?

People read it.

Which is why it is difficult to put all your thoughts on it, unedited.

The best way to get your thoughts out is to journal - to just write what you feel. I miss journaling - I never have to write in order to impress anyone. I can say what I want and not think about who might get offended, or what my parents, or my workmates may say. Best of all, it is private.

Well, some people use blogging to journal, but the same people don’t have the guts to attach their names to what they write. And so, without any regard to the possibility of slander, they just type away.

In the past, I’ve been tempted to keep an anonymous blog, but being anonymous is like putting on a felon’s disguise. It emboldens you to act on primal instincts, and allows you to think you can get away with things in the dark that you normally wouldn’t do if you were exposed in the light. 

Think about it - it is fairly safe to walk around Makati CBD at night, alone, because the streets are well lit. Go to any old eskinita in some other place - would you venture out by yourself? Why are stores that install mirrors and conspicuously have signages that alert people to CCTVs less likely to experience theft? Why would burglars avoid a house that has its light on?

So, I will take the bad about blogging, and consider it a blessing. But I will definitely do journalling on the side :)

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

I heart this show! :D

I love the episode about the makeover for the house for Carol, the lady with MS. They did an amazing job of paying attention to detail to personalize her new house so that she could deal with her MS proactively. She seemed like such a kind soul. So emotional, too.

Ugh, why does this show always make me cry?! :D

David Gurnani on TBLA looked ill :(

Guys, what did you think of the results of The Biggest Loser Asia? Personally, I don’t think it’s healthy for someone (ie David) to lose weight that rapidly. He looked emaciated. I shudder at the thought that this show rewards lost weight at all costs. True, that is the main point of the show, so I guess they met their goal. I only watched the show this year (never was a fan of the US version, and I don’t think I’ll ever start to be one). Apparently, towards the end, the show releases the contestants so that they could experience the temptations of the real world and see how they fare. David took a leave of absence to spend hours at the gym, a move that won him the title. Perhaps there was no strict clause in the contestants’ contract, but I thought that move was sneaky. Regular people don’t spend seven hours a day exercising in the real world, unless they are Olympians or some other kind of professional athlete.  Was David an Olympian when he joined the show? He worked himself hard, but dude, we hardly recognized you during the finale! You looked ill! And I’m sure you know by now that I wasn’t the only one who noticed.  I hate to think what kind of precedent this show has set. Bottomline is, there should be safety nets so that the contestants don’t abuse their bodies. (Some people actually consider them temples, right David?)

I was never a believer of lost weight = health, which is probably why I never got hooked by the show. However, I thought it would be fun to cheer on fellow Filipino Carlo Miguel since he was the last man standing from the famous or infamous Filipino Alliance. In my perfect utopia, people would be making wise food choices, working out to replace fat with muscle, which doesn’t necessarily translate to lost weight.

Suffice it to say, I might not watch this show again next year. What about you?

The vote that is wasted is the one cast without conviction

Three months ago, you would have caught me planning an overseas trip to be anywhere but the Philippines on May 10, 2010. If you asked me why, I would have said, “Well, it’s my birthday, and I wanted to spend it somewhere special.” My real reason would have been, well, I just don’t see the point in hanging around during the elections. None of the presidential candidates (and let’s not even go to a discussion of local candidates!) appealed to me. I did not even want to be bothered with local registration, even though the new system seemed to be a huge improvement on past registration schemes. I knew in my mind that someday soon, I would immigrate to the United States, visit my step dad and mom, and my brother, go to Bible school, meet the man of my dreams, and live happily ever after.

Enter presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro. I did not have any inkling of who he was, except that during the height of Ondoy, I’d see his tired face on the news, and hear massive amounts of criticism hurled his way for not being able to help everybody. However, something about his demeanor and his promise to launch a positive campaign struck a chord with me.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, when I was worshipping at Christ’s Commission Fellowship in Ortigas. Our pastor, Peter Tan-chi, led the entire congregation a few weeks ago to pray for God to allow us to choose our national and local candidates, to impress on our minds the right people to vote for, and to expose anyone we should be crossing off our lists. It could not have come at a more opportune time. I knew I already liked Gibo Teodoro then, but I wasn’t sure if he was the one God wanted me to vote for. You cannot imagine how powerful a prayer that was. In the succeeding days, I found myself drawn more and more to Secretary Teodoro’s point-specific platform, the way his supporters conducted themselves in his facebook account (this was weeks ago, when the trolls didn’t multiply in number yet) the manner in which he carried out his promise to never say anything negative about his detractors and to let his platform speak for itself. Secretary Teodoro’s opponents’ weaknesses also surfaced. Two of them were caught lying, and one of the vice presidential candidates was also caught in a lie that was even part of one of his tv infomercials.

If you have ever struggled against the sins of using the tongue to defame other people, to lie, to bear false witness, to gossip, to speak enviously or jealously, to cause division, to exalt yourself, to belittle or ridicule, you are reading the words of someone who has done so exponentially since she was a little girl. I say the Pastor Tan-Chi’s prayer was timely because around the time he prayed that prayer, I was going through self-examination on my own shortcomings of being unable to hold my tongue when situations called for it. I saw in Secretary Teodoro a beacon, a kind of role-model I needed to jolt me into awareness of all the harm I caused misusing God’s gift of gab. To further accelerate my reflection, God caused me to have a sore throat, which forced me to stay at home, and to detox me of all my tendencies and from wreaking any more havoc. Being voiceless allowed me to read more, to listen more, and to react with more reflection.

During that time, I joined Sec. Teodoro’s facebook page, and found myself wanting to know more about how to help his cause. Some of the surveys showed Sec. Teodoro doing poorly (although now I do question such surveys), which prompted me to get active in campaigning for him in my own way. I started telling my friends and relatives about his platform, and even reached out to our helpers and drivers. In doing so, I realized that there were a lot of Teodoro supporters out there, but because of the perceived poor showing in the surveys, none of them wanted to “come out”. One of them told me she thought that her vote would be wasted if she picked Sec. Teodoro, and that she was thinking of candidate X instead, so as to prevent a win by candidate Y. To her and to others thinking along the same lines, I say now, and I quote fellow Teodoro supporter Carlos Celdran, “The only vote wasted is the one cast without conviction.”

I firmly believe that a presidential candidate who inspires people, who has the ability to unite, and to look forward, someone who doesn’t hide his privileged upbringing, yet doesn’t look down on people who have much less in life, but uplifts them with his firm belief in their innate Galing at Talino, someone who embodies values spoken of in Matthew 5:9, Proverbs 15:1, Ephesians 4:29, is someone worth campaigning for, even if the surveys say he doesn’t stand a chance.

Did David allow the giant’s stature to discourage him, when all he had was a slingshot and several stones? I wonder what kind of surveys would have propped up to say that Moses (who grew up in the palace of Pharaoh) could not possibly lead the Israelites out of slavery, that Joseph, the youngest in his family, the one whom his brothers left for dead, could deliver his family out of famine, that Daniel would not be eaten by lions, that Gideon and his men wouldn’t be overpowered by enemies that outnumbered them, and so on and so forth.

If there is one thing this presidential campaign has reminded me, it is to walk by faith, and not by sight.

To God be all the glory!

Sulong G1bo!