Multiplying postings

I find myself not writing enough this year. It maybe because I am still grieving over the loss of my mother, of my stepfather. More of my mother who was the pillar behind all my political involvements and my writings. She gave me support, if not money, then verbal and emotional support for all the things I had been doing in society while she was till alive, from my engagement with the women and children of Tondo, to my writing in the newspapers and magazines, up to providing for my clothes and even cosmetics at times. She was and is to me my one and only mother, literally and figuratively.



Am I the same with my children? This year, I started receiving help from my children and I hate being in the receiving end. For many, many years since their births, I was independent financially, earning from my films, my writings. But today, I have to seek help, at this time when other people of my age are already retiring from their professions.



But this is more of a challenge for me now, how to be productive and economically profitable at my age, 60. I shall not allow my health to fail, nor my mind to decrease in strength and sharpness. Funny but I am now researching on herbal plants to strengthen the mind, that render bodies more resilient to stress, and stronger to face the elements. Thank God in our midst we have the inventors who never tire of researching for them as well, and in the most scientific manner.



May God bless them all the way, and us, as well.

Creating a Nice Feeling

Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to create a nice feeling just in the mind. But that is not enough, I see. If it is just in the mind, then as soon as we open our eyes, the bad feeling sets in. Or as soon as we open our senses, then such a feeling overwhelms us.

So to have a nice feeling, we should really create an environment that brings about such a nice feeling. For example, when I came back from London and started talking about feminism, the women in my midst saw me as rather odd, as anti-men, and truly off synch from the political situation in the Philippines which was calling for the booting out of martial law. So I had to tell them, especially those in the academe, the intellectuals steeped in political involvement from the grassroots to the different government bureaucracies that no progress can be met without women's involvement. Hence women must be liberated from those obstacles that are barring them from full political participation.

Another time, as I was feeling asthmatic, I saw people smoking inside air-conditioned rooms, inside jeepneys and buses, air-con and non-air-con, and even inside some theatres. I felt like dying right there and then. My reaction was to tell off the smokers, to call the attention of drivers, or whoever was in charge of that particular event I was attending. At one time, a man got off the jeep and showed his gun, as if to say, don't tell me what to do because I have a gun. Then he even said, I am a police officer. So I replied, "You are a police officer; therefore you should be a model to other people, a model for respect for civilians." He smiled rather mischievously in reply. Then I also wrote in the papers about the ills of smoking .

Today, we can breathe well, everywhere except, except where public vehicles are running without concern for the need for fresh air. Yes in MetroManila fresh air is a very rare if unavailable commodity, what with diesel- and gasoline-fed engines running around and polluting the air. Yet, this is not the end of the line. electric-driven vehicles will soon be the, THE, vehicles that will crowd the streets.

Still another way of having that nice feeling is surrounding ourselves with nice people, those who think we matter in this world, not necessarily a lover, but rather just a friend or even a stranger who could have those positive feelings for us as a fellow human being. The thing is with regard to friends, we have to cultivate them. With regard to strangers, we need to cultivate our antennae to find out if that person is truly or could be truy sensitive to us.

Sometimes that person could be a foot away from us, or thousands of miles away. How funny, I am able to connect with certain people in this manner, just using invisible antennaes. And they respond in the most appropriate manner. So now sometimes, I ask myself, do I belong to this country or to another as I am able to connect faster with them. Or maybe my mind has read too many books, ideas coming from those places and so I am more attuned to people who think in the same manner and think the same thoughts.

My goodness, human beings are still a marvel to me.

My Family

To many people, the family is the center of their lives. I know a person whose life revolves around her husband and her children. She would work overtime only if her husband would allow her. Another, a jet-flying finance professional internationally, gave up her high-paying job to be a domestic worker in the family home. Still another, childless, has taken on the tasks of caring for her nephews and nieces to goad them to finish their education up to college, and buying all their needs.

I used to make my family the center of my life, that is when I got married. I viewed it as my responsibility to be at home on time, to look after the food that will be cooked per meal, to buy the clothes, etc. But then, my ex- was incarcerated during martial law for political activities and it changed my whole perspectives. I had to take on a good-paying job and then look after my children on a part-time basis. Aside from just having a plain job, I also had to search for a way to get promoted so that I could earn well, like going through training programs that would improve my skills and increase my knowledge. Apart from that, I had to "drink" or "socialize" in order to be in the inner circle of power. Oh how I hated that, simply because I looked at my co-workers then as average, with my friends in the anti-martial law movement as more worthwhile recognizing for their intellect and respecting them for their commitment.

But now under a democratic dispensation, my perspectives have changed again as I look at everyone, regardless of whether they are working for the government or in a non-government organization, or any private entity, with great regard -- that is that they are entitled to respect of their human rights.

And my family, which consists now of my brothers and sisters, my children two of them, a boy and a girl, as well as my distant relatives -- I feel kind of connected with them in a different way. It is both a connection by blood, by intellect and by history. We have shared a lot in the past and can't possibly just cut off our ties. Notice how I don't mention my grandchildren.

Fascination

Passion is an overriding feeling that propels me to exist from day to day. I must have passion for writing, for computing, for singing, for dancing, etcetera. I could go on and on. I realize this only now on my first senior year. Last Sunday, the 12th, I told Joy, "I lost my heart for singing. I can't join the choir now. May I take a vacation. " He replied, "Ok lang, kasi artist ka e." But isn't he one?

Earlier, I told one male member who greeted me at the canteen, "O, kumusta ka na?" I replied, "Heto, hindi ko alam may nagdi-diyos-diyosan pala rito. 'You can't enter the church here,'" I said in a booming voice like a patriarch. Come to think of it, even if a member looks very feminine in nice female clothes, yet her thinking and behavior reveal patriarchal elements. And that is really scary.

Now, with so much time in my hands, as I am not thinking of what to sing every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, wow I had spent three days a week for singing, I am able to plan how to finish the books which I am producing. At the same time, I am able to focus on the real estate issues which my brother and I are working on so as to be able to pay for this house which my mother had pawned and won handily from the former owner through the Supreme Court. I just pray though that we would be granted enough time to work on it.

But my passion now revolves around the US elections. Every early morning I turn on this computer and read the latest news. How I wish I could view the video as well but this laptop is too, too slow. And I am always worried that my internet card would get finished off by waiting, which may now open the page at all, you see.

So Folks, passion is a nice feeling as it keeps me awake and alert to fulfilling my talents, desires and whatever. Happy hunting!

After all is said and done

How broad the internet could be. Imagine I could go and read about the US elections going on whether it is in LA or New York. Truly the internet is the best invention of humanity, linking all of us up to know, interpret events that matter to earth and to all of us.

I am able to read about the exercise of that right to vote, the difficult efforts of the Democrats in instilling the need to have a new government, away from warmongers and warhawks who make the work so insecure.

So I am able to read also about the perils of freedom-- freedom that kills individual initiatives to create and be part of a humane society. So democracy is not all bed of roses. It is a constant struggle to know what is best for the majority of the people so that a minority will not be able to ram down our throats those practices that would make them dominate the world.

Where will these all take us? When US is able to pick its president, for good or bad, where will it take the Philippines? We have not really studied our own independence where politics is concerned. We have been tailists, tailing American this way and that. But I think now, our own little voices count, we are being heard as our needs are being told and planned for change.

After the elections, we will check what the Filipino Americans did to bring about a new administration, what they hoped for would be achieved, and what they had done to continue or to close down the mistakes of the past. Also, we need to ask, up to what extent did they participate in the elections to bring about better policies of treating the Filipino people.

US affects Philippine election campaigns

I watch almost everyday the happenings in the US elections to learn how a democratic election, is supposed to be. Every early morning I tune in through the internet on the latest issues confronting the presidential candidates, and scantily their veeps.

What i find is rather revealing of the deep roots of democracy in the US. The issues are really dissected objectively and subjectively, as they are expounded on by the candidates. Questions like, do they treat cursorily or broadly, with sarcasm or wit, etc. The debates are also delved into with great depth -- what is the score of this candidate among which section of the population? Even bar habitues are covered for their answers.

Funds are also tackled to see who is ethically spending the money and for what ads. Are the ads racist, non-racist, and to whom do they appeal? Even jokes that use celebrities parodying the candidates are presented as part of that colorful side of the elections.

What all these show is that assuming a public position is not an easy task for the ordinary folks. The US elections have gone a long way from just being able to point to one picture or one name as the one prefers to lead him or her through four or six years. Rather they are long, tedious and undertakings with complicated processes that perhaps only an elite with plenty of funds can really undertake. For every step along the way, the costs are high --

hiring a fund-raising savvy staff,
hiring an advertising consultant,
hiring a speech writer, -- this one I really do not favour. I do think that politicians should be able to talk from their heads and not through the heads of other people. They may not be able to articulate much their ideas but still that is their duty, to learn how to communicate them in the best possible way -- not only through words but through drawings, paintings, etc.

And this is where I would like campaigns to take a different path. A candidate need not just be able to rattle off ideas in gathering support. One should be able to use other means like the arts to present one's ideas. Ah, if only the public could be less demanding.

when blogging becomes a refuge

i just felt like blogging today, after coming from Bacolod City where I had spent my first few years of childhood. It was an idyllic city then, as my family and I lives in a place full of flowering trees and plants which I used to water every morning, with my urine poured into it as fertilizer. afterwards, my brothers and i would sail a small banca at the back of our house, go out through a small containment of water which opens out into the seashore and where we would pick seashells and other ocean habitues like crablets and shrimps. the air was clean and fresh, which probably strengthened our lungs to survive smoking, pollution and emotional stresses.



going with my sister and brother was reliving those years of nature escapes which also deepened our imagination. I remember sitting on a rocking chair in a louvre-type window of our house, and listening to "Malaguena" played on the piano by someone from a house owned by a hacendero or landlord or landlady across ours. In between our houses were bamboo shoots emitting rickety sounds which made me feel being in a fantasy-land full of ghost stories.



but the musical piece stuck in my mind and i bought a score later on for my personal study later on.



Aged 7 or 8 years old then, every four o'clock in the afternoon, I used to play the piano, reaching up to the twilight hours where the sunrays would shine upon the musical sheets like golden hands of God, illuminating the passages for me to continue playing and playing classical music arranged for a child's hands.



my teacher was Eva Llorca then who gave me the rudiments of piano-playing in a very discipline way so that I was able to develop a unique initiative to study music with and without a teacher. yes, because later on, enrolling in one became quite tedious. my last succeeding teacher was not as studious as she was in teaching me. A graduate of chemistry, she ventured in piano teaching rather sloppily and I could sense that by the way she had destroyed the wooden finish of the piano cover with her pencil striking it to beat as I was playing. It was only after my sister had cautioned her that she stopped doing it.



but if she was a real scientist, or even artist, she should have already noticed the ugly scratches of her pencilhead on the cover. also, when i finished the second grade John Thompson, she wrote in blue ballpen my name and then misspelled it. Ugh. for a young mind as mine, it was a great disaster. At that time, i needed to idolize someone nearly perfect especially in terms of spelling the names of their students. Or I guess, Ms. Llorca presented to me a very good image of a really disciplined piano tutor. anyway, until now, i still play the piano, ouido or with a score.

so when I visited 90-year old Mama J. in her house, I played her favorites as well as mine. She came out to greet me in the sala and really felt very much reinvigorated. Then I played "all of me" a song which her husband and the family really loved and sang whenever someone would be in front of the piano. She could still remember the words, too and so she sang with us.

Bacolod is truly a place for artistic inspiration. My own nephew, now a famous painter in the States and here in the country, created his one-man show paintings in the heart of one of the towns. shall I mention his name? others might say I am riding on his popularity. But he is famous for his expressionistic searing style. By the way, he will be home again this Nov or December. Aside from these examples, the Masscara Festival is one testimony to that artistry which the late Ely Santiago started. There ought to be a monument for him, by the way for having institutionalized such a festival.

Then of course, the Showroom of the Association of Negros Producers attest to the varied talents of Negrenses. I wish I were a resident so that I could also participate in the exhibitions. Not exactly because MetroManila is a hard nut to crack in terms of getting popular as an artist, but rather as a way of feeling collectively connected with our roots.