We Dream

In this nation, the sole power driving the nation comes from the people. Theirs is the collective effort that brings forth a future where equality is inherent regardless of social class; where justice is served because people are born with it.

In this nation, the people don’t look westward, because this is where the sun rises to obliterate the dark -- shining rays of hope. This is a place where talent is given opportunity, and intelligence is nurtured; where both are put into a place it could spread its beauty.

This is a country where commerce doesn't need to establish corporate social responsibility, because the business in itself is the definition of social responsibility. Businessmen are not for the profit, because they've had their fair share of it. Instead, they work for strategies that will mostly benefit the consumers.

In this nation, people believe in goodness not because they have a set of dogmas to follow, but because they were born with a heart so full of compassion it would be painful not to share it. Faith is not mistaken for blind approval, because the latter suppresses free will. We have different churches of diversified beliefs, but all do not create division. One doesn't assume the worst of the other who do not share the same belief, because the people here are not bigots who crucify their brand of heretics.

In this nation, we hold hands during dark times. It is during those moments that we have a leader who lights the candle for all of us -- who dares not to curse the dark. This is where anarchy stands no chance because we don’t succumb so easily to it, as our sense of humanity is far stronger than our own carnal needs; because we have faith that refuge will come before our hope is finally extinguished. We take comfort in knowing that our public servants will attend immediately to the needs of the suffering countrymen, and whenever there’s a lapse in giving refuge, the last thing they’ll do is to lay blame on other’s mistakes, because they are replete with sense of accountability.

In this nation, the life of the unborn is valued, so we work hard to create a better place for them to live in, rather than have them welcomed without the certainty of raising them to become a good citizen. As we value the life of the unborn, we also recognize the life of those that are stripped off of liberty as penance for helpless disregard for the laws of the land, or worse, other’s rights. In this valuation, we see to its consistent adherence.

In this nation, we raise children not to the terms of conformity. Rather, we raise them with the responsibility to follow, and break when it starts to suppress their identity.

In this nation, women are not commodified nor relegated to simple house chores; they are qualified according to their competence. They don’t feel entitled for the respect bestowed only to women, because they think that they should earn it as a human being.

In this nation, education is not a luxury but a necessity, and is given in high standards to every student. Teachers don’t inject what to think at the expense of dreams and aspirations. They show students how to think, and utilize that skill to better themselves, better the world. Here, learning doesn't stop from class dismissal, but extends beyond the school’s confines, beyond borders and universes, that stems from deep within. Here, learning and schooling are understood to be entirely different.

In this nation, sportsmanship is tantamount to humility; where there’s a thin line that separates true sportsmen from mere players. Where coaches don’t just train ace players but create players with great character; where these great characters don’t wear sardonic faces when competing with novices, because they are given the responsibility to inspire those who aspire. Seasoned players don’t think that it’s a waste of time to play with beginners, because they believe that it’s more of a waste to not impart their experience with these promising talents.

In this nation, the power that freed the people 28 years ago will always be remembered, so that never again – in the next 28 years nor the years succeeding that – will we be a bondage under the dictatorship of our own kin.

In this nation, people are encouraged to dream, because it is only in dreaming should we struggle to achieve the reality that these are the things we still have to work for, because we are never fazed by the bluntness of reality. And for what it’s worth, we dream, together.

Love and Soul

Note: I'd like to thank my tireless companion in the search for our individual elusive dreams, for polishing my perceptions about love, and further helping me draw out my best; for it is true, as this saying may put it, "what we all most need is the one who can liberate within us that lifelong prisoner whose doom it is to remain captive until another sets it free - out best. For we can never set our best free by our own hands; that must always be done by another." In this day of the hearts, let me say this, Thank you Czarina Jhannette Ventura. ;-)

“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.”

- Mother Teresa

Humans are bound by stories that reach far beyond time written down in history, older even than the age of the mythic gods. Stories reaching the abyss that constitute the understanding of something that which cannot be measured, that which words can put in futility when tried to be translated. It’s the basic element of humanity that ruffles the dried leaves, makes the petals of roses fall from the stemless sky, speeds up the spring of Sakura, all against the laws of nature. They are bound by the basic element that brings the destruction of humankind, and quite strangely, their own creation: Love.

Love is a timeless classic. It can explore the four corners of the world, and extend its hands easily without passing through the barriers isolating cultures and society. It seeps seamlessly through Millenia, eternally imbuing its principles to the unequally divided continents.

Love is a universal language. It’s far better understood by way of an act true to its spirit. An act that can be seen by the blind, heard by the deaf, and spoken by the mute. It is a language that, ironically, or perhaps quite rightly, most able men fail to profess.

In this day of the Hearts, the volition that had brought us in this world is not padded in a single color the commercial world has been continually painting it. The hues that it has been trully imbuing are far deeper that what our mind can perceive.

Puppy Love

We could ask one about puppy love and be answered with a giggle and excited stuttering. The common tell-tale signs for us Pinoys having puppy love are the prominent acnes on our nose, extreme introversion toward the the subject of our affection, increasing inattentiveness to reality, and eyebags (as product of sleeplessness and dissociation from reality) among others. It could either exist in our elementary or high school years depending on how you might actually see it today as an adult. Such phenomenon (after adults around you notice it) will be inevitably followed by teasing which seems to go on forever. No matter how you deny it, the remotest part of your mind, the alter-ego you created out of constant dissociation, cajoles you, taunting you in the garden you made with insert-your-puppy-love’s-name-here.

Our memories of such immature moments are a great stop to ponder if we are trying to look at ourselves now. Note that the word immature is not a phase that we should be ashamed of, because it has become a part of your wonderful, youthful stories.

First Love

The first heartbreak! If you can still remember the name of your first love, then feel free to raise your hand, and wave to rhythm of Wild and Gardner’s classic, First Love Never Dies. Having a friend beside you, crying silently yet wishing it’s loud enough for the world to hear is quite a sight, because you both know that it's not really the world that your friend has been wishing for, but the heart-breaker to hear her cry. But since you also treaded on this stage, you are giving most of your imperative suggestions and violent commands to your friend, only to find out that your friend is still crying the next day.

If it’s also first love, you’ll know that it’s authentic, when (in anyone’s judment) it took you two long years to move on, and just laugh yourself out everytime the 'stupid' memories come out of your reverie.

Yes, stupid! But it’s totally refreshing to realize that you’d managed to turn yourself into a moron by the pull of such strong feelings. Yes, It made you stronger! It made you feel skeptical about the world and your old perceptions of it; from the nice words of someone to simple gesture a friend may give you. You don’t misinterpret no more.

These could be the rants of most people, but there are those who are lucky having found their first love, and with hardwork (believe me, it is always hardwork), to make it the greatest and the last.

True Love

The form of which can not be easily defined, nor easily be constructed. It cannot be thrust into a cell and be dismissed as romantic. It cannot simply be a daily dose of chocolates, and of flowers, and everything nice. It’s the power that moves us all.

Love cannot be about sacrifice without fighting for whatever worth it may take from you. Love is not yielding on something so a force can proceed. For one may say it’s true love, but failing miserably in showing it.

Love is not all about love for another human being. For the modern heroes, it’s about, using yourself as a faculty to break from tyranny of all forms. For activists, it’s about equality and justice. For a feminist, it’s about getting the same rights as men. For free thinkers, it’s about a continous change and destroying convention. For a mother, it’s about her child’s life before her own. For a father, it’s about forgetting his future so that his child may have a brighter one.

For a dreamer such as you, it’s about going on about your daily life, knowing that what you are doing will lead you someday to that exact moment you have been tirelessly working for.

For this day, it couldn’t be just about roses and hearts. That stereotipical definition of love the whole world has been hammering into your consciousness is incomplete -- almost hollow. Rather, if ever a day would be dedicated to the celebration of love, it should be for everyone longing for something that is far from ones reach; a wish, or perhaps a dream.

Soul

And for love to endure, one has to have a great soul. It is the piece that anchors your love to wherever it deems itself fated. Your love is like a kite soaring in the sky planted on a solid ground. Keep it still, keep it strong. And when every single love is anchored to a soul, there’ll be no day that we’d be celebrating love, because love will be, as the rest of the world would put it, in the air you breathe, every waking day.

The New Christmas

Note: I wrote this article sometime in November for the Early Christmas Shopping proposal that our Advertisers had accepted. I realized that maybe it's too much to write about indulging people to buy things in preparation for Christmas when there are people still coping with the suffering brought by Yolanda(International name Haiyan), people who are still trying to put what was left of their lives, back together so they could start anew. So I banked this article with hopes of moving the able Filipinos to giving what they have in excess (materials and money). Maybe Christmas won't be as merrier for the victims of typhoon Yolanda, but I believed and I'm still believing that these little things that we do, can put a smile to the victims, even if it's just fleeting.

“Looking at the things that happened recently with our fellow Filipinos in Visayas, maybe it will be a different kind of Christmas this year.”

This is what Althea Cahayag surmised about the people’s anticipation on Christmas – or will we ever muster enough hope to celebrate it – after what had happened in our country?

Althea is a writer working for a prominent foundation, committed to public service. And public service it is when our country was devastated with the monster typhoon that is Yolanda, claiming thousands of lives, sucking with her, tons of hope. Currently, the foundation continues with its operation in an effort to send relief for the victims.

In the middle of the relief operation, Althea stood dumbfounded – everyday – with the deluge of contributions, coming from all over the country. People from different places come together, with the hopes of contributing to the reconstruction of the hard-hit areas, not in terms of infrastructure, but in terms of spirit.

She follows through, that there’s still a good reason for celebrating Christmas, in the middle of the cataclysm that we are trying to cope with. Everyday in the operation, the foundation receives tons of relief goods, clothes, medicines to the point where there is no space left inside the building and the flooding relief goods are temporarily stacked beside the road – for delivery – causing occasional traffic.

A Child’s Christmas gift

When we were young, we had our own toys. Our imagination could go as far as talking to it, as if it would talk back, as if they would understand. But we kept on talking and playing with them, no matter how silent and steady they were, because we considered them as our friends.

And now, Althea is struck when a child approaches her, accompanied by what she guessed as his mother and brother. “Inipon niya yang mga yan, siya naka isip. Tapos sabi niya, love niya si Jollibee,” (He collected all of those, and was the one who brought the idea. Then he said, he loves jollibee) points at the bag and continues, “Pero nilagay niya dyan kasi gusto niya raw maging masaya yung pasko ng mga bata doon,” (But he put it anyway, because he said, he wants a merry Christmas for the kids there) Althea recounts, suppressing the tears brimming in her eyes.

This is the kind of moment when the heavens will open and make you realize that there are certain things in this world that we have to give up so others would be happy. Giving up something may hurt us for a while, but the real joy comes when someone receives that one thing you think would stay by your side forever. This child may be sad for a little while, but then the children who are grief-stricken – bereaved even – will find comfort in the little toys he had shared.

Christmas lies not in the feast that awaits us on noche buena, it’s not even in the gift-giving we do. It is in the true spirit of sharing where Christmas can be felt. Because when we share, we give a part of us that cannot be taken back and so happiness multiplies.

Althea high-fived with the boy, who was silent all throughout. When they passed by again, the mother confided that the little boy asked where his toys were; making sure that it will be sent to his new friends, whom perhaps he will never meet.

The Legend of the Man in Red Coat: Is He NAUGHTY or NICE?

Publication Date: November 14, 2013

Note: This article is in lieu of the fast approaching Christmas. And when it's Christmas, there are icons who can't just be out of the celebration, such as the darling of the children whom they anticipate for gifts, and whom parents use to lure their children to stay nice for this season. Like my 1st article (Rise of the Veil), I also made this article informative. I hope you enjoy(as much as I did) discovering this man's origin and his - if you're young at heart - whereabouts. I'd like to ransack his workshop. *winks*

You can’t deny the fact that once in your life, you believed that if you hang socks under the chimney, you’ll get a Christmas present from the man who yearly toured the world to leave his gifts to the children who did nice this year.

You also stayed for the night with the hopes of hearing a tiny scratch – an indication that someone is climbing surreptitiously – on your chimney, and of seeing a silver sleigh flying on the bright moon-lit sky with the man’s tell-tale, flamboyant laugh, Ho! Ho! Ho!

Nothing fuels the anticipation of an innocent child than catching the name of Santa Claus.

Santa has been a part, a symbol of gift-giving tradition during Christmas, all over the globe. He is the bulgy man in red coat with a long white beard, carrying red sack that contains presents for the nice kids this year. Santa’s image as part of Christmas is already fixed that only few would care to ask about the origin of his tale.

Tracing back the history, the tales of Santa are varied and influenced in the cultural context.

The 1st Santa

The legend of Santa started with Nicholas, who was born from wealthy parents in the old village of Patara, in the modern country, Turkey. He was raised as a devout Christian and was orphaned at a young age. Nicholas believed in Jesus’ teachings, and so Nicholas made use of his inheritance to give assistance to the needy, sick, and suffering.

There are three prominent tales for St. Nicholas that accounted his extraordinary personality. These stories are the reason he is so beloved and revered, as protector and helper of those who are in need.

The first story is about the poor man with his three daughters. During those times, the chance of a woman getting married depends on the dowry that her family can offer. Unfortunately, the poor man’s daughters could afford no dowries which binds them to be sold for slavery. Like a miracle, on three different occasions, a bag of gold was tossed through the window and landed in stockings, left before the fireplace to dry, providing the needed dowry.

St. Nicholas is also hailed as the protector of children, when he saved a child named Basilio from slavery and sent him back home with his family.

When he was young, Nicholas made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. During his return trip, the ship sailed past a mighty storm that threatened to destroy the ship. He kneeled in calm prayers in the midst of cataclysm. Sailors were overwhelmed with amazement when they found out that the wind had subsided to tranquility, saving them all.

The Modern Santa Claus

Nothing has immortalized the image of Santa as firmly in the mind of people as a poem entitled a Visit from St. Nicholas written by Clement Moore in 1822. His only intention was to present this to his family for entertainment. The poem recounted the journey of the Saint depicted as a tiny man with a sleigh drawn by 8 reindeers. Together, they flew house to house at each family residence where he comes down using the chimney, leaving gifts inside the stockings hung by the fireplace.

During the 19th Century, the standard image of Santa as a man in a red suit trimmed with white was cemented, and the Coca-cola Company has often been cited for it. There are also published articles on the Physics of Santa, explaining the impossibility of his feat that flying through the atmosphere at 650 miles per second would be met by enormous air resistance that would result in the explosion of the whole sleigh. The article sardonically ends that if Santa is really existing, with all the forces that he would be exposed to during his flight, he would be dead.

Santa in the Philippines

Filipinos are a big fan of Christmas, being a christian-dominated country. The celebration starts as early as the onset of -ber months, the time when people are already preparing their stashed christmas decors together with their newly bought additionals.

And with decoration comes the fact that we can’t just disregard a piece that would render the whole Christmas atmosphere – ALMOST – (if not included) incomplete.

Along the street of Dapitan near España Avenue, Quezon City, comes a stall where you’ll find Santa Clause of all sorts. Anything that Santa might be wearing in your farthest imagination can be seen in this Decoration Shop.

The Store named Dapitan Tiangge is owned by Mrs. Nora Rimando, whose fondness of Santa Claus dates back to her childhood. Inspired to pass on the joy of Santa’s story, she decided to put up the shop in 2008.

There are thousands of items that one can choose, ranging from the smallest up to the 4-feet Santa. You can never go wrong with the designs that the stall can offer because there are also hundreds of different themes that can be seen.

There’s the 3-feet tall paper-maché best-seller that they call “Santa Pupu,” (Pupu means Pooping) because of it’s comical style, where Santa is sitting on a chimney with his trousers down as if he’s pooping. Another is the Genie Santa, which obviously is themed after the genie in the Walt Disney movie, Aladdin. If you are a fan of hanging decorations, they also have the hanging Santa.

On the farther side of the stall, they also offer more designs for christmas. Their customers come from different regions in the Philippines, as far as Ilocos Norte who buy their items for retail in their local place. All of the designs, Mrs. Rimando is proud to say, are coming from different manufacturers in the Philippines, making it a good support for our own economy.

At the end of the day, Mrs. Rimando’s intention is to impart happiness to her customers by providing them the designs that would enliven their family’s celebration of christmas.

If you have plans on shopping for your own Santa decorations, you can find Dapitan Tiangge at No. 32 Dapitan St., corner Mayon St., Brgy. Sta. Teresita, Quezon City.

True Spirit of Christmas

At this point in our country, it is hard to celebrate an extravagant Christmas when we know that our countrymen are suffering from the recent devastations the natural calamaties have brought us. It is not that we have to be sad about this year’s christmas but it is the time of the year, the perfect timing to show the real spirit of Christmas that St. Nicholas would like to share us, with his extraordinary tales.

That is to prove, that Santa is existing, that Santa lies within ourselves. Maybe we don’t have the silver sleigh and the reindeer that would pull us skyward. But in our own little way, our care for our countrymen, for our country’s children would be sent through prayers. The true spirit of Christmas lies in giving the things that we have, even how little it may seem, to the the people in dire need.

That way, we can be one with the spirit of Santa.

Rise of the Veil

Publication Date: October 30, 2013

Note: This was obviously published in celebration of the Holloween last. Before this article, all I know was that Holloween isn't usually celebrated here in the Philippines and it's just a recent adaptation in our culture from the West. I enjoyed much of my research here about the history of Holloween, and I hope that you'll be enlightened while you are entertained(as much as I did) in learning the roots of this tradition.

Once a year, during the ancient Gaelic culture, there is a time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest and the deceased would come back to life, causing havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. They call this the Samhain on the ancient era. This tradition endured up to this day on a different name, Holloween.

Holloween, rooting from the ancient Celtic festival, marks the end of harvest and signals the start of the darker half of the year, the winter. The word is a contraction of All Hallow’s Evening or popularly known as Hallowe’en or All Hallow’s eve.There are few modern adaptations in celebrating Halloween which also originated in this culture, and as well as some ancient traditions which are now also practiced in the celebration.

The Candle-lit pumpkin, or what’s more popularly known as Jack O’lantern that we display during Holloween, can be traced back to Ireland. According to their history, Jack O’lantern was named after Stingy Jack, a mischievous man who loves to play tricks on everyone, even the devil himself. After he died, his soul was not allowed in heaven because he didn’t believe in God. Unfortunately he was also not given passage into hell because of the promise the spiteful devil made. Left with no choice, Jack is now roaming forever on earth without a resting place, with the Pumpkin he carved and the fiery coal that the devil has given him, so he could light his way through the darkness of earth.

Trick or treat and the costume parties, which have become the highlight of holloween not only among children but adults as well, also traces its origin to history. The custom resembles the Medieval practice called souling, when poor folks would go door to door, begging for food in exchange for prayers. The ancient people also believed that wearing mask and costume would appease or beguille the spirits so they won’t harm them. Today, the practice is still done with the children walking door-to-door, in their costumes. They would knock and ask the house owner “trick or treat?” Failure to provide treats would result in practical jokes.

In the Philippines, Halloween is more or less an adaptation of the Western celebration and is usually celebrated in urban areas where people throw parties and adults encourage children to go on Trick or Treating, during the last week of October. However, for the most part of the Philippines, which is comprised of provinces, people prefer to celebrate the Philippine tradition, popularly known as Undas, on November 1. During this holiday, families go to the graves of their loved ones, and stay for the night. Some children huddle in parts of cemetery, trying to spook each other with ghost stories passed down from one generation to another, as well as collecting the remnants of the candles all over the place, so they could mold it to a different shape. Lighting a candle in front of one’s house is also a practice for the Catholics in the belief that the souls of their loved ones will walk on earth, and the flaming candles will light their way back home.