Let's not wait for US aid: We can arm ourselves

by Bobit S. Avila of the Phillipine Star (June 17, 2011)

With the Chinese suddenly becoming so aggressive in the Spratlys not just against the Philippines but also Vietnam, the United States through US Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr. stated that they would honor their commitments with the Philippines. But in my book these are mere rhetoric. America today under the Presidency of Barack Obama has not solved its economic woes, which have resulted in many budget cuts (strangely he refuses to cut the budget for abortion) including cuts in the military.

Today America still has troops in Afghanistan, a few in Iraq, 40,000 troops in South Korea and as admitted last week by outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates the US is paying nearly 80 percent for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) military operations in Libya, which he says is a militarily weak country. Hence he has questioned the unwillingness of NATO to fight (and pay for the operations) in this Mideast nation that kills its own people even with UN approval or support from the Arab League.

So again we must look at the present realities whether or not America would come to our aid. I seriously doubt it given America’s shoestring military budget at this crucial time in America’s financial crisis. In my book, the least that our US Allies can do is rearm the weakened Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) with state of the art weapons if they want to help us.

Ah, but then we know too well that US aid just has too many strings attached, like the US demand for the Philippines to pass the Reproductive Health (RH) bill as enunciated by no less than US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton when she was in the Philippines a year ago.

Since the government of President Benigno Aquino III is having a hard time convincing Filipinos (despite their huge financial budget for those supporting the RH bill) because of the opposition of the Catholic Church and pro-life advocates because the arguments presented by Rep. Edcel Lagman has been debunked by anti-RH supporters, plus the most embarrassing fact  that Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) which is one of Rep. Lagman’s backers, now has openly declared that the RH bill should not be about contraceptives and population control, but a health care for marginalized women. You can more or less say that the RH bill is headed for a crushing defeat!

Incidentally, if you didn’t know last week, the news media has finally gotten a photo of the first Chinese Aircraft carrier, as China could no longer hide this maritime behemoth from prying or spying eyes, hence it openly admitted that its first aircraft carrier named Shi Langwhich is under finishing touches in Dalian, near North Korea will soon be operational.

Actually this aircraft carrier isn’t really brand new as China bought it from Ukraine 13 years ago when the Soviet Union collapsed. TheShi Lang would have been the Soviet carrier Varyag, but very soon it will be the flagship of the People’s Liberation Army/Navy. When she becomes operational, it can very well come too close to Philippine waters and her fighter aircraft can easily fly over Philippine territory with impunity, as the Philippine Air Force (PAF) doesn’t have any interceptors anymore to be of any threat to the Chinese fighters. What a shame that we can’t even intercept their fighters!

In this world of Geopolitics, we Filipinos ought to know our strategic value, as we are located right at the doorstep of China. This is why China is bullying or scaring us to submission because they know that P-Noy is a weak President who can easily be bullied! We are a country of 90 million Filipinos that has the capability to build our own warships in the shipyards of Balamban, Cebu. But a weak President cannot even think of doing the right thing. Perhaps P-Noy is just enjoying his Porsche too much.

But I’m not kidding! Look at the pages of World War II when the Americans started to regain the Philippines, especially during the Battle of Leyte Gulf from Oct. 22 to 15, 1945. A good number of the Japanese Imperial Navy’s Task Force under Adm. Kurita was sunk in Surigao Strait by PT-Boats made out of plywood! Incidentally, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was the last time American aircraft carriers fought the Japanese carriers in the greatest naval engagement in World War II. I hope the Chinese realize this.

The Aboitiz owned Shipyard in Balamban has made a lot of fast crafts that they sold to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, including a fast ferry to Hong Kong. These are ultra fast vessels that can be made to carry ship-to-ship missiles that could blow a Chinese aircraft carrier out of the water if it is armed by a Tomahawk or Exocet missile systems. This is something that we Filipinos can build on our own without relying on US Aid because we just cannot accept the population control requirements that the US is demanding in return for that aid. I say it is time to arm ourselves because we truly can do it in Balamban at a much lower cost. But will we? Ask P-Noy!

Thoughts on Reading and Writing

While spending more time in journal writing each day, I feel that I have become a hermit in certain respect. I have been too much absorbed in reading and writing that it no longer concerns me whether I sleep late at night or that I fail to attend to some of the important notices regarding my work and studies. If only I could live with these hobbies, then I will abandon everything to channel my senses towards them. Of course, this isn’t healthy for a primate who is sociable by nature. But on the other hand, these hobbies are much better activities compared to boozing and inhaling ipil-ipil leaves.

Writing – you beat a psychologist in giving advice and restoring me back to the right track. You are the best teacher by teaching the most important lesson in life: Love. You are the best buddy, helping me out with my imagination on how to kill a cat by being a rat. You are the nicest priest, giving me an ample time to spend with God while accepting me despite my sins. And hey, thanks for being the best hooker too!

Reading – you are a big bad boy by beating my mind, disturbing my heart and keeping me restless if pages remain unread. You are a drug dealer (the worst there is) by forcing me to sniff your aging pages. But atop all of these, you make me brilliant and wise enough to abandon philosophy and embrace science instead (though you can never really recognize the sheer difference between the two). Lest I forget, you serve as best hooker too!

Writing and reading or reading and writing - whichever way, Jekyll and Hyde. These are my sides and love I them both. And I hope I could still keep these up even that would label me a hermit. So what? I got the best hookers anyway!

Divorce Bill as an Answer?

Dear lovely people, the door hasn’t yet closed about RH- Bill, and here we go again with another heated feud between the congress and the church. Last week the “Divorce-Bill” is being pursued by partylist representatives in order to empower women, and give them a way out from unsuccessful, torn marriages.  Women, doesn’t that sound lovely? Doesn’t that sound great to empower you through this “bill?” Of course yes, but it’s not the answer to the problem.

My friend who is a lawyer said that women have greater number of laws (compared to men) surrounding them, helping them, protecting them, and empowering them to be productive, independent and courageous against narrow-minded men who may act like professional pugilists when drunk and wasted. Enacting these laws would provide women a peaceful sanctuary for living and for realizing their careers. However existent, these laws are still poorly executed even by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and other agencies concerned.

So the answer, lovely people, is not the Divorce Bill endorsed by Gabriela and Akbayan but the strict execution of these laws. If we could just keep the women’s desk up in 24 hours in every police precinct; if we could just mobilize women through proper education and livelihood training; if we could utilize government agencies such as the Public Attorney’s Office to cater to the demand of battered wives; if we could make use of  gender advocates to teach them of the existing cultural biases between women and men; if we could strengthen local ordinances penalizing pugilist-husbands and drunken masters, then it’s highly probable that we don’t need Divorce Bill at all.

On the contrary, if we pursue this, then marriage will be nothing more like changing clothes, undermining the sanctity of its process. We will keep on changing husbands and wives until we realize that we only need to commit to one person in our entire life. If we ask about broken marriages, well, they are there. They happen. They're inevitable. The least we could do to avoid this is to undergo a stringent process before marriage such as seminars, short course on spouses’ responsibilities, and a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) which covers civil law and other laws on marital aspect. In this way, the tendency for divorce will be very minimal, avoiding a scene as that of an unresolved jigsaw puzzle.

***

P.S. This time, I’m with the Catholic Church. I hope this will make me an “even” Catholic again. Tabla! Hehehe

Invest for your Health

The adage “We are what we eat” always proves true. 20 years back, yes! Now, not anymore!

Today, if we eat junk, well end up being junkies without realizing our dreams of growing old together, of spending our dream honeymoon in the Moon when the first space tourism gateway is opened. On the other limb, if we eat healthy foods, we are still not guaranteed of a perfect health and we may just end up landing in the hospital - - and worst, dead before the usual average age for dying.

This leads us to question how healthy is healthy? Actually, nobody knows. We keep on digging molecular components of elements, excavating quarks from quarks, designing DNA, engineering basic components of nature and yet we are still empty handed in providing a good nutritious diet for everyone. We rely much on our knowledge to defeat my grandmother’s motto, “Organic Gardening will keep you coming home.” As a result, we design GMOs, diversified species, imported new breeds, and created new organisms just to provide the increasing demand of humanity for a healthy food – again, to no avail.

In a country as erratic as the Philippines, you can’t help but wonder whether an average man will last beyond 70 years. Given that our presumed healthy diet (gulay, gulay at gulay) is slowly pervaded by McDo and Jollibee along seasoning mixes from Knorr, Maggi and the Nam Nam Nam (don’t know the brand), there’s no wonder why people at a very young are contacted with sickness - which, in stricter sense, could only be felt by older individuals twenty years ago.  These food companies have exploited our gullible minds through their propagandas/ads for us to buy their product because theirs is good, healthy, fulfilling and cool. Someday, I wouldn't be surprised if these companies are conglomerates with big hospitals, investing in stem cell research and eugenics, making people's sickness healthy for their business.

Foods are slowly defining the time-line for our precious life. They create sickness, they fashion genetic anomaly that will one day take you aback when  you see your  eldest male child  suddenly learn to imitate Barbie more than Lionel Messi. Well, whether we last longer or not, or we remain humans or deteriorate into primeval apes, that’s all up to what kind of food we take. After all, it’s always our choice. I just hope that we should invest for our health, the way multi-junky companies are investing for our illness. Hehehe.

Blogging with a Pad of RH-Pills

It’s distressing to quit blogging knowing that this had been one of my favorite pastimes for so many years. I have given up my word on this: “should stop this nonsense and concentrate on my God-forsaken-life through my diary (Rosa) and think like Anais Nin, bereft of sensuality.” Hahaha. But then I realize there is nothing wrong in taking back my word to resume my passion for it. I just have to be a little mature, though, in dealing with the topic I write. I know I have been careless in the past, and I really didn’t ruminate well about the topic I wrote (which have offended readers, human and alien alike). I  failed to distinguish blogging from a diary writing which you can input some of your most personal and honest opinions.

I was wrong. Blogging is entirely different for its serves as a public pad for online readers and a catch basin of opinions or reactions. Carefulness is the word here; otherwise you really have to deal with people of multiple crass opinions. While diary is totally free, blogging is framed with jails and bombs that you need to be very careful in handling it. We do not know what the readers would tell you, and not all readers are typically good people like those in my bloglist. Some are absolutely weird, or at least behaving like weird; others are addict who have sniffed a hundred pounds of ipil-ipil leaves; and others are precisely fallen angels or just fallen (minus the angels). Hehehe.

Anyway, I’ll update this site as often as possible, till my wedding day. =)

***

Meanwhile, I have been attending church forums on RH-Bill. Obviously, I was the only one among the pact of devout Catholics, who was very firm in being a pro RH-Bill. I never bothered to throw any question and just listened to the speaker who kept on saying, “Diba brothers and sisters, Amen? Amen!” It was really irritating to hear that repeated over a hundred folds compared to the whole content of the lecture that I almost wailed, “Hey, brod, just go on with your lecture.”

But anyway, I am amenable not all about RH-Bill are acceptable. There are things that need to be clarified and should be subjected to consultation with the church. No question with that. But what really took the cake away was the repeated statement of lecturers that you cannot discuss RH-Bill without God. I totally agree brother. But you cannot also talk about RH-Bill without Science and Statistics. You may be right in saying that there is no direct correlation between poverty and the total number of population, backed by different researches. But absolutely, population growth will have an environmental impact and the last thing that you should be aware of is what lies beneath our feet. Growth changes geography, and so the kind of mind we should employ towards it.

And lastly, the church looks at the government as adversary on this issue. The way I look at it, the situation presents a new perspective. Why do you think the government is pursuing the RH-Bill? Is this one way of saying that the church had been ineffective in their service to curb pre-marital sex? Does this situation call for re-defining the church and its mission? Why do people neglect morality? Has this something to do with clergies as violators of moral codes themselves? 

I think clergies have to think of this too: we all have a shared guilt on this. RH-Bill, aside from addressing the burgeoning population, also poses a challenge to the church to look deeper into the very nature of it and question its reliability amidst the secular world.

***

P.S. I hope this won’t make me less Catholic.

Gibo is Back!

By Buddy Cunanan of the Manila Times.net

A LITTLE birdie whispered into my ear the most delightful news. I have it on relia-ble information that former Defense Secretary and presi-dentiable Gilbert Teodoro is returning to the political scene before June, in preparation for a possible Senate run in 2013.

Although Teodoro was one of the first to concede defeat after last year’s elections, nary a word has been heard from him since. Many have been wondering why the youthful and erudite former Defense Secretary, who displayed so much brilliance and promise during the campaign, chose to retreat almost completely from public life. Disillusioned with the seeming lack of direction of the Aquino administration and the mediocrity of the country’s current crop of leaders, people have been clamoring and yearning for him to return from his self-imposed hiatus.

During the campaign, the public’s response to Teodoro was amazing. All over the country, as Teodoro went to the hustings, his brand of positive politics, intelligence, and eloquence inspired legions of followers. But more than anything else, it was his firm grasp of the country’s institutional weaknesses and knowledge of how to correct them that made many realize that this was the man who should be President. Unlike candidate Noynoy Aquino whose image and mystique were created by a very supportive mass media, led by ABS-CBN and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Teodoro was the real deal—an upright person of high intellect; a non-traditional politician with a clear vision for the Philippines, whose time had come.

Sad to say, in the months after the elections, Teodoro’s absence alienated some of his most ardent supporters, many of whom felt abandoned at a time when they were most in need of his leadership.

People take defeat in different ways. Presidential campaigns are brutal, harrowing engagements that are not only very expensive but mentally and emotionally exhausting. Losing a presidential race is like being sacked in the end zone or knocked down in the twelfth round—it takes a while for anyone to get up. Speaker Joe de Venecia was a recluse for almost half a year, nursing a bruised ego and wounds from political betrayal, after coming in second to Vice President Joseph Estrada in 1998. More recently, Senator Manny Villar has opted to quietly ride out the remainder of his Senate term and instead, concentrate on running his real estate business, which has posted some very good gains under his renewed stewardship. I bumped into Villar several months ago and although he seemed like he had bounced back, people close to him say that he remains shook up by his defeat last year.

Personally, I believe that Teodoro needed this time away from the public eye to reevaluate his life, goals, and ambitions. In a way, I am glad he lost. This was, in fact, his first real setback in over ten years of successful service in government.

In politics, Teodoro had so many things come easy for him—perhaps too easy. In Congress, he was a force to reckon with principally because he was, at that time, the favorite nephew of industrialist and San Miguel Corporation Chairman Eduardo Cojuangco, who made Teodoro the head of his party, the formidable and united Nationalist People’s Coalition. After three terms in the Lower House, Teodoro parlayed his connections to the Arroyo administration and got appointed Defense Secretary, where he instituted much-needed reforms in the military establishment.

In history, all great and successful leaders have experienced failure, at some point or another. Barrack Obama, who lost the US congressional race in Chicago, returned to his work as a community organizer and eventually won a Senate seat and later, the presidency. Vladimir Putin, a for-mer KGB officer, spent over a decade in Russia’s political wilderness, having been close-ly associated with the discredited mayor of St. Peters-burg, before he emerged as virtual lord and master of Russia. William Churchill was an outcast in ther British Parliament, regarded by many as a rabble-rousing warmonger, but ended up First Lord of Admiralty and Prime Minister during the turbulent World War II years.

For these men, failure was not the end but a learning process, a baptism of fire, a milestone for progress, an opportunity for reinvention. Defeat also serves as a grounding of sorts, making leaders mores realistic and cautious and aware of their limitations and weaknesses.

Teodoro has two things going for him. First, most of his followers are still very much infected with TB—“Teodoro Believer-ism.” I have never seen a group of people as idealistic, committed, and selfless as the Greens and they are ready to do battle once again, when their leader returns. Second, each day that passes under the Aquino administration only makes Teodoro and his “Galing at Talino” platform look good. Sometimes, when you lose you still win. I believe Teodoro will be back and he’ll be better than ever.

Miracle

The moon and the stars bid goodbye before the daybreak and the sun raised its fiery brows among the clouds. It was a beautiful sight to have the sky painted with carnation which served as grandiose backdrop for the egrets flying in peculiar formation. There she watched the breaking of dawn with adoration. Her hair, cascading at her shoulders, danced along to every blow of a morning breeze. She put her hand on her cheeks but her gaze remained fixed on the fiery ball that gradually emerged from the curtains of the night.  She knew this fireball would be blasting soon and so she took all the chances to get a glimpse of it before it becomes blinding. Then she smiled. She cried. She laughed. She danced. She yelled. She jumped. She prayed. All of these were done simultaneously in the sight of the beautiful greetings of the sun - the same sun that nourished life and the invisible lives that sprouted forth from human hearts.

“Oh sun!” she thought. “You keep life moving.  You affect the weather and even determine what life should be in this planet. But are you not a mere fusion of gases and exploding hydrogen particles that heat up the solar system? Are you not just a celestial body that illuminates the world to make you its deity? Isn’t it bizarre that you never move from your place while you fondly watch all the planets move around you? What makes you special?”

She lowered her head, and looked at her feet. She knew that it was morning. The once hazy sights of things were gradually illuminated. The roosters crowed in yonder village signifying that it was already morning. The first ray of sunlit emerged from the mountain and it was becoming bolder and bolder in every bit of time. The water underlying the panorama glittered with every ripple fashioned by the wind.  And while keenly observing this,  she recalled how difficult life was and yesterday she just been junked which she never expected. She felt cheated. And shed a tear at the painful scene of separation. She cried in her agony. She cried in her loneliness. She cried for she felt forsaken. The tears that flowed from her eyes fell to the vast body water on her feet. It momentarily shook the water but was eventually consumed in calmness of the sea.

Then she raised her head to the sky once more with dignity and valor - for she felt that she owned this wonderful world which unfolded before here like an apparition, a miracle. Oh, how beautiful it was to her. She could not deny the power of sunrise to touch the hearts of men and mend them with joviality. Right there and then she understood the purpose of sunrise. It sets the beginning of time and signifies that all things happen in the different chances. It determines the night from the day in the same way that man determines the differences between sadness and happiness. It creates division yet bound things in complete harmony like a musical piece played in amalgam, fueling the world to perpetually spin. And she knew that like the world that awaits the light of the sun, life must go on. As long as the sun rises, the wheel of life will keep on turning. As long as the sun rises, hope shall live on.

She then looked at the flock of egrets that grew dimmer in the horizon. She understood that like these birds, she too must live on. That there are even greater things that await her in life amidst the clout of pain and the pang of loneliness in the physical world. Deep in her heart, she understood all of it and kissed  yesterday goodbye to face a new beginning.

Let's all be Nurses, if that's the Case

Hey, 2^nd Lt. Juan de la Cruz! Are you not a nurse? Hey, P/Inspector Ramon Escudero, are you not a nurse? Oh c’mon. There is something I really don’t understand with how the AFP and PNP is prioritizing nurses to hold big ranks after they are enlisted in the service. From the moment they pledge under the Philippine flag, their ranks also fly as high as the sky. So what’s so special about nurses by the way?

Well, they studied very very hard to pass the nursing board. They spent so much money in order to be called nurses. Isn’t then it right for them to be promoted for officership? Isn’t it right, that among the thousands of students drooling to enroll in school of nursing, they are the chosen few to be admitted, primarily because they CAN afford the expensive tuition? Are they not worthy to be called sirs or madams? Of course, brethren, yes. But I doubt that would be fair for other profession who also passed their corresponding professional boards such as teacher’s board or other exams equivalent to Civil Service Professional Eligibility – Level 2.

I don’t want to downplay the nursing profession here because I know they have been very instrumental in fueling the sinking Philippine economy in terms of remittances (that, if they successfully go abroad).  So are the nannies, chimays and atsays we sent to every part of the world. What I am saying is that there should be a fair playing ground in terms of promotion in the chain of command because God knows that you will find it very hard to be promoted if you “only” hold a teacher’s board, or a pharmacist’s board or any other board that AFP and PNP consider as only “cardboards,” far lesser than that of the “nurses.” Even if you top, say a teacher’s board, you will just be the same as any other recruit because the moment you are enlisted, you'll wish you could have taken nursing than teacher’s board; you'll wish you could have been rich to not worry the intimidating costs of its tuition. You'll end up as private or PO1 just the same while nurses are promoted right away to 2nd Lt. or P/Insp.

I hope you get my point. There are still bright men and women than nurses. Public service isn’t just about nurses, they are also about choosing the right ones based on their academic and physical performances. This aint just a nursing world! Otherwise, I call on parents in our country who have sons and daughter who wants to be enlisted in military institutions to have them enrolled first in nursing school, not education or any other profession. Just nursing. For in that way, they are guaranteed of officership when they join the army or police.

Yeah, that’s right brethren, let’s abolish schools of criminology and any other schools and let’s stick to be nurses. For nurses are so special that they deserve to have high ranks in military service, even after a lot of them contribute to burgeoning number of unemployment in this country.

***
P.S. I may be wrong, please feel free to correct me. =)

Music Heard with You

Roaming around bookstores and staring at delectable books always gives me a temporary recess from taking life seriously. And during the time when I was so depressed over the ordeal of my father, I tread the nearest bookstore and prowled for books that would suffice my longing for delightful pieces. It was just timely that I stumbled upon the Adam Zagajewski’s “Without End,” a compilation of his popular poems that earned him numerous literary awards.  I skimmed the pages, ran through it, read several poems and providentially landed on the page where a poem so sweet awakened my slumbering heart. The title of the poem was “Music Heard with You.”  It was a simple poem, borne out of nostalgia (perhaps) or longing to ignite the same feeling all over again, or making the moment of listening to the music as essential part of fostering his love for his lover. Ah, I used to dislike poems but at that very moment, I felt drawn to it, absorbed in its simplicity and vividness that I wanted it etched in my mind like a mantra. That impulse urged me to take out a paper and pen from my bag and started copying every line.

 

But when I was about to finish scribbling the poem, the sales lady suddenly popped out from a corner like a genie and said, “Sir it is illegal to copy texts from our display.”  I obeyed like a good citizen and approached the lady.

 

“Maam,” I said politely, “would you care if I were to pay for the page I have copied? It’s so beautiful that I want to share it with my friend.  Just divide the total price by the number of pages and I’ll pay for it. Don’t worry, I wont tear any page from this book. You can keep it still, untarnished. And you can sell the book just to anyone with the same price.”

 

I knew I offered a good bargain, but because there were may people inside the bookstore who eavesdropped, I knew she would turn down my offer and let me do my forgery.“Oh no sir, replied the sales lady, “just go on. I’m sorry.” 

 

Then off to my crime, scribbling hastily the last few lines which made a lot of impact to me like a music lulled by Juliet to singe the heart of Romeo upon losing his breath. It took my breath away too, in the sense that I want to remember it inasmuch as I want to forget it -- like pain and happiness in contrast. For I know, music heard with her will never grow with us ever again. And it saddened me more, really.

 

Oh well, that’s too personal. Don’t mind about my sentiments. Anyway, the poem ought to be read in a light and bubbly mood. hehe. So here’s the poem folks:

 

 

Music Heard with You

By Adam Zagajewski

 

Music I heard with you was more than music.- Conrad Aiken 

 

Music heard with you

will stay forever with us.

 

Grave Brahms and elegaic Schubert,
a few songs, Chopin's third sonata,

a couple of quartets with heart -
breaking chords (Beethoven, adagia),

the sadness of Shostakovich that
didn't want to die.

The great choruses of Bach's Passions,
as if someone had summoned us,

demanding joy,
pure and disinterested,

joy in which faith
is self-evident.

 

Some scraps of Lutoslawski
as fugitive as our thoughts.

A black woman singing blues
ran through us like shining steel,

even though it reached us on the street
of an ugly, dirty town.

Mahler's endless marches,
the trumpet's voice opening Symphony no. 5

and the first part of the Ninth
(you sometimes call him "malheur!")

Mozart's despair in the Requiem
his buoyant piano concertos -

you hummed them better than I did,
but we both know that.

Music heard with you
will grow still with us.

TAYM

My schedule was very hectic the past few days that I could no longer check my email, all for the heck of making money. I forced myself to write despite some obstructions, hoping that I could pass my articles before the deadline. Fortunately, with God’s grace and un-abating adrenalin, I finished and submitted them to my employer.  And God knows how tiring it was that in the eyes of fuel-operated-human-cyborg like me, I rightfully deserve a reward aside from saying yohoo, yohoo, human na trabaho ko! to appease myself.

My reward of course is completely different from the typical reward that one usually has. I am not thinking of a present from someone, or roaming around hot spots such as malls, or drowning myself in booze, or spending quality time with my GG (God’s Gift) who reads and writes, or drooling in front of a booth that offers seven colors of ice cream, or dreaming of the big-time game between Barcelona and Inter Milan, or burying myself in thousand pages of books that lay idle in my room. My kind of reward is “time” where I can be myself, free from the hassle of everyday living and the pressure of professional demands.

That’s right, I need time. I know this sounds funny when time is just around the corner which stands embraceable at any moment of the day. But God knows I need time for myself - time to ruminate on things, to be one with my journal named Rosa and converse in a kind soliloquy way, to pray.  Or most of all, I need time to be “silent.”  In this pressing world where one has to endure the totoot of busses everyday, the howling of directors and seniors, and the  awareness of the increasing number of catastrophic death, who doesn’t want to leave this place and find time to be alone with himself. The problem however is whether you find time or not. I admit, it is very difficult to find a quality time where you can be yourself. And the more you search for it, the harder it gets for you to have it; the more the world becomes chaotic because of ever-changing consumer demands and political shenanigans, the more time becomes elusive.

Yet, despite that, I still long for it (as my reward). After all, we will come to the point when we thirst for it. At least, because of its practical side, if not of its redeeming sense just exactly what our souls need.

Tom Baxter - Better

 

I don't know but this song really touches me. It makes me wanna run to you and feel you, Love. Soon.