1st Summer Get-Away

I'm leaving next week for Cebu and Bohol. I am particularly psyched to be in Bohol because it's in Panglao. I have only seen the Tarsiers and the Chocolate Hills and now I will get to see the famous Panglao Beach. Hmmmn.. I am not a fan of the sun but I enjoy travelling and sight seeing.

This reminds me that I have to buy a sun block with SPF30 at the very least...

New Look

I have a new template! =) Well, it took me sometime to decide what the new look would be, but after hours of browsing, I settled with these pink flowers. Just did some tweaking with the fonts and its colors. Originally, they were all pink! Which is really not that good to read. Bad for the eyes pa nga eh.

I basically placed the same widgets on the side bar and as an added feature, I placed my new dog's baby pic! Technically, she's still a puppy but the picture was taken when she was just a month old and she was so cute! They're actually two (2), Pichu and Motombo but I acquired Pichu first. And my nephew kinda claims ownership over the male pup. Hehehe. They've grown so big already as they were a cross breed of Sharpei and Labrador. At four (4) months, they can no longer run around their cage. I make it a point to let them out of there and play in the garage for at least thirty minutes to an hour, everyday. Otherwise, they become so cranky - barking and barking. Which reminds me, I have to get a new cage so I could separate them already. Okeydokey.

My work here is done... at least for tonight.. =)

Holy Week, Manila Ocean Park etc.

I have been offline the past days, not because I intended to but because internet cables were busted and I didn't fix it till today. Well, it was the Holy Week and taking time off from cyberspace was a good thing to give up, sort of fasting which Catholics do during the Lenten Season.

So what has happened those past days? For one, my nephew, Nirro graduated from Prep and is on his way to Grade One next school year. =)

He studied nursery, kindergarten and prep at the same school I did. Back then, they only offered nursery classes. In fact, I was one of the "pioneer" students of that school ran by nuns. Needless to state, I was their first valedictorian. Hehehe. That was back then okay? =) After his graduation, we headed to Gerry's, a new branch opened in Banawe, which was within the area we live and then proceeded to Manila Ocean Park.

It was "bitin" kasi medyo maiksi yung lilibutin mo but I think may mga gagawin pa, like the Crab Race Area and Boat Ride Entrance. For P400 ( adult) and P350 (kids) fee, it was worth it. It's nice to see how "rich" our oceans are. Inside the place, there are interactive boards where kids could utilize touch-screen monitors and learn more information. Then there's also the fish spa which would cost you additional P100 if you wish to try it. When the fish started "biting" the dead cells off your feet, it felt ticklish that after awhile I took my feet out! hahaha. But my nephew "braved" those fish bites and finished the whole 20-minute session with them.

Maundy Thursday and Good Friday I spent with my nephew (as he slept here) and other nieces (daughters ng cousin ko). As usual, they're favorite hang out was my room. My TV was on all day, either showing the Cartoon Network channel or DVDs of Disney Cartoons. And then, they endlessly played computer games as well. The younger ones jumped up and down the bed it nearly broke! hahaha and early afternoons during those days, they pet the puppies PICHU and MOTOMBO with me. By the way, we managed to make them watch the Seven Last Words movie shown on TV and surprisingly, they sat still and attentively watched. Hmmmnnn, it was a spiritual week for them, too you know. =)

Sunday was of of course Church Day and it seemed to me, more people went to mass. Perhaps some people do go to mass only during special events.

There's another thing pala that happened this past week. A "crazy" neighbor went to our house and literally picked a fight with us! Will do away with details but suffice it to say that because of her actions ( she's one of the tenants here in our compound), proper notice was served informing them to leave the premises within a month. WHat took place was really odd as she had all this wild story accusing me and my cousins of weird stuff we never did. In fact, we don't even see her much less know her until she went to our house asking for everyone living in our home and then started telling this wild story. True enough, she's a little "deranged" that's why she had to go. Tsktsktsk. That caused quite a stir around the household and some neighbors. But after ahwile, we did just laugh about it. But then again, she really has to leave as she might cause more trouble, kasi nga even among the other neighbors kasi she was picking fights na in the past days. Kaya ayun, baka ano pa maisip gawin. =(

Starting Monday, I have been and will be busy. Basta busy. Official and household stuff. I want to leave the city nga muna eh. Breaktime kumbaga. Hmmmnnnn.....

just feeling a little vain...

Unexpected Endeavors

Where does my INNER COMPASS point? Apparently, it points to unexpected endeavors, according to Tickle.com. =)

Read on.

"Checking out a new art exhibit, catching a baseball game, or just picnicking in the park — who knows where you'll find yourself next? You are an adventurer in the truest sense — spontaneous and flexible with a passion for trying new places and things.

With your easygoing nature, you are the quintessential road tripper. No maps, no plan, no timelines. You'd rather let the road take you wherever it may lead. North, south, east, or west — your inner compass has no limits. So give it a spin and let it decide where your next adventure will be!"

Sexy? Me? and Who AM I in the Past Life? hehehe

SMART SIDE OF SEXY

What a big ... brain ... you have. When it comes to the art of attraction, people are definitely drawn to your mind. And what a beautiful mind it is! Whether you look the part in horn-rimmed glasses and a finely pressed suit or dress simply in a T-shirt and jeans, you really stand out when you have the chance to flaunt that intellectual prowess.

You're happy to go out and party with the crowd, but you'd definitely prefer a night of intimate conversation. You've read the classics, or at least know what they are, and get the greatest rush when you can fully connect with a special someone — both mind and body. While you may have the looks as well, it's all about the brain that turns up the heat when you're around. Smart thinking!

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A FAMOUS POLITICAL FIGURE

Whether you were ruling the Roman Empire or shaking up the 18th century, you're sure to be making waves in any era you're in. Driven and focused, you want to make a difference and help people. If it gets you into the history books, even better!

Ambitious and motivated, you've got your eye on the prize and aren't afraid to go after what you want. You'd love to shake things up and make waves in the world. A little fame thrown in there wouldn't hurt either. So, keep chasing your goals. You're sure to go far in this life — and the next ones!

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hmnnnn... interesting evaluations from Tickle.com. =)

Good Sunday

I have been able to catch up watching various TV series in the "etc" channel. And I found myself smiling and laughing alone for the witty remarks made by the characters or in the values shown in those episodes. =) Somehow, they made me think and reflect on certain situations in my own life.

hmmnn... I never thought it would turn out to be a good Sunday...

Articles to enlighten you

The situation in our country is currently volatile, with all the search for TRUTH re: the ZTE-NBN deal ongoing.

Read Prof. Randy David's articles below and get enlightened.

A big year for verity

By Randy David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:22:00 03/01/2008


MANILA, Philippines -- Just about everybody in our country these days is looking for the truth—senators, bishops, the media, students, professors, spin doctors, and street-corner pundits. Truth is the most sought-after commodity, yet its nature and uses are also the least understood. But, it appears we are not alone in this sport.

Vanity Fair calls 2007 “a big year for verity in film” and quotes the marketing tag lines of seven of this year’s big hits—“Atonement,” (“You can only imagine the truth”); “Michael Clayton,” (“The truth can be adjusted”); “Gone Baby Gone,” (“Everyone wants the truth … until they find it”); “In the Valley of Elah,” (“Sometimes finding the truth is easier than facing it”); “Redacted,” (“Truth is the first casualty of war”); “Reservation Road,” (“To find the truth, you have to find who’s hiding it”); and “The Number 23,” (“The truth will find you.”)

Almost all of these can suitably describe the Filipino’s experience with truth. But the last two are especially relevant to us. Sometimes indeed, we don’t actually have to see the truth to know it; we only need to find out who’s hiding it. In 2001, the public clamored to know the contents of the infamous “second envelope.” When it was blocked by Joseph Estrada’s 11 senators, everyone became sure of what it contained, and thereafter lost all interest in determining what it really contained. It was all that was needed to bring out EDSA People Power II.

One could sense that we are today quickly moving in the same direction. When Romulo Neri, former director general of the National Economic and Development Authority, suddenly invoked executive privilege in the middle of his testimony at the Senate inquiry on the national broadband network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp., it became clear to every reasonable person who was listening that he could not say what he wanted to say because it would incriminate President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But this concealment was not enough to make the public form a judgment of what was being hidden.

Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada’s testimony made this possible. He provided crucial information, and the public’s imagination filled the gaps. Today, there is almost nothing that Neri can tell us that we don’t already know after hearing Lozada. Neri’s truth has thus become redundant. If it has any remaining uses at all, it may only be to secure a conviction or acquittal in a court of law. But the public does not need this level of determination to be able to act with confidence in the political sphere.

Truth is anything but simple. “A mobile army of metaphors” is how the philosopher Nietzsche calls it, rather than as the accurate representation of reality that many assume it to be. Because of its complexity, modern society has parceled out the search for truth into many specialized quests. The quest for truth about the physical world is assigned to science, while prophetic truth remains the province of religion. Outside of these two spheres, the quest for truth is subordinated to specific goals. In modern politics, what matters is not so much what is true, but what one can invoke to legitimize one’s rule. If it were otherwise, liars would never be in power. Similarly, in law, the applicable code is not so much what is true or false, but what is legal or illegal. Judges know that not every truth is worth knowing, but only those facts in a case that are relevant to a determination of legality or illegality.

To understand these distinctions is to be able to appreciate the parallel inquiries that are going on in the different institutional spheres of our society. They may all be about the same subject—the ZTE-NBN deal—but their objectives are different.

As I see it, the object of the Senate inquiry is to know how and by whom the deal was put together, how and by whom it was assessed, and how it was finally approved. The goal is not so much to determine criminal culpability as to identify weaknesses in the law and existing procedures, possible lapses in judgment, and implications for legislation and governance. Because the Senate is a political body, the inquiry also becomes inescapably a moment in the ongoing contest for power between the majority and the minority.

It is true—politics is not exactly the best site to look for the truth. But then, neither is the justice system a privileged site for finding the truth. Indeed, a refrain we often hear from lawyers is that not all truths are admissible in court. It is clever for Malacañang to argue that the proper resolution of the ZTE-NBN controversy rests exclusively with the courts. Treating it as a purely legal matter is a way of suppressing the many other faces of truth.

What is at stake here is not just the legality or illegality of a contract. More than this, what is at stake is the power of citizens to hold their leaders accountable for decisions that are made in their name. Have these leaders been transparent and faithful to their oath of office? Or have they misused the powers and prerogatives entrusted to them? Such questions are decided not in court or in church but in the public sphere of politics, not by judges or prelates, but by a nation’s citizens.

We should wait for the next elections then, they tell us. Under normal circumstances, we should indeed. But if the electoral mechanism itself has been rigged and brazenly abused by the present leadership, shouldn’t the first step be to repair this vital mechanism of democracy and restore its legitimacy? This brings us to the key question: Do we still believe this is possible under Ms Arroyo? The truth has caught up with us. It is time to face it.

Truth and institutions

By Randy David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:07:00 03/08/2008


MANILA, Philippines -- We may not always be successful in finding enduring solutions for our problems as a nation, but at least our attempts to grapple with these issues enrich our political vocabulary. This is good for us in the long run. An increasingly complex world requires a complex and nuanced way of talking about it. This is what makes paradigm shifts possible and new solutions imaginable.

Take a look at the semantic harvest from the ongoing ZTE national broadband network (NBN) controversy: “dysfunctional procurement system,” “permissible and forbidden zones” (of corruption), “patriotic money,” “moderated greed,” and “damaged institutions.” Add to this the current obsession to “let the truth out” while observing “due process” and respecting the “rule of law,” and one gets a fairly good picture of the present state of national reflection.

But words are tricky. They are ways of seeing, but they are also ways of concealing. As they evolve in meaning, they acquire new senses, but they do not entirely shed off their old usages. One has to be alert to the specific context in which they are used.

Two difficult words in particular have been used rather freely in current political communication: “truth” and “institutions.” Everybody in this country is looking for the truth, and yet we cannot seem to agree on the form it should take. Consequently, there is broad disagreement on where we must look in order to find it.

The government says that the only truth worth trusting is the one that can be found in courts of law. But there is no single privileged site in which to find the truth. The Senate insists that its hearings are precisely devoted to finding the truth. The media believe that their investigations and reportage are steady sources of truth. The churches speak of the higher transcendental truth of prophetic wisdom. The academic sciences—with their structural analyses and public opinion polls—are not far behind in staking their claims in this contested terrain.

As if the issues pertaining to forms of truth were not complex enough, we are also divided on whether all the truth about the actions of individuals, including public officials like the president, should be made public. We invoke the rule of law as if it were simple. Yet, how does one reconcile the individual’s right to privacy with the public’s right to know? How does one balance a president’s claim to executive privilege with the public’s right to information on decisions affecting their lives?

This is why we need institutions. Institutions are structures that simplify the multiple questions of collective living. They consist of values, roles, codes and procedures by which reality is processed and choices of action selected. Institutions therefore are instruments of order, the means by which a society stabilizes its existence in an unpredictable environment.

In early societies, truth was simple, and the last word on it typically came from the elders or the wise men of the community. Institutions were not differentiated. In modern societies, truth takes many shapes, depending on the specific function to which it is applied. Institutions become specialized. The judicial system adopts rules of evidence in determining if something is lawful or unlawful. Lawyers call it “due process.” Science develops specialized procedures for posing questions, collecting data, testing hypotheses, and drawing findings on the nature of the natural and social world. Scientists call it methodology. Politics, religion, art, the economy, etc.—each one of these spheres develops a separate system appropriate to their functions. The “truths” they yield within their respective horizons are important but they cannot claim an all-encompassing relevance. Nietzsche was right: “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

Therefore, when we say we must respect our institutions and follow due process, we have to be aware that we are not speaking of one dominant institution or one due process, but of many. No single institution can claim basic primacy over the others in a modern society. We cannot speak of judicial institutions and their rules of evidence and proper procedures as if they were the source of the only truth that really matters.

The world is much too complex to be understood as the horizon defined by legal experts. Corruption as a phenomenon is of interest not just to judges and politicians. It is of interest too to other institutions outside the legal and political system—the media, the Church, the educational system, the family, the economy. As information-processing systems, all of them have procedures for establishing what is truthful and relevant. Indeed, as human beings in society, we all make reasonable judgments about the meanings of events in everyday life without waiting for lawyers to speak—except when the issue has to do solely with legality or illegality.

This is precisely Malacañang’s problem. A privilege it claims in law looks sinister in politics. Even if the Supreme Court upholds President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s right to invoke executive privilege to keep Romulo Neri from testifying before the Senate, that victory would almost certainly spell a further loss in political legitimacy for her. Even if no one eventually goes to jail for the ZTE-NBN deal, the negative information it has generated will make it extremely difficult for Ms Arroyo to govern, or for anyone associated with her to win public office in an honest election.

English Bulldog Puppies FOR SALE!!!

These are my nephew's puppies. And they're for sale! =) Very cute and very healthy pups. Interested? Text or call 0915 - 4316739 and look for Robert.

Waiting for your own fairy tale

This article was forwarded to me by a friend as this was written by her friend as well. The article was so real I don't think anyone can't relate. Definitely worth blogging about... =)

WAITING FOR YOUR OWN FAIRY TALE

By Ruby de Vera
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Last updated 18:39:00 02/12/2008

MANILA, Philippines—We've all taken down the Christmas decor, lit the fireworks, and wished everybody Kung Hei Fat Choi. We all know what comes next, the one day most single people dread, Valentine's Day.

There may be filial love and platonic love among other kinds, but what really makes the world go round is that heart-wrenching, butterflies-in-the-stomach, cloud-nine-feeling, sleep-depriving, cold-hand-in-your-heart kind of love.

Romantic love has inspired countless artworks, movies, songs, business deals and even crimes. A theory goes that everything in this world all comes down to one thing: to find the perfect match.

We pursue good education to get a good job, which leads to good pay, which leads to buying power, which leads to being more attractive to the opposite sex.

Men who have power are always more attractive than men who have perfect cheekbones. Ask Donald Trump if you don't believe me.

Economics is a good gauge. During Valentine season, cash registers ring nonstop at restaurants, jewelry stores, lingerie shops, beauty counters and motels.

The wedding business is a multimillion-peso industry. Married people get taxed less because they have to pay for the house, car, and tuition. All these because of love and affection toward another person.

Fairy tales

The beginning of a relationship is a most magical time that we'll always fondly look back to. Nobody seems to do any wrong, the smiles never end, the lack of table manners is cute, and even the arguing of who hangs up first is standard operating procedure for the first few months.

Couples try to know each other's likes and dislikes. When they're apart, they feel pure torture. They make all excuses just to have a reason to be together. There is no "too tired," "too late" or "too many kisses."

Couples exchange text messages—"Good morning," "Have you eaten?," "What did you have for lunch/dinner/merienda?," "I miss you," "Are you thinking of me?"

Then the princess kisses the prince and suddenly he's a frog, or he kisses her and she becomes a witch.

Horror stories

Everyone whose heart is not made of stone has surely gone through at least one heartbreak in one's lifetime.

As children, we were set up for it. In grade school, teachers would cut out hearts in half and distribute them to the class, and the kids scurry around the room, trying to find their other half.

One such Valentine, I couldn't find my match and I seriously thought I would have to write a Valentine card to myself, a really sad thought for an 8-year old. My teacher found me a half; it's with another lost kid.

In college, when raging hormones and peer pressure are at their peak, I had a humongous crush on this boy. We were in the same class, and we were sort of friends. Until now I still don't know if he ever had any idea, but he started to get a little too nice.

When the object of your affection pays a little more attention to you than usual, the tendency is to start having delusions that he likes you back.

These delusions were encouraged by this boy asking my advice about Valentine gifts. The delusions were also promptly destroyed when, on the day itself, he handed me a card with a red heart on the flap. I flipped it over and it had my friend's name on it.

No guarantees

There are the things that I should have banged my head for. I can't count the number of times I felt like reaching inside myself, taking out my heart, and giving it a warm hug because it felt really cold inside my chest.

The promise of forever and ever is not cast in stone. No insurance company would ever issue a policy on broken hearts and shattered dreams. Even marriage, with the binding agreement in black and white recognized in all courts, is not a guarantee of eternal bliss. You can get alimony, though.

When a chapter comes to an end, you cry and mourn the passing of an era. Give it the grieving it deserves, but don't hold on to something that would hurt more than give happiness.

Every cloud has a silver lining, everything happens for a reason, there is a bigger plan— all clichés and all true. It doesn't mean that we don't get battle scars, but that's all it really is; something to show our grandchildren when we're 90 and senile.

Still, however trampled we might have gotten in the past, it's no reason to immediately suspect the next candidate as a potential sadist whose only purpose in life is to karate-chop your fragile heart to pieces.

Every person is unique; and while learning from past mistakes is good, we shouldn't get cynical about love in all forms. There are no rules in handling relationships, and even if there were life would be utterly boring we'd all be flinging ourselves down a cliff and be extinct.

Don't be the idiot who waits for a punchline when someone cute asks you out to a movie and dinner. The next time you see him he will be with someone who actually took the offer seriously. Look forward to your next fairy tale, and who knows, it might just end happily ever after.

words of wisdom ...

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children . . . to leave the world a better place. . . to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

just some stuff

I took a photo of the flowers and the mickey mouse shawl because receiving them made me feel special. =)

The flowers wil wilt but having these pics somehow "preserve" them and the memory as well.

Life is sweet!