Today
is the last day of the year - a time for reflection, for looking back and
seeing what I did right, what I screwed up, and what I learned from being right
or screwing up. It is also a time for making promises to oneself. Last year, I
listed cool/awesome/suck-y stuff that got to do and when I began 2012, my first
impression was, “this year is going to suck more”. I was wrong. I had, indeed,
many unfortunate brushes with not-so-good things and not-so-good people, but
the experiences of 2012 has given me so much more happiness and a sense of
purpose that everything else pales in comparison.
Here
are my twelve things that made me want to live and want to die at the same time
– my 2012 highlights:
1.I left my old job and
transferred somewhere better. And despite feeble predictions though quotations
meant to ‘make pasaring’, I’m pretty
much more successful and much happier now than I ever was. I can truly say it
was a good decision.
2.I got to know some cool new
people in Philippine literature, like Ate Bebang Siy and Ms. Eliza Victoria.
3.I’m confident to say I’ve
continued to make a difference in the lives of my students: I’ve challenged them
to bring out the best in themselves and made many of them aware of just how
capable they are of transcending limitations.
4.I’ve also became quite active
in my organization, the Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates. This
year, I ran for a national position and I am now privileged to be serving as
one of the national officers of the organization.
5.I was escorted down a flight
of stairs by none other than Former President Fidel V. Ramos during the 2012
Ramon Magsaysay Awards. Unfortunately, there was no one to take our picture.
6.Got on an airplane for the
first time. I am no longer an air travel virgin!
7.I’ve given my heart away to
advocacy, and to the people I advocate with.
8. “I’m dreaming of a Purple Christmas!” We now
have an RH Law! And I’m part of those who clamored, fought, argued, cried, and
worked for it.
9.I went to the streets in
protest of Cybermartial Law. And we got TRO for it!
10.I got published, I am EIC of
a magazine for nurses, and I’ve fulfilled my 2012 resolution of writing more
for my blog!
11.In fact, I started another
blog: Dibuho Pilipinas.
12.I got out of the closet.
Kuya
Dave: San mo
nahugot?
Me: Sa inyo.
Indeed,
2012 was pretty exciting and fulfilling. I plan on making 2013 even more. Here
are 13 things I shall work on fulfilling in 2013! I’m writing this down so I’d
feel guilty if I’m stuck with the lazy bug.
1.Have more time for my family,
despite my oh-so-busy schedule.
2.Write more. Write fiction. Write
blogposts. WriteWriteWrite!
3.Eat healthier, do more
activities, and lose 20 pounds. I mean, I’ve seen myself in college: I was
healthy thin!
4.Up my activism and advocacy.
2012 was a great year for being an advocate, and I look forward to more work in 2013!
5.Get my photo taken by a
pro-photographer friend.
6.Visit more places. Go out of
town. Go night swimming in the beach and lay down on the sand to stare up at
the night sky. Seems like a lot of things for one number but, really, they go
hand in hand.
7.Get back to painting. Buy a
large canvas and transform my doodles into frame-worthy artwork.
8.Take up my masters
(Education? Women and Development?) or take up law.
9.Have the guts to send my
babies (stories) out there. Have the heart to accept that I am not (yet) good
enough.
10.Pursue my nursing career. Get
a certificate of competency from the Nursing Certification Program of the
Department of Health in Public Health Nursing. Expand my horizons as a
Reproductive Health Nurse.
11.Heal someone broken.
12.Help organize charity event.
Shed sweat, blood, tears, and sleep to make it successful.
13.Touch someone’s heart. See
that person/those people smile.
This meme has been circulating in FB since Sotto's
ironic claims of how conservative Filipinos are.
During the second reading of the Reproductive Health Bill in the
Senate, Majority Floor Leader Tito Sotto moved to take out the phrase "safe
and satisfying sex" because we Filipinos are conservative. This, coming
from a man who hosts a noontime show famous for having scantily-dressed girls gyrating
to double-meaning novelty songs. You can see how utterly honest the concern for
the Filipino people's conservative culture is. You can imagine me doing a very aggressive
eye-roll
I don't understand this about the Filipinos: we speak so
much of how we value the Maria Clara image, but EDSA is congested with
billboards of men and women in their underwear and we belong to a society that
would need a woman stroking herself to sell a product that takes care of holes
in the roof.
Hypocrisy has always bothered me for so many reasons, primarily
because it's stupid and it hides behind the mask of righteousness. Many people
hold on to traditional ideals that are directly contradicted by how act and how
they treat others, and by how little they know/have consideration for the facts
of what they are talking about. Like supposedly fighting for the sanctity of
life of the unborn while scoffing at the 11 women who die every day because of
lack of maternal care, or pretending to be a respectable public servant while
plagiarizing other people's work. Conservatism without logic. Traditionalism
without thinking. Self-righteousness without righteousness at all.
I am re-naming this kind of attitude the Sotto Conservatism.
S.C. is has always gotten in the way of resolving really important
issues. It took the RH Bill almost 16 years to be passed. I've witnessed the
battles going on inside both houses of parliament, on the streets, and in the
cyberworld. I've been in these battles. The fight for a
legislation to provide comprehensive reproductive health services did not drag
out just because of due process - it was because there are powerful people
afflicted with the S.C. who make sure that the process was delayed. We all know
who we're talking about, of course.
Sotto Conservatism is, I believe, the root of many problems that I
am passionate of abolishing - such as blaming victims of rape for their ordeal
- and one of the biggest hurdles to overcome when it comes to pushing for
legislation that would benefit people.
The past few days, I’ve been getting really cringe-worthy news on
Facebook. Sure, the RH Bill is now the RH Law, but the oppositions seem to be
gearing up for a Word War with flimsy logic masquerading as smart arguments. Bishop
Gilbert Garcera of the Diocese of Daet spoke of how he views overpopulation in
the Philippines in an interview. He believes that the population of the
Philippines is ideal because the our countrymen can be sent overseas as workers
and migrants. “God’s plan for Filipinos to be
caregivers to ageing nations whose populations had become stagnant.” He also
said that Filipino women would make “good wives” to foreigners. As if needing
to dig his own grave further, he said that poverty which stems from
overpopulation is not a problem at all because poverty brings people closer to
God.
Dear Bishop: So this isn't a problem? You seriously need to get your eyes and your morals checked.
I’ve also been severely pissed by an Italian
Catholic priest’s proclamation that women who are sexually abused and beaten
ask for it. Fr. Piero Corsi wrote and posted a Christmas message on the door of
his church. “How often do we see girls and mature women going around scantily
dressed in provocative clothes? They provoke the worst instincts, which end in
violence or sexual abuse. They should search their consciences and ask: did we
bring this on ourselves?” Corsi wrote.
In New Delhi India, a gang raped teenager committed suicide after
being forced by the police to drop the charges against her attackers and marry one of them.
In our country, Speaker of the House Belmonte expressed his
sentiments in pursuing the divorce bill by the next congress. Of course,
ultraconservatives have started posting Facebook status messages claiming that
those who want to divorce their spouses are selfish and irresponsible.
Here are some of my
two-cents’ worth, without censorship:
1.Sorry to burst your bubble,
Bishop Garcera, but I was not born to be just someone’s wife. I was born to
pursue self-actualization. As a Filipino, you seem to have some twisted sense
of nationality to actually be happy that our countrymen have to leave to pursue
better life. The Filipino people are not commodity. Ikaw kaya ang i-export ko. Also, if you believe that poverty is not
a problem, you probably have never left the comforts of your church. Or you
have, but your eyesight needs correcting. Poverty is a very big problem. I
don’t understand how having nothing to eat and having nowhere to live make you
closer to God. I don’t believe that going through hell on earth brings you
closer to God. Because if it did, I would rather not believe in your god,
because he seems to thrive in cruelty. Your argument against the law on
comprehensive reproductive health is invalid at best, atrocious at worst. Wake
up and smell the crap of your argument. This attempt at remaining conservative
in the face of population and development just killed a couple of my brain
cells.
2.Father Corsi, if we were to
go by your premise, then the kids who get the sh*t beaten out of them by
abusive adults “should search their consciences and ask: did we bring this on ourselves?”
What about the children priests such as yourself molested, Father? What did they do to deserve what sex offenders in
your rank did to them? Your victim-blaming attitude is medieval, offensive,
arrogant, and it honestly scares me. We have been trying to teach society to
NOT RAPE, but you keep insisting that IT IS OUR FAULT WE ARE RAPED. Trust me on
this one: You can be wearing a ratty old shirt and be a wallflower of a girl –
if someone makes the decision to rape you, he/she will. Quoting from a former
high school guidance counselor and a dear friend, “If it is true that
girls and women, who are clothed scantily, provoke men to rape them, then
Boracay would now be the epicenter of thousands of rape cases!”
Victim blaming is a culture.
3.Making a victim marry her
attacker is plain stupid, although I understand the concept. Psychologically
traumatized, victims would sometimes seek to have a relationship with their attackers
just so they can assure themselves that what happened was not rape but legit,
consensual sex. Or course, this is not the case here. In some societies, a
raped woman is a disgraced woman. Raped women who belong to this culture are
often murdered for disgracing the family – stoned by the males of her
family. This is an extreme case of
victim-blaming attitude that stems from Sotto Conservatism – let woman suffer because
she’s lost her hymen. Borrowing my good friend Duston Barto’s precise
description of the feeling, you make me want to punch a kitten (or punch the
people in charge of the case in the Indian gang rape case, for that matter).
Sometimes, things can't be put back together.
4.Isn’t it irresponsible and
selfish of people to say that those who want divorce are irresponsible and
selfish when they nor the people they care about have never gone through a
loveless marriage that’s destroying them? Are they even aware of what people who
undergo annulment go through? One of the people I’ve been working with has
expressed her sentiments about annulment: “Pinagmumukhang puta ang babae” (The
women are made out to be whores.) The experience is demeaning to both parties.
What’s the difference between annulment and marriage? The process. Divorce is
less bloody. It would probably hurt as hell as well, but essentially, it’s not
crafted to drag out for years. Think about this, anti-divorce people:
essentially, the results are the same. Married people are separated completely,
giving them another shot at a happy ending. I’m probably an idealist, but I
think most people deserve a happy ending, no matter how screwed up that person
was in the past. If the end is the same, won’t it be better to take the less
psychologically traumatizing road?
There are many, many
other issues that stem from idiotic traditionalism, and these are just a few,
and it is kept alive by our complacency to follow blindly and not question
norms. Among them: LGBT rights, dealing with HIV/AIDS, gender equality, and secularism. But seriously, it’s almost 2013, people.
Isn’t it time we get over
what we are used to and move on to a future that is ruled by what is right and
not just what is easy? I say abolishing Sotto Conservatism is long overdue.
You know that kind of passionate, topsy-turvy romance that most people see
in the movies? The kind that can be punctuated by rough fights, occasional
cool-off, and/or extreme jealousy that end up in crazy, wild,
orgasmic sex and proclamations of love and not being able to live without that
person?
I have that. Well, I used to, anyway. Now we’ve both settled down.
The sex is still wild and orgasmic, and the proclamations of love are still
there, of course, but we’re done with the rough roads and we’ve settled into
something that’s more comfortable. Before you make any assumptions, I would like to clarify who I’m talking
about (although ‘what’ would me more appropriate) – Writing.
I’ve been having a love affair with Writing for the longest of time, and it
is probably one of the most heart-breaking and life-changing thing I have even
gone through. One of the many things I’ve learned: once you make a commitment
with Writing, it can break you or make you. So, for those who are new to the
love affair, here are some stuff that might help you get through the rough
roads. The journey to becoming a better writer is long and difficult,
but I hope these tips/insights/random thoughts would make it bearable, and
remind you that it is worth it.
1.Writing
is fine with passion; he appreciates the fire in your heart. He likes to be enveloped
by the heat of how much you want him. But at the same time, passion without
discipline is nothing to Writing. Starting a story is admirable, but finishing
it is the goal.
2.Trust
me: Writing hates jejemon. He practically has a seizure whenever he sees one of
the ‘ellhoouuuwwwzz pouuuhzzz” posts on Facebook. Respect the language. Learn
the rules. You may have editors, but really, you can never be a good writer if
you don’t even make an effort to learn the basic rules of subject-verb
agreement.
3.Writing
won’t mind if you have an affair. To him, monogamy is boring. So, by all means, explore the world:
travel, dance, watch a play, fight for human rights, have sex, study, get out
of your comfort zone – fall in love. Writing won’t mind, but tell him about it
afterwards. He likes it when
you’ll have something new to talk about.
4.Writing
will also have affairs. In fact, he has many. Be sure that you know you’re not
the only one he loves, or else, just like any other person, you’ll get your
heart broken. There are many others who share his bed and his heart. The truth
is he may love some others more. Your consolation: Once you immerse yourself in
each other, then, for that infinitesimal moment, there is no one and nothing
else in the entire cosmos but you and your love.
5.And
so, if Writing beds so many others apart from you, then you have to make
yourself memorable for writing: What is the voice of your write-ups? What makes
you different from the others? What makes Jessica Zafra different from Karl de
Mesa, Karen Francisco, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King. Writing wants to get to know
you. Writing wants to know who you
are.
6.Just
like sex, Writing should never be dry. After all, every gal and guy knows it’s
bound to be painful and unsatisfying that. You should be making love to each
other. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am has no place in being Writing’s lover. Just like sex, writing
should be a dance, not a chore.
7. Just like sex, you never get
Writing right the first time, unless you are one godly creature of creation who’s
got Kama Sutra and/or Elements of Style by Strunk and White imprinted onto your
brain cells. Don’t be afraid to get it wrong. Most pieces start up as
relatively crappy. That’s what editors are for – they massacre your work and
you learn how to do better. The learning process is painful (I’ve had my pieces bloodied so many times, I’m already desensitized), but you will learn a lot.
(As for Kama Sutra, I bet there are loads of downloadable versions.)
8. Writing
accepts that you are not perfect and that sometimes you make use of utterly
stupid words, but he doesn’t like idiots. Devour books, watch news, be a
critical thinker. Even funny writers make sense: Bob Ong and Eros Atalia
are the best examples.
9. Writing can sometimes be a
demanding bastard. He would suddenly call you and want to hear your voice while
you’re walking through the Ayala underpass, or when you’re on a jeep on your
way to work, or at 3-freaking-AM and you've just been to a basagan session with the OH mates. Answer the call. It is often you who would seek him out, and it’s a
very rare occasion that he would go to you and pester you for a bit of lambing and kwentuhan.
10.Writing will teach you one
thing: the truth is painful, but as a writer, you must be a seeker of truth.
Sometimes, you will break your heart in the process. Sometimes, the truth will
tell you that you suck at writing, that the world is a bastard of a place, that
there is nothing more to fucking than fucking, that young girls are raped and
most of the time no one does anything about it, that Writing may never love you
as you love it. A writer is a seeker of truth. No matter how painful the truth
gets, it is your job to seek it, and eventually
to tell the world about it. So: research, read, learn. Never stop learning.
And never stop writing about what you learn.
There you go, Writer: my take on how to survive an affair with the most
passionate and frivolous of partners. I leave you with one last piece of advice
– If you’re standing on the edge of falling in love, then take the plunge. Pick
up that pen and weave words together. I promise, it’s worth it.
After an intensive period of assessment, the seven judges of Mulat Pinoy's 'Sexual Health: Shout or Shush?' video contest have determined the competition's ten finalists. These finalists are now available for viewing on YouTube. Public voting is now open via YouTube and Facebook.
The top three entries with the most You Tube thumbs-up and Facebook likes will be awarded first, second and third prize. The ten finalists are:
“Alam Mo Ba?” by Marvin Gabas “HIV Awareness from BS-BIO I-1” by Irene Velasco “HIV-AIDS and Sexual Health” by Brando Briola “Kabataan, Gising Na!” by Rafael Manzano II “Let's Talk About It” by Angelo Esperanzate “Piko at Tirador” by Axel Santos “Pilipinas Bukas” by Jessica Loucille Villanueva “Responsible Sexuality” by Michael Jerard Honrado “Roleta” by JT Pandy “SH: Alam Mo Na Ba?” by Rodinah Pongan
The judging process involved a weighted scoring system that took into account each video's creativity, clarity of message, and relevance to the broader context of sexual health discussions. The panel of judges included a variety of experts from the fields of media and sexual health, namely: Atom Araullo of ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs; Clodualdo Del Mundo of De La Salle University; Pauline Mangilog-Saltarin of Jesuit Communications; Ana Santos of Sex and Sensibilities; Carmela Castro of Consuelo Foundation; Chi Vallido of Forum for Family Planning and Development; and Carmela Fonbuena of Rappler.com.
Information on how to vote, as well as the prizes for the winners, can be found on www.mulatpinoy.ph
Writer’s Note: The
challenge is to write a 120-300 word essay in 180 minutes on a chosen topic.
Minus this Writer’s Note, and a few other insertions I feel this article needs
(such as explanations on WHY I agreed to writing this), I shall try and stay
within the word-limit. May the muse have mercy on my soul and gag my brain’s
steady flow of digressions.
This essay is submitted to the Master of Atrocious
Writing Homework (who was apparently born to make this person write about crucial topics in life), by his gullible self-proclaimed student, Janina Santos. I
must take this opportunity to once again state how very evil you are. I hope
you don’t torture your students the same way as you’re torturing me. Have fun,
sir, and may we all be enlightened by the utter importance of the topic you
chose that I dedicate my blossoming writing skills to.^_~
Writing time: 47
minutes Word Count: 293
Jingle Bells:
Epitomizing Christmas Spirit?
Let us, for one minute, forget
the fact that Christmas is a religious holiday crafted by those who wish to overthrow
the old Pagan religions hundreds of years ago.
Let us, instead, define Christmas
with as little sarcasm as we could: a time for monito-monita, for getting righteously drunk at Christmas parties,
for our 13th-month pay and bonus. Christmas is a time for ninongs and ninangs to hide from the world lest they be found by screaming
godchildren asking for treats. For those of us with pure hearts, Christmas is a
time for love and family, for friends, for giving and sharing blessings that we
have received and worked our butts off for.
If we were to research the
history of the song Jingle Bells, we would find that there is no subtlety in its
symbolism. In fact, there is no
symbolism at all - just a narrative with rhyme and melody. Basically, the song
about a guy who has fun sledding during the winter, whose sled capsized, is
possibly intoxicated, and who enjoys hanging out and picking up girls. The only
element of Christmas that one can relate to the song is the presence of snow
and the upbeat melody.[1]
So: does Jingle Bells represent the spirit and theme of Christmas?
Why hell not?
Of course, Christmas is really about giving and sharing and all
those fluffy things that involve the hypothalamus, but Christmas also inspires
fun and happiness, and we can never ever
deprive people of these. If fun and happiness mean dating the girl that you
like, or riding a sled and capsizing, or simply clapping to the beat of an
infectious song that has been around for ages, then maybe that is Christmas.
