Remember the heat that sipped in so unexpectedly after the cold months of January and February, whooahhhh, the temperature soared so high the country is now toasted. Yup, the heat is so unbearable the Filipinos are begging the archipelago that seemed to have drifted towards the sun to come back to earth. Talk about Filipinos finding humor despite the inconvenient circumstances.
Of course our little brown brothers did seek all kinds of solutions: go to the beach where they only got more fried, stayed at SevenEleven for ready to eat meals that became unpalatable soon enough, tried McDonald’s or Jollibee a few hours till the food chains became crowded, bought cold beverages from Starbucks till their allowance for the month drained, or simply gallivanted from mall to mall till they realized time had been wasted doing nothing. The elderly were lucky enough to have free movies at the cinema Mondays and Tuesdays, so that’s where they are snoring.
As for my survival, I simply stayed put in the comfort of my home: sipped iced water every two or three hours, hit the shower for quick hot baths that cool the body, and sit with the electric fan directly at me throughout the day. I also got my hair braided and clipped, wore white shirts and shorts, and ate a lot of pakwan or watermelon. Believe me, I consumed one whole in just two days.
Hmmm, this heat spell seem to have taken my country aback and social media suggested to plant trees! Not now, folks. Should have done that years ago. But of course you could do so come rainy season.
Hay, my fellow Filipinos! So silly! The only situation that could be more disgusting than our shortcoming and absence of foresight is Dubai! Wow, that hot Arab city has no water drainage and with the huge volume of rain that flooded their city roads, sail on, sail on…
Eight days now that I had fervidly tuned in to the news about the ‘Sword of Iron,’ a war Israel declared on the terrorist group known as Hamas operating in the Gaza Strip, with the Gazan Palestinians as their shield. How can I not be so passionate when the massacre that transpired in the surprise incursion of Israel villages sounded so biblical…
Elderly friends sent me messages asking about the prophecies in the book of Revelation, especially Armageddon, which I would not dwell on because of a forewarning that no one should add nor subtract anything from that final book of the Bible. So, I’d let you read for your self..
What I would like to delve about is a prophecy from an Old Testament book called Ezekiel which foretold of the Gog and the Magog….
“14Therefore prophesy, son of man, and tell Gog that this is what the Lord GOD says: On that day when My people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not take notice of this? 15And you will come from your place out of the far north— you and many peoples with you, all riding horses— a mighty horde, a huge army. 16You will advance against My people Israel like a cloud covering the land. It will happen in the latter days, O Gog, that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I show Myself holy in you before their eyes.…”
Biblical scholars have studied that “Gog is a person who rules over the land of Magog (Russia). Magog means the “Prince of Rosh.” (Gog) Rosh is the old root word for the land of Russia. God informs Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38:15, “You will come from your place in the far North” (the Hebrew word means “the uttermost part of the North.”
It was also foretold that nations will pepper down Israel till the small nation is down on its belly, and when Israel can no longer fight, help will come.
Just reminding everyone of this biblical prophecy so we know whose side must we be on, for Muslims have already amassed in key cities round the world in their so-called ‘day of rage!; What is the rage for when the terrorists of militant Muslims were the ones who decapitated babies, molested young ladies, and killed ordinary, peaceful citizens.
Let us call on the intercession of our Lady of Guadalupe, aka as Our Lady of Victory on this very difficult time in history. Let us pray the MEMORARE.
There’s a graver threat to humanity than AI. That is the wide proliferation of woke and cancel culture. Before we clearly understand the meaning of these two terminologies, I believe that I have sensed the advent of such as early as the 90’s. Back then, my life was a hectic juggling of motherhood to two inquisitive toddlers and a daily grind of tutoring achievers and teaching/nurturing preschoolers in my own nursery school. I contend those were the most wondrous years in my life, for the children, in all their innocence, challenged me and made me laugh. My observation sprung from those years when I noticed the fathers dropping off and picking up their children. Where are the mothers, I asked. They were at work. And the fathers were left to tend to the household and the children. A completely different scenario from the family picture, the father being the breadwinner, and the mother cares for the home. The glory was taken away from the fathers.
Simultaneous with that sad truth, the gays dominated the television sitcoms, crossdressing and blatantly asserting their gayness. The viewers absorbed a daily barrage of men displaying exaggerated femininity. Before long, many young teens have come to express their desire to be gay, even if they were not.
I was afraid of my thoughts, that eventually, the homosexuality would become a norm. Back in an exclusive for girls convent school where I had my education, the tomboys or potential lesbians were behaved, though we know that they were probably struggling and questioning their own gender.
The millennium ushered new generations – millennials, Gen Zee, Alpha Gen – who have come to accept the fact that fathers attend to the laundry and it is all right to profess one’s self gay.
Have I qualms about it? Probably. But I always thought that glory will be given back to the fathers, and people would eventually realize their biological gender and embrace it.
To the former, I think the fathers have come to terms with their roles in the family, but as to the latter, I was totally shocked with the LGBTQ waving a rainbow of colors and asserting homosexuality as a culture to contend with. If I know my Bible right, am sure Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with sulfur and fire.
My daughters were cautious in reminding me that they have gay friends. I have no issue with that. I also had friends who were sexually challenged. And still they remained friends. My issue is with people telling me to accept the fact that a person’s being is his/her private truth, meaning it is simply all right to tamper with one’s body according to his or her own preference. And that the public comfort rooms must be deemed both for male and female, in order not to ostracize the transgenders and the queer. A man having sex change is his own truth, and so with a female changing into a man. Just to clarify, if we accept all these truths, does that mean nothing is false anymore?
Eventually, the world witnessed the Yemeni running on yahoo news in 2008, and the domination of dictators in the key corners of the globe. The Russian presented himself a debonair. Biochemical warfare became the name of the game. Who would not be shocked and distressed by what happened to Aleppo? A people was canceled, just like the Ukrainians are being canceled.
Cancel culture became a terminology, a phrase I only heard post pandemic when the newsmen were quoting it in their reports. I wondered what it was, and later learned that it is an attempt to change the true and the good by eradicating the proponent for morality. Obliterate the culture and exchange it for what the people like to see and hear.
What is woke. I asked. The young people I talked with couldn’t provide me an answer. As I googled through for the definition of terms, the origin of which has reference to a call to be awake regarding racism, eventually, the woke is now used to call for activism on the streets to call for equality and justice.
There lies the threat to humanity, man pitted against each other, as we see now in France, the police versus the people burning the cities, because a teen was shot and killed by the police over traffic. The killing is inexcusable, but would it not be proper to seek justice before committing arson.
By and large, woke and cancel culture are manifestations of godlessness, a deviation from everything that is moral. Correct me if I am wrong.
I posted a picture of The Carpenter and His Son because I still believe that if we get our truth correctly and work together, there might still be hope for the despicable events that must be deleted from the face of the earth.
Sharing this poetry because it might be relevant to the state of chaos the world we are now in. Shout out to those in power raring to annihilate the planet with their destroyers and missiles, rockets and drones, warheads, etcetera. That is not the way to live a life.
Has it been that long? It seemed that it was only yesterday when my younger daughter, then in her first year of college, prompted me to sit in front of the computer and start a blog post. I was hesitant because I knew not the nature of the internet. But as I was already watching yahoo news about ‘Yemeni running’ because of persecution and potential civil war, I felt I could express an opinion or two about the current events. Thus I agreed.
Oh well, it was not as if I turned into a professional writer because I got comfortable with just writing about what preoccupied my mind at the moment, but mostly, I was not really a poet who could write pretty verses and prose, my works were much more like entries in a diary meant only for my own reading pleasure. That is why I was surprised when I learned that there came to be a new literary genre called journaling – that type of writing primarily entered in the internet that is not necessarily par excellence but from the viewpoint of an ordinary blogger.
Hence I could say that even if I have not written a book – a collection of poems or short stories, a novella or a novel, at least I have blogposts to boast about.
Nope, I have not much followers, and very often, when someone clicks like on a post, which is very rare, I am jubilant enough my heart beats at Mach 1 speed to the moon and back. Forever grateful for those who liked my stories. And those who responded positively. You are very kind.
Drone footages showed eerie stretches of brown arid earth gouged out, most likely up to six feet under the grounds, for the long line of dead people from the ghastly aftermath of the Anatolian Fault quake. Seven days now.
History books show this fault is Asia Minor, the modern-day Turkey, which just June of last year, changed its name to Turkiye.
The tally of the dead corresponds to thirty-three thousand as of last official report, meaning the mass graves could go miles and miles …
No coffins. No caskets. Just black body bags. Or yellow. Or orange. Or even blue.
No loads of mourners. Just grave diggers with shovels. And heavy equipment: backhoes and bulldozers.
Every now and then, a lone crier comes. Or two. Or three, Grieving for their beloved.
For the most, entire families, relatives, and friends, have perished. No one to mourn.
No candles yet, Nor flowers. Nor incense. Or whatever the culture dictates customary to burying the dead. The dead should simply be buried.
Eventually, there will be tombstones or markers, or even grass perhaps, to remind the living of what had been.
It is something that springs from a verse once spoken by a Great Teacher: Let the dead past bury the dead.
Life goes on. The living will find ways to thrive amid adversities.
The Turks, and the Syrians also, are of inviolable stock. The Syrians, though in strife for eleven years of civil war, have the mighty Assyrians in their lineage.
Two musicians composed pieces in honor of the Turks: Beethoven and Mozart. Beethoven’s sonata is mellow. Mozart’s march is rhythmic, perky enough to tell the strength of its people.
May the Turks and the Syrians find a way to peace..
My daughter subscribed to a new feed for my viewing, Still, the internet traffic jammed my humble connection. In a country not gaga over soccer, the World Cup isn’t a thing. Except for me, all because of Messi.
The brilliance of this wonder boy from a barriotic hometown in Rosario, Argentina oozed like crazy that when I chanced upon the display of his amazing skills in a news tidbit way back over a decade ago, I couldn’t help but search and follow. In fact, I even made an album on facebook to make my friends aware that there is a genius amongst the millennial generation who is creating a sensational script for a life story. Only one fb friend noticed. Which means my friends on fb are preoccupied with trivial matters.
My googling gave me a good background of Lionel Messi. It’s a bio coupled with challenges in the beginning. The little boy was inflicted with growth deficiency condition the treatment of which was beyond the family means. The tiny frame could have impeded the psychomotor genius from playing football but like in all good scripts, some form of divine intervention happen.
In little Lionel’s case, he had a grandmother who believed in him. And she aptly described the intelligence of her grandson in a simile: dribbling the ball with his feet is like singing to him.
Thus the tiny tot was pitched in – in a field where strength, stamina and speed define the name of the game – soccer.
Oh well, as I’ve known soccer only because the name of Pele always popped in crossword puzzles, I had to learn more. And learn did I when Pope Francis of the Vatican City sat Pope Benedict for a match between Argentina and Germany. The latter won but the crazy Argentina fans were wild with frenzy – totally frustrated the defeat failed to glorify a Maradona World Cup triumph back in 1986.
Sigh!. That was the year my own country was in turmoil – the EDSA Revolution and the succeeding coups that crippled our tiny nation. But yes, I heard Maradona in the news.
Yet Lionel Messi wasn’t even born then. His birthing came a year later, on the 24th of June, 1987, the feast day of my favorite Saint John the Baptist.
Perhaps little Leo, as he then came to called, is a precursor of good things to come. too. Like John the Baptist though, he had to suffer a tat more than the others.
Well, his journey has been well accounted for, his life an open book. But his script is unique in the sense that none compares to the the perfect beginning, rising, the climax, and the beautiful ending of a career. It’s like our God provided us of a truly wonderful story in the person of Lionel Messi.
Thank you, Lionel Messi, for the superb entertainment you provided us this World Cup 2022 month. I woke up midnight just to see you play. You are the athlete. The only athlete.
Did you hear about the tragedy in Seoul, South Korea where a hundred fifty-five juvenile revelers perished in tragic surge of crowd crashing, leaving nary a space for breathing, consequently causing asphyxiation and cardiac arrest? In deepest sympathy we mourn with the bereaved, and a nation in shock.
In the same way we condole with India as some hundred and forty people also lost their lives after a bridge collapsed sending the festival attendees plunging into the deep waters.
What is it during this time of year that hapless people end in ill-fated circumstances?
In 2013, my daughter’s college mate Rachelle died in a motor cycle accident in the wee hours of the night right after a school Halloween event.
Perhaps my good college mate Lily Ang is correct, on the demise of artist Danny Javier, it is just inevitable that someone bites the dust….
Yet, we can’t help but think that there is some form of magnet that leads to death’s door, untimely. That is why it is important to caution the youth, and the merry makers, to think and discern before engaging in mindless revelry, most often called ‘good time.’
As Anlex Basilio, brother to another college mate Letlet Gloria, quipped.,
“If with young hearts I share without bounds all I know, all my skills and all my life experiences…they then take with them a part of me. I then become immortal.”
Yes, the youth needs guidance, like a snail that we must pick up from a path where it will be crushed, and set them on a place where it will live.
Here’s a sixty peso take on what is currently happening now throughout the world, or many parts of it: AUTOCRACY IS IMPLODING!
Never have we seen such civil unrest occurring simultaneously as we do see in our monitors – from rallies in Nippon streets against a state funeral for Shinzo Abe, riots in Iran protesting the death of a young activist against morality police, to the unbelievable exodus en masse of Russians escaping Putin’s mobilization of civilians to fight in Ukraine.
The news from China has to come out yet but rumor has it, the Communist Party leader Xi is at the receiving end of a people who had had enough of repression.
It seems that the saturation point for the ‘dictatorship’ thing has finally come. The people are finally coming to terms that they can no longer be persuaded or compelled to obedience of something they do not believe in – one man’s absolute power.
A few hours ago, the British pound has come to an all time low against the US dollar. Perhaps a foreshadowing that despite the show of might after the death of its queen, the kingdom is not as formidable as it projects, and the monarchy outdated could not hold ground with a king unfit to rule. Chuck chuck chuck.
Despotism is imploding. Its a lesson that has been recorded throughout history. No one can impose an iron hand. The people will fight, even if it means their very lives.
There was a numbing feeling in May when the son of the deposed dictator was declared winner of the national elections. It was the unimaginable that shocked the people. Who would have believed that it would only take three decades and a six years to lose again what we fought for with all our hearts, our minds, and our spirits, our strength.
The EDSA Revolution of 1986 was a four day sacrifice of Filipinos willing to give up their lives just to eradicate the despicable evil that loomed long enough in the people’s palace squeezing the blood of the masa through the coffers. Two million people, young and old, rich and poor, beckoned by an old cardinal of the Catholic Church called by the name of Sin – His Eminence Cardinal Jaime Sin – to protect the soldiers turned rogue holed up at the twin camps: Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame, separated by EDSA, or Epifanio delos Santos Avenue. The call came in at night but the people heard and heeded. They walked the distance from Aurora Boulevard knowing that the march to the camps could mean the end of their very lives. By morning, the masa filled every foot of the wide avenue in a festive but tense mood. Soldiers and tanks were ordered to take on the people while helicopters and planes patrol the sky. A bomb could simply finish it all. But by Divine Providence, the soldiers accepted the roses and the food the nuns and the people offered. The pilot ordered to annihilate the mass refused command. He saw the Cross at EDSA.
The people turned jubilant upon hearing the flight to Hawaii of the deposed dictator. That was when the NEVER AGAIN was chanted. The people believed it in their hearts and swore it in their very soul. NEVER AGAIN.
Yet the rogues the people protected remained. And they wanted power, too. So they attempted several putsches to overthrow the woman president – Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, the widow of Ninoy Aquino, the man imprisoned and technically exiled, but when he chose to come back, was shot at the back of the head by armed guards at the airport. The rogues did not succeed. The people protected the widow president.
The political situation was still brittle and economic condition of the country was dwindling. The coffers were empty. The widow needed to seek foreign help to put the country in order. With a little success, the country breezed through the hard times. Or so it seemed.
Just when the people were beginning to feel some stability, the earthquake of July 1990 shook the very being of the nation. Little children were seen trapped underneath their school buildings. Many perished in the rubbles.
Barely has the people recovered from the shock, the tiny Mount Pinatubo unleashed an eruption the volcanic ash of which covered the skies. It was like the biblical day of darkness.
With the powerful typhoons that lashed the country came the roaring lahar of 1992 that enveloped the rice fields of the Central Plain of Luzon, including the residential houses, be it nipa huts or bungalows or two storey mansions.
The people was already down on their knees at the natural disasters that shook them to the core but the problems increased like nightmares that never stopped.
In 1992, with a military man for president, the power outage created a discomfort perilous enough. There was no electricity for twenty-four hours every other day. With that came water rationing.
By 1996, climate change could already be felt. The storms took the huge acacia trees down that we could see the trees indeed have anuses. Amusing but true.
But there was nothing more shocking when a womanizer/gambler/actor/mayor became president in 1998. It was a time of distrust that led the country to the new millennium, and political unrest. The people came to power again to shove off the unfit president, only to be exchanged to the hands of a diminutive woman who cunningly abused the country for ten long years. That deceitful woman was imprisoned for six long years. As was her predecessor also, for a number of years, but was pardoned.
By 2010, the Filipino was given a reprieve from all concerns and worries with the presidency held by the Noynoy Aquino, the lone son of Ninoy and Cory Aquino. PNoy, as he was called, built roads and bridges, school buildings and by-ways, and installed formidable health and education plans for the welfare of the people. The country became the new tiger of Asia.
But then again, the very first super typhoon of the world, an intensity 5 Yolanda, internationally named Haiyan, smashed the archipelago to a mind-boggling zombie-like aftermath in 2013 after claiming the lives of six thousand or more.
Another untoward incident called the Masasapano Massacre also happened during PNoy’s administration that left the country gripping with unbelief.
But what was to come was gut wrenching when a blood thirsty creature came to power and created the Tokhang, a salvaging of poor people in guise of a drug war.
For six years I shut my eyes and ears from the local news. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
And only the first quarter of this year did I tune again, for in spite of the war Russia has imposed on Ukraine that caused me troubled nights, here in the islands, there was much hyper street parties for candidacy of Leni Robredo for the presidency. It was rose themed, for a brighter and happier tomorrow.
Alas it was not to be, for somewhere in the computerized counting, the people had again been hoodwinked.
Never thought this would happen in my lifetime. NEVER AGAIN! NEVER AGAIN? Sigh, it’s here again.
Yet, in my memory pictures I saw the picture of Mayon Volcano, the perfect cone of a mountain in the Bicol Region. My daughter saw the mountain for her self when she was a teen and told me of its breathtaking beauty, I cannot recall who took the picture of Mount Mayon but am grateful for the image.
So many ugly things had happened to the Philippines and perhaps more is in the offing, but I’d like to believe the Filipino is like the Mayon, forever formidable in beauty and resolve despite anything.
Eileen C. Leyva 
Iced Water. Sip Slowly.
29 Apr 2024 Leave a comment
by eileenleyva in Commentary, culture, Humor, people, Personal Journal
Remember the heat that sipped in so unexpectedly after the cold months of January and February, whooahhhh, the temperature soared so high the country is now toasted. Yup, the heat is so unbearable the Filipinos are begging the archipelago that seemed to have drifted towards the sun to come back to earth. Talk about Filipinos finding humor despite the inconvenient circumstances.
Of course our little brown brothers did seek all kinds of solutions: go to the beach where they only got more fried, stayed at SevenEleven for ready to eat meals that became unpalatable soon enough, tried McDonald’s or Jollibee a few hours till the food chains became crowded, bought cold beverages from Starbucks till their allowance for the month drained, or simply gallivanted from mall to mall till they realized time had been wasted doing nothing. The elderly were lucky enough to have free movies at the cinema Mondays and Tuesdays, so that’s where they are snoring.
As for my survival, I simply stayed put in the comfort of my home: sipped iced water every two or three hours, hit the shower for quick hot baths that cool the body, and sit with the electric fan directly at me throughout the day. I also got my hair braided and clipped, wore white shirts and shorts, and ate a lot of pakwan or watermelon. Believe me, I consumed one whole in just two days.
Hmmm, this heat spell seem to have taken my country aback and social media suggested to plant trees! Not now, folks. Should have done that years ago. But of course you could do so come rainy season.
Hay, my fellow Filipinos! So silly! The only situation that could be more disgusting than our shortcoming and absence of foresight is Dubai! Wow, that hot Arab city has no water drainage and with the huge volume of rain that flooded their city roads, sail on, sail on…