Purposely Ungrammatical Love Song | |
 The UP Outdoor Recreation Group (UP ORG), in cooperation with the Philippine Science High School Class of 1996 (Pisay 96), will be conducting a series of medical missions for this year in two indigenous communities: namely, the Dumagat tribes in Sierra Madre and the Aeta Tribes in San Jose, Tarlac.
The Dumagats and the Aetas depend greatly on nature to survive but only on meager supply. The Dumagats have to take a 2-hour banca ride (if there is banca available to them) to get to Norazagaray, Bulacan to trade yantok for rice, salt, and medicines. On the other hand, the Aetas have to wait for the truck that comes to their place once a week. This is where they get the chance to trade their charcoal with some supplies that the truck had brought like instant noodles, junk foods, canned goods, and medicines, if there's any. Without the truck, the Aetas will travel by foot, carrying loads of charcoal and will arrive a day after at the marketplace. This trading system emanated greatly from need of food and medicines, although, their medical and health needs were being set aside because they can only barter for rice and salt as main necessity.
The first of the med missions will be held on August 16-17 to benefit the Dumagats of Sierra Madre particularly in the area of Norzagaray, Bulacan.
WE ARE LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEER DOCTORS AND KIND SOULS WHO WOULD LIKE TO DONATE OR HELP SOLICIT MEDICINE FOR THE PROJECT.
Please contact Michelle (YM: micamaldita, Mobile: 09204469728, Email: mencomienda@gmail.com) to donate, volunteer, or for any questions or concerns.
 | Game! | Jan 29, '08 9:31 PM
for everyone |
(Kinopya ko kay Vyxz)
Leave a comment and I'll reply by answering the following.
1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. I'll tell you what I'd like to do with you.
9. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal.
:D
 Please contact Mic or Markku to make a donation or to volunteer. Maraming salamat!
Sacrifices
(Conclusion)
written by Conrado de Quiros
published on the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 22, 2004 I’M glad Ibarra Gutierrez wrote what he did. I have at least someone to point to (other than myself) to show the alternative is by no means hypothetical; it is real. The choice of coming back to the country, or indeed staying put, may now take on the aspect of the road not taken, or the one littered with sharp stones, but as Gutierrez shows, that is the illusion and not the reality. It is the paradise espied in the distance that is the illusion and not the reality. Or it is the mirage and not the oasis. I had a similar experience when I was in the United States three years ago. The salesman in the department store where I bought a memory stick for a camcorder was a Filipino, and he was absolutely delighted when he discovered I was a “kababayan” [fellow countryman]. He said he thought at first I was Japanese. I wanted the 128 MB, but they had only the 64 MB. But not to worry, he said, he would order the 128 and it would be there the following week. I thanked him but said I wouldn’t be around the following week. He gave me a card, saying he’d keep me abreast of sales the department store would have in future, and asked me where I was going. He was absolutely discombobulated when I said back to Manila. I swear his jaw fell. He could not grasp the idea. He asked me what I wanted to do a damn fool thing like that for, or that was the subtext of his more polite question. I said I had a job in Manila. He countered that there were jobs in the United States and they paid better. He himself had been a high school teacher in the southern province of Iloilo, he said, and he could barely support his wife and two kids with his pay. He had gotten to the United States only after much effort. He was denied a visa several times, but he persevered and managed to get one in the end. I did not ask him what kind. He took one odd job after another until he became a clerk in the department store. By dint of hard work, he eventually got promoted to the camera section. He would never dream of going back to Iloilo, he said. Like Gutierrez, I have heard friends in the United States explain me away almost apologetically (to themselves most of all) as being a “nationalist.” That presumably is the reason I am not joining them in the land of the free and brave, free enough to work your ass off for the cottage with the picket fence and brave enough to endure cold, exile and meaninglessness to do it: I am a “nationalist.” Well, if “nationalist” means to continue to believe in this country, notwithstanding resolute proof of its predilection for suicide, and armed only with the vision or hope it can be better, then I guess I am a nationalist. If “nationalist” means to read our history or know the past, something most Filipinos refuse to do, and having it for guide to glimpse the way to the future, then I guess I am a nationalist. If “nationalist” means to relate to other people as a Filipino, as someone who has a home, an identity and pride in his national patrimony, who has “malasakit,” or can feel deeply for his country, then I guess I am a nationalist. It is no big deal, it is what the people of other countries have. And it is a testament to our impoverishment that what is routine and natural and obvious to them take on the aspect of epic heroism for us. But it isn’t just this that drives me to stay here and try to make things better, however seemingly hopeless that has become, no small thanks to a procession of vicious leaders who seem determined to send this country hurtling to the precipice. Not least this last one, who is now depleting the national coffers to remain in power. Gutierrez hits the nail on the head when he asks, what are you really giving up when you choose to stay here? Unless you are an overseas Filipino worker who is compelled to leave from the stark choice of living or dying, toiling in the desert or starving in a lush land, what sacrifices are you making? You are not going to starve on a teacher’s pay, however small that is. You are not going to starve on a journalist’s pay, however iniquitous it is. And you are not going to starve on whatever material rewards come from working in an NGO, exercising a profession (engineering, law, architecture, medicine, priesthood), or painting, playing music and writing, however meager they are. Arguably, you will earn more elsewhere, notwithstanding that you are reduced to being a maid in Kowloon, a caretaker in Toronto, or a salesclerk in a camera shop in Los Angeles. But that brings us to the heart of the matter: All you really lose is a “pursuit of happiness,” a right enshrined in the Constitution, that has to do with acquiring more and more — or at least more than the next fellow. That is the largely unquestioned premise of this monumental Diaspora, the rod by which we measure success. You are a doctor in this country, you compare yourself to what Filipino caregivers abroad get and you will be envious. But you compare yourself to the bedraggled mass huddling in a tiny corner of this wretched metropolis, and you will consider yourself lucky. You are a public school teacher, you will be hard put to buy your two kids chicken dinners from a Jollibee fast-food restaurant every week. But you will be able to buy them shoes and books and send them to school where the barefooted and tubercular farmer fighting off pests in the fields won’t. Frankly, I too cannot understand that attitude of many Filipinos in the United States who say that if this country can only provide them jobs and investment opportunities that will allow them to enjoy the amenities they have there, they would not think twice about repairing here. Gutierrez is right: thankfully, he doesn’t have to demand those conditions to want to live here. I don’t either. I figure I’m not the one who’s making sacrifices. They are.
I’m reposting an article that was originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on April 21, 2004. I hope we can all pick up something from it. Sacrifices
written by Conrado de Quiros IBARRA Gutierrez has written a very inspiring piece that surprisingly hasn’t yet found its way in print. So I have the honor of doing it for him. Gutierrez says he’s finishing his master’s degree in New York, where he’s lived the past year, and is all set to come home soon. Not just to revisit for a while but to reoccupy his teaching post in the University of the Philippines (UP). This has raised no small amount of eyebrows from Filipinos and Americans alike. He is graduating this May, and it’s all his friends can do to understand why on earth he doesn’t just stay put and get a job there. But Gutierrez hasn’t just defied convention in not opting to remain in New York, he has defied reason in having no reluctance to go back to Manila. I reproduce his piece in its near entirety, it’s worth every column inch of it: “It is this lack of regret, no, this utter joy, at leaving the supposed center of the universe for a backwater Third World country that has baffled so many of the people I have met here. Many of them — a few Americans but mostly Filipinos (or former Filipinos) — seemed to assume that since I was fortunate enough to make it to the States, I would want to stay here permanently. So many times in the past months, I have found myself in the awkward position of having to actually justify why I intended to go back to the Philippines as soon as my studies concluded. I just found it inordinately difficult to come up with reasons for wanting to go home, when this was a decision that seemed so fundamental, so natural, so obvious, that I never really thought I would ever have to defend it before anyone, least of all other Filipinos. “But explain it I had to do, over and over-to relatives, to friends, to classmates and acquaintances. ‘I just feel that I would be happier, and be more useful, working back home,’ I would say, somewhat apologetically, as if by expressing a desire to stay in the Philippines I was somehow giving offense in some peculiar way. This rather weak response would usually be met with tolerant, half-embarrassed smiles and comments on how much of a sacrifice I was making. What I have never figured out is whether they thought I was a hero or a fool for choosing to make that ’sacrifice.’ “Personally, I do not think of myself as either. What is more, I do not even believe that I am making a sacrifice at all. “By choosing to go home, what am I giving up, really? It is not as if by working in Manila I am choosing a life of starvation, deprivation, and abject poverty as compared to the life of wealth and comfort I will supposedly have working in the United States. Certainly on my modest salary from UP — where I work as a member of the junior faculty — I will never grow rich, and (thanks to John Osmeña), I will probably never be able to rise above the poverty line by any appreciable margin either. But, with a little extra effort, I will be able to maintain an acceptable level of dignity for myself and my family. Is giving up what amounts to a few extra perks then such a noteworthy sacrifice? “Unlike so many of our OFWs who are forced to go overseas to work for a few years as manual laborers and domestic helpers, my situation, like the situation of so many other university-educated, middle-class Filipinos, does not involve a choice between starvation and survival. Rather, it involves the less spectacular and more prosaic choice of renting a two-bedroom apartment in Quezon City or owning a sprawling house in a New Jersey suburb; of commuting on a UP-Pantranco jeepney or driving the latest model SUV; of making do with a Third World salary or insisting on being paid in the Almighty Dollar. “Neither do I believe that the United States is such a wonderful place to live and raise a family in. This is a country that spends billions on law enforcement and “homeland security,” but where almost no one feels safe in their own home. This is a nation with the best medical facilities in the world, but where without health insurance you cannot even get a splinter removed. This is the land of the free, at least until the government starts suspecting you are a terrorist. “And among the Filipinos I have met in the United States, one thing has been nearly as consistent as the surprise that has met my intention to go home. That is if they could keep their higher salaries, if subways could be built in Manila, if the PNP [Philippine National Police] could become less corrupt, if FPJ [Fernando Poe Jr.] could be stopped from becoming president, then they would want to live in the Philippines. “I am glad that I do not have to worry about having any of these conditions met. This May, no matter what happens, I will be flying home. “And it will be the easiest ’sacrifice’ I ever had to make.” It’s a beautiful piece, and a particularly timely one. Notwithstanding the elections, pieces like this will always be timely anytime. But it is particularly welcome these days in the light of Elmer Jacinto almost becoming the rallying cry of the frustrated youth in this benighted country. Jacinto is the young man from the southern province of Basilan (he’s in his late 20s but anyone who is not 40 is young to me now) who topped the medical board exams but is going to work in New York as a caregiver. That too he says — like Gutierrez — without reluctance, without regret, and probably with much thankfulness, if not joy. I did say I did not blame Jacinto for choosing a life of exile abroad after the life of exile he’s lived within in his own country, courtesy of presidents like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who have made Basilan synonymous with terrorism. But I did not say he is worth emulating. As Gutierrez shows, there is another choice, one some others have taken. It requires neither heroism nor sacrifice, though it helps to have idealism and loftiness of mind. But for the most part, it requires only seeing the things that really matter in life. (To be concluded)
Testimony The territory of shadows is a petal,
An organic wish, a solidified thought,
An awareness of wind catching fishes,
A gratitude for getting rid of clothes. With the kind gesture of an evening: low tide and safe,
I am sharing the water with the Hundred Islands.
Floating on the galaxies’ reflection,
I float as night sky carves down an embrace,
an elusive feeling of eternity and floating,
a gesture of wind and a bath of moonlight
from the sea bottom. I am the salt in the evening.
I am the celebration of beginnings.
I, finally getting rid of my clothes.
I, weightless, without knowing what.
Between the sky and me is the wind. There is an ageless consciousness of being a woman.
There is a shapeless idea of being in the water.
There is a testimony of the sky and the earth.
There is no longer the terrestrial truth,
I am no longer a victim of war. - Maningning C. Miclat
ONCE UPON A TIME a guy asked a girl “Will you marry me?” The girl said, “NO!” And the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, camping, drank martinis, always had a clean house, never had to cook, had sex with whomever she pleased … She did whatever the hell she wanted, never argued, didn’t get fat, travelled more, had many boyfriends, saved more money, had all the hot water to herself, and never had pubic hairs under the toilet seat lid. She watched chick flicks, never had football on, never wore lacy lingerie that went up her butt, had high self esteem, never cried or yelled, felt and looked good in sweat pants and shirts, and burped, swore, and farted whenever the hell she felt the need. THE END
"Hello, and welcome to the mental health hotline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.
If you are codependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call.
If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will transferred to the mother ship.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are manic depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press, no one will answer.
If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the hash key until someone comes on the line.
If you are dyslexic, press 6969696969.
If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number, and your mother's maiden name.
If you have post-traumatic-stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 000.
If you have bipolar disorder, please leave a message after the beep, or before the beep, or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.
If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short term memory loss, press 9. If you have short term memory loss, press 9. If you have short term memory loss, press 9.
If you have low self esteem, please hang up. All our operators are too busy to talk to you."
grabbed from ExpectoRants
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be. Ben Jonson
For more information, PM/YM/email/text me or contact anyone from Pisay Batch 96.Maraming salamat! :)
The Pisay 96 blog is now up and running. Also, 2 episodes of the Pisay 96 Radio have been uploaded, all thanks to Markku.
www.pisay96.net is a project of volunteers from Pisay
Batch 1996. The site aims to share with our batchmates (and the world)
the recent activities we’ve been doing as well as other happenings
concerning our batchmates.
Go click. And listen. Now.
Batchmates, please visit Pisay 96.net regularly for updates on activities and news about the people from the batch. Sige kayo, kung di nyo susubaybayan, baka kayo ang pagchismisan. Haha.
Non-batchmates, do visit anyway and get to know a fun, crazy, and sometimes geeky group of people otherwise known as Pisay 96. Pwede
rin kaming mag-act as dating service so if you find someone
interesting, contact me and we’ll pencil you in our calendars, hehe.
Click on the link now: Pisay96.Net
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1922 — 2007
As a project staff of Conservation International - Philippines and an (inactive) EcoRescue volunteer, I'm reposting this (from the Ecorescue mailing list): Calatagan, Batangas has a Crown of Thorns Starfish infestation. Conservation International has asked for help in providing volunteers for the removal of these starfish. EcoRescue has promised assistance to Conservation International.There are 20 slots open for this first
trip. This expedition wil be an all expense paid trip. Transportation will be via carpool
Requirements:
1. must be a scuba diver
2. ideally you should be an advanced diver or an open water diver with a lot of dives under your belt
3. a volunteer's heart
The first trip will be on April 21 and 22. if you are interested to join the expedition please get in touch with Ricky Biyo at 0928-500-5542
Suceeding trips are already being planned. To know more about Crown of Thorns starfish infestation please go to these links.
http://www.cnntraveller.com/2003/spring_summer/starfish/
http://www.aims.gov.au/pages/search/search-cot.html
http://www.gov.mu/portal/sites/ncb/moa/farc/amas2003/pdf/p4.pdf
http://www.tellusconsultants.com/Thread/ACANTH.HTM
Maraming salamat po.
Boy Siojo
Program Director If interested, you may contact me via PM, YM, text, or email.
Thanks.
Hmm. Well, if you say so. :P
via Mga Salamisim ni Selya
Panalo talaga ang COMELEC!
Eto, pinublish nila online yung listahan ng mga registered voters. Ayus! Madali na makahanap ng info tungkol sa mga crushes! Hehe.
O di ba, since nakalagay yung mga full names, pati yung middle names, ng mga botante, mas-accurate na ang pag-FLAMES. Malalaman niyo na kung ano ba talaga ang lagay, kung friends lang ba o baka pwede namang maging sweethearts.
Hindi lang yun, malalaman nyo pa kung compatible talaga kayo, kasi nakalista din doon yung mga birthdays. Eh di madali ng alamin yung mga zodiac signs. Nakalagay din yung year of birth. Ibig sabihin, bukod sa hindi na nila madadaya yung edad nila, malalaman nyo na yung compatibility nyo, based naman sa Chinese horoscope.
Pero mas masaya pa, nakalista din yung mga addresses. Yahoo! Mahahanap at mapupuntahan nyo na yung bahay nila. Pwede nyo na abangan sa labas ng gate. Hindi na nila kayo matatakasan.
Yun nga lang, mga botante lang ng NCR yung nakalista. Kung sa labas ng-NCR naka-rehistro yung crush nyo, sorry na lang kayo. Hintayin nyo na lang na maglabas ng listahan yung COMELEC ng ibang regions.
O ano? Sige na, game na. Simulan na ang pag-stalk.
Hehe.
Ninotchka Rosca blogs and I find out about it on Women’s Day. Ain’t that a cute coincidence?
From Wikipedia:
Ninotchka Rosca is a Filipina feminist, author, and human rights activist. She is also co-founder of the Gabriela Network and was a political prisoner under the dictatorial government of Ferdinand Marcos.
Here’s the link to Lily Pad, where she writes about women, justice, and everything in between.
If you’re lucky enough to come by her books, you better grab them at once and not let go. And then contact me ASAP and have me borrow them, as I am never lucky and the only Ninotchka book I’ve ever come across is the satirical Twice Blessed, reading which is how Ms. Rosca got to be one of my favorite writers. I tried looking for her other novels but they’re just so hard to come by. I think now maybe it’s because they were banned by the Marcoses.
Go on, go on. Click, read, and learn.
Because a Woman's Work is Never Done Manifesto*
Because a woman's work is never done
and is underpaid, or unpaid, or boring, or repetitious
and we're the first to get fired
and what we look like is more important than what we do
and if we get raped it's our fault
and if we get beaten we must have provoked it
and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches
and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos
and if we don't we're frigid
and if we love women it's because we can't get a real man
and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic or pushy
and if we expect childcare we're selfish
and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and un-feminine
and if we don't we're typical weak females
and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man
and if we don't we're unnatural
and because we still can't get an adequate, safe contraceptive, but men can walk on the moon
and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion
and for lots and lots of other reasons
we are part of the women's liberation movement...
* Joyce Stevens, written for Women's Liberation Broadsheet, International Women's Day, 1975.
You are The Devil
Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession
The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.
Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
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