Water and Life

When we moved to our new place in a sub-village of Baguio City three years ago, we had no access to any piped water. But all our neighbors had their water tapped from a nearby spring and creek and conveyed to their houses through PVC pipes. They told us not to worry and that we could also look for some spring to access about 300 to 500 meters away from where we live.

Tired of fetching water from a neighbor, I ushered in my three brothers from the neighboring town of La Trinidad to help me explore a spring to which we could connect our own PVC pipe. My three brothers and I distributed ourselves over a Y-shaped creek above our sub-village. And presto, just before noon one Saturday more than three years ago, one of my brothers discovered a small spring, which other neighbors had ignored.

As we dug a well around the spring, we found a couple of vigilant mountain crabs, which – with their claws ready -- declared to us that they were the original and rightful inhabitants of that small water system. The presence of the dominantly orange-red creatures also made us understand that the spring was a living one, part of an oasis of life.

With stones, we built a terrace around the small well, which now catches the spring oozing from the grass- and reed-covered hill where an alnus tree and an endemic water-bearing tree proudly stand. From the well, we laid out a five-meter half-inch-diameter PVC pipe connected to a more than a cubic-meter rubberized plastic drum. Just a few inches lower in elevation than the water level of the well around the spring, this drum now serves as our main tank from which a 250-meter half-inch-diameter PVC pipe conveys water right into our yard.

That spring had provided our water needs for the last more than three years. On dry months starting February to May, however, the spring would shrink. So I’ve to readjust the flow of water from the well to the plastic drum tank. Through trial and error, I discovered that the rate of water flow to the tank must be equivalent with the rate of water coming out from the foothill spring.

How do I adjust the rate of water flow? During the rainy season, I can lower the end of the pipe connected to the tank. But during summer I’ve to elevate the other end of the pipe so even if the water flowing is as small as a rat’s tail, we are still assured that water continues to flow into the tank.

But something happened just this February. A neighbor dug a well just two feet away from my own well. Since the new well my neighbor dug was lower, the water supplying my well decreased. I could have complained but I just shrugged my shoulders, fully understanding that my neighbor was also in dire need of water. In other communities, this could have led to a fist fight or even a tribal war.

In our sub-village, we feel blessed for having free water. But as our neighborhood is growing, it would not be advisable for every new neighbor to dig his own well. The wisest thing is to have one big reservoir and equally distribute the water to all households. But this needs more logistics and members of the neighborhood have to be organized. This can be a prospective community project in coordination with the Barangay (village) captain and with some government or donor agency.

In the meantime my family and I still try to conserve water as much as possible. We close our faucet when our drum is full. It is better that what overflows is the tank that catches water from the spring because what overflows also goes to the creek where farmers have tapped their irrigation source. The water used to wash dishes can be used to water the plants and the water used for laundry can be used to flush the toilet.

While others welcome summer, I dread it because this is a time of uncertainty for our water source. But thanks to a recent cold front, it has rained recently for three days, including during the World Day of Water on March 22; thus reinforcing our spring, our source of living water, and one of our intimate links to our dear Mother Earth.

Power Shift and Big If

The landed and other top economic elites, many of them in extractive industries, have lorded it over our electoral politics since after World War II. Economic wealth for a long time has been the twin of political power in this country.

Although we have seen in recent years the rise of relatively poor politicians like former Senator Juan Flavier and Sen. Joker Arroyo (now seeking reelection), political power in this country remains largely in the hands of economic elites.

So I don’t mind really if movie stars, some of whom had started small before reaching stardom, are now entering electoral politics. They could use their popularity to invade a realm, which used to be monopolized by the traditional political big guns.

By sincerely putting to heart the interests of their thousands of fans, who include the ordinary masses, these movie stars seeking electoral positions may yet make a difference. As more movie and television personalities enter politics, political power in this country may yet shift from the landed and other wealthy elites to the hands of movie and television stars-turned-politicians.

But movie stars entering politics may have to educate themselves about the sanctity of a public office as a public trust. Former president Joseph Estrada had proved that movie stardom could pave one’s way to the top electoral position. Something, however, went wrong along the way, which had something to do with violating the sanctity of a public office. He may have started with sincere, good intentions. But he became infected with the usual politician’s disease in which absolute power could absolutely corrupt even the best of intentions.

So here’s an unsolicited advice to Goma, Cesar Montano and other movie idols entering politics: learn legislation and governance not from the usual traditional politicians, but from other models. Japanese politicians may yet offer some tips. Because the values of honor, accountability and integrity are part of Japanese political behavior, some Japanese politicians would rather commit hara-kiri if they could not stomach a wrongdoing they committed.

Not in the Philippines. Many Filipino politicians are known, if not perceived, as the most thick-skinned species in the animal kingdom. They can go around town promising the moon and the stars when they are courting for our votes but continue rob us dry when they get elected.

With the proper moral formation coupled with sufficient capacity-building in governance, movie stars turned politicians, as they do on screen, may yet help rescue the suffering and downtrodden from the villains who, with forked tongues, have long deceived us.

And if the new breed of politicians from the movie world really put the general interests of their lowly fans above theirs, the process of a shift of political power from the usual traditional political dynasties to this new breed may have begun. Be cautioned, however, that this is still a BIG IF.

Making Decisions

Two major sections of our population have to make major decisions at this point. They are our graduating high school students and our voting population.

Many graduating high school students already may have made up their minds in choosing what to pursue in college. They may have based their choices on aptitude tests or college entrance examinations they have already taken. Or they may have based their choices on what they, as children, have long dreamed of doing during the rest of their lives. But there still are many who have yet to decide on what to pursue.

Under our current situation, one major factor that influences the choice of young people is the global job market. The growing job market for nurses, for example, in recent years has led to the rise in enrolment of those taking up nursing. Like herds of animals lured by the scent of greener grazing land, hordes of our young people have been enrolling in nursing schools, prompting many colleges and universities to open up new departments for nursing students. This herd does not include physicians, lawyers, and other professionals who had enrolled and continue to enroll in nursing schools.

I don’t know if the job market should be the overlying force to help young people choose what to pursue. But given our current situation in which young people are left with few choices, choosing a college course that will most likely enable them to land a job in the future is probably the most practical to consider.

Ideally, young people should choose a career path in which they can fully develop their potentials as total persons, and not simply as an employee or OFW. One, for example, can opt to become a farmer who at the same time can teach others about farm and business management and who can promote his products through his own website and who, on the side, can sing songs he himself composed to the accompaniment of a violin or bamboo instrument.

To enable young people to be able to have wider choices may yet need a rethinking of our educational system. For a long time, our educational system has been geared towards producing employees and workers. We have yet to have schools that train young people to become employers and business tycoons. And most of those who get to become business magnates did not learn the ropes of managing businesses in school. Many of these successful entrepreneurs were those who learned what it meant to “get out of the box.”

We had cited before Narda Capuyan who would jokingly say she learned her trade from the non-existent University of Besao. Another is Jack Dulnuan, a successful businessman, whose secrets of success didn’t come from a university but from experience and sheer hard work.

Amidst the limited choices and opportunities we have for our young people in this country of our hopes and dreams, we now have politicians bombarding us with advertised promises to help fulfill our dreams once they get elected. This brings us to another major decision, which we have to make through our ballots on May 14.

In choosing whom to vote for in May, Adrian Cristobal’s advice that the biblical Ten Commandments should be the practical guide for voters may yet work. The first commandment, for example, forbids idolatry. But even candidates who claim to be “pro-God” are relying on the idolatry of machinery and money to win the elections. So we must be wary of those who make machinery and money their idols as they court us for our votes.

The other commandments that forbid killing, stealing, coveting your neighbor’s wife and goods can also guide us in choosing whom to vote for. Killing does not only mean extra-judicially snuffing out lives through the barrels of guns. Killing is also making life harder for some people so much so that they die from the slow death of poverty or from the murderous threats of environmental destruction as a result of legal or illegal logging or other destructive extractive industries. The impact of these destructive industries is magnified during the typhoon season when flashfloods and mudflows bury whole communities. And the culprits conveniently blame nature for the tragedies in which they actually have blood in their hands.

So beware of those who promise to fulfill our dreams. The multi-million funds for a sweet-talking politician’s campaign may have come not from blood diamonds (because obviously diamonds are found in abundance only in Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa), but from blood logs and blood gold.

Another challenge, however, to our decision-making process as citizens is that there actually are a few candidates to choose from. If the Ten Commandments are strictly followed as guide for voters, there might be no one to choose at all. So we have to settle for the choosing-the-lesser-evil formula.

But let’s hope whoever we choose to write on our ballot gets counted correctly by the election commission, which, upon the manipulation of some top guns, has become notorious for not knowing how to count.

21 Years Ago

Twenty one years ago this Sunday, Filipinos became a proud race after they ousted a dictator who ruled the country for more than 20 years, 14 years of which were under martial law.

Ruled by the barrels of guns, Filipinos could only say yes and amen to the dictates of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos and his generals. Those who dared to say no and defied him, including the late Senators Benigno Aquino and Jose Diokno and many others who included journalists, were thrown into cold prison cells. Worse, many were also tortured and summarily killed, if not made to disappear without a trace. Those were the days when we first heard of extrajudicial killing, which the military termed as “salvaging.”

The critical situation at that time prompted many youths to become activists. Some chose the extreme – they went underground and took up arms.

When Marcos was finally ousted through what has become popularly known as the EDSA Revolution (which others say was actually a people-backed military revolt), many Filipinos thought the country would become a paradise regained. We all were upbeat about our country and its future as we were able to elect our officials and as the press regained its freedom.

But after four presidents took turns to govern us, the ghost of martial law apparently continues to haunt and hound us. We thought extrajudicial killings, for example, were things inherent only under a military regime. But these continue up to now when we are supposed to be more concerned about democracy, responsible governance, and civil liberties.

The European Union, international human rights groups and church organizations, and the UN are now alarmed about how human life has become cheap in this country as activists, journalists, church workers and judges are being eliminated from the face of the earth. The Philippines now ranks second to Iraq, as the most dangerous place for journalists. Just recently, a community editor from southern Philippines was shot to death while taking his early morning coffee. He was the 50^th journalists to be killed since 2001.

Charges of libel also continue to send chills in the spines of many journalists, who dared to expose what the public needed to know about the shenanigans and excesses of some top guns in government.

That extrajudicial killings and threats to journalists continue under a supposed democracy only shows that the country, to paraphrase UN human rights special rapporteur Philip Alston, still has a very long way to go.

So instead of celebrating the return of democracy through that People Power Revolution in 1986, we now have confused and mixed feelings. The difficult and dangerous situation we are in prompts us to extend our mourning and grieving, which we thought ended in February 1986. We still have a very long way to go, indeed.

Send in the Clowns

One senatorial candidate is now being advertised as “gulay ng buhay (vegetable of life)” so “itanim natin siya sa Senado (let’s plant him in the Senate).” This and other political commercials now mix it up with commercials for shampoo, ladies’ napkin, facial oil and lotion, detergents, coffee, liquor, diapers, and other products.

Obviously, the political commercials seek to target the millions of TV viewers who may finally write on their ballots that name on May 14, which they can recall from the repetitive commercial bombardments. And people may just write on their ballots that name that they remember from corny, if not non-sense, political advertisements.

The political commercials don’t necessarily talk about platforms or advocacies. Some commercials just play on the candidates’ names and how they rhyme with senado, for example. With repetition as the strategy, the commercials might work for many voters who don’t really know the capacity and qualities of many candidates. Let’s just hope voters during the election won’t write on their ballots the brand of an underwear or facial oil.

In their commercials, candidates also appear nice, approachable, concerned and sincere. They project themselves as selfless servants with only country and people as their top priority. But that’s alright even if we know that the candidates’ projection is just a put-on since many other commercial products and services are advertised that way anyway.

So we are now in an age when candidates are being marketed like any other commercial product. And viewers may yet judge how much wealth a candidate has by the frequency of his or her commercials. This creates a problem.

Pity the genuinely capable and worthy, but poor candidate who cannot pay for a TV commercial. So again, it’s only those who can afford who continue to lord it over our political landscape.

Apparently, candidates now are pinning their hopes on their TV exposure via commercials after popular TV and movie personalities and basketball stars wormed their way into politics. After a noontime TV show personality first won a seat in the Senate some years ago, for example, Butch Abad of Batanes, who was being endorsed then to run for the Senate, said he should first join a TV show before launching a career in the Senate. He said this when there was only one TV personality in the Senate. Now the Senate is more showbiz-bound than ever.

So now we have what one Manila newspaper described as a political circus. In a circus, the clowns take us for a ride and we are amused while the clowns are (well) clowning around. While the clowns are clowning around, we laugh together with them as we forget that they are making a fool out of us.

Karmic Effect

Many people are now talking about climate change after Al Gore came out with his An Inconvenient Truth documentary. In graphic detail, Gore demonstrated how a 20-foot (6m) rise in the sea level would inundate much of Florida, Shanghai and Holland.

Some environmentalists claim that most of the scenarios in Gore’s documentary were exaggerated. They cite the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent report, which noted an average of 38.5cm sea level rise.

These environmentalists say that the exaggerated scenarios in Gore’s documentary may yet win him an Academy Award. But they say the scenarios have no basis in science. Still, they admitted that sea level rise and global warming are things we should all be concerned about.

Exaggerated or not, rising sea levels, global warming and climate change are as real as the unusual super typhoons the Philippines has experienced in recent years and the unusual floods that submerged New Orleans and recently Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia. Canada and other countries in the Arctic region are now experiencing shorter winters while other parts of the world are reeling from heat waves.

Our planet is getting warmer, say scientists, because of a hole in the ozone layer. There’s a hole there because of too much gas emissions from fossil fuels. The Kyoto Protocol on climate change is supposed to help address this, but the world’s biggest oil consumer and polluter that is the US, refused to sign it. And those who signed it have difficulty reducing their fossil fuel consumption.

Through its space program, the US may yet find another planet where it can evacuate its people. In anticipation of sea levels rising in the future, Japan is now building underwater cities.

In a world ruled by the strong and the mighty in terms of technological and economic capacity, the less fortunate and poor countries may yet perish during the next Great Deluge.

But even if they can land on the moon or can send a rover on Mars, the Americans may not be able to escape from the worst consequence of global warming. Neither can Japan even with its underwater cities. We are still on the same troubled titanic spaceship called planet Earth.

Scientists now acknowledged that the destruction of the ozone and its consequence such as global warming and rising sea levels are not natural phenomena but man-made. Such acknowledgment is an admission of guilt. This is good because we cannot correct a wrong unless we recognize and admit it.

We have abused the only planet we have got through our abusive and consumerist lifestyles and our greed. Now we are reaping the karmic effect of our collective sin.

The World as Rainbow

Multi-awarded script writer Ricky Lee often tells his students or participants of his workshops that there are various routes to Quiapo, a business district in Manila. It was his way of stressing that there’s no single formula in coming out with an excellent story for the movie or TV screen.

Lee’s advice practically applies to all aspects of human life and human relations. It also applies to how we relate with our planet and to how we attempt to reach ideal goals such as changing the world.

Take the case of the cause for the environment. There actually are various shades of environmentalism as there are diverse species in a forest ecosystem. Some environmentalists focus on campaigns such as dramatizing protests against destructive industries, genetically-engineered organisms, and against adverse laws and policies.

Some engage and wrestle with policy-makers, seeking to influence the outcomes of laws or policies so these become friendlier to communities and to the planet as a whole.

Still others work within communities, establishing seedling nurseries and seed banks and helping communities plant seedlings as they seek to recover vanishing tree and traditional food crop species.

Some environmental organizations try to combine various thrusts. But a single organization can only do so much. It actually takes various kinds of organizations to make a dent on the environment.

The same applies with how we view the world. There’s no single worldview, which can explain everything. The world is not black and white; it’s actually a rainbow.

One of the greatest sins of Hitler was that he thought and believed there was only one race that deserved to exist in the world – the Aryan race. So racism and all these other forms of discrimination begin from the thought and belief that one’s race or ethnic origin or one’s worldview or religion is the most superior.

Although his country suffered from the racial discrimination of the white colonialists under apartheid rule, Nelson Mandela, when he took over South Africa, did not order the execution of his country’s tormentors. With the advice of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Mandela instead pursued the way of peace, reconciliation and forgiveness. Mandela and Tutu asserted that they should not fall into the trap of replicating the sins of their colonial tormentors. This, they said, would only start a new cycle of violence, discrimination and suffering. Mandela instead declared that South Africa would become a “Rainbow Nation” where people of all colors could live “in harmony with equal opportunities.”

So the world is not black and white. Some of us maybe excused for still thinking it is. But that was the time when we still had black and white television. The world’s beauty and splendor can be viewed better from the various colors of a rainbow.

Slowing Down and Thinking Small

We live in an age of fast foods and fast lanes. We also hear our technocrats talk about fast-tracking growth and development. Jet planes faster than sound and the information superhighway have made the world smaller, but not necessarily closer as we have yet to close various gaps that still separate members of the human family – poverty, unequal access to information and to basic services, etc. And there are the barriers that now separate us from our planet earth and its various ecosystems. Urban kids, for instance, think cabbages grow on supermarkets and water comes from the tap or from a dispenser.

As we ponder about New Year’s resolutions and instituting changes, we might as well heed the Buddhists’ advice of slowing down and thinking small. The good news is that a counter-current to the fast food and fast lane mentality is emerging. Some people are now advocating for slow food, for example.

While technocrats push for mega and super structures such as mega-dams, some people are quietly pushing for micro-hydro electric projects in which damming rivers becomes unnecessary. Initially aided by a church, a development NGO and a small grants program of the UNDP, a small community of Mabaka folk in Apayao, for example, now manages their own 7.5 kw microhydro-electric power independent of the Luzon grid. A Mabaka household pays an average of P35 monthly bill, part of which is allotted for maintenance while the rest is set aside to help procure basic medicines for the remote village in Conner town. This is obviously far cheaper than our Beneco bill where we pay a long list of added costs, which include service to multi-million dollar foreign loans.

The late British E. F. Schumacher has noted that super structures such as mega-dams and other mega-projects concentrate wealth in the hands of a few while smaller and decentralized structures distribute not only wealth but power as well. And this is what community-managed micro-hydro projects have proved. The Mabaka community does not have high-paying managers and board of directors because officers of the community association, which oversees the project, are volunteers. In return for their volunteerism, the whole community benefits.

As we move forward into the 21^st century, we are now reaping the karmic effect of our obsession for things fast and big. Global warming, for example, is the result of gas emissions now threatening the ozone layer. The biggest fuel consumer, of course, is the US, the world’s lone superpower that is ever-ready to wage war for oil.

With global warming, our seas and oceans are rising and one-meter high islands such as those in the Pacific are in danger of being wiped out from the map.

It’s time to rethink our madness and the way out is for us to slow down and think small, at least in the way we use our resources.

Christmas, Family, and Hope

For many nations, including the Philippines, Christmas helps boost the economy. Christmas is the season when overseas Filipino workers remit dollars to their families. This explains why the peso has been quite strong since September. But bankers say we can expect the peso to weaken starting February.

From all the material stuff and goodies that they dangle this season, both big entrepreneurs and small street hawkers are cashing in on Christmas. And they really earn as everybody rushes to buy gifts and as each family prepares special meals on the eve of Christmas. It is that time of year when wage-earning folk really spend after getting their 13^th month pay and bonus. More money circulates and that big mall can have all your money as you buy what they have got all for you.

But despite its commercialization, Christmas is an opportune time to strengthen and renew family ties. Normally, sons and daughters, who have been away because of work or college education, would go home to celebrate Christmas with their parents. Overseas Filipino workers usually go home to be with their families before leaving again to bear the loneliness of working overseas in quiet desperation.

In Benguet in recent years, the Christmas break is also usually the time for clan reunions and weddings.

So the relationships and ties that we renew and strengthen as we break bread together either as a family or as a clan is one beauty of Christmas. Definitely, Christmas is not about the material gifts that we receive. It's obviously about the love and compassion we express through our gifts or through our sincere best wishes for others.

Particularly needing our help now are those who lost their roofs, livelihoods, and loved ones during a series of unfortunate typhoons in central Philippines and southern Luzon. The good news is that other Filipinos are not lacking in compassion and love when it comes to helping those who encounter misfortunes like typhoons. Baguio and Benguet's "Operation Sayote" is one example in which local folk were able to synchronize efforts to bring sayote to the survivors of the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991 and to other survivors of other disasters in succeeding years. Although once considered a lowly crop, sayote is still a vegetable that can add fiber to the usual government relief goods that consist of instant noodles and sardines.

Another good news is that various churches in Baguio are matching their prayers with actual calls for material help for the survivors of super-typhoon Reming.

As a people, we are not actually lacking in Good Samaritans. This quality of damayan or helping our brothers and sisters in need is what continues to convince us that there's still hope for this country.

Meek Lambs

House Speaker Jose de Venecia was talking tough earlier. He insisted that the only way the country could progress was by changing the Constitution. And this could be done by transforming the legislature into a Con Ass or a Constituent Assembly to amend the country’s fundamental law.

De Venecia was not only tough as an ass, that hardworking beast of burden. He was roaring like a lion, the king of the jungle. But after the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, El Shaddai’s Mike Velarde, and other church leaders spoke against charter-change, the Pangasinan lawmaker known for his traditional politics became a meek lamb.

To save his face, he said he was not insensitive to public opinion so he and other like-minded traditional politicians would now give up on the Con Ass. And instead of Con Ass, De Venecia would agree to a Con Con or Constitutional Convention. But still, he wanted to have his Con Con as fast as he could by challenging the Senate to pass a resolution in 72 hours on 11 December calling for a Con Con. Stressing that the country had more urgent issues and problems to address such as the 2007 national budget, the Senators, however, did not bite his bait.

The public can now see through the motives of De Venecia and other like-minded politicians. Whether through Con Ass or through Con Con, De Venecia, et. al. and Malacañang are really bent on changing the Constitution. By changing the Constitution, the proponents were envisioning a unicameral form of government under which they could stay longer in power.

Then the Church spoke. Some bishops asserted the country’s problem is not the Constitution, but politicians themselves who don’t know how to govern. Church leaders pointed to corrupt governance as the main factor in dragging the country down. Bishop Socrates Villegas particularly cited the politicians’ insistence to change the Constitution as a “primary proof of corrupt governance.”

For the Church, the Constitution is sacred and politicians with self-serving ulterior motives should not toy with it.

To help save its own face for pushing for charter change, Malacañang (the presidential palace) hailed De Venecia’s “statesmanship” in throwing away the Malacañang-backed cha-cha bid via Con Ass. The presidential palace patted De Venecia’s back, appreciating how De Venecia did what he did for the sake of “national unity.” So the presidential palace would now want to paint De Venecia as a hero of some sort. If De Venecia could indeed become a hero in the public’s mind, the presidential palace could also be perceived not as a villain, but as a proponent of national unity.

But the public cannot be fooled. The public can now discern every word traditional politicians utter. For many, traditional politicians don’t mean what they say. So if they say they want to change the Constitution so the country can prosper, the public is not easily convinced. The public may have been fooled many times. But the public cannot be fooled all the time.

"Naked, Chilling Sadism"

The verdict was finally out. US marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith would get 40 years in jail for the rape of a young Filipina, an act which the court described as “bestial” and “chilling, naked sadism.”

At 21, Smith is so young, and he has a lot to do ahead of him. This includes careers in the US Marine corps and probably raising a family. But alas, he committed something, which, to his innermost conscience, he must have regretted doing in the first place.

Unfortunately, Smith, in trying to defend himself, denied he committed rape. He insisted it was “consensual” sex. But granting this was so, following his own argument, why did Smith and his three other colleagues literally dumped Nicole at a street in the dead of night? Granting it was consensual and he acted as a gentleman, why did he and his colleagues just dump Nicole like garbage? Again, granting that it was consensual, the mere fact that he and his colleagues dumped Nicole out in the cold showed their utilitarian behavior, to say the least. Typical of the consumerist and throw-away mentality common in the West, Smith and colleagues practically threw away Nicole after “using” her.

Fortunately, the court ruled that what happened on that night on 1 November 2005 was not just a case of “using” someone. The Court said it was “morally convinced” that Smith committed the crime as charged or what it described as “bestial acts” and “chilling, naked sadism.” “Thus, a severe penalty is meted out by this state, as parens patriae (father of his country) on this advert crime, to protect the women against the bestiality of persons who cannot control their libidos,” the court said.

The crime of rape is not just about uncontrollable libidos. Rape, as one Manila newspaper editorial noted, is also about abuse of power. In the case of Nicole, she was not just overpowered. At that time, she was practically powerless as she was too intoxicated to defend herself. Smith took advantage of this powerlessness in unleashing his bestiality. And while at this at the back of a van, Smith must have thought that such bestial act would just be one of his one-night stand misadventures, which he could brag about among male colleagues. But it was not to be because Nicole gathered all the strength and courage to complain and cry rape.

Many were happy about the verdict. But some insisted the three other US Marines should have also been punished. Although the three were freed, this did not mean they were innocent. It just so happened that there was not enough evidence presented to pin them down, too.

But anything can happen to Smith. With all its power, the US can move heaven and earth to appeal Smith’s case. For now, legal luminaries are debating on who gets custody of Smith. Still, the bigger issue is when Smith, with the help of Uncle Sam’s might, will be freed after an appeal.

If he remains in jail as sentenced, Smith certainly will lose his future. Now alone in his cell at the Makati jail, he can have all the time in the world to reflect on things that matter and to reexamine his unexamined self. Perhaps, he can reflect on what real happiness means and may yet come to realize that real happiness transcends one-night stand misadventures. Or he can also reflect on karma, the law of action and reaction, the principle that you reap what you sow.

Or better yet, he can have all the time in the world to write a best-seller, which focuses on his confessions and transformation while in jail. There just are a lot of positive possibilities Smith can do while he remains sleepless at the Makati jail.

Nicole, the 23-year old survivor of that bestiality, also has many years ahead of her. After more than a yearlong painful wait for that 4 December verdict, she can now plan her future and move on. Despite what happened to her, Nicole has apparently transcended her pains. And for this, she is grateful to the heavens. She, as the reports said, has acknowledged that “God is good.” With God’s goodness on her side, Nicole can now face the world and may yet advocate for other silent survivors of bestiality to also seek redress and justice.

Con-Ass and Con Men

Something just sounds strange each time Manila-based national papers report about how Malacañang (presidential palace) and the House of Representatives would insist on a Constituent Assembly as a first step to their game plan of changing the Philippine constitution. Reporters have invented Con-Ass as a short for Constituent Assembly in the same way that they coined Cha-cha for Charter Change. Cha-cha sounds harmless and I often associate it with tango or even with waltz and other ballroom dances.

But Con-Ass? It just sounds like con man or con artist. And Con-Ass, particularly the “Ass” part, sounds not only slang, but vulgar, a term that should not be used because one of our unwritten rules as writers is decency. But somehow the acronym has become a regular fare in our newspapers.

I tried to do my homework by searching the Web for some definitions of con man and con artist, and, to my surprise, the definitions gave me some insights into the Con-Ass.

One website defines con man or con artist as “a confidence man or a swindler who exploits the confidence of his victim.”

So I asked myself, “Granting that Con-Ass is the confidence man, are we, the ordinary Filipinos, the victims?”

According to reports, the Lower House of Congress and may be a few senators would be convened into a Con-Ass and would engineer how it could amend the Constitution and form an interim parliament. They already have in mind a timetable for a plebiscite and elections for parliament in 2007.

Some senators, including Senate President Manny Villar and administration Sen. Miriam Defensor, have rejected the Con-Ass move. But the big guns in the Lower House are still optimistic that they can still go on with the Con-Ass because they have the numbers. So the proponents of Cha-cha via Con-Ass are relying on numbers, not on the sound reason of their moves.

In pushing for Cha-cha via Con-Ass, House Speaker Jose de Venecia said: “We are on the eve of a constitutional revolution because we’re destroying the old, oppressive structure and creating a new, and hopefully more liberating, political system. It’s now or never.”

We had heard similar pronouncements from the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos when he changed the 1935 Constitution and created his new Constitution to pave the way for what he called “a new society” through martial law. And to give his iron-fist regime some sweet icing, Marcos called it “constitutional authoritarianism.”

For a time, the “New Society” had remained as new as the bell-bottom fashion in trousers at that time. But Marcos’ “New Society” eventually became a tired refrain as it failed to bring the paradise it promised. And during his reign, Marcos drowned the country with US$30 billion foreign debt, which, together with the foreign debts of succeeding regimes, we are paying up to now and which our children will continue to pay after we, their elders, are gone.

From Ms Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, we also heard about her “Strong Republic” and her tough-girl pronouncements to “crush” the “enemies” of that republic. The opposite of strong is weak so building a “strong republic” is akin to the dream of building a “new society” from the ashes of an old and “weak” one.

There’s no argument in aspiring to build a new society, a strong republic, or even a new world. We should keep on dreaming and hoping. But still I can hardly comprehend whether or not Cha-cha through a Con-Ass can be the means to bring about what De Venecia calls “a new, and hopefully more liberating, political system.”

Another website, meanwhile, defines a confidence trick or game, which it says is con for short, as “an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. The confidence trickster, con man, scam artist or con artist often works with an accomplice called the shill, who tries to encourage the mark by pretending to believe the trickster…”

Again I asked myself, “If Con-Ass is a confidence trick, who are the con men or the con artists? And who are the shills or accomplices who are trying to hoodwink us by believing the tricksters in this Con-Ass game?”

Adrenaline Rise and Salute to the Sun

Time flies so fast that before we know it it’s almost Christmas again. While many Filipinos, not only children, have been contemplating and excited about Christmas, some of us are not that excited for various reasons.

Before Christmas comes, which is just six days before 2007, many of us have to keep our adrenaline rising to beat some deadlines, if not complete some work backlogs. For us freelancers with some writing contracts, we have to finally finish what we have started and failed to complete in the past months. Otherwise, we miss the boat in getting new offers in the coming year.

Almost everybody in government or in private outfits also have to complete some annual reports from which plans for the next year will be based. In fact, some non-government organizations and other recipients of foreign donors had to complete their reports as early as October so their funding could be renewed.

The last quarter of the year is actually a high-tension period. With all the expected reports and deadlines to beat, who is excited about Christmas? Of course, working folk have one reason to be excited – their 13^th month pay and, if they are lucky, some bonus.

And as usual, local folk anticipate what the local media would name as the men or women of the year, both in a positive or in a notorious sense.

There’s also one thing more certain than Pacquiao’s recent victory over Morales. One more year will be added to our age, that is. While we, most especially women, try to defy aging by applying some oil or some paste over our faces, we cannot reverse the former thin lines in our faces that are eventually turning into grooves.

The same is true with our muscles and bones. The cavan of rice we used to lift with ease some years ago will soon appear heavier as time passes.

For those of us who kick as a way to keep fit, we will note that the round house or ax kick we used to deliver is not as lightning fast as our kicks before. There just are things the mind and spirit would like to do, but the flesh is just too weak to oblige.

So from taekwondo, we can shift to something friendlier to aging muscles and bones, like tai chi and shi bashi. Either that or we can still kick minus the fancy ones only Jet Li can deliver.

And we have to do away with some highly acrobatic hatha yoga limbering exercises we used to do. But we can still do the head stand and what I consider as one of the poetic hatha yoga exercises, which is “salute to the sun.”

Before I salute the rising sun, I also “embrace the mountains, push the waves of the sea, and offer a pear to a sage” (these are shibashi exercises). After these exercises, I close my eyes as I count every heart beat and feel the oxygen that enters my lungs while chirping birds and cicadas provide the background music.

On Retirement and Tending a Garden

Many working persons I know look forward to retirement. This is understandable especially if you have been teaching in a village public school or have been pushing and piling papers in some government office for 30 to 40 years.

As a public school teacher, you may want to take a break from inhaling all those chalk dust and all the tensions that go with the profession. Ditto with those engaged in both white- or blue-collar jobs. A clerk tinkering with photocopying machines day in and day out for years definitely needs a break lest he overexposes himself to too much radiation.

We all need a break from the drudgery of our jobs. That’s why we all look forward to that day when we are 60 or 65 so we can retire. So we contemplate ourselves relaxing on a hammock tied to two coconut trees while reading one of our favorite books and sipping buko (young coconut) juice.

We want to retire because we want to do what we have been wishing to do while we were tied up to our 8a.m-5p.m. jobs. Many of us look forward to tending a garden or catching up with some missed hobbies such as ballroom dancing, culturing bonsai trees, painting, or perhaps even writing our own biographies.

Many young people today also want to accelerate their careers because they want to retire young or to take second or even third careers.

But in life, there is actually no retirement. Either you shift to another career or another activity or choose to do nothing but sleep and eat. But the latter option can only hasten your permanent retirement, which is death.

At 65, or even in our 40s, we may already feel that our knees are weakening. But we can still do something worthwhile. We can still be active in some endeavors, which can give our Supreme Life-giver more reason to extend our lives on this planet. Some people I know are taking advantage of their retirement as an opportunity to serve others. After working for themselves and for their families, these retirees, who never consider themselves retired, now want to give back or share with others all the abundance of life they have enjoyed.

Retiree friends, who serve as my elders and mentors, say that they have come to realize that there’s more to life than earning money and spending, if not accumulating, it. So they engage in civic programs and charity work. One retiree I have just met, for example, is now helping give legal advice to some indigenous folk in Kalinga province, who have sought to manage and explore their own mineral resources through a new community-organized corporation. It’s time that indigenous folk themselves, he says, manage and utilize their resources primarily for their own communities.

Another retiree friend, who has not retired, still practices his medical profession, catering mostly to poor Cordillera folk, often times giving out his services for free. Apart from this, he is engaged in helping develop a grassroots-based sports program for the youth. That’s not all. He is among the key persons in helping mobilize local historians, educators, and other professionals to finally write their own history. Our history has always been written from the colonizers’ viewpoint. So he says it’s time we write history from our own perspective.

Since they are busy with still plenty of unfinished businesses, these un-retired and untiring retiree friends are showing no signs of aging. If ever they are aging, they are so in the same way that aging wine becomes tastier as it ages. This is why they are aging gracefully as they are growing in wisdom.

Feedback from Canada and Making Choices

Since last May I have begun compiling my columns for Cordillera Today in a personal blog named after this corner. For me the blog merely serves as a personal virtual notebook or folder for my columns. The blog, however, contains only my columns since last May. If I have the time, I will retrieve the rest and compile them in just one virtual package.

As a personal virtual folder, the blog, I thought, could not be viewed by others. So I didn’t expect feedback or comments about what I have been compiling in my lemongrass tea blog. But Google has a way of showing and sharing the blog with others so some of my pieces got a few comments.

Somebody from Canada, for example, reacted to a column last August, “On Leaving and Staying.” In that column, I said, among other things, that I would not give up on this country, despite all the misfortune in governance we all face. I also said some were pushing me to find work overseas but I declined, saying I could not imagine myself working in some sweatshop there and that I could not stand being lonely and away from my family.

I also said I turned down some suggestion for me and my family to migrate overseas because I could not afford to cut off my cultural and family roots, among other reasons.

Let me reprint this feedback from a Filipino migrant in Canada who, except for giving a website address which I have yet to access, did not identify himself or herself. Thus:

“Just to give you some comfort. Over here in Canada, a lot of new immigrants do not end up in sweat shops. At least here in North America, for as long as you work hard, you can attain anything.

“I came here as a nanny in 1988 and abandoned my accounting career in the Philippines and never looked back. I left the country just after having obtained my Philippine CPA (Certified Public Accountancy) designation for a better future here in Canada.

“After working for two years as a nanny, the Canadian government granted me an immigrant status and was given the opportunity to work in any field I wanted, sky was the limit. I decided to pursue an accounting career and was able to purchase my own home. I was able to sponsor my parents who are currently living a very satisfactory life.

“But most of all, apart from material possessions, I found peace and security (politically and economically). I recently went home to the Philippines to attend my grandmother's funeral and after seeing the current Philippine situation, the more I felt strongly about my decision to have left the country.”

In that last column, I also said that those who leave have their own reasons and that I didn’t and wouldn’t fault them for leaving.

In this age, as long as we have some skill or expertise in whatever field, we can make choices. We can opt to stay put in this archipelago of 7,100 islands, come high or low tide, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions or super typhoons. Or we can choose to go overseas and reinvent ourselves there.

But the key is education – real education, which can help equip us with the necessary skill, maturity, the right attitude, and the character to be able to work and relate with other people in whatever environment.

Canada and other countries in the developed world no doubt offer better opportunities for people who have skills and brains. Compared to the Philippines, these countries definitely give more just compensation to well-invested efforts and talents. As a result, people in these countries are motivated to excel.

There was this Filipina who, after not being able to find work here after finishing a mass communications degree, got a job as a nanny in Singapore. Since she had writing skills, she wrote a bestseller, which was aptly titled, “Maid in Singapore.” She eventually moved to Canada where she now works as a writer and filmmaker. She is Crisanta Sampang, one of overseas Filipino workers whose writing talent – besides hard work and perseverance – brought her to greater heights.

So again, the key is education. If well-educated, Filipinos applying as nannies or factory workers need not become nannies or sweatshop workers forever. Like Crisanta Sampang and that person who gave a feedback to one of our columns, they can metamorphose into more accomplished persons. They can even transcend the current government’s program to produce “super-maids.” They can prove to the world that they can also write prose or poetry other than just changing diapers and cleaning bedpans.

In Praise of Mountains

Typhoon Paeng (international name, Cimaron) came, left a trail of destruction, and departed after 24 hours.

Each time shortly before the year ends, Benguet folk and other peoples of the Cordilleras in northern Philippines since time immemorial had been noting a one-day-one-night strong typhoon they named after a migratory bird locally called kiling. The last typhoon must have been the same as the one our elders had learned to live with when there was no weather bureau yet to inform and warn us about thunderstorms and tropical depressions.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) had warned that Paeng was a super-typhoon packing sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour. Such strength could have been more devastating than the reported destruction and lives lost. But thanks to the Sierra Madre, a series of mountain ranges in the island of Luzon, the strength of the typhoon, according to Pagasa, was reduced to 125 to 130 kph.

Besides the Sierra Madre, the Cordillera mountain ranges must have helped parry the deadly blows of Paeng before it left towards the South China Sea.

That mountains help protect people from the beatings of typhoons must have been one reason why most indigenous folk highly regard these elevated land formations as highly important, if not sacred. In my hometown of Kibungan, the center of town is well- secured and surrounded by mountains, which have long protected us from the wrath of typhoons exiting towards the South China Sea.

In Benguet, some peaks regarded as holy grounds include Mount Pulag in Kabayan and Mount Kabunian in Bakun.

The Aetas also consider their mountains, including Mount Pinatubo, as sacred. Southern Tagalog folk likewise have Mounts Makiling and Banahaw, a Mecca of some sort for some local pilgrims. Lumad folk in southern Philippines also count Mounts Apo in Davao and Kitanglad in Bukidnon as among their sacred sites.

Other peoples elsewhere in the world also regard their peaks as hallowed ground. The Himalayas, for example, has a special place for Buddhist monks and pilgrims. Those who have climbed and “conquered” the Himalayas swear that they have experienced some kind of spiritual awakenings.

The role and importance of mountains cannot be underestimated. Besides serving as windbreakers, mountains are where we can find certain plant species with medicinal values. No wonder, Mount Pulag’s mountain yew has caught the interests of bio-pirates because of the plant’s reported anti-cancer potentials.

Mountain ranges also serve as the headwaters of lowland communities. Northern Philippines’ Cordillera region, for example, has seven major river systems, which serve as the cradle of agriculture for many lowland communities.

Formed after a series of volcanic eruptions ages ago, mountains are often regarded as metaphors for challenges. The Chinese, for example, say that a person is successful in life if he has climbed mountains, fathered a son, planted trees, and wrote a book. In this regard, climbing mountains is not necessarily climbing and conquering the Himalayas as Romy Garduce and company did. Climbing mountains, according to the Chinese, also means being able to overcome challenges and difficulties in life and coming out a better person.

After typhoon Paeng came and was gone, we are thankful that the Sierra Madre and the Cordillera mountain range stood their ground, protecting us from our vulnerabilities. These mountains also continue to teach us about how to stand our ground on things we are passionate about.

Living by Tradition

There’s one thing I learned from Imam Bedejim Abdullah.

“Why do I grow my beard and mustache? I do so because it’s not a fad or fashion, but growing my beard and mustache is part of our tradition as Muslims,” he said, explaining that God’s servants and messengers, from Abraham to Mohammad, had grown their beard and mustache. “And why do we not eat pork? This is also part of our Muslim tradition because our religion extends into our kitchen.”

I interviewed the Muslim chaplain of the Philippine Military Academy during the World Religion Week celebration hosted by the Saint Louis University last month. While I was interviewing him, many students came over and the Imam invited them to join us at his prayer carpet, which he spread at a lobby of one of SLU’s buildings where various religions also displayed photos and posters describing their basic tenets and doctrines.

The Imam encouraged the students to ask any questions under the sun about Islam. As expected, the students’ questions included why Muslims don’t eat pork, whether or not Islam is also a path to salvation, etc.

On pork, he said the Koran considers pigs as filthy and therefore unclean for human consumption. And so avoiding pork in their diet has become a tradition Muslims live and practice each day of their lives. According to Abdullah, the kitchen is also a sacred place and must not be defiled by something unclean.

Except for Seventh-Day Adventists, I don’t know of any Christian groups, which incorporate their Christian tradition with their culinary arts.

Even for practical reasons, there must be some wisdom in the prohibition by some religions on certain foods. And it’s not just because one person’s food is another person’s poison. Many of us belittle those who abstain from pork until we get arthritis and high blood pressure and our doctors advise us to avoid pork and other meat altogether.

On tradition versus fashion, there’s also wisdom in not being easily swayed by fashion trendsetters in Paris and New York, who decide on how our hair and faces should look and how we should dress up. Of course, new fashion means new product line, and the more people crazy about a new product, the more money for those behind this fashion business.

So there’s something to appreciate about the likes of Abdullah, who simply look and dress up as their Muslim forebears did ages ago because this is part of their tradition. In so doing, they are freed from the craze, if not trap, of having to keep up with the latest fad in fashion.

I met a Malaysian Muslim leader a few years ago and he said he stopped wearing Western suits and had since worn loose Muslim attire made of batik. He said patronizing his own traditional attire would be good for his country’s economy. Batik is Malaysia’s top clothing product and patronizing it would indeed be favorable to local batik manufacturers. Such attitude must be one of the moving forces behind Malaysia’s transformation as an economic tiger.

Even just from their views about their cuisine and about why they grow their beard and mustache, our Muslim brothers can teach us a vital lesson or two. They have much to teach to their Christian brothers and sisters, many of whom generally profess and say one thing and practice another thing.

Face of Death Changes in Benguet Upland Town

KIBUNGAN, Benguet – His village mates expected him to be given his last respects and buried the traditional way. That meant his corpse, donning only a red turban and a g-string, would be fastened into a makeshift chair surrounded by bonfires within a seven or nine-day wake. And his corpse would be entombed beside a boulder or at the mouth of a cave.

Such practice was specially accorded to someone who, during his lifetime, had hosted a series of pedit or traditional feasts during which several pigs besides cattle were offered to the gods and spirits. Under the old tradition of this Kankanaey upland town, the more pedit a person hosted, the higher status he attains in the community.

But many town mates were surprised when Teodoro Bolislis Sr., more known as Lakay (elder) Paguli, died in 2001 at age 91. Instead of a red turban and a brightly-colored dominantly red g-string, the elder’s corpse was made to wear a coat and tie. And he was not made to sit on a chair surrounded by bonfires.

Shortly after the elder died, the son drove to Baguio City to get the services of an embalmer. And the corpse was laid in state inside a pine wood coffin, which was fastened not with nails but with bamboo sticks drilled into the pine lumber. (It is taboo to use metal in a coffin as the corpse is not also allowed to wear any metallic object such as jewelries.)

Embalming was first introduced in this town of 16,000 when Atayoc Bay-an, another elder and Bolislis’ brother-in-law, died in 2000.

“Mayat kayman met baw ay doy guwapo yan doy kaman wat nanaek (Oh, he looks handsome and looks he’s just sleeping),” somebody commented then during the wake of Bolislis.

Bolislis’ three children decided on embalming and on letting their father wear coat and tie because, they said, he was a former municipal mayor.

Religion was another factor. A few years before the elder died, two of his children had just converted to “born-again” Christianity, which seeks to do away with various facets of tradition such as customary burial rites.

But even fundamentalist Christianity cannot totally wipe out old tradition. During Bolislis’ wake, the bereaved family still had to slaughter pigs whose bile and livers some elders “read” for any sign of good or bad omen. After the meat was cooked, somebody prayed the Christian way, but an elder also prayed the traditional way, offering the meat to the gods and ancestral spirits.

Also during the wake, “Amazing Grace” and other church hymns were interspersed with traditional eya-ey chants.

At early dawn during the day of the entombment of Bolislis, elders performed the traditional pabaon during which some rice and meat plus a glass of wine were offered to the spirit of the dead. The food and wine were believed to be the dead person’s packed food as he travels into the spirit world.

But at 8 a.m. a woman pastor led a necrological service for Bolislis before his remains were finally kept in a concrete tomb not far from the backyard of the family’s home.

The next day, the Bolislis family performed the traditional lawit, the last rite during which the family had to procure another pig. Through a traditional priest, the family thanked the gods and spirits and invoked them to help sustain and keep watch over the surviving family members so they could also live long, stay healthy, prosper and be at peace.

When Bolislis’ wife, Ganaya, died in 2005 she was accorded a similar mix of traditional and some Christianity-influenced burial rites. Ganaya’s remains were also kept in a concrete tomb just beside that of her husband’s tomb.

Despite the inroads of Christianity, first by the Roman Catholic Church and some Protestant churches and lately by fundamentalist charismatic and evangelical groups, traditional burial rites and age-old spiritual worldviews remain strong in this alpine town 67 kms. north of Baguio City.

One is the belief that the condition of the dead at his tomb or gravesite has something to do with the health condition of the living.

Recently, for example, the coffin of the late Juanito Mayamay, who died a few years ago, had to be repaired after his surviving wife, Payag, got ill. This was the advice of a traditional seer whom the children of Payag consulted.

The coffin of Mayamay, it turned out, was being eaten by termites so his children and relatives had to build a new one. This entailed another ritual during which the family had to procure some pigs to appease not only Mayamay’s spirit but also the gods and other spirits.

As elsewhere in the Cordilleras and other indigenous communities, Kibungan is one community where people still believe that the dead commune and communicate with the living and that life after death is very much part of the life here and now, and not separate.

Tsao-ang's Heart

Maria Elina Salvacion Kristina V. Ramo has a problem with her heart and she needs help. She is turning 19 on December 25 and the best Christmas gift for her from any Good Samaritans can be any form of support to remedy her heart problem.

Tsao-ang, as she is fondly called, was born with a hole between her left and right atria or the wall dividing her upper heart chambers. In short, she has a hole in her heart. Doctors call it Atrial Septal Disease, an abnormal condition that makes the blood flow back into the right atrium instead of going back into the other chambers. The condition, according to cardiologists, has to be corrected through an open heart surgery to close the hole.

When Tsao-ang was two years old, her parents had hoped and were made to believe that she could outgrow the condition. But she is now in college and the hole in her heart is still there. In 2004 a cardiologist in Baguio City checked Tsao-ang’s condition with a modern gadget called 2D-echo machine and recommended that she should be operated on immediately.

In May this year, yet another cardiologist at the Philippine Children’s Hospital in Quezon City confirmed the previous findings and advised Tsao-ang’s parents to move fast before anything tragic happens to their eldest child. Despite her condition, Tsao-ang has been making good in her Physics course at the University of the Philippines-College of Baguio. Tsao-ang’s teachers since pre-school say she is a specially gifted child, who excels in all her subjects, particularly math and the sciences.

Tsao-ang’s parents, Ador and Lyn, are doing all they can to save their child. But the cost of the operation is no joke, especially for both parents who simply cannot afford the more or less half-million-peso cost of operation and medicines. Ador works as a researcher in a non-government organization while Lyn writes for a local weekly newspaper in Baguio City. “Although we have only two children, our meager income barely allows for savings,” the couple said in a letter of appeal to would-be Good Samaritans who can offer any form of support to them.

Finally last October 17, Ador and Lyn finally had Tsao-ang checked up at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City after queuing for almost 10 hours. Although the new check-up reveals that she is doing well despite the hole in her heart, Tsao-ang, cardiologists at the heart center recommend, still needs surgical operation to finally close the hole.

Tsao-ang is scheduled for another final check-up through the 2D-Echo gadget on November 20 and by then the Ramo’s would know when Tsao-ang finally will be under the knife. While waiting for the schedule of operation, Ador, Lyn and their daughter are taking the opportunity for the time left to pool resources and support from relatives, friends and from any one with a big heart for Tsao-ang. And they have to prepare themselves psychologically and spiritually for the operation.

Despite her condition, Tsao-ang, as advised by her parents, could enroll during the coming semester while waiting and preparing for the operation, which, the Ramo’s are forewarned, may take a longer wait.

Tsao-ang has dreams. She hopes to finish her Physics course next year and seeks to pursue a career in architecture later. Any form of help from you can help make Tsao-ang’s dream come true. And that dream may yet help build this nation. We need all the talents and God-given gifts of every Filipino harnessed for this country of our hopes and aspirations.