tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48601383521285922722024-03-13T13:31:31.337-07:00Internet JaywalkingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-62699750486399524782018-04-19T21:40:00.000-07:002018-04-19T21:40:26.800-07:00I Hate Filipino Culture -11 years Later<br />
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I Hate Filipino Culture: <a href="http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-hate-filipino-culture.html">http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-hate-filipino-culture.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Almost exactly 5 years ago today, I looked at my blog counter
and was quite surprised when I saw that one of my articles gained around 50k
views in less than 24 hours and was still gaining views at a pretty fast rate.
Then I checked facebook and friends were saying that one of my articles was
being shared everywhere on social media and getting pretty strong reactions. It
was my first taste of what virality was like. The attention was very flattering
but also quite frightening. Along with the overwhelming positive reactions, I
was also getting a few negative ones. And we all know how mean the internet can
be. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote under my pen name “Jay
Walker” but I wasn’t entirely anonymous. I had a photo of my mug on the blog
which, according to some of the commenters, was quite douchey and could serve
as a “before” photo for a derma ad (I’m paraphrasing). I also saw someone write
“liquid sosa” at least once in the comments, one my many nicknames back in
gradeschool, so I’m pretty sure someone from that part of my life recognized
me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m not the type who enjoys having the spotlight directly on
me. I like having it on my creative work but not on me as a person. I didn’t
delete the profile photo which everybody had already seen anyway but I tried to
maintain anonymity as much as i could. I deleted the links to some of my blogs
which contained more information and photos of me. And I changed my name on fb
to my real name for a while so no one could find me. I did it because I dreaded
the influx of haters on my social media accounts but after reading a couple of
negative comments, I quickly got desensitized to it and I didn’t really get
affected anymore. I changed it back to Jay walker after a couple of days.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Back in 2007 when I originally wrote the entry, facebook was
not as big as it is today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social media
was plurk and Friendster. When you went viral back then, you went viral within
the blogging community, maybe you’d get mentioned in a few forums, have a few
memes. It’s nothing like what it is today where something could spread like
wildfire through facebook or twitter. When I first posted it on my tabulas blog
back in 2007, it got a few comments and reactions but it wasn’t until 2013 when
people shared it on facebook and twitter that it went viral. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The fact that it spread the way it did was surprising because
although the title was a bit clickbait-y, the body of the article was not
written, as some of the commenters said, in a way that could be easily
understood by the masses. In the age of memes and road rage videos, articles
that are several paragraphs long rarely get viral anymore, especially ones that
contain words and phrases like “purveyor of ignorance” and “permeates”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are so many ways that one could go viral
on the internet. One could easily end up like Cristopher Lao or the Amalayer
girl, barbequed to a crisp by internet trolls. I’m glad that I didn’t go viral
that way. Perhaps it was also because of the nature of the article that it avoided
the worst of internet trolls. Although there were a few immature comments and
some that were bordering on violent, they were rare. A lot of the reactions to
it were articles in themselves. And even some of the replies that were critical
of it were also thoughtfully written.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If I had written it today, it definitely wouldn’t sound as
angry. Aging has taken some of the fire and idealism out of me. I would change
or add a few things. But I think it still remains timely. Those who were
critical of the article have accused it of being homophobic because they
thought I said something negative about people who dressed in drag. I
explicitly used the word “entertainers” I was talking about entertainers, who
aren’t even gay in the first place, dressing in drag and acting like fools sake
of a few laughs. There are plenty of those characters in Philippine television.
That, I think is promoting homophobia and could even be interpreted as an outright
mockery of the their community.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the attention back then
but looking back at it now, I’m filled with a sense of pride. For a brief
period of time, I was able to move people’s thoughts and emotions en masse with
my words, which is the aspiration of any writer or those aspiring to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I Hate Filipino Culture” first went viral on april 2013 and
then went viral again on january 2014. Thanks to everyone who shared it and posted
reactions to it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of the posts that I could find on twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=internetjaywalking.blogspot.com&src=typd">https://twitter.com/search?q=internetjaywalking.blogspot.com&src=typd</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of the lengthier blog reactions that I found through
google: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.unipronow.org/oldblog/a-response-to-i-hate-filipino-culture">http://www.unipronow.org/oldblog/a-response-to-i-hate-filipino-culture</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://panobamagblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/who-hates-filipino-culture/">https://panobamagblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/who-hates-filipino-culture/</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://pluralphilippines.tumblr.com/post/72055845867/a-response-to-the-article-i-hate-filipino">http://pluralphilippines.tumblr.com/post/72055845867/a-response-to-the-article-i-hate-filipino</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://indymiss.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/how-lovely-comments-on-internet-jaywalking/">https://indymiss.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/how-lovely-comments-on-internet-jaywalking/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://newscenter.ph/2014/04/16/do-you-have-this-most-hateful-filipino-attitude/">https://newscenter.ph/2014/04/16/do-you-have-this-most-hateful-filipino-attitude/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Matteo gudicelli posted it twice on twitter<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/mateoguidicelli/status/418691715617144832">https://twitter.com/mateoguidicelli/status/418691715617144832</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/mateoguidicelli/status/418688072578895872">https://twitter.com/mateoguidicelli/status/418688072578895872</a></div>
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Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to search old posts on
facebook but thank you to everyone who shared it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-68994323545714430092017-12-28T05:52:00.000-08:002017-12-28T05:52:15.617-08:00What is Intelligence?<div class="MsoNormal">
How much brain power does it take to invent the wheel? It’s
a question that I often pondered about in my youth. It doesn’t seem to take
much observational power to notice that round things roll and if you put an
axle in the center of a round object, you have a modern day wheel and axle.
Modern humans have been around for 160,000 years and the earliest wheel and
axle dates to about 3600BC. It took us more than a hundred thousand years to
invent what a lot of kids today can probably easily discover in their playtime.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There’s this curious phenomenon called the Flynn effect.
It’s the consistent increase in the average IQ of a population over
generations. Is it possible that the intelligence of
homo sapiens back then was just so far behind that what we consider simple
cognitive tasks now, required advanced feats of mental gymnastics? <o:p></o:p></div>
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I remember looking at Leonardo Da Vinci’s mechanical designs
when I was prepubescent teen and thinking to myself “I could’ve designed these”
I had a pretty high regard my capabilities back then :) But while Da Vinci was
no doubt a genius and his engineering designs were advanced for his time, I do
think that a lot of people living today would be capable of coming up with
similar designs, even without the benefit of formal mentoring or passed down
technical knowledge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not that that would matter. The days of the single inventor
working in their basement changing history may be past us. Most major advances
in technology are developed by companies or organizations with several brains
working together and more than a couple of thousand dollars in funds.
Technology is at the point where collective intelligence, as well as funds, are
required for it to advance <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5RqUFZ61E64/WkTxnXVEc6I/AAAAAAAAA0w/V7szF4HBtukpfAybkVHtgeb7mfzPGFEIQCLcBGAs/s1600/comparison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="1600" height="280" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5RqUFZ61E64/WkTxnXVEc6I/AAAAAAAAA0w/V7szF4HBtukpfAybkVHtgeb7mfzPGFEIQCLcBGAs/s640/comparison.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>a.) at the left, Davinci's design for a crossbow b.) at the right, my design for a slightly different type of 2 stroke engine when i was in gradeschool. I didn't think that i was lagging too far behind compared to Da vinci back then.(I invented my own alphabet when i was young so i could write in private)</i></span></div>
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I remember when I was much younger, we were given regular IQ
tests by the school guidance counselor. Some questions in the tests were
significantly more difficult than others. I would answer the tricky questions
first thinking that maybe they would matter more. Maybe they would be worth more
points. I thought that I’d impress the person who’s checking the test more if I
answered the more difficult questions correctly. And then I found out later on
that you’d get the same points for correctly answering the easiest question as
you would the most difficult questions. That just didn’t make sense to me and I
think I continued doing what I was doing for a while.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then later on, we were taught a strategy on how to score
well on these exams. “Answer the easiest questions first and then progressively
go to the more difficult ones. If you run out of time, answer the remaining
questions using guesswork.” I asked myself how could this be a reliable measure
of intelligence when, on top of being a multiple choice test, you were also
taught strategies on how to game it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps the tests that we were given weren’t up to
international standards but you can train people to do better on these tests.
Which begs the question: Are we really getting smarter or are we just getting
better at answering this specific test. What exactly does this test measure?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Savants are individuals who excel on one specific task but
have difficulties in other cognitive tasks. Kim Peek, the inspiration for the
movie Rain Man, for example, could read 2 different pages of a book at the same
time with each eye scanning a different page. He could remember everything that
he read. His brain has absorbed so much information that he wasn’t just a
walking encyclopedia, he was practically a walking Google. He could also do
complex calendar calculations which no normal human being would be able to do
even with extensive training. Like other savants though, Kim peek was disabled
in other areas of his life.</div>
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A lot of people with Savant syndrome have damage to certain
parts of their brains. Savant syndrome has also been replicated artificially
using magnetic stimulation that temporally disables parts of the brain. It’s
interesting that rather than requiring more brain tissue, you actually have to
disable parts of your brain in order to do tasks that require “intelligence”.
Kim peek’s brain actually is missing its corpus callosum or the bundle of
nerves that link that the two brain hemispheres together. Our brains filter out
a lot of information which it considers unnecessary otherwise we’d be overloaded
with information. The theory is that this filtering process is what’s missing
in a lot of savants. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Kim peek’s brain could do mental feats that none of us would
be able to do but he couldn’t understand metaphors, his father had to take care of him until his
death because he couldn’t survive on his own. He couldn’t even dress himself
without assistance. His IQ was measured to be below average but does that mean
that he wasn’t intelligent? If someone with Kim Peek’s exceptional memory and
computational skills scores low on an IQ test then what is the IQ test not
measuring?</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is no scientific consensus on what the definition of
intelligence is aside from that which IQ measures, which is in itself is
controversial. One interesting fact about IQ test results is that it can be
<a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/motivation-may-influence-iq-scores" target="_blank">affected by the motivation</a> of the person taking the test. When given financial
incentives to score high on an IQ test, subjects can score up to 10-15 IQ
points higher which is a pretty significant increase.<o:p></o:p></div>
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IQ is significantly affected by the person's motivation to think and the motivation to solve a problem<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps ancient human beings didn’t find a strong enough
motivation to invent the wheel until the Bronze Age when society became complex
enough that they could profit from it in some way. We could see a similar trend
in today’s technological developments. We could advance our understanding of
the universe so much faster if the US would increase NASA’s budget. Currently
though, NASA’s budget is only about 2.8% that of the US military budget. Back
in the 70s, people thought that we’d have colonies on other planets by now. We
haven’t even been back to the moon since 1972. We’re more motivated to spend brain power on problems that we can profit from in the near future.</div>
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Most people have their own barometers for intelligence. A
lot of psychologists would agree that there are many types of intelligence.
There’s mathematical intelligence, linguistic, musical etc. As we’ve seen in
the case of savants, excelling in one particular area doesn’t always translate
to functional intelligence. I think intelligence lies in the valleys in
between. It’s in the motivation to think and the capability to use these
different types of intelligence as tools to achieve a certain goal. It’s not
just to absorb information but to create something with what has been absorbed.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I think that as a society advances, the value of individual
intelligence becomes less and less important. Computers are getting better at solving
problems that involve logic, statistics, group behavior etc. Eventually we will
realize that even intelligent people can be flawed decision makers and we will
rely more and more on data crunching machines. Gifted individuals will do well
in their respective fields but the capability to singlehandedly advance
humanity may be beyond the individual unless he bands together with other
equally capable individuals. From a societal standpoint, more important than
individual intelligence is collective intelligence –the average intelligence of
a population. It directly correlates with a nation’s GDP, with its
technological advancements, with its standards of living. It also affects how
far an individual can push his intellect. Even if we do produce a man of Da
Vinci’s intellect, if he doesn’t get the funding (which is related to GDP), if
he doesn’t get the intellectual manpower that he needs to advance his ideas, he
won’t get very far.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-75904001767522592692017-02-07T05:28:00.001-08:002017-02-07T05:28:38.196-08:00To My Father<div class="MsoNormal">
Starting at around 2 weeks before my father’s death, I
started noticing changes in his behavior. It was initially very gradual. Unless
you knew him well, you wouldn’t notice it right away. It started with the loss
of his sense of time. He became erratic.
He would demand to be released from the hospital one day only to ask to be
returned to the hospital the next day. He was in and out of confinement four or
five times in less than a month. His liver was failing and it was having a detrimental
effect on his brain. It got progressively worse to the point that nothing that
he said made sense anymore. He was interchanging words. I had to write down
some of the things he was saying so I could figure out which words meant what.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Up Until his last 2 weeks, he had a very sharp mind and he
took great pride in it. He used to always say something along the lines of: I
could lose my arms or my legs but if I lose my mind, that’s it” He often
insinuated that he’d rather die than have a diminished mind. It was a painful
thing to watch. The thing that he feared the most, next to death probably, was
happening to him and he wasn’t even realizing it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-od7nauk71Ns/WJnLV-XOPrI/AAAAAAAAA0E/5I3g1s2bAk84FsAlpUfcuMYVoGmH9v_JACLcB/s1600/papa%2Brestored.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-od7nauk71Ns/WJnLV-XOPrI/AAAAAAAAA0E/5I3g1s2bAk84FsAlpUfcuMYVoGmH9v_JACLcB/s320/papa%2Brestored.jpg" width="134" /></a></div>
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His warped sense of time was particularly stressful for me
and my mother. Minutes became hours for him. He’d accuse me of prioritizing other
things over him or not spending enough time at the hospital when almost 90% of
my waking time was spent at the hospital. I started resenting it after a while
because I was practically chained to the hospital room for more than a month
and I had to suspend everything else. I’d leave for 40mins to have lunch and I’d
get a text message asking me to come back because I’d been away for too long.
That resentment was one of the things that I regretted after he passed away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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2 or 3 days before he passed away, he went into a coma. I
remember having to leave the hospital because my car’s starter was starting to
fail and I had to get it fixed. I was away for more than 2 hours and I didn’t
get that text message that, just a few days prior, caused me so much stress. I
remember thinking that at that moment, there was nothing that I wanted more
than to get that message demanding that I go back to the hospital. The message
never came. He never woke up from the coma. He finally succumbed to the cancer that
he fought for years. That clichéd saying about spending as much quality time as
you can with your loved ones especially in the twilight of their lives, it’s so
obvious but it can also be easy to forget when you’re in the situation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The last month and a half of my father’s life was an
emotional rollercoaster for all of us in the family. There’s one particular
memory that stands out for me. I think it was night time or early in the
morning. I woke up to the sound of him calling out my name. I got up from my
makeshift bed on the floor of the hospital room and walked towards him. He looked
at me in the eye and, as if he was lucid for the first time in days, he said “My
son”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Today’s your first death anniversary, papa. You had your
doubts but I think you’d be happy to know that we’re doing fine. Your business is doing fine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You will always be missed.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-37142724796900114452016-09-14T07:58:00.000-07:002016-09-14T19:05:00.733-07:00Deconstructing the most common Dutertian arguments<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C4Kekz_U2P0/V9lScAVUO8I/AAAAAAAAAyw/gSKihU0fiJgxBhRfuEm1d-7rrsKxTAuWwCLcB/s1600/focus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C4Kekz_U2P0/V9lScAVUO8I/AAAAAAAAAyw/gSKihU0fiJgxBhRfuEm1d-7rrsKxTAuWwCLcB/s320/focus.jpg" width="277" /></a><span lang="EN-PH">Have you ever posted something critical of the administration? Were you attacked by dozens of online trolls calling you a drug addict or a yellowtard? Did you scratch your head when you got asked questions like "<i>Why don't you grieve for their victims instead</i>?!!"Well then this list is for you. Here are some of the most popular arguments/questions that have been used in this drug war so far deconstructed</span><br />
<span lang="EN-PH"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-PH">1.) <b>It’s
ok to kill drug users because they murder and rape</b>: One problem with this
argument is that unless you could prove that ALL drug users kill and rape, you’re
saying that it’s ok to kill any member of a group because of the crime of some
of its members. That’s like saying it’s ok to kill any Muslim because almost all terrorist attacks are committed by Muslims. Another mind altering substance,
<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm" target="_blank">alcohol</a>, is also responsible for a lot of crimes including murder, rape and a
lot of car related deaths. In a lot of countries, alcohol related deaths actually
outnumber drug related deaths but I don’t see anyone carrying banners saying
“death to all lasengos”. What we do is we prosecute individuals for the
specific crimes that they committed while under the influence of alcohol.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-PH">You’ll find plenty of documentation proving
that users of hard drugs like shabu or meth can be rehabilitated (<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2330012/How-Iron-Man-star-Robert-Downey-Jr-turned-life-prison-cocaine.html" target="_blank">Robert Downey Jr</a> would be an example) and not all of them
commit rape and murder. We don’t prosecute people for the crimes members of
their group have committed or crimes that we think they are LIKELY to commit. If a
certain person was killed by a drug addict then that particular addict should
be charged with murder. Other addicts should be given punishment that's proportional to the crimes that they have committed. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-PH">Furthermore are we saying that it’s ok to
kill users of Hard drugs like shabu, or are we going to extend this to users of
other drugs like cocaine, LSD, marijuana and ectasy. (<a href="http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/580958/news/metro/sister-of-actress-maritoni-fernandez-shot-dead-in-quezon-city" target="_blank">even dealers of ecstasy have been targeted recently</a>) Because if you’d look at the
numbers, you’d be hardpressed to find a strong correlation between the use of
recreational drugs and violence. Some of the brightest minds in history experimented with drugs. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Richard Feynman <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-and-geniuses-who-used-drugs-2013-8?op=1/#eve-jobs-lsd-2" target="_blank">did LSD</a><span id="goog_212297009"></span><span id="goog_212297010"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a>, Thomas Edison and Sigmund Freud did Cocaine and if I may quote Bob Marley, a strong
proponent of the herb, “peace, love and hug all trees mawn” –Obviously a peace loving bloke, although I may be paraphrasing
him on that<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-PH"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-PH"><b><span lang="EN-PH">2.) Extrajudicial killings are justified because our crime rate has reached national crisis levels</span></b><span lang="EN-PH">. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a classic example of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_fear" target="_blank">fear mongering</a>. Not so dissimilar from how bush justified his war on Iraq or how Hitler justified the actions of his Nazi party. You make the populace think that there’s a grave and imminent threat and you can justify extraordinary measures to counter that supposed threat.- Duterte’s chief legal adviser even said that the drug problem is now <a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/805064/illegal-drugs-danger-enough-grounds-for-martial-law-panelo" target="_blank">enough grounds to declare martial law</a>. I’d like to think that we’re smart enough not to fall for that. I hope we are. The murder rate in the US is higher than in the Philippines. Rape cases are higher in the UK. In terms of drug use, we’re not even in the top 10 list. We are being led to believe that we have an extraordinary situation but data will show that we’re nothing special.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-PH"><span lang="EN-PH"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>3.) Why do you grieve for the criminals who are getting killed by the police and vigilantes? Why not grieve for their victims instead?</b><span lang="EN-PH"> Does it really have to be mutually exclusive? Can’t you denounce both? In the first place, you CAN'T even really say that victims of extrajudicial killings are criminals yet. They're only suspects and therefore <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence" target="_blank">innocent</a> until their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal court. Innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. Even if you were successful in arguing that murderers and rapists deserve death, it doesn't justify the killing of suspects unless you could prove that they are indeed guilty of murder and rape. Also, violent crime perpetuated by individuals happens in every country. It's a sad fact but it's a given. Violent crime that is openly perpetuated/encouraged by the government against its own people is a lot worse and it happens in states like North Korea and certain African countries that civilization has left behind. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH"><b>4.) Unless youre a drug addict, you have nothing to fear.</b><span lang="EN-PH"> You can tell that to <a href="http://www.rappler.com/nation/141215-oman-manaois-dagupan-drugs-war-killed" target="_blank">Roman Manaois</a>, <a href="http://www.rappler.com/nation/142746-rowena-tiamson-dagupan-honor-student-church-choir-member" target="_blank">Roana Tiamson</a>, <a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/797537/6-people-killed-by-unknown-gunmen-in-pangasinan" target="_blank">Julius Rabina</a>, <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/07/20/16/foundation-scholar-a-victim-of-dutertes-war-on-drugs" target="_blank">Jefferson Bunuan</a> and the thousands of SUSPECTS who got reduced to a statistic without getting to the chance to prove their innocence. As recent events have shown, “Top gear justice” aka trial by the mob is quite unreliable. Just because a lot of people think that a person is guilty <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/trending/07/27/16/top-gear-sorry-for-identifying-wrong-suspect-in-road-rage" target="_blank">doesn't mean that he is actually guilty</a>.If we treat due process as something that can be skipped, anyone can be a drug addict or a pusher and anyone can be killed. The purpose of due process is to determine guilt through an objective evidence-based process, more or less. It can never be perfect but it will still be more reliable than a subjective process based on finger pointing and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/arpee.santiago/posts/10208518223487887" target="_blank">chismis mongering.</a> </span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH">5.) <b>The
US has no right to criticize the Philippines because they kill blacks. </b>This
argument was not made by a teenage girl but by Mr Duterte himself after he was
asked by an American journalist a question regarding extrajudicial killings. It’s
like that argument with your girlfriend or bf where you try to dig up every bad thing
that you’ve done to each other in the past. It is true that there are plenty of cases
of white officers killing unarmed black suspects. If Obama endorsed these
killings like Duterte does, then we can say that these acts are state sponsored and we should condemn Obama. But Obama hasn’t praised any of these killings, has never
endorsed them and has even <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/two-police-killings-of-black-men-part-of-pattern-of-racial-disparity-obama-says-1467919272" target="_blank">condemned</a> some of them. The most that you can claim
is that there are a few bad seeds in the American police force (they exist in every country) and that they
should be tried. A lot of these killer cops have been tried and convicted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH">6<b> Human
rights only protect drug coddlers not their victims:</b>- Contrary to popular Dutertian belief, human rights were not invented by yellowtards or by drug coddlers.
These rights predated yellowtards actually. The Universal declaration of human
rights were agreed upon and ratified by most of the world’s democratic
countries including the Philippines back in 1948 so each individual person can
have a chance to stand against even the might of the state. A lot of the rights that you enjoy now are inspired by this declaration. It’s not the job of
human rights organizations to investigate every crime that happens in a
country. That is the government’s job. Now when governments trample on the
rights of individuals, such as the right to due process, that’s when they step
in. When duterte said that the UN
had no right to criticize the country’s policy on extrajudicial killigs,he was
a bit ill informed. Extrajudicial killings are crimes against humanity according to rules that
we are a signatory to. Violators can be tried in </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN-PH">the </span><span style="text-align: center;">international criminal
court.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH"><br /></span><span lang="EN-PH"><b>7.) More people have died during the Arroyo and Aquino administrations</b>: Aquino was in office for 6 years, Arroyo for 9. That's 15yrs combined or 180months. </span> Duterte has been in office for a little over 2 months. Even if you could argue that more people died in the previous 2 administrations' 180months than duterte's 2 months, it's kind of a self-defeating argument, isn't it? 2400 have already died. More than 1000 are from police operations. You won't find that death rate from state actors in any administration post martial law. If we were to take his campaign promise seriously, he's still 97600 short of his goal.<br />
<br />
<b>8.) Drug addicts/pushers are not human and therefore not deserving of human rights: </b>This is a very dangerous line of thought and shows how far this administration will go to mentally condition the populace into accepting things that most people would find morally objectionable. History is full of terrible examples of what happens when you dehumanize an entire group of people. Japanese interment camps during world war 2, the jews under the nazi etc. But again it boils down to due process. Even if you were right that drug users and pushers are not human and are in fact 3 headed demons, unless there's due process, you wouldn't know if the people you're killing are indeed 3 headed demons or just victims of false chismis... or perhaps victims of cops trying to meet their quota.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-PH">9.) Hundreds
of thousands of addicts have surrendered and only 3000 have been killed. This drug war is working: </span></b><span lang="EN-PH">You can completely eradicate poverty in
the Philippines by killing all the poor people ...that is until small businesses start collapsing from lack
of low-cost labor. If you kill all straight men, you will undoubtedly end all rape
and you’ll have yourself a glorious feminazi utopia ...until the entire human race goes extinct because it can't reproduce anymore. </span>You can achieve seemingly impossible things if you kill enough people. but extreme measures usually come with extreme side effects in the long run. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
I think it's safe to say that at least in this period of time, this drug war is working. Whether it's a long term, sustainable solution is another question. But at the cost what? at the cost of our relationship with our allies? our image in the world stage, the dignity of our legal institutions, our economy, the moral fabric of the Filipino people... the lives of innocents which we are now quick to dismiss as collateral damage? The drug problem isn't the Philippines' only problem. It's also far from its biggest problem. We're being conditioned to believe that a lot of more important things can be sacrificed in the name of this drug war.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>10.) Extrajudicial killings are justified because Due process in the Philippines is lengthy</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH">Our legal process is indeed lengthy and therefore it should be improved not circumvented. </span>Imagine if all the resources that go towards hunting down and killing drug suspects were aimed towards fixing the judicial system instead. <span lang="EN-PH">We can look at our neighbors for ideas. For example in Japan, judges are given incentives for finishing cases
early. Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, they have some of the most
quickly resolved cases in the world. If you argue that the judiciary is not necessary, you're moving the conviction process further down the chain ...or up the chain or anywhere else other than where it should be. <o:p></o:p></span>If it came down to your sentencing and your life depended on it, would you rather be sentenced by a judge, a vigilante or a police officer?<br />
<span lang="EN-PH"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-PH">Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are a lot of police officers who are honest and morally upright. But as someone who’s had regular encounters with kotong cops, I can personally attest that not all of them are angelic, incorruptible enforcers of justice. A lot of them can't even handle our traffic situation without extorting a few hundred pesos from motorists for nonexistent violations. What makes anyone think that they are equipped with the right faculties to become judge and executioner</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-PH">11.) You
have no proof that duterte is associated with any of these extrajudicial
killings: </span></b><span lang="EN-PH">This is probably the most frustrating
point to argue against because our dear president flip flops on so many things
that he says. He once admitted that he was the Davao death squad only to deny
it later. He says he’ll pull us out of the UN only to say later “joke only”. Doesn't it bother anybody that he gets to spew verbal diarrhea locally and internationally and it's on us to interpret if he's serious or not? Here are a
number of things he said that he hasn’t taken back yet: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH">1.) “I don’t care about human rights” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH">2.) “If you know any addicts, go ahead and kill
them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH">3.) “Drug addicts are not human beings”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH">4.) “<span style="background: white;">Where
will this lead us? Where do I get the billions (of pesos)? My budget is only
this much… that’s why in the meantime you have them killed,”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-PH"><span style="background: white;">5.)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">“When I become president, I’ll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them.”</span><br />
6.) <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">“The funeral parlors will be packed… I’ll supply the dead bodies,”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH"><span style="background: white;">These are direct quotes from him some even have actual video footage. He also promised hefty rewards for vigilantism. (50k reward for every drug peddler killed if i'm not mistaken -Maybe that was also a joke but it seems like there are some who didn't get the joke and took it seriously). </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">If not admission of guilt, at the
very least you can say that it is incitement to violence, no? But leaning a lot more towards guilt, I'd say. </span>These statements alone should be worthy of condemnation. Not only do they show that our administration is morally abhorrent, it shows that the administration is inciting the population to do morally abhorrent acts. <span style="background-color: white;">Coupled with the fact that the number of extrajudicial killings of drug suspects </span><span style="background-color: white;">in his 2-month term</span><span style="background-color: white;"> is unprecedented, i'd say there's at least a positive correlation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-PH"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span lang="EN-PH">Modern History generally doesn't favor tyrants who kill their own people, even if they claim that it's for a better cause. Even if Marcos did a few good things for the country, it will not matter because of the thousands that he tortured and killed. He will never be remembered as a hero, a good president or even just a good man. I doubt if Duterte will reach his goal of 100,000 dead drug suspects before his term is over. But if he does, history will remember him as a tyrant who killed his own people en masse. </span>...and we will be remembered as a generation of people who didn't just let it happen but actually celebrated it. In our quest to rid our society of its monsters, we are becoming the monsters. What a time to be a Filipino.<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-17394465025729624902016-03-27T03:08:00.003-07:002016-04-07T13:15:13.620-07:00Was Teddy Locsin Jr. right about the Filipino Language<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://twitter.com/teddyboylocsin/status/711533892843376640" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jcE_FKrJK50/VvetqhAcy4I/AAAAAAAAAxs/_4XYt7JFO-MXo2Tf0sj65WxcKZBTy0l7Q/s400/teddy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
When I first read Teddy Locsin Jr's tweets, I thought it was a fake account
because it didn’t seem like it was written by a fully matured man whom I thought
him to be, prior to reading the tweets. His twitter is like youtube’s comment
section with such memorable quotes as “<i><span style="background: #f5f8fa; color: #292f33;">Tangina, anong gagawin ko sa Sabado. Syet. Kahit si Jesus
patay, si kong kakausapin</span></i><span style="background: #f5f8fa; color: #292f33; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">”</span>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://twitter.com/teddyboylocsin/status/712157658262822912" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="144" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R3gAC6-efUA/VvetqvSS6EI/AAAAAAAAAxw/_QHWzj0xyv05gESCXiepnyRo8JM2WhNFg/s640/teddy2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>I
ran this sentence through a Filipino-English translator and it came out as
gibberish. Maybe part of the hate is due to the fact that he doesn’t know how
to use the language properly yet</i><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While i find his use of words questionable, i don't entirely disagree with him. In my younger years, I used to engage in a lot of debates
online. It was good mental exercise. The preferred medium for the debates was
always English. I noticed that whenever a debater used tagalog, the ideas didn’t
flow as fluidly. I wasn’t quite sure if that was because of the debater or the
language that he was using.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a recent interview, Teddy Locsin defended his tweet by
saying that Filipino is a flowery language and not as straight forward as English.
I would disagree with his observation. I think that Filipino is actually a more
straightforward language. There is less room for subtle nuances and wordplay.
It’s easy to say a straightforward sentence like: “I don’t like this” in
tagalalog. “ayaw ko ito”. But try saying “I am somewhat fond of this” without using the
world “medyo” or “konti”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tagalog is more than sufficient for everyday conversation
but when engaging people in formal debates, sometimes you have to wield words
with surgical precision or with ambiguity depending on the need. Where tagalog
lacks is in denoting degree. There’s no word in between Ayaw and gusto. There are tagalog words that will denote gradation like: medyo,
konti, halos. But most tagalog words tend to be in Black or white. Whereas in English,
words can denote gradation without the assistance of additional words. Disapprove,
dislike, hate, loathe, abhor -These words imply similar things but to different
degrees. When combined with adverbs that denote degree, you can be more creative
with your expression of disgust or you can express your disgust politely. For example: “I highly dislike your choice of
words” “Sir, I slightly abhor your hairstyle”<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--ggMHFCwon0/Vvetqva9w_I/AAAAAAAAAx0/-z3sk_PZf6Yj0rmrDzY2zPEUiY2AQk-Aw/s1600/asian_prince%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--ggMHFCwon0/Vvetqva9w_I/AAAAAAAAAx0/-z3sk_PZf6Yj0rmrDzY2zPEUiY2AQk-Aw/s320/asian_prince%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>A somewhat polite way of saying your hairstyle sucks</i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lack of gradation in Filipino words probably explains
why the word “medyo” tends to be overused in Filipino discourse. I myself am
guilty of this. Gutom ka na? medyo. Pagod ka na? medyo. You wouldn’t realize
how important it is until you take it away and you’re left scratching your head
when asked simple questions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Gusto” and “ayaw”-there are no currently used alternative
tagalog words that convey the same meaning as far as I know. Whereas the word “hate”
has more than 40 synonyms. And that is one of the main reasons why Filipino can be less
efficient than English in formal debates. English is a constantly evolving
language that absorbs words from other languages and is used by more people.
There are significantly more words in the English language than there are in
Filipino. With more words, you have a richer palette to compose sentences with.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So did teddy locsin have a point? Maybe to a certain degree.
But what’s more important than the language that you use is your mastery of it.
It doesn’t matter if you’re using a language that has a richer vocabulary if you’re unfamiliar with most of its words. An
experienced artist could paint a masterpiece with just 3 colors. A masterful
writer or speaker should be able to express his ideas with whatever words that
are at his disposal, whether those words be English or Filipino<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
He did raise one excellent point in his interview though. English
is also a national language and there should be no shame nor
treachery in using it.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-51920905814991695702016-01-12T19:37:00.000-08:002016-01-21T01:10:55.039-08:00When the Lion shed its mane<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eUJF8rhToA4/VpfCKbK4DpI/AAAAAAAAAxc/v42BI2FOJpA/s1600/Ali-Elhajj-Lion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eUJF8rhToA4/VpfCKbK4DpI/AAAAAAAAAxc/v42BI2FOJpA/s640/Ali-Elhajj-Lion.jpg" width="640" /></a>As if pressing the fast forward button on the remote, one
moment you’re in a doctor’s clinic for a check up, looking at other patients in
the queue in more advanced stages of the disease and getting a glimpse the immediate future
through them. The next moment, you’re there, in
your own future, seeing what you saw then but this time from a more intimate
perspective. The transition from the then to the now is so abrupt that the mind
seems to have omitted the in-between stages. It almost feels like I had time
traveled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's december 27th, just two days after christmas. I’ve been staring at this bed for a while now. It’s a standard
hospital bed with a cream colored frame draped in white sheets. It’s an
otherwise ordinary bed but it is of particular interest to me because there’s
this question that’s been lingering in my head. Is this going to be the bed,
the one that he will last lay down on? The “death bed as they call it.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was almost 4 years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer. He
was only given 6 months by his doctors. If you saw him a month ago, you’d think that he was
openly mocking his death sentence. Apart from a fist–sized
lump that was growing on his abdomen, he looked healthy. He was mobile, He went
to the nearby mall regularly to buy his supplements. It almost seemed as if
time was of abundance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The decline of his health in the last few days was so sudden that I didn’t
realize what was happening until it hit me in the face -It felt like being slapped out of a dream where cancer was nothing but an overgrown pimple that won't go away and waking up to reality, staring down cancer's unmasked face. Its grotesque features in plain view. His long period of good health has lulled us into a false state of security. It is like how you see it in the movies after all. I
first realized that something was wrong when Christmas eve came and he wasn’t at the
dinner table with us. We always spent Christmas together having noche buena at the same table. We don't have a lot of traditions. This is one of the few and we never missed a single one. I didn't realize how bad it was until the day after Christmas. He was very weak. He wasn't eating, His face was gaunt, his
muscles have wasted away. I'm not sure if he really lost that much weight in 2 days or i just didn't pay that much attention bef<br />
<a name='more'></a>ore to notice it.<br />
<br />
And that's how he ended up in this hospital room lying on this cream colored hospital bed with a permanent look of discomfort on his face. It’s strange to see him like this. Whenever I would access
an image of him in my memory when he was still healthy, I’d see him standing
straight and proud with a somewhat arrogant look on his face. He was 5’9, almost the same height as me and just slightly taller than the average well-fed Filipino but
people often described him as a “big man”. His aura greatly exceeded his bodily
dimensions. He was like a protagonist from an Ayn Rand novel. idealistic to a
fault, he will see the world burn before he backs down on his views. You could never reason with him. If you
disagreed with this viewpoint, you’re wrong… because he was always right. He had the voice to go with his personality.
He had a deep booming voice that he would use with reckless abandon whenever he
would lose his temper. He never hurt anyone physically. I don't even remember him cussing at us but he was very imposing in every way. A "no" coming from him is like a no coming from an average person -but raised to the 10th power. As an adult, he’s the only person in the world that I
still fear. For most of my life, it was also his opinion of me that mattered
the most. It can leave indelible stains on your psyche if the person you want approval from the
most is as critical and volatile as he was. Overtime you instinctively and subconsciously clam
up. You tend to overthink before saying things for fear that you may say
something wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
The people that he looked up to were the great military leaders of history. Napoleon, Genghis khan. He relished challenges and whenever he encountered one that was worthy of his time, he not only tried to overcome it, he waged war on it. "War" is not a word that i choose for artistic reasons, it's a word that he uses a lot himself. "Business is like war" he used to say. He came from humble roots. He built up his fish business from scratch. By the time I was born or shortly after, he had a fleet of trucks and a flourishing business. I was also very young when that business went bankrupt. I don't know if it was poverty that we went through after the bankruptcy but there was a very significant change in our lifestyle. I remember crying when he sold his Mitsubishi lambda coupe, which he often describes as "the 2nd most expensive Mitsubishi that you could buy at the time". We had to move out of metro manila. I spent at least one christmas looking at my cousins with an envious eye because they got toys for christmas and i didnt. He had to go away for a while to restart the business. It was the first time that i was separated from him and I remember how traumatic that was for me. I thought that he had left us for good. That didn't last very long. He was able to restart the business from scratch and it prospered again. He'd often talk about the past. He'd tell the same stories over and over, the way older people usually do, A lot of his stories would begin with: "back in nineteen ninety five...., "back in two zero zero six...". He would tell us about how prosperous the business was, how many trucks he had. . He has every right to be proud. Most people can’t even get out of poverty once. He started from scratch and did it twice. In my young eyes, he was an unstoppable warrior general. whatever he declared war on, he conquered. He almost seemed invincible.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was a product of a different era and he never went out
enough or interacted with enough people to realize that the world has changed
around him. He's a man who expects perfection in an imperfect world. He has unusually high expectations of people. He expects his ”batos” (manual laborers) to score well on his IQ tests and speak acceptable english. The average minimum wage laborer during his time was smarter and could speak better english, I guess. Nowadays, you can't even expect college graduates in the country to have decent grammar. Most employers would probably require health tests or tests of physical strength from their manual laborers but intelligence is very important to him. He seeks for it in every person he interacts with and if that person doesn't possess it, he better be prepared to be ridiculed. He expects other people's actions to be well thought out and doesn't seem to get the fact that sometimes people sometimes do things because they feel like it or because they just randomly thought about it. He doesn’t have friends. Not only does this not bother him, I’m not
sure if he even realizes it. The people he interacts with are his employees,
us, people whom he probably sees as his subordinates. He doesn’t have an “equal”
that he talks to on a regular basis, no one to criticize him, no one to tell him that he's wrong. Maybe he prefers it that way. It's a social landscape that he intentionally or unintentionally created himself by making himself absolute authority on everything.<br />
<br />
He has explosive outbursts of anger but most of the time he was a very kind and selfless man. He would put the welfare of others, especially his family, over his own. He bought me all the books and toys that I wanted growing up. He was very supportive of my interests. When I displayed interest in art, he hired an art tutor for me and bought me painting materials. When I expressed interest in playing the piano, he bought a piano and hired a piano tutor. he bought me monthly issues of scientific american and discover magazine because i loved science so much. He didn't drink, never smoked, never gambled. His only vice was his books. he has more than 16 bookshelves at home, each of which is taller than me. some racks have two rows of books. and he still has stacks of books in his room that his bookshelves can no longer accommodate. We have more books and magazines than your average books for less branch. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
He has fought a lot of wars but his greatest battle is with cancer, a war that he has been waging for 4 years now. It started on his liver. It grew very slowly initially. He didn't just see one doctor. He saw multiple doctors --and this is probably one case where one or a few heads is better than a dozen. Some doctors were for surgery, some thought that it would only shorten his life.We weren't sure which one to follow. Eventually as the tumors grew in size and number all the doctors agreed that nothing could be done. But he was unfazed. He declared war on cancer and he chose the path of alternative medicine. He did exhaustive research on alternative protocols. In the end he probably knew as much if not more about alternative medicine than some of the alternative healers that we went to. We'd go to an alternative medicine healer for a consultation but he would end up debating with or lecturing the healer about a new alternative protocol that he read about. I've lost count of how many different supplements he takes every day. He knows the ingredients of each by heart and he knows what each ingredient is supposed to do. Because of how slowly his cancer was progressing, it seemed to a lot of people, including some of his doctors that what he's doing was working. He was only supposed to last 6 months, He had almost 4 years of good health.<br />
<br /></div>
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Being a science enthusiast my entire life, I never thought
that I’d take alternative healers seriously but I learned to have an open mind
when he got sick. I don’t care how much of an atheist or science
proponent you claim to be, if you’ve ever been in the same situation, you’d
know that hope is the last thing that you would want to take away from a person
who’s been completely stripped of it, even if that hope comes from non-scientifically
approved sources. When doctors say there is no hope, you’d want someone to tell
him that that is not true and you’d want him to believe it, even if you don’t. There
was one thing though that an alternative healer said to him that was
particularly poignant to me. That healer said “Cancer gives you the gift of
time.” There are many ways to pass on: a car accident, a heart attack, a stroke,
a gunshot wound to the head -all of which would probably kill you before you
could decide what color you want your casket to be. Cancer gives you time to
prepare for what’s coming, to decide on your legacy. The downside is that you
get to see yourself waste away. Those closest to you won’t get pain and
heartache in one lump sum, they will pay it on an installment basis which means
less pain per annum on average …but maybe if you add it all up, there’s some interest
to pay.</div>
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<br /></div>
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----------<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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He already wants to go home. We’ve only been in this
hospital room for 2 days. We're waiting for the doctor's clearance which they were hesitant to give right away. The doctor wanted to perform a battery of tests on him which he will have none of. Perhaps it’s his way of spitting on conventional
medicine that has given up on him, I thought. And then he makes his position
clear.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
“What for?” he says. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“I’ll take the tests and then what?”<br />
“I’ve fought a long and hard battle but the time for battle is
long over. I want to go home.”<br />
<br />
He has finally given up.<br />
<br />
As the once invincible and infallible warrior general lays down his arms, tears well up my eyes. Tears well up my eyes as i see the fire get extinguished in his. Hope is not an inexhaustible resource even a man like him.<br />
<br />
This cream colored hospital bed that I had been looking at, it's not going to be the bed. He won't give it that privilege. If he cant choose the when, he will at least choose the where. He will leave it with blood still flowing through his veins and air being pumped in and out of his lungs ...but I witnessed part of him die on that bed today -The warrior that i feared and loved as a child.<br />
<br />
I mourn for each faculty that he loses, he loses one after the other almost on a daily basis. -His capability to eat solid food, His ability to clean himself, his capability to move under his own power... I mourn because i know that whatever faculty he loses, he loses permanently. As the days go by, part of him fades away. He's not going to get better. It's a downward spiral from here until there's nothing left of the man that i knew. except for the memories of who he was.</div>
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<br />
He wrote a book titled "Against the Gods". He wrote the outline of the story when he was young and idealistic, He finished writing it just recently at the twilight of his life, at the mercy of his disease. I understand that he changed the story as his philosophies in life changed. If i'm not mistaken, it was initially about conquering fate. then it became about fighting the hand of fate but in the end falling helpless against it. Maybe he saw himself in the main character but it wasn't supposed to be an autobiography. The irony was that, metaphorically, it sort of became one<br />
<br />
I've never had a proper conversation with him. I couldn't talk to him properly. My tongue and my brain froze up whenever i tried to. When this is over, I know there will be a lot of regrets. Things that i will wish I had said, things that I will wish I had done, things that i will wish he could've seen me do. I wish i could've told him how much he mattered to me. I know that i mattered to him a lot once... after all I am his only son.</div>
<br />
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I had this dream. In the dream he’s a lion perched on
a huge rock, Majestic, with his brown mane flowing with the breeze, looking down on
the flora and fauna around him, thinking to himself “these are all inferior to
me and not worthy of my time.” He lets out one huge roar and everyone runs
in fear. Except for a handful who stand by him with their knees shaking but
refusing to run away. He looks out into the horizon and says "Somewhere out
there is a world just right for me" ...and then he walks away.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-29191462651163752132015-12-19T18:54:00.000-08:002017-08-22T10:49:45.478-07:00If Duterte were president...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R6M0P_B99r4/VnYWGhsOceI/AAAAAAAAAxM/xCvfZgN_ENM/s1600/deturte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R6M0P_B99r4/VnYWGhsOceI/AAAAAAAAAxM/xCvfZgN_ENM/s320/deturte.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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There are those who argue that what we need is an iron-fisted leader or even a dictator, a Filipino Lee Kuan yew perhaps. Maybe it's true that a US-style democracy works against us because we’re a country of shallow people and therefore very much susceptible to the influence of demagogues , leaders who appeal to the emotions. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For some, this iron-fisted leader is Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao who has often times <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/outcry-filipino-presidential-nominee-admits-killings-151211153807524.html?utm_content=bufferf2836&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">admitted to</a> being responsible for the extrajudicial execution of criminals. This is a fact that's not ignored or even contested by his supporters. For a lot of them it's actually his selling point. For a society that finds cursing and distributing condoms to those who can’t afford it morally reprehensible, it is a bit of an oddity that a politician who espouses extrajudicial killings would find popularity.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The right of every person to a fair trial is ingrained in every modern democracy. It is a globally recognized basic human right. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Duterte’s judgement is indeed impeccable. That he can tell with certainty who is guilty and who is not, rendering trials unnecessary. Surely, Duterte with his impeccable judgement wouldn’t have time to carry out the killing or judging of all of the country’s criminals all by himself. He will have to delegate. Would his delegates be gifted with the same omniscience and “purity of intention” as their boss? We don’t even trust our police force to handle the country’s traffic situation without extorting our motorists. People can’t even fly in this country without the fear of bullets mysteriously appearing in their luggage. Imagine our law enforcement officers operating in an environment where killing offenders of the law without trial is justified. Maybe the Duterte system sort of works within the confines of Davao’s borders but when taken to the national level, the potential for abuse will expand exponentially. It don’t think that one would have to be particularly pessimistic to see that. On the contrary i think one would have to be zealously optimistic not to see it.</div>
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The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davao_death_squads" target="_blank">Davao death squad</a>, which the mayor has <a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/693373/duterte-confirms-ties-with-davao-death-squad" target="_blank">admitted to</a> having connections with, is not only responsible for the death of rapists and muderers. They've also allegedly executed people who have committed Petty crimes. Minors have allegedly been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao" target="_blank">executed</a>. Even some of the locals of Davao will admit that some people have been killed by mistake -and they're ok with this because they're happy with the peace and order situation in their city. Imagine the misfortune of those people who were killed by mistake -that their lives were sacrificed for the whims of people who demand peace and order at any price. Even if it was just one person killed without a fair trial and killed by mistake, that’s one person too many.<br />
<br />
The mayor has a treasure trove of quotable quotes that would be funny if it was coming from a comedian, entertaining if it was coming from an action star but bone-chilling for someone who's running for president. If you really think about it, who really wants death squads roaming the streets of Metro Manila at night looking to deal swift and fatal justice to suspected criminals?</div>
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We can only make assumptions because no one has the clairvoyance to see what a Duterte presidency would be like. Maybe the naysayers are wrong. Maybe he will reform the country. Maybe he can straighten the police force. Maybe his "enforcers" will hit the right targets every time, maybe he won't ban algebra and trigonometry. Maybe this, maybe that. We will have to make assumptions about the other candidates too. The one constant though is that this is a person who is known for and has admitted to operating outside of the law to kill. That is a lot of power to give to one man. We’d be giving up a very basic human right in the assumption that we're surrendering that right to a person who has pure intentions and to a system that will not be abused. If we’re inaccurate in our judgement of his ethics, which we already know are already quite questionable to begin with, we're screwed. The legal system exists for a reason. If it is flawed, fix it. By circumventing it, you'd just be replacing a problem with an even bigger one.</div>
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<br />
Give up the rights of the few for the many. That's what's being suggested. Surely a few innocents will suffer but we’re at war with criminality and at war there are always casualties, right? You’d just have to pray to your chosen deity that that casualty will not be you or someone you know. In a world of progressing civility where rights are gradually being disseminated equally to every race, gender, age, this is several steps back.. The hierarchy of world governments doesn’t go from a full democracy, where the right of every citizen is equal and legally protected, to a system where the rights of the citizens are conditional and can be waived when one man or the Filipino mob demands it. There are plenty of steps in between. <br />
<br />
Duterte's supporters might argue that it's only the rights of the criminals that he will be taking away but without the right to a fair trial, innocence is a very fragile, transitory thing. When the authorities, deem you a criminal, you are one and you have no say about it. As one country under one leadership, we're all in the same frying pan. You can't selectively "cook" certain people without getting others or yourself burned accidentally.<br />
<br />
When laws are being violated or "circumvented" around me, I would like to think that it’s being done by deviant individuals, not by my own government. That there is an objective legal system that’s not based on one man’s word and that everyone is subject to it. No one should be above it, no one should operate outside of it, especially those in power.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-33679429795677027912015-11-15T22:06:00.002-08:002015-12-26T08:06:53.433-08:00Is Islam a religion of violence <div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gRmPN8KrJJ4/VkmxDNDCc6I/AAAAAAAAAw8/39aLWQ9fXLY/s1600/1447603811576.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gRmPN8KrJJ4/VkmxDNDCc6I/AAAAAAAAAw8/39aLWQ9fXLY/s400/1447603811576.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-41wi2JfA1Qs/VklwT-Arm6I/AAAAAAAAAws/7T7kckgp8vI/s1600/991351-image-1447498467-258-640x480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><br />
A lot of people see Islam as a religion of violence.
If interpreted literally, it can be. But the Bible is just as potent an
instrument of hate if also interpreted literally. The punishment for homosexuality
in the bible is death (Leviticus 18 and 20), The punishment for worshiping other
gods is death, the punishment for blasphemy is stoning… to death. In the bible,
a lot of crimes that we would consider petty are punishable by death. We look
at acts done by muslim extremists as primitive because that’s exactly what those acts are. They’re following books written at a different time when the concept of civility
was not as we know it now. But why is it that more acts of terrorism are committed
under the name of Islam than in the name of the Abrahamic God when both religions
promote similar punishments for the same crime?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The Roman Catholic church hasn’t always been peaceful and
humane. It took its sweet time. Up until the 16<sup>th</sup> century, The
Catholic church was burning people at the stake for heresy. A lot of European conquest was partly fueled
by the need of the church to convert as much of the world into Catholicism. A lot
of people died in the process.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Muslims had a very prosperous civilization in the middle
ages. But most muslim countries now are poor and have not been very progressive
for a long time. Those that are rich became rich just recently. The hotbeds for
terrorism are usually the poorest of these countries. Al qaeda in Afghanistan and
ISIS in Iraq -theocracies that progress has barely touched, where life expectancy is
short and death is a way of life<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When people aren’t dying around you, the value of human life
goes up. The death of one soldier in World War 2 doesn’t have the same impact
as the death of one soldier today in peace time. We’re not used to death
anymore. And when a person doesn’t worry about death happening within the
immediate future, that person is free to think about other things that don’t
necessarily have anything to do with survival, such as the rights of your fellow man as well as your own. <span style="background-color: white;">And most especially, since death and killing
become taboo, you don't think of killing your fellow man when his beliefs
contradict yours.</span><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
A lot of the more violent aspects of Catholicism have been slowly rooted
out by modernization in Europe -a process that is still continuing today in the free
world. It wasn’t too long ago when racism was state imposed and slavery was
legal (slavery was permitted in the bible). Look where progress has brought us
now. State imposed racism and slavery have been practically eradicated and
several states have legalized same sex marriage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A lot of people claim that religion is the root of a person’s
morals but in the modern world, it’s not. . Morality evolves as civilization
progresses. As life becomes less of a privilege than it is a right, concepts such
as equality gain a foothold in a society's collective consciousness. We no
longer live our lives based on the morals of bearded men who lived at a time
when human life was a disposable commodity. Morality evolves as society evolves. And we live in a world where morality
has evolved to encompass everyone’s rights, including those who don’t belong to
our group and those who don’t belong to our religion. Unless you live in Davao, death is no longer the only possible punishment for any given crime.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There are of course those that progress has left behind. Those
who choose to hold on to archaic laws and morality. And I think therein
lies the answer to the first question in this entry on why one group tends to produce
more extremists than the other. One group has progressed more than the other. I think one lesson that we <span style="text-align: center;">can learn from the
Catholic church is that it doesn’t matter if your religion promotes violence and bigotry or not. One can go beyond it and still practice the same religion.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
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This is not a post against religion. It is a post for
reason... For a morality that is carefully thought out and not based on doctrine or dogma. That’s
more or less what we have right now in the free world. And it’s something that
a lot of people who subscribe to Islamic extremism could use. <o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-79412399114709615392015-09-03T06:00:00.000-07:002015-09-03T06:00:52.281-07:00On the INC demonstrations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nrFI07pnwRQ/VehDj_frlQI/AAAAAAAAAus/vhDrviQSl04/s1600/11953189_1473497172954457_5944731048587594300_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="355" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nrFI07pnwRQ/VehDj_frlQI/AAAAAAAAAus/vhDrviQSl04/s640/11953189_1473497172954457_5944731048587594300_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Photoshopped, you’d say but is it really? Hard to tell exactly
considering that plenty of the INC flock who participated in the demonstrations
most likely had no idea what they were doing in the middle of edsa and being a
bother to metro manila’s normally peace-loving motorists who were then probably quite irate. They managed to bring
metro manila’s traffic on a Friday night which is usually at a standstill to a…
standstill. I avoided edsa during the demonstrations but as someone who passes
through edsa regularly, it’s hard for me to imagine how traffic could be worse
on a Friday night at rush hour on a payday. If I tried really hard to imagine
it, I’d probably see cars going at negative speed in my head… going back to
the offices from which they came, in reverse. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps separation of church and state is a fool’s dream in a
country that is so deeply religious. Artificial birth control, gay marriage,
divorce: these are concepts that may never find general political acceptance in
your lifetime. A religious group could order its flock to paralyze one of metro
manila’s main arteries and they would unquestioningly do so –because the same
laws that are applied to every man were applied to their leaders. They’d make
democracy work against us if their church leaders also tell them who to vote
for. I’m glad that never happens. What is democracy but an illusion in a
country where individual thinking is controlled by an elite few who claim to be
arbiters of morality and truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not a religious person and that may even be an
understatement but I have no problems with people practicing their religion as
long as it doesn’t impede on the rights of others, as long as they don’t force
their values on people who don’t share the same views and as long as they don’t
force their version of the truth on me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Going back to that picture. At first glance it may not make
sense but if you come to think of it, it’s completely logical -makakapunta ba
sila sa kalsada kung di sila nagpunta doon? It only doesn’t make sense because
you’re looking for rational thinking where it doesn’t exist. It was photoshopped
but it might as well be real<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2srvgQGeYL8/VehDksGgqsI/AAAAAAAAAuw/y68MJBaU7YM/s1600/di-pagboto-ikatitiwalag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2srvgQGeYL8/VehDksGgqsI/AAAAAAAAAuw/y68MJBaU7YM/s320/di-pagboto-ikatitiwalag.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-1035625726211008292015-06-28T07:39:00.002-07:002015-06-28T07:39:25.652-07:00What is my Opinion on Gay Marriage<div class="MsoNormal">
What is my opinion on same-sex marriage? The US just
legalized gay marriage nationwide so people have been expressing their strong
opinions on the matter, especially the religious variety. It’s unnatural, they
say; It offends them, they say. Some try to rationalize their distaste for same
sex marriage by arguing that same-sex couples are unfit to raise kids, by
arguing that kids need both a father and a mother -nevermind that the issue of
adoption is separate from the issue of marriage itself, that there are plenty
of parents not fit to raise a family but are legally given the right to do so …
nevermind the fact that single parents are actually allowed by law to adopt
children. –let that last phrase sink in for a moment. Also, I’m not sure what
passes for “natural” in this hitech age of ours but I imagine that the people
complaining that gay marriage isn’t natural aren’t living in the jungle and
hunting their own food.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fWg8LojDKwA/VZAE5OUmuwI/AAAAAAAAAuY/PqvDAc8uyiM/s1600/130327111823-06-scotus-doma-0327-horizontal-gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fWg8LojDKwA/VZAE5OUmuwI/AAAAAAAAAuY/PqvDAc8uyiM/s320/130327111823-06-scotus-doma-0327-horizontal-gallery.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The bottomline is: It doesn’t matter what my opinion on it is. It
doesn’t matter what yours is. None of us should be able to repress a group’s rights
on basis of personal opinion. Two adults, regardless of gender, should be allowed to spend their lives
together and be afforded the same legal rights and recognition as the rest of us. Anything less is no different from state-imposed
racism, sexism and other state-imposed isms that we’ve left behind in the past.
If the general public finds the idea offensive, they must know that they have a
right to be offended but what they don’t have is the right not to be. They also
don’t have the right to force their outdated religious sensitivities down people’s
throats.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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Several decades ago, people of different races were not
allowed to get married. It was considered a criminal act punishable by
incarceration. Not only was racism popular among the public, it was also state
imposed. It seems so backwards to us now that interracial marriage is widely
accepted but it was considered taboo back then. At some point in the future,
when rejection gives way to tolerance and tolerance gives way to acceptance, people
will see same-sex marriage the same way we view interracial marriage now. When they do, wouldn’t you want to be on the other side of the fence?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-31862468330446758282015-02-08T17:45:00.001-08:002015-02-08T20:52:08.528-08:00On cyberbullying part 2<div class="MsoNormal">
I wrote about <a href="http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2014/12/on-internet-virality.html" target="_blank">cyberbullying in my previous entry</a> and this rant is
a continuation of that<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There seems to be this recent trend of mainstream publications
trying to incite a lynch mob by publicly shaming ordinary people for what
wouldn't even be considered misdemeanor offenses. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The video below was shared on <a href="http://www.topgear.com.ph/features/feature-articles/10-best-comments-on-rr-enriquez-and-jeck-maierhofer-s-viral-video#comments-1" target="_blank">top gear</a><span id="goog_1896147517"></span><span id="goog_1896147518"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a> and went viral shortly
afterwards. It’s a video of two young women in a car trying to ruthlessly awaken a commuter from his deep slumber by viciously blowing their horn. Watch the video below to see the very face of evil (/sarcasm) Seriously,
who hasn't tried waking up a friend for the Lulz. <span style="color: #222222;">Maybe
the guy thought that it was mildly annoying but i doubt that he was seriously
offended by it. He probably slept again and moved on with his life unlike
majority of the commenters on the site.</span> I seriously think that if you
replace the two attractive women with two ordinary looking commuters there wouldn’t
be as much hate. But because they were driving a car, they looked like arrogant, rich bitches and therefore deserving of the vilest insults.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/4Tol2LPAPMA/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4Tol2LPAPMA?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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Top gear is especially fond of this practice. It’s one thing if it’s
a random internet nerd posting this story on facebook for his or her friends to
see. It’s an entirely different thing if it’s a mainstream publication with
magazines that you see in newstands that’s supposedly manned by adults. When
you have more than a million followers and you ask the masses to lynch
somebody, they will do it with relentless passion. The owner of a maseratti who
punched an LTO officer in the face. He was publicly insulted, along with his
family without waiting for his side to be aired. Later on it was discovered
that the LTO officer was notorious for being an A-hole. Not enough reason to be
punched in the face, maybe (?). but at least if there had to be lynching, it
shouldn’t have been as one sided as it initially was. Or just leave out the lynching
altogether and let the parties involved settle it among themselves. Then there was
the beast mode guy, cars parked incorrectly with their plate numbers in full
display –also lynched online<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9kjvqdIucuQ/VNgllcuyNkI/AAAAAAAAAnM/wNQ8JRj31hI/s1600/asdasd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9kjvqdIucuQ/VNgllcuyNkI/AAAAAAAAAnM/wNQ8JRj31hI/s1600/asdasd.jpg" height="400" width="372" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I specifically like the comment about not "murdered-ing" the english language. What's most disturbing about this story is not the prank itself but the fact that there are more than 11,000 comments and i'd say more than 90% of them are at least this brutal</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I understand the need of
these websites to generate traffic but at the very least blur faces out or plate
numbers, especially if there’s no illegal offense involved. There's a reason why plate numbers on cars are
usually blurred in photos. You can find out a lot of information about the
owner of the car by displaying its plate number, including his or her home
address. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of these viral stories can be pretty funny and worthy of ridicule. I do laugh at them sometimes but I move
on shortly afterwards. I don’t feel the need to dig out more private info about
them and then make them public, I don’t feel the need to start facebook pages
shaming the people involved in the videos. I don’t feel like raising pitchforks
and inviting my comrades to do the same until we receive a groveling apology
from the person whose life we have practically destroyed. I hope I’m not the
only one who thinks that this lynchmob mentality is getting way out of hand<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-58853710039502755262014-12-04T19:51:00.001-08:002014-12-04T19:54:11.260-08:00On Internet Virality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Orgh1W7sXFc/VIEqXb0QznI/AAAAAAAAAmw/CqRqu0nKTQo/s1600/maserati%2Bmmda%2Bviral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Orgh1W7sXFc/VIEqXb0QznI/AAAAAAAAAmw/CqRqu0nKTQo/s1600/maserati%2Bmmda%2Bviral.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></div>
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If you’ve driven a car long enough, you probably have been exposed to the predatory beasts that prowl our streets, dressed in green, yellow or sometimes blue. Maybe you’ve been stopped by one of them and maybe you have given in to the temptation of slipping a bill or two. I will not judge you. I don’t have the figures but I strongly believe that you are the majority. Maybe, even I have done it. I used the word “maybe” because sentences sometimes have to be made ambiguous in this very quick-to-judge, social media-savvy society. Really officer? You saw me not wearing a seatbelt from 30ft away in the middle of the night in a tinted car? Well I was wearing a seatbelt. It was my passenger who wasn’t. So you stopped me first and then looked for violations later in the hopes that maybe you’ll get kotong? I’m gonna raise my voice at you and if anyone thinks that I’m a douche for doing so…. I’ll just hope that they don’t have a camera with them. Because I don’t wanna go viral that way. And no, you’re not getting kotong.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The problem with criticizing people through the lens of the internet is that you don’t see your own face until you turn off your monitor and see your reflection on the empty black screen. And then you realize that you have pimples and acne scars just like everyone else. Maybe in the past, you were having a bad day and a security guard said something that irked you off. Maybe you said “Amalayer? Amalayer?” Maybe you had a heated argument with an MMDA officer -I hope you didn’t punch him in the face like this Maserati driver did just last week. Maybe you did something stupid like drive through a flooded street that resembled a small lake and then blamed the government for your misfortune, just like Christopher Lao. Just be thankful that a TV crew wasn’t conveniently waiting around when it happened.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There’s no question that what the Maserati driver did was WRONG but If the Maseratti driver punched another driver in a Ferrari, the headline would’ve been “two rich men having a spirited and expected altercation”. Instead, it was about an arrogant rich man abusing the poor, in this case a poor and therefore saintly MMDA officer. We’d probably laugh about the former headline but I doubt if there’d be as much hate especially from the masses. One may argue that an MMDA officer is a person of authority and should be respected but you tend to not respect authority very much when you regularly see it being abused.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We tend to see ourselves in groups. The rich, the poor, the abusers, the oppressed. The poor see the rich as evil, some of the rich may see the poor as undesirable. Members within our group are saintly and those outside our group are three headed demons. We demonize those whom we don’t understand, those who are not “us”. I think that’s why in all of these stories, the parties involved usually come from different social classes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s understandable to laugh or ridicule the people involved in some of these viral videos/stories for a brief time. But the seething hate and the bullying that goes on for several weeks to several months, I think is a symptom of something I would like to call “internet induced self-righteousness”. Because everyone’s life or morals appear better on facebook. We see ourselves as better men or women when the truth is we just haven’t been filmed having a meltdown or paying an “unofficial fee” to avoid a queue. Pick an evil. If you’re over 30, I’m sure you’ve done more than a few things that you are ashamed of –things that could be subject to public ridicule</div>
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The internet is the ultimate democratizer in that it gives everyone who has access to it a voice to challenge anyone, including those who are much higher up. But when the same power is used against normal people who just had the misfortune of being at the wrong place, with the wrong mental disposition at the wrong time, it just seems like overkill. Facebook becomes a courtroom of a million jurors and instant verdicts. Destroying someone’s life becomes as easy as waiting for him or her to make a mistake and then pressing the record button. It’s all fun and games until you stop to think that it can happen to everyone, including yourself. And then you ask yourself, What skeletons do I have in my closet.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-81458311319095895012014-09-19T20:07:00.001-07:002014-09-19T20:07:59.863-07:00On Typhoon Mario<div class="MsoNormal">
Once again a freakish storm hit Luzon. Prophesiers of the
apocalypse will have a field day, I can picture it already. I remember
when Ondoy hit metro manila. It was described as a phenomenon that happens once
every half a century or so. Now it’s more like a once a year thing, like other yearly
pinoy events, like the sinulog, pahiyas
or the Manila auto show. If it happens any more frequently, we’d be seeing
resorts sprouting along edsa.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KP6PLO96iPg/VBztMOeCMsI/AAAAAAAAAmc/y4-9UAhkhZU/s1600/discover%2Bcentris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KP6PLO96iPg/VBztMOeCMsI/AAAAAAAAAmc/y4-9UAhkhZU/s1600/discover%2Bcentris.jpg" height="360" width="400" /></a></div>
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On the brighter side, we’d have use for our salbabidas all
year round –More value for the money, I say. We can market our country as the premiere urban-aquatic destination in Asia. Could be good for tourism. Imagine the reviews "Playing DOTA with your body half submerged in water... definitely a unique experience. 5 out of 5. Would try again. It's definitely more fun in the Philippines"</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kBKRvHD1PPo/VBztLf_jVcI/AAAAAAAAAmY/jMduRzNF9Zk/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kBKRvHD1PPo/VBztLf_jVcI/AAAAAAAAAmY/jMduRzNF9Zk/s1600/download.jpg" height="299" width="400" /></a></div>
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Of course we must never forget that this is Manny pacquiao’s
fault for switching religions, climate change doesn’t exist and we Filipinos will
get sarcasm and satire the first time we read it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-82331878865110181082014-08-29T18:58:00.004-07:002014-08-29T19:03:15.913-07:00The Beauty of Melancholy<div class="MsoNormal">
Happiness has been put on a pedestal, often described as the
ultimate goal in a human being’s life. Depression has been demonized endlessly
by thousands of internet quotes. So it may surprise some that there are those
who find appeal in melancholy. I for one, can’t imagine what my life would be
like if I had not lived through it. I speak from the vantage point of one who
was once almost always depressed and alone to someone who has come to terms
with his own skin and isn’t as lonely anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0c6_WNb9SrM/VAEu_QfjlFI/AAAAAAAAAmI/pqrbikMTdgk/s1600/IMG_1244%2B2_asasd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0c6_WNb9SrM/VAEu_QfjlFI/AAAAAAAAAmI/pqrbikMTdgk/s1600/IMG_1244%2B2_asasd.jpg" height="320" width="229" /></a>All throughout my youth until my early 20’s, I was
perpetually depressed. I wouldn’t call it clinical depression because I had
plenty of good reason to be depressed. It was mostly because I didn’t have a
lot of people around me, also because I wasn’t living up to my high
expectations of myself. My self esteem was incredibly low and it severely
affected my interaction with people. It was also during this time when I was at
my creative peak. My creative outlets were visual art and writing –most of this
blog was a product of that particular time in my life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now my life is quite
different. I now know what it’s like to be valued by another person, which I’ve discovered,
is the biggest self esteem boost that one can get. I also have come to terms
with myself, so to speak. The downside is I no longer paint and I rarely write. When I was
depressed, all I wanted was for the depression to end but now that I’m quite settled in, I
look for it. I’d listen to sad music, watch tragic films. Weird as it may
sound, I occasionally try to induce sadness but It doesn’t come as easily as it
used to.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The appeal of melancholy is difficult to describe. One sees
beauty in it though it’s hard to determine if you actually feel pleasure or
satisfaction from that beauty. It feels like viewing the world through a
different lens. You see things that you wouldn’t normally see if you’re in a
jovial mood, in the company of others. It makes one introspect more. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that most
artists and thinkers also tend to be depressive. Marcel proust once said that Happiness is good for the body but it is grief that develops the strength of the mind.</div>
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Perhaps everyone is drawn to sadness to a certain extent. We
watch depressing films, listen to sad music, we try to induce tears when we’re
perfectly happy and it feels good, I think.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Or perhaps this isn’t something that everyone can relate to.
But to the artists, the musicians, the writers, the couch philosophers out
there, I think you know what I’m talking about -to look at the world, desaturated
of color with a slight tint of blue, to appreciate the soft shadows cast on a
cloudy day, Maybe it does take a keen eye to see beauty in gloom<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-33795602754035848032013-11-10T06:46:00.001-08:002013-11-10T06:49:50.568-08:00On Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I1WGe_pfO68/Un-c-UbqCJI/AAAAAAAAAkc/D2HS-35uVdQ/s1600/131109223233-01-typhoon-haiyan-jb-1109-horizontal-gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I1WGe_pfO68/Un-c-UbqCJI/AAAAAAAAAkc/D2HS-35uVdQ/s400/131109223233-01-typhoon-haiyan-jb-1109-horizontal-gallery.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I actually lived in Tacloban for a year. It was a relatively
small city so a lot of the locals recognized each other by their last names. Unless
I’m mistaken, Gaisano was their only major mall at the time (97-98). Jollibee
was just about to open its first branch and I remember that it was a pretty big
deal for the locals. To some of them, it seemed like significant step towards
becoming like manila, which I guess was the ideal city for some of them. I
remember the househelp saying “may Jollibee na. bakit pa kelangan pumunta ng
manila”.</div>
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Tacloban changed a lot since I left the city. Last time I checked, not only did they have
Jollibee, they also had KFC, mcdo; They had a robinsons mall and an SM mall was
scheduled to open next year. To see
Tacloban in its current state is heartbreaking mostly because of the loss of
humanity but also because the typhoon wiped away decades of slow but steady
progress. -Progress that the locals cheered for every step of the way.</div>
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<i>Photo grabbed from CNN</i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-26539508437432883692013-08-25T02:35:00.000-07:002013-08-25T02:36:43.614-07:00On the Litol Prince and cuteness in general<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y99NZHzIEDo/UhZ7Pqh8mBI/AAAAAAAAAjU/49QsRym7IAM/s1600/IMG_3128.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y99NZHzIEDo/UhZ7Pqh8mBI/AAAAAAAAAjU/49QsRym7IAM/s400/IMG_3128.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">
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Let’s say you were walking along a bridge and you saw the
puppy in the picture above. It's immediately obvious that there's a high likelihood that the puppy would be facing a dismal fate as a stray dog or a sumptuous
dish in a buffet sometime in the near future.</div>
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What would you do?</div>
<ol>
<li>Walk past the dog if you saw nothing while
pondering in your head how you came to be a heartless husk of a human being.</li>
<li>Using a voice that’s a few octaves higher than
your regular speaking voice, talk to it using nonsensical word-sounds like ”anununununu”,
“ajooeyjooey”, “moooooeee you’recominghome withmeajoojoo” and proceed to take
the dog home.</li>
</ol>
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I was faced with such
a conundrum a few years ago while I was passing through the bridge connecting
MRT north station and trinoma. I was walking along, blissfully minding my own
business when I saw a man with two puppies in the corner of my eye. I stopped
to absorb the scene. The man looked homeless. The puppies looked like they were barely a month
old, one male and one female. The man was giving the puppies away… in exchange
for a little money of course, as capitalist tradition dictates. The dogs were
cute so he didn’t have trouble attracting positive attention. A woman passed
by, went with option 2 and promptly left with the female puppy, leaving the
male puppy behind.</div>
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A took a good look at the remaining puppy. A number of
thoughts went through my head. With each passing thought, the prospect of
brinigng the dog home with me became more and more tempting.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As with every decision involving the heart, I tried to
justify the idea in my head until eventually it made so much sense that it was
as if the universe itself was telling me to take the dog home. I thought to
myself I’d be helping this man, I’d be helping this dog, the man would finally
leave the bridge thereby easing the flow of pedestrian traffic, I’d rid the
world of one more stray dog and its future progeny, the world will be a better
place to live in and therefore peace for all mankind will inevitably ensue. It
just seemed like I was making a decision for the betterment of everyone in the
immediate area and the world in general. </div>
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And so I made my choice. I didn’t say “mooeee you’re coming
home with me ajoojoo” … audibly. I did it within the confines of my own head, as
all proper men should.</div>
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It was after I gave the man my “donation” that it struck
me that taking care of another life form that would be entirely dependent on me
was like plugging in a USB device in one try. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had done neither in my life and both required skills
that I did not possess. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
my
excitement, I also conveniently and intentionally forgot that my family
hated animals profusely. Either I had to upgrade my puppy hiding skills
to ninja level or the introduction had to be made as perfect as possible
</div>
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To ensure the highest level of success, I made sure that the little prince was as presentable as
possible before I brought him home. I brought him to a veterinarian friend who
gave him the appropriate shots. I bought him a cute little collar with bells on
it. I think I may have paid more for the collar than for the dog. Written on
the collar was the name “Prince”. I’ve never been good at giving names. I’ve
come up with names as uninspired as “Pussy” for a stray cat that used to visit
our house often, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Browny” for a dog that was brown and “Blacky” for another dog which was “coincidentally”
black.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I probably would’ve named the
puppy “white-with-brown-spots-y” if left to my own devices. As creative as a
claim to be, my brain just shuts down when it comes to coming up with names.
Rather than be blamed in the future for coming up with a very lame name, this
time I let the collar decide so it can take the blame instead of me.
The dog was gonna be named Prince. Not everyone liked the name but it’s not
like they gave me suggestions… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, it
was the collar’s fault.</div>
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The
initial reception for prince back at home was less than
tepid. The reaction ranged from shock to disgust. I didn’t tell
them right away that I picked him up near the MRT station to limit the
disgust
factor but that didn’t help much. It's good that he was already toilet
trained when i got him otherwise he probably would've been kicked out of
the house without my knowledge. They didn’t want him inside the house.
They
didn’t want prince to get near them at all. That wasn’t a problem for
prince as
he was a very shy little puppy. He avoided all contact with people
whenever he
could. He hid under one of my book shelves for most of the day and made
no
sound at all. For the first time in my life, I officially had a pet dog.
It just so happened that he was invisible for most of the day. One of
the
aspects of dog ownership that I was most looking forward to was seeing
that wagging tail
waiting for me upon getting home. I started thinking that I was gonna be
missing out on that with prince. </div>
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I’ve
always had a soft spot for non-human mammals. I find
them easier to like than humans on average. When I was a kid, I’d
secretly adopt stray kittens that
wandered into our house. I didn't get to keep them very long. I wasn't
very good at hiding stuff. It’s a little embarrassing to admit because
adopting
little kitties is not among the manliest of activities. But I believe
that even the manliest of men have a little soft, vulnerable spot that
an innocent, wide-eyed
stare from a juvenile canine or feline should be able to penetrate,
given enough
time. Even Hitler, the very face of evil himself, kept and loved
animals. I think that
some of us do need a dose of cuteness in our lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It may
be an aberration of evolution that a member of one
species would raise an individual from another species but I’m willfully
playing along knowing
full well that my biological need to nurture is being fooled by one of
nature's little tricks. Cuteness is indeed a powerful tool for survival.
I shall illustrate the power of cuteness below:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ARLhfFH-Kx0/UhdwF_y2HqI/AAAAAAAAAjw/4E1B8rZ8hIk/s1600/the+power+of+cuteness+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ARLhfFH-Kx0/UhdwF_y2HqI/AAAAAAAAAjw/4E1B8rZ8hIk/s400/the+power+of+cuteness+2.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>I
had to photoshop the tears in because they were nonexistent in the
original photo but replace Puss with a puppy and the Dawson's Creek
guy's mug with my awesome-albeit-douchey face and this is pretty much a
reenactment</i> of <i>what happened when i first met Prince</i>.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
It's now been quite a while since I first met the Litol prince. He's not so litol anymore. Some might say
that he’s also not as cute but I think that he’s no less amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> He shed his shyness after a few months. He's now an uncontainable ball of energy</span>.
You leave for a few hours and he greets you like he hasn't seen you in
weeks. He's not a big dog but he'd knock you down if you get him excited
enough. I didn't quite miss out on the "dog experience" like I thought I
would.<br />
<br />
Prince wasn't our last dog. A few months after I introduced the
litol prince to the dog haters club (my family), my sister brought home
Rambo, a pomeranian puppy. Rambo
had it easy. By the time that he came along, everyone in the house was a
dog
lover or at the very least a dog tolerator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> So even if Rambo was an indiscriminate defecator and urinator he was loved right off the bat. </span>From
the time that I brought
prince home to the first time he elicited a smile in the face of a
nonbeliever, he won every heart in the house one by one. It’s quite
amazing to see people who were once animal haters talk to dogs as if
they were their
own kids; talk about dogs as if they were the staunchest of animal
rights
advocates. The local dog haters club was eventually abolished. Rambo
helped a lot but it was prince who first tore the walls down. Such was
the legacy of the litol prince. He changed hearts,
minds, he got himself a home and a family without even trying. He now
even owns a little bit of internet real estate through my blog. Not a
bad life for an “askal”. He's living example that overcoming hate is sometimes only a matter
of spending some time with the subject of your hate... and that a little bit of cuteness goes a long way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BAvCv3q7GXI/UhZ7L1go3BI/AAAAAAAAAjM/PmtCHwO_hag/s1600/7worlor520070905213929rr6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BAvCv3q7GXI/UhZ7L1go3BI/AAAAAAAAAjM/PmtCHwO_hag/s400/7worlor520070905213929rr6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-18005527458372574322013-05-31T04:54:00.004-07:002013-05-31T05:04:43.834-07:00On Nationalism, Pride and Individuality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5mS4jMuo4eM/UaiPIgXLLNI/AAAAAAAAAiY/sMOYrsud3AQ/s1600/Nationalism+e+proverb+albert+einstein+measles.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5mS4jMuo4eM/UaiPIgXLLNI/AAAAAAAAAiY/sMOYrsud3AQ/s640/Nationalism+e+proverb+albert+einstein+measles.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s hard to say what passes for
nationalism in the Philippines nowadays. If it’s crying “pinoy pride” or
claiming that Filipinos are good singers everytime a Filipino appears
on a
foreign singing competition then you can count me out because I totally
don’t
care. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">I don't see
how being born in the same country can give people the right to claim
achievements of other individuals that they had nothing to do with.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If
it involves supporting Filipino products, I’m not really
sure how well I’m doing. A lot of times I buy things without knowing
where
they’re made. I just bought an outlast battery for my car which
apparently is a
Filipino brand. I only found out a year ago that Figaro was a Filipino
company
after patronizing their coffee shops for a while. They didn’t lose my
patronage. I almost never watch Filipino movies. I do listen to some
Filipino musicians but that has nothing to do with nationalism. I listen
to what I like, I
buy products from companies that give me good value and have a decent
reputation.<br />
<br />
In my essay "I hate Filipino culture" which
went viral last month, i enumerated a few Filipino qualities that i
hated. I got some flak for it especially when I implied that those
who've been exposed to foreign cultures usually grow up to have more
open minds. I was accused of having colonial mentality and of
worshipping the west (which is curious because i never mentioned the
west. I actually mentioned the Chinese.) Regardless, the point was not
that other cultures are superior to our own but that having an open
mind necessarily entails being open to other cultures</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
The
world is moving towards internationalism. Differences in culture in the
past were mostly due to geographical boundaries limiting contact
between different groups of people. Peoples that closely interacted
with each other usually have similarities in architecture, art,
philosophy or language. Colonization isn't necessary for cultural
exchange. It naturally happens when there's contact between different
cultures and there's nothing wrong with it. Modern technology has
practically removed those geographical boundaries. The pacifistic trend
in the world today has removed most political boundaries as well.
Countries work together to advance human knowledge; artists draw
inspiration from all over the world; architecture, fashion and art are
becoming geographically indistinct. -differences in style have more to
do with the designer's/artist's individual sense of aesthetics than with
which country he or she was born in. We are starting to see a global
culture that is becoming more and more homogenous. You may like it or
hate it but it's inevitable.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Filipinos
are a very proud people. We excessively boast about whatever we can
boast about -one only need to look at the comments on a youtube video
featuring a Filipino appearing on foreign television to see how
prevalent this pandemic is. People would scream pinoy pride, claim that
claim that filipinos are good singers/dancers and then we'd bash the
hell out of the nonfilipino contestants. I have a problem with this not
only because it's annoying but also because we're praising ourselves
collectively as a nation for an achievement of an individual that his or
her nationality and our nation had nothing to do with. Rather than
claim other's achievements as our own, wouldn't it be better if we
emulate them? And i don't mean to belittle the accomplishments of our
filipino compatriots who've made a name for themselves abroad. I'm happy
for them. but doesn't it say something negative about us when we scream
pinoy pride with such militant fervor as if our identity as a nation
hangs on the shoulders of an american idol contestant?<br />
<br />
We
want compliments, so much so that we sometimes ask for them directly
from foreigners. We are extremely sensitive to criticism. We criticize
and make fun of other countries and other races<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>yet we’re up in arms when a fictional novel mentions us in a not so flattering light<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. </b>The
more extreme of the "pinoy pride" crowd exhibit isolationist mentality,
rejecting all that is foreign, especially those coming from the west,
and labeling those who patronize foreign media/literature or speak or
write in a language other than filipino as having colonial mentality.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
love the Philippines because it is home. It’s where the people I know
live, the places I visited growing up. I am Filipino but I don’t see
myself
being defined entirely by that fact. I’m more of a humanist than a
nationalist.
I’m more proud of what humanity as a whole has achieved and i'm more
excited by what it can
achieve. I owe more of what i am to being human, a biological fact, than
to being a Filipino, which is a sociological construct. </div>
<br />
There’s nothing wrong with loving one’s country. I draw the
line between mere love and blind nationalism where rationality ends and
zealotry begins, where individuality is stifled in the name of the
collective. Where the superiority or inferiority of an individual is
determined by imaginary borders drawn up by wars past. Love what is
good, hate what is not. Try to do something to change it if you can. If
it cannot be changed, you do not have to love it simply because it's
Filipino and you don't have to think or live a certain way because it's
the "Filipino way"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. </b>Being
excessively proud of your heritage sounds like a good idea until you
hear someone else mouthing off about how special he is because of his
heritage. It gets old very quickly. Nationalism is similar to racism and
sexism in that you put people in boxes based on factors that they had
no choice over and then you judge each other's value collectively. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Throughout
history, nationalism has been responsible for wars, genocide, racism,
slavery. It did have a hand in ending colonialism. But the age of
colonialism is long over. Wars in the name of country have gone out of
fashion. There's no need for a slave revolt when there are no slaves and
no masters. <br />
<br />
I'm a strong proponent of
individualism and freethought and a lot of things about nationalism run
counter to those concepts. When you stop seeing people, including
yourself, as individuals but as part of a herd with one mind; When
people somewhere, let's say, near the vicinity of Taiwan would beat up
innocent foreigners because of an act of their country that they had
nothing to do with simply because they were born in that country; When
people start thinking that they have a special place under the sun
because of the soil under their feet; When people start seeing other
people as good or bad, superior or inferior, human or inhuman without
knowing anything about them aside from the country where they were
born. -I see nothing constructive or honorable about it. It's primitive
and it should go the way of the dodo. The sooner the better. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
In an
idealist’s world, people will not be divided by geographical boundaries, not by
race, not by religion. Ideologies and morals will not be set by the
religion you were born into, the country where you were born or the color of
your skin but something that you develop or find yourself by sifting through
what’s available out there in the world. In this idealist's world, we all ride under one banner -that of mankind.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-81211142913088424802013-04-04T23:24:00.000-07:002013-04-04T23:24:14.883-07:00Replies to comments on “I hate Filipino culture”<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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So apparently one of my articles went viral (<a href="http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-hate-filipino-culture.html">I Hate Filipino Culture</a>). I wrote the
article back in 2007 back when I wrote without caring so much who I offended.
Yes, I was also a lot angrier and a lot less politically correct then. It got a
bit of attention when I first posted it but nothing like what it’s getting now.
I was surprised when I checked my counter and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I saw that it had almost 50,000 hits in less than 24 hours. It’s now at
almost 100,000 hits and still rising. It got a lot of comments as well, some
agreed with me some didn’t. I don’t think that I’d be able to reply to all of
the comments individually so I’ll be addressing some of them in condensed form
in this entry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">On the title of the article</b>:
Yes it’s a bit extreme and yes it’s also intentional. It’s the kind of title
that would rouse emotions in the reader before they even read the article. It got
its intended effect. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote about the
average filipino’s sensitivity when it comes to criticism about their own race
and the title is a sort of stab at that; A test if they can go beyond the title
and actually read the entire entry. If you’d read the whole entry, you’d know
that I wasn’t hating on Filipino culture in general, whatever that may be. I
was expressing my “annoyance” at certain aspects of our society. And in no way
did I imply that masa culture is Filipino culture. I actually said the opposite.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">On me having colonial
mentality:</b> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Filipino culture can be a
pretty iffy term. Almost all remnants of pre-colonial culture have been wiped
out. Our own alphabet, baybayin, is practically dead now (a lot of Filipinos don’t
even know that it ever existed), our language is littered with Spanish words, Most
of our customs, traditions and religions are of post colonial origin. I’m not
saying that that’s good or bad, Im just saying that if you’re gonna be
xenophobic and hate on all things foreign, recognize that a lot of the things
that we consider Filipino arrived at our shores pretty recently. I’m not
touting the culture of any particular country and I’m not saying that any of
those cultures is superior to our own but there’s a wealth of information out
there if we’d not close ourselves to the boundaries of our shores, especially
considering that what we have within our shores are a lot of material that
cater to the masses. Yes I’m aware that the negative qualities that I enumerated
about our people also exist in other countries but just because those qualities
exist in other cultures, that doesn’t mean that I hate them any less.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">-On depression: </b>nope
hindi ako depress …or depressed and I have no plans of killing myself anytime
soon, thank you</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">-On my douchey profile
pic.</b> I apologize for my face. Well not really but I probably would’ve chosen
a different profile pic if I had known that one of my entries would’ve achieved
a bit of notoriety. But it’s there, people have seen it anyway so what the
hell. I’ll replace it with something more artsy fartsy soon.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">-On elitism.</b> I
said that I wasn’t elitist but I guess this is a matter of perspective now. One
person’s elitist is another person’s fearless writer. One thing that the entry
was NOT about though was about class divisions. Like I said, I’m not even rich
in the first place. I’d rather rub elbows with a penniless, starving artist
than Willie Revillame or Joey deleon. I don’t look down on the poor because I know
that shallowness doesn’t always come with poverty. And to be clear, when I say “masa”,
I don’t mean the poor in general.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">-On my rant on local
TV shows:</b> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know a lot of respectable
people who watch eat bulaga and wowowee. I have nothing against them at all. The
rant really was NOT about the people who watch the shows, it was mostly about
the people who appear on them, particularly the TV hosts and the way they
almost seem to make a mockery of their “masa” live audience. It was one of
these TV shows that actually inspired the rant in the first place. If you feel like
I insulted you when I insulted your favorite TV show, I apologize. And this is
the only part of the article that I will apologize for because I didn’t qualify
it clearly.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">On not saying
anything good about our country: </b>Yes I only highlighted negative aspects of
our society. That was the point of the article, really. It’s a rant. In case you’re
interested, I also have a travelblog where I write about some of the nicest
places that I’ve visited in the Philippines - I don’t only write about negative
stuff but why would anyone expect to read positive things about our people on a
rant. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One more thing that I’ve noticed about
us Filipinos is that not only do we only want to hear the positive, we
sometimes ask for it too much. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever foreigners
are interviewed about the Philippines, it’s almost like we expect them already
to say very rosy things about our country and if they don’t say anything good,
they should be deported. We even took up arms when some foreigners said that
they didn’t like the food at jolibee, as if our nation’s identity rests
squarely on the shoulders of the fastfood giant. And I remember that Ricky Lo
interview where he practically was goading Anne Hathaway to say that Lea Salonga
was a better singer than her. That was very difficult to watch and it just
shows how insecure we are as a people. I sometimes wish that we’d wait for the
compliments to come, not expect them and not ask for them directly.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To everyone who agreed with me and to everyone who vouched
for me, reading your comments was pretty heart warming and flattering. Thank
you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To everyone who disagreed/
disagreed violently, thank you for visiting my humble little blog and I hope
you’d see that I meant no disrespect to our people in general but like others, I
see certain flaws. If you do not agree with me that they’re flaws then let’s
agree to disagree. I hope you read the entire entry though before you posted a
comment.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-54986689840982292532013-03-17T17:18:00.000-07:002013-04-04T01:41:40.736-07:00On Nude Photography<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y85xM_74ipI/UUkACGxDVPI/AAAAAAAAAes/w-IhwcztrlM/s1600/censored.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y85xM_74ipI/UUkACGxDVPI/AAAAAAAAAes/w-IhwcztrlM/s640/censored.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">It’s 2013 but there are those who still see nude photography as a hobby for the perverted; that it’s a sort of peep show for us photographers. First off, let me say that I and those who shoot with me are very respectfu</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">l of our models. I’m sure that there are exceptions among photographers but we are more or less the norm. When I or any of my friends organize shoots, we make sure that nothing other than photography happens during the shoot. Also, about 20-30% of the photographers I shoot with are straight women who also exclusively shoot women.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />While those of us who started off as straight men are still very straight men, we’ve seen enough nudity that, like a doctor who does breast implants on a regular basis (or perhaps a gynecologist?), we can be around a nude model and act normally, professionally and very respectfully. We’re not eunuchs but we know that there’s a good place and time to be proper perverts and that’s usually with our partners where we won’t risk tarnishing the image of nude photography. In contrast, some of those who aren’t as exposed to the naked human body salivate or go into rape mode at the mere sight of an exposed cleavage, some at the sight of an exposed ankle. Perhaps, unlike what the ultraconservative are suggesting, more regular exposure to nudity would have an inverse effect on the number of rape cases? Just a hypothesis =)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />While I’m not exactly advocating nudism, we’ve gone a long way from the olden days when a fully exposed human body was considered dirty. The human form in its full glory can be appreciated in more ways than what we’re normally used to. I’m a fan of the female form. I know it almost sounds like a pick up line but I mean that in the most innocent and the least perverted way possible. Capturing the beauty of the female form can be like capturing the undulations of a vast mountain range or the intricate curves of a winding river in a photograph. The beauty of the human form doesn’t always have to be sexual.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />Art is subjective. One may see it on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel or one may see it in a heap of scrap metal. I don’t see anything wrong with seeing it in the human form, whatever gender that human form may be.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J-qObdmh_WQ/UUkAL7x2SyI/AAAAAAAAAe8/yYZtlOYPDTI/s1600/for+facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J-qObdmh_WQ/UUkAL7x2SyI/AAAAAAAAAe8/yYZtlOYPDTI/s640/for+facebook.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-66092308822227161372013-03-10T17:26:00.000-07:002013-03-19T17:46:50.854-07:00On Dancing<span class="fbPhotoCaptionText" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span>The geek in me never could understand modern dancing. The appeal of bobbing up and down to repetitive music escaped me. I wanted to try it though at least once in my life It seemed like something that was easy to do. That was until I actually tried doing it in public and found myself frozen. My feet suddenly felt like they were made of concrete. And then my inner geek kept telling me”don’t do this. You’d look awkward.” Or “this is herd mentality. Don’t be part of the herd”. I made a vow to be more adventurous at this point in my life though so I tried doing what the others were doing. It’s amazing what alcohol can make you do as a few beer bottles later, I was actually enjoying myself already. Most of the satisfaction came from being able to tell the inner geek to shut the **** up and let me move to the beat</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VbjVIMfmePc/UUkBSmA01fI/AAAAAAAAAfE/Nuhq4ko7vVs/s1600/IMG_8744.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VbjVIMfmePc/UUkBSmA01fI/AAAAAAAAAfE/Nuhq4ko7vVs/s400/IMG_8744.JPG" width="400" /> </a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;"><i>At Urbn. In this supposedly posh and exclusive ecosystem, they'd throw you out if you don't look the part.</i></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;"><i></i></span></span><i><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></i> </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pV5Do_g4JBA/UUkBVhYtPyI/AAAAAAAAAfM/nD3PW_miGko/s1600/IMG_8777.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pV5Do_g4JBA/UUkBVhYtPyI/AAAAAAAAAfM/nD3PW_miGko/s400/IMG_8777.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Reggae music at B-Side</span><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u>:</u></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-12438177536357789202013-03-05T17:29:00.000-08:002013-07-25T19:40:31.517-07:00On the internet and superegoes<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">Now that we're about to have another addition to our family, I look back to this tribute <a href="http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2008/09/her-name-was-katherine.html">http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2008/09/her-name-was-katherine.html</a> that I wrote about a member of the family we lost a decade and a half ago. It's possibly the only detailed record of her life anywhere on the internet </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />They say that the internet has given birth to superegos, a generation of regular people who think too highly of their own importance. In a way that's true. I think we have statistics to prove this. The internet has given more power to the individual in a way that no other medium ever has. It is the ultimate "democratizer" where the loudness of your voice isn't always proportional to the amount of money in your wallet, the number of celebrities that you know or which cabinet positions your parents or uncles hold. If you have something to say and people wanna hear it, they will find you.<br /><br />The internet also has become a record keeper of sorts, a place where you leave your, more or less, permanent imprint wittingly or unwittingly. In the words of someone who now lives his life as an internet demotivator : “don’t be an internet meme cos you’ll live on forever in a way that you probably don’t want to.”<br /><br />The footprint in life that one leaves behind is so much bigger now. Anyone who passes away now, leaves a facebook profile, possibly a blog, an online photography album, a resume of accomplishments, a compilation of poems, photos, personal musings of various depth which anyone from the present or from the future would be able to find by googling his or her name<br /><br />In contrast, anyone who passed away before internet became mainstream, unless they became popular for some reason or they made a significant contribution to a certain group, left very little to no trace outside the photoalbums and memories of their immediate friends and family. Google their names and it’s almost as if they never existed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />The internet is a place where one's popularity is not commensurate to the availability of public information on him/her. A public filing system that makes sure that each individual can be picked from from a sea of nameless faces, put under the magnifying glass and be appreciated (or scorned?) as individuals. Under the magnifying glass of the internet, each individual has a voice which can be heard and that voice doesn’t have to die with him. If that does make him feel more important than his pre-internet counterparts, I can’t say that I blame him.<br /><br />Kathy... you’ll find her on the internet, if you search hard enough.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-62929244619094989712012-05-31T17:44:00.000-07:002013-03-19T17:45:51.164-07:00Anatomy of a Car Accident (fiction?)<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Diffused by the pouring rain, the beam
from our headlights bathed the scene with an eerie white glow. There
was an overwhelming atmosphere of dread. The air smelled of pain,
fear, panic and confusion. The scent seeped from the capillaries in my
nostrils to my brain where it built up pressure until it felt like my
skull was going to explode. Near our vehicle was an overturned
tricycle. Scattered around it were 7 badly injured people, most of
them moaning in pain. I say most because one of them wasn't. The
driver of the tricycle lay underneath his vehicle, silent. His head
was bloody, his limbs were contorted into unnatural angles. It was a
scene straight out of a twilight zone episode. All that was needed was
a grayscale filter, which would've been particularly useful to hide the
blood and the gore. I didn't have that grayscale filter though. The
colors around me bombarded my eyes in the most unwelcome fashion. For a
few minutes, I was paralyzed. Thoughts blazed through my head at
lightspeed. The scene was right before my eyes but the mind would not
believe that it was real. As I tried to make sense of what I was
seeing, the immediate past, the present and the future all tried to
squeeze themselves in my head at the same time. Through all the
confusion, I tried retracing what had happened a few minutes earlier.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
It was almost midnight and there was a
slight drizzle. I was making a left turn from Congressional Avenue
towards a perpendicular road. It would've been a sharp, right-angle
turn across a 3-lane highway which curved a little bit. In between my
side of the road and the other side was a center island strewn with
trees which slightly limited the visibility of the cars coming from the
other side. I approached the turn. I looked for oncoming vehicles.
I only saw one vehicle which was still quite far away so I decided to
take the turn. I had already occupied one lane of the road when I saw a
tricycle with its lights off speeding towards us. It was moving along
the lane closest to the island. It was travelling at a really fast
speed so I had very limited time to react. In another split second, it
hit the passenger side door of our vehicle.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Being on the driver's side, I didn't feel
the impact as much as my passenger did. Immediately after the impact, I
stepped out of the vehicle and I cursed at the driver, telling him that
he didn't have his lights on. That was before I saw his body lying
face-down on the road and the carnage that surrounded him. Whatever I
was thinking or whatever I was saying came to an abrupt halt and
everything froze.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Before that night, I had never been in an
accident that resulted in anything more than a minor dent and I wasn't
at fault in any of them, save for one. I had never seen a wound that
exposed anything underneath the skin. I had never seen a broken limb, I
had never seen an exposed eyeball. I had never seen a dead body. I
lost my innocence that night and I lost it in one of the most brutal
ways possible.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
After a few minutes, I was able to
partially collect myself. I tried to comfort my companion who looked
like she was in shock and asked her to go back inside the vehicle. I
tried to get the tricycle upright again so it wouldn't rest on top of
the driver. At this point, the moans were getting louder. There was a
certain grogginess in their moans that made them sound almost ghostly.
It was just another unwelcome addition to the barrage of sensory inputs
that I was getting. I was panning around the scene trying to absorb
everything when I saw that the driver was still moving. It was more
instinct than anything else when I thought that something had to be
done. I thought in the back of my head that he shouldn't be moved but
at that point I didn't know which number to call and no one among the
gathering crowd of onlookers seemed to be doing anything. Rather than
wait for nothing and let him die on the street, I decided to lift him up
myself onto another tricycle which carried him to a nearby hospital. I
had blood all over my arms and hands. At that time, I thought that it
was true both figuratively as well as literally.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
My passenger was driven to a nearby
hospital to have her head checked as she hit it pretty badly during the
impact. Police officers escorted me towards the nearest precinct. I
was broken and humbled. All my pride had to be surrendered. It felt
like my brain had shut down and my body was being moved by outside
forces, almost like a puppet. It was at the police station where they
told me that the driver had expired at the hospital. I expected it but
the news still hit me on the chest with a dull thud.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
I must've been in a daze because it took
me a while to realize that a security situation was starting to
develop. The relatives of the injured started arriving at the
precinct. Some of them were probably still emotional and were looking
for the driver of the vehicle their trike bumped into. I was texting
people with my blood-stained hands in front of them. Good thing none of
them noticed. The officers escorted me to an isolated room to hide my
identity and so I wouldn't do anything stupid in front of the relatives
again. There was fear but I was mostly surrendered. If any of them
came at me, I don't know if I would've defended myself.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
They say that your life flashes before
you right before you die. I don't know what the tricycle driver saw
but I saw flashes that night. In my mind, I saw scenes in my future
that scared me. But what scared me more was what I couldn't see. I saw
my life end before my eyes that night. In my mind, my life would never
be the same again. In my mind the, tricycle driver and I were in the
same boat. I stayed the night at the police station.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
A lot of those who go through a traumatic
experience such as this end up talking to themselves a lot. There's
that inner voice that constantly berates you, questioning everything
that you've done. Most people call it conscience. I call it my
pessimistic little half brother. I relieved myself of some of the
guilt by saying that the tricycle was driving recklessly. That it was
speeding without its headlights on. That it was way overloaded and it
had no chance of stopping on time if ever it needed to. The support of
friends and family helped as well. Gradually the voice got muffled
enough that I no longer heard it. I wasn't at fault. I came to terms
with what had happened - that this was real and this is something that I
would have to live with - something that I can live with. After 18
hours of detention, I was released. No charges were filed.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
It's now been 6 days since the accident.
I'm back home. The atmosphere here in my room is starkly different
from the chaotic mess of that fateful night. The airconditioner hums
silently. I'm sitting on a reclining chair, having coffee while typing
on my keyboard. I am uneasily relaxed. I am coping. To be able to live
with yourself after being directly in the collision path of another
human life, one must develop a certain coldness. The coldness helps me
get by but it also colors everything I see with a slightly darker tint,
including the image that I see in the mirror. You don't quite see
yourself the same way after something like this. At least not for a
while. It's midnight as I'm writing this. There's a slight drizzle
outside. That section of Congressional Avenue should look uncomfortably
familiar right now to a few eyes. Memories will be replayed there over
and over in the minds of those who saw.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Things are no longer as they seemed. When I was at the police station, I thought that my life had ended. But it didn't really.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
I'm writing this now wishing that it was a work of fiction but it's not really.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-69186634956563057892010-05-16T18:08:00.000-07:002013-03-19T18:09:51.257-07:00On the Definition of a Certain Word<div class="entry-body">
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Love
---a woman asked me once what the word meant. I didn’t know what to
tell her of course. I wasn't well versed on subjects concerning the
softer emotions. All I knew was that it’s a word that manly men should
only use when referring to food, cars or gadgets. Using the word when
referring to another person is highly inappropriate and should be
frowned on. Writing about the definition of love in a public blog is an
offense that should be punishable by stoning.</div>
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<br />I told her that I may need time to figure
out how to define it and I told her that I may need her help. Over the
course of getting to know her, I slowly got to know what love does to a
person. (This is on a case by case basis of course.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<ul style="text-align: center;">
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you eat exotic food</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love COULD make you eat kuhol, given enough time </li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will change your sleeping habits</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you go out of your comfort zone</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love could make you more sociable</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you throw the man code out the window occasionally </li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you more outdoorsy</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you a sentimentalist</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love has an entirely different set of
special logical rules which may be contradictory to normal logical
rules. Love’s special logical rules will almost always win out.</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you join a race in which you may possibly have to endure a great deal of “bossing around” </li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you emo occasionally</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will make you feel happier in general</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">When the object of your love wraps her arm
around your arm in a movie theatre, love will make you feel comfort, the
likes of which you’re unlikely to feel anywhere else</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">Love will introduce you to his cousin, jealousy</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">When love leaves, it will leave a void in your chest that would be very difficult to fill</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: left;">
After a few months, she asked me again to
define the word. I already knew what the word meant but I still couldn’t
define it. So I said it’s like the color blue. How do you define blue
without referring to things that are colored blue? You can try your best
to define blue to someone who’s blind but you will never come close to
giving that person any idea of what blue looks like. The person will
need to have perceived the color to understand what it looks like. In
the same sense, I don’t think that love, as a feeling, can be
effectively defined to someone. You could describe things that are
affected by it but He or she will have to have experienced love to fully
understand what it is.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It took a while but I can finally say that I
now know what love is. You wouldn’t know what you’ve been missing out on
until you finally feel it and realize that your life wouldn’t have been
half complete without it.</div>
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This is the color blue:</div>
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And this is love:</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-48579180108499098102010-02-04T18:13:00.000-08:002013-07-25T19:40:08.593-07:00Rumminations on Blogging<div class="entry-body">
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<br />
I’ve neglected blogging for almost a year now. I feel like I’ve
become a shallower person as a result. A friend asked me once for my
opinion regarding a suitor of hers. The first question I asked her was:
“does he have a blog?” As soon as she said no, I said that he was not
worth her time.<br />
<br />
I judged a lot of people that way. The people
whom I found interesting were usually those who wanted to keep concrete
records of their opinions, convictions or feelings, whether that be
through writing, art or even video/audio recordings.<br />
<br />
I had a
certain respect for people who felt that their thoughts or opinions were
significant enough for them to be ascribed some sort of permanence.
The human mind is always in a state of flux. Thoughts are generated,
morphed and oftentimes lost. Thoughts are so fundamental to a person’s
existence that losing them forever almost seems like a sin. And there’s a
finalizing quality to writing in that when you write down a thought or
an opinion, it becomes, in a way, final. It acquires a definite and
tangible form and structure and ceases to be just a jumble of
spontaneous thought bubbles that pop in and out of existence. It
becomes like a photograph, only not of one’s face but of one’s mind<br />
<br />
I’ve
been re-reading a lot of my past entries. When you revisit memories
they’re usually not the same as when you first experienced them. Even
the strongest of feelings subside eventually and with them, go the
thoughts that they produced. It’s nice to read your thoughts at the
time that they were conceived, thoughts that may otherwise have been
forgotten. It’s nice to know what your convictions were or if you had
any. And it’s nice to know if you still feel as strongly about them<br />
<br />
I
feel like I have changed a lot the past few months. Whether for the
better of for the worse is a matter of perspective. I’ve modified some
goals. I'm not as profit oriented anymore<br />
I got into <a href="http://jaywalker0415.multiply.com/" target="_blank">photography</a>,
I went dating, socializing, clubbing(WTH?!), expanded my group of
friends, acquired a new appreciation for fireworks. I also experienced
betrayal, jealousy, I almost got into a fight, felt the highs of passion
and the lows of inadequacy -Normal things for most normal people but
keep in mind that I used to spend months not interacting with a single
person.<br />
<br />
Such a drastic change in lifestyle would probably lead to
an equally drastic change in personality. But I take comfort in the
fact that even if I change or even if I lose half of my brain mass due
to intellectual inactivity, I’ll have a record of who I was.<br />
<br />
I
write for a variety of reasons. But most significant of all, I write for
the same reason that people erect monuments to fallen heroes, or for
the same reason that people seemingly waste large areas of land to
preserve historical structures - to create a permanent imprint of that
which is fleeting, time</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860138352128592272.post-5395819117099656682008-09-29T18:16:00.000-07:002013-05-25T04:08:30.568-07:00Her Name was Katherine<br />
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<br />
The internet has become a record keeper for all sorts of personal
information, from the most trivial to the most intimate. Wittingly or
unwittingly, almost everybody has left a left a trace on the internet
open for google to find. If a person mattered then there might be an
article created for him/her by those whose lives he/she has affected Or
he might be a subject of an entire article on wikipedia if he affected
the lives of a lot of people. If a person wants to matter then he may
create a dent on the internet himself by creating a blog like the one
you’re reading right now. <br />
<br />
Every year, my family gathers in a
small patch of land somewhere within the forest of crosses and
tombstones of manila north cemetery to commemorate the life of a person
we lost 11 years ago. Her name was Katherine. We called her Kathy. She
was the 2nd youngest of us four siblings.<br />
<br />
She had a lot of things
going for her. She was pretty, she was smart, she was studious and she
had the gift of gab. She was too young to have decided on a career path
but my mother used to suggest to her a lot that she be a dermatologist
(I think she had expressed some interest in the idea as well). One,
because it’s a lucrative career. It’s common knowledge that
dermatologists are professionally trained to suck every peso out of
their clients’ wallet. Two, so she could cure her own skin problems. <br />
<br />
She
had a lot of infectious and unique mannerisms. I think she started the
trend of babytalking in the family. Both of my other sisters do it now
quite extensively. She also was into the habit of inventing words. A
habit which I think I may have picked up from her. Whenever she would
watch TV, she had this weird mannerism where she’d face the tv sideways
and she’d watch from the corner of her eye. Whenever I would try to
access an image of her from my memory, the image of her watching tv
always stands out as the clearest. It’s funny how the habits that I used
to think were annoying are the ones that I remember the most.<br />
<br />
She
was born on the 6th of December, 1984. She succumbed to asthma on the
night of September 17, 1997. She was just about to turn 13. I remember
waking up to the sound of commotion. My mother was panicking and Kathy’s
struggle was quite audible. My parents tried to calm her down (because
stress would just aggravate her asthma) and then they rushed her to the
hospital<br />
I tried to ignore it but at the back of my mind, I had a
very strong feeling that she wasn’t going to make it. I also had
suffered from severe asthma attacks in my youth and I knew the feeling
of fighting for every breath to the point where you feel like you don’t
want to anymore.<br />
<br />
It was like drowning but, in some ways, more
torturous. When you’re drowning, your ordeal would just last for about
10 or so mins and then you’d pass out and die. My worst asthma attacks
lasted for almost a month and the apex would last up to 5 days, during
which I’d be bedridden and any attempt at exertion would leave me close
to losing consciousness.<br />
I saw what she went through and I knew that
it was worse than anything I had ever experienced. That night, before my
parents rushed her to the hospital, I heard her say “ayoko na” (I don’t
want to anymore)<br />
<br />
I think the call came at around midnight. I
think It was my mother who delivered the news. I remember vague details
about what happened exactly. My youngest sister was playing jackstone. I
was on my bed. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events but I
think I slept again after I heard the news. Maybe because I wanted to
wake up and realize that it was all just a bad dream or maybe because I
wasn’t quite sure how I would react yet and I wanted to postpone it till
morning.<br />
<br />
It was strange because I felt sad but I didn’t feel as
sad as I expected to be. I got a bit teary eyed but I don’t remember
crying. The full impact of what happened didn’t catch up with me till
much later.<br />
<br />
I used to call her “bispringe” (bestfriend). Kathy
and I were quite close when we were much younger but we weren’t in good
terms when she passed away. I think we weren’t speaking for more than a
year. It was a long time ago so ¬I don’t exactly remember what started
our fight but I remember calling her “ketong” (leper). Kathy had
allergic dermatitis which caused certain areas of her skin to form
scabs. We were calling each other names at the time. She brought up some
of my insecurities so I thought it was a fair trade. But of course it
wasn’t and it was really insensitive of me. She cried so to say that she
was affected would probably be an understatement. I never got to say
sorry. We never got to make up.<br />
<br />
She was already a young lady when
she passed away but my clearest mental image of her is when she was
much younger, when we were still quite close. She didn’t have a lot of
pictures in her latter months and we didn’t get to interact much so it’s
hard for me to remember clearly what she looked like. I remember that
she grew her hair longer, her skin improved and she got slimmer. (she
was chubby when she was younger) but it’s hard for me to assemble a full
picture in my head. There’s very little to remember her by.<br />
<br />
I
never got to know what kind of life she got to live in her latter
months. She kept a diary but due to a misdirected gesture of
sentimentality, we never got to read it and we never will. Her thoughts
and secrets were buried with her literally.<br />
<br />
She passed away
before the internet went mainstream here in the philippines. She never
had a friendster profile, no myspace, no facebook, no blog. You won’t
find any picture of her online. There’s no record of her thoughts, no
record of her hobbies, her favorite movie, no record of whether her
status was “single”, “in a relationship” or “it’s complicated” when she
passed. No information about her will appear in any google search.<br />
<br />
There
is no significant record of her existence outside the memories of her
immediate friends and family. I’m not even sure if her friends still
remember her. She may just be a tiny speck of memory to them now. All we
have left of her are the very few pictures that she left us and
memories that get more and more vague as time passes.<br />
<br />
When I
first created this blog, I wanted it to be a shrine to me. A record of
my existence that exists outside of the people who know me. A depository
of my thoughts at different stages of my life that I (or anyone
interested) can look back to someday. It doesn’t matter if anyone cares
to read it. It’s for me.<br />
<br />
I write this entry now for her so that
the memory of who she was would not just exist in our heads and in our
old photo albums. So that if you’d search for her name, it would appear
somewhere within the deep recesses of google. As a record that she
existed and that she mattered! …a humble shrine to her existence and an
apology that is 11 years overdue. It doesn’t matter if anyone finds it
or cares to find it, it’s for her.<br />
<br />
Her name was Katherine M. Zosa and this is her online memorialUnknownnoreply@blogger.com11