When was the last time you cried?

Song of the Moment: Still by Ben Folds

This will be as candid and digressive as it can get. Be forewarned.

When the family trooped to Greenbelt this afternoon to hear mass, all that I had in my mind was this: I am not in the mood. I was feeling extra extra shitty, primarily because it was the first day of my week's delayed period --- that meant my hormones were shooting off the roof and the cramps were extra painful. My monthly bane is extra belligerent (yes, there's a little massacre going on inside me) every time I lose the regularity of its arrival. This happens every 3 months or so, depending on the amount of stress I experience --- and I don't enjoy it at all because it has reached points when I've become magnetized to the bed in one position and one position alone. You boys out there have it easy sometimes.

Anyway, that's not the story. Sitting down on the pew was more painful and energy-absorbing than standing by the aisles, so I chose the latter. It was still excruciating, while I held on to the ledge like I'm about fall to the floor. I must have taken this position during normal mass days in the past because no one seemed to have noticed my agony. It didn't help that the place I was standing in smelled like pond water. Argh. I felt the urge to leave and walk around or get something to drink just to distract me. I was doing mental plots, carefully selecting which part of the mass I should use as a cue to slip out. Something kept me glued to my place.

Fr. Jun Sescon, one of the family's favorite priests, took the microphone when it was time for the homily. Again, I wanted to leave, but I just stood there. It turns out, his homily was meant for me, no matter how painful it was to stand around there and take it in. Thank you, God, for pinning me down like that so I'd stay put like a behaved 'lil girl.

(This is where I start talking about what I was meant to talk about. See? Such a long introduction.)

Fr. Jun started by relating Lazarus' resurrection to talks about physical death vis-a-vis breathing people who are actually dead. That would have made an excellent focal point too, but instead he maneuvered his way cleverly towards zeroing in on one phrase from the Gospel (said to be the shortest sentence in the Bible): Jesus wept. Jesus wept for the death of his friend, Lazarus. Anyway, before I sound like I'm writing an exegesis, the gist of his homily was in fact this: You can tell a person's character by his tears (or by the lack of tears). These words are very very true.

I particularly took to heart his suggestion on paying attention to what makes one cry ---most especially, paying special attention to UNEXPECTED tears. Was it when you watched a movie and the character goes, "Follow your heart"? Was it when you were walking across a park and you bump into a 70-something couple, holding hands? Was it when you heard about another person's success? Or was it when that cheesy song started playing on the radio? He suggests that when we see something seemingly insignificant and suddenly breaks into tears by its sheer experience, then that moment will genuinely determine who we are at present, where we're coming from and where we are supposed to be headed. Your unexpected tears, a moment of unintentional weakness and awakening of your desires, will surface what truly matters to you, what will make you happy or sad, and what will propel your sensibilities towards fulfilling your purpose in this world. In the same way that the act of crying physically cleanses your eyes and helps you breathe better by allowing for a faster pumping of the blood in and out of your heart, the act of crying and mourning will cleanse your perspective and help you pump passion back into your life, before you lose life entirely and wake up a dead person every day.

His homily hit me so hard because the other night, I was, in fact, crying unexpectedly. And I was really crying at 2AM, letting everything out of my system --- stuff that I apparently had bottled up inside me for quite a while now, without my knowledge. And I actually felt revived the morning after. I felt a bit weak from the lack of sleep, but my focus and resolve was very sharp. I felt slightly rebellious but that was the point of the unexpected tears --- for one to manifest what is missing in his life, to unblock the day-to-day routine and to awaken from a slumber of commonstance.

In the other end of the spectrum, we have people who no longer know how to cry. They are the people who have become stoics and are indifferent to the human experience. I can cite one very popular person who doesn't know how to cry.. my friends and I were just talking about that person in a funny yet disturbing anecdote last night. Anyway, this kind of person is dangerous because he/she has lost the ability to be moved and that will allow him/her to go about life without regard for goodness and justice. They are like zombies who will walk the earth but not feel its pulse nor listen to its people's calls.

So, how about you? When was the last time you truly cried? When was the last time you allowed yourself to be vulnerable and be reborn again? It is not a manifestation of weakness when someone cries; instead, it is a grand show of humanity and life.

Treason (by Ricky Carandang)

Song of the Moment: Megalomaniac by Incubus

My friends and I were talking about this article last night, and I was shocked as I haven't come across this (until I googled it this morning).

Apparently, this article has been circulating over email for a few days now (since posted by Ricky Carandang on his blog last 27-Feb) --- and I can completely understand why. It is disturbing. It is uncalled for. It is worth, not just a Manila power struggle, but a national outrage.

It is worth passing on, so that other people may know.

A lot of us have been fencesitters for quite a while now, insisting that all the "lawless gatherings" are merely detrimental to the great Philippine economic heyday. The peso is strong, investors are flooding in... and the youth and the religious on the streets are merely idealists who don't understand the immediate implications of another national uprising to a wounded country. But try reading what is written below and then look at me straight in the eye while saying, "She is the best person to be in power now, regardless of the circumstances."

Admit it. You can't just do that without looking away or looking down in shame.

Please pass this on. If you can't be part of the revolution on the streets then be more "one with the times" and use the Internet to express yourself. You've written about that party you went to, that concert you paid a premium price for, that family reunion you thought was boring, and your musings on how incredibly cumbersome or blissful your life is at the moment. There are clearly plenty of channels for people to express themselves with. Why don't you forward this over email? Write about it. Talk about it. Post photos, videos and what-not. Just do not be silent anymore.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Taken from Ricky Carandang Reporting (http://www.rickycarandang.com/?p=133)

TREASON

Allow me to expound a little on a story I did for The Correspondents on February 19th.

Seven countries claim ownership of the disputed Spratly Islands, just off of Palawan. China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malsysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines all claim to own part or all of the Spratlys. These overlapping claims have been a source of tension over the years since the Spratlys (we Filipinos call them the Kalayaan Islands) are believed to contain significant reserves of oil and natural gas. China was the most aggressive in pursuiung its claim. In 1999, the Philippines–under President Joseph Estrada– led an effort to prevent tensions by getting all the claimants to agree not to take actions to provoke other claimants.

But in 2003, the Philippines–now under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo– rocked the boat that it previously steadied when it signed an agreement with China to jointly undertake seismic studies of the Spratlys and explore for oil and natural gas. Naturally, the other claimants were angry. After getting them to agree not to rock the boat, the Philippines sucker-punched them with the China deal. China’s traditional ally, Vietnam was so angry they it had to be let in to the deal to appease them.

Aside from angering our neighbors and potentially undermining regional stability, Arroyo’s action may also be illegal. Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez–who was then acting justice secretary–told former Senator Frank Drilon, who was then allied with the administration, that she believed that the deal violated the constitution, because while it was a deal between the state owned oil firms (PNOC of the Philippines and CNOOC of China) of the two countries, it implicitly gave China access to our oil reserves. Officers of the Foreign Affairs Department were also upset because the deal effectively strengthened China and Vietnam’s claim to the Spratlys.

What would compel Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to sign a deal that potentially undermines regional stability, possibly grants China parity rights to oil reserves in the Spratlys that we claim to be ours, and likely violates our constitution?

How about $2 billion a year? After the Spratly deal was signed, the Chinese government committed $2 billion in official development assistance a year to the Philippines until 2010, when Arroyo is supposed to step down from office. My sources tell me that the Spratly deal was an explicit precondition to the loans.

A sizable amount to be sure, but for the Arroyo administration the China loans are particularly appealing. Not so much because the interest rates are so low and the repayment terms so lenient, but because Chinese loans do not have the cumbersome requirements that loans from the US, Japan, the EU, and big multilateral lenders have. Requirements for documentation, bidding, transparency and other details that make it very difficult for corrupt public officials to commit graft. In fact, in November of last year, those cumbersome requirements made it impossible for some government officials and private individuals with sticky fingers to avail themselves of the World Bank’s generosity.

It had gotten to the point where a corrupt government could no longer make a dishonest buck. That is until China’s generous offer came along. Given China’s laxity with certain conditions, its no wonder why almost every big ticket government project funded by Chinese ODA has been the subject of allegations of graft and corruption. There’s Northrail, Cyber Education, the Fuhua agricultural projects, Southrail, and of course the ZTE National Broadband project.

Until the ZTE National Broadband scandal, the Chinese government has had little official reaction to any of these allegations. Why should they? The $8 billion is a loan, not a grant. It enhances their influence in the region, strengthens their claim to the Spratlys, and expands their influence in the Philippines. The best part is, regardless of what Philippine officials do with the money–whether they put it to good use or steal it–it still has to be paid back. Its no wonder that anytime some midlevel Chinese official comes to the country, congressmen and administration officials literally trip over themselves to roll out the red carpet.

For corrupt Administration officials and their cronies, $8 billion represents unprecedented opportunities for graft on a scale that would shock ordinary Filipinos.

And at the end of the day, that $8 billion is going to be paid back. Not by the grafters in and out of government; not by the Chinese citizens; but by the millions of ordinary middle class Filipinos who go to work every day, pay their taxes, struggle and to keep their small and medium businesses afloat. The price will also be paid indirectly by tens of millions of poor Filipinos who will not have access to health care, quality education, and a functioning court system because those resources are not going where they should be going.

There’s a word for that. It’s called Treason.

EDIT: If you find the article above a bit too "opinion-based", try this other article written by Manuel L. Quezon III on the same topic but with more sources and a better historical grounding. http://www.quezon.ph/?p=1701

Or if you're too jaded and you feel the two articles could be written by journalists who were paid by the opposition (geez, what are you protecting?), read this article taken from the Far Eastern Economic Review. http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/Manila_South_China_Sea.htm