My daughter took the shinkansen and traveled a bit further to pay homage to Ludwig van Beethoven. Upon seeing the hearing aid, she felt sad for the great composer who gave us some of the most loved concertos we love to listen to now. And the pianoforte where he wrote his masterpieces…
Asked her sister, my younger daughter who once enjoyed tinkering the ivory keys if she likes a copy of some pieces with the composer’s notes.
Of course, my younger daughter answered.
And my daughter asked for the price. It’s 7k Philippine denomination.
Then came the….
Oooops, sorry I asked but if I buy the piece, that would mean I go hungry….
Work brings my daughter to the most inconspicuous, or rather, obscure of provinces in our island paradise. This mother can’t help but worry when she announces a destination like Tawi-tawi or Sulu, down south in Mindanao. Do not get me wrong because Mindanao is endowed with a naturally tranquil beauty that is in sharp contrast with its notoriety that an American passport is deemed “no entry.”
As interesting as the people, culture and tradition that is Mindanao, the provinces have been synonymous , in my growing up years, with Jabidah Massacre, or, in the not so distant past, the Maguindanao Massacre of 2009, the infamous Marwan special operation that claimed the lives of forty-four Filipino special forces in 2015, and the Marawi Siege of 2017.
Speaking of the latter, there never was a comforting moment when my daughter was part of the program that sought to rehabilitate Marawi where she had to travel the long roads to and from the beleaguered city.
Thus when she said she was Cotabato bound, this mother went into a prayer mode once again.
But lo and behold, my telegram went into a colorful and happy mode. She has become a T’boli princess!
The T’boli is an indigenous animist tribe that is very rich in music, dance, and weaving. A creative people. the T’boli caught the attention of the art and fashion world.
The T’boli are deeply spiritual and believe everything happens for a reason. The stance, the gesture, and practically all movement generate good fortune.
The Story of the Madonna and Child is a must for our children.
TThe Bible never hurts. The Bible is an anthology of the greatest books ever written, and that includes the greatest story ever told – the Supreme Sacrifice our Lord has offered to save us.
Indeed, the Bible is the history of our salvation, the salvation from the original sin, from which also sprung the first sin on earth, brother killing brother. The Bible is a story of one hurt after another, and it shows how greed and envy, gluttony and lust, anger, sloth and pride consume us.
Our stories are nothing compared to the intensity of grief experienced by the characters in the Bible. That means, we only have to read and know their stories, and we can discern and make good decisions for our own lives.
Problem is, people put down reading the Bible: one, because of its immensity, and two, many others boast about having read it and sort of condescend others who have not, making the others feel insecure.
i suggest, for those who have not read the Bible, to open to the books of the familiar stories, such as Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel, Abraham, Noah, Moses, David and Goliath, David and Jonathan, David and Saul, Ruth, Esther, Susanna, Judith, and just read on. It is easy to get hooked. I will postpone reading Job for a later time, because of the intensity of pain in the story. Get to Daniel and the Lions, Samson and Delilah, Jonas and the Whale, and the Jericho story, and Gideon. Breeze through the Proverbs and learn much about maxims of life, you can memorize them if you like.
Then go to the Gospel, which we actually know already, because we hear it all the time. I will begin reading with the gospel according to St. Luke, because he presented the gospel like a telenovela. And he wrote the Acts of the Apostles, a continuation of the telenovela.
Have fun reading. The Bible is not a scary stuff. The Bible does not mean to make you feel like a sinner in repentance all the time. The Bible is God’s stories for us, and we must enjoy reading His stories.
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.
The lunar calendar says it is the year of the white rabbit. Oh well, for one who was once fascinated by the twelve animals who came to the beckoning of Buddha, plus the essential elements of fire, water, air, and earth, I also got curious about the wood and metal elements, each, on its turn, becomes superior over the other. Of course, I later decided that though I respect nature and believe in its power, I wouldn’t be superseded by the superstitions that sprung from it, as the Chinese did.
Yup, once we called it Chinese New Year, but lately, we just say lunar calendar. We also were made to believe that Kung Hei Fat Choi meant Happy New Year, when decades after, we were educated and the greeting translates to ‘May you be rich!’
Thank you!
And this morning I learned that the red envelope given this Chinese New Year’s day doesn’t essentially need to have cash in it, it is the red envelope that brings luck!
I still have a stash of red envelopes in my bag, from last Christmas, each with a hundred peso bill, to be given to anyone in need. I just forgot to give one to the car aircon mechanic who fixed my old car this morning, oh well, he charged me a thousand bucks for the job anyway, so that must be enough. Pinch your self, Eileen, it’s the red envelope that matters!
Superstitions, superstitions! Emancipate me from such. It’s the solicitude that we must live by! When I get to pass him by, perhaps I’d remember to hand Ariel, that’s the mechanic’s name, one red envelope.
But when I got back home, my elder daughter has already fried some Chinese rice cake called ‘tikoy’ that I gobbled up in a jiffy, thus the photo up there has only three slices, all that’s left. By noon time, I had a tray of ‘pancit canton’, a stir fry so tasty that I crudely ate two bowls, against my better judgment. Hay!
Why the sticky tikoy? So the money will stick to my hands! And the pancit canton? So the long noodles will bring me long luck!
Now, I am sipping lemon ‘water.’ In the year of the water rabbit. No rabbit popping in my area! So anyone can send me one.
Once again I find my self home alone, my daughters away on hospital duty and field work. The aloneness brings this mother to what seems like an endless melancholic state of waiting for the girls to get home, finding consolation in thoughts like everything will be all right and the faith that spells that deep trust in our God.
Two fields of discipline, aside from formal school, I enrolled my girls in when they were children: karatedo, for one, the martial arts that instill the fundamentals of karate and judo, enabling the girls to defend themselves and fight, and piano, for the other, just because music is the language of angels.
Thus the comfort in knowing that my girls could (de)fend themselves in whatever situations they are in, and relax with music in their mind.
But who would have thought my girls would find themselves in toxic conditions? One attends to a hundred pregnant women on a normal day, the other finds her self in hostile situations where people are not so trusting.
Life is choice. I would have wanted to see my daughters in air-conditioned offices with well-paying positions. Instead, it’s as if they’ve been banished to the ends of the earth tending to deprived and the destitute.
While I see my friends posting pictures with weddings of their children or the births of their grandchildren, here I am waiting and praying that my daughters get home safely.
Complaining?
Not at all.
My daughters have made their own selfless choices and I am fine with that. I just want them to be safe and happy.
The Christian world celebrates today the nativity of a Woman Who gave birth to the “Son of Man.” The Woman’s Name is Mary. In Hebrew, it is Myriam, in Aramaic, Maryam, and in Greek, Mariam or Maria. The name simply means beloved.
Why is Mary beloved?
Because Her ‘fiat’ provided the human image of the invisible God in the Person of Jesus, our Lord.
Our Lord, according to scientific validation of miracles of the Holy Hosts, has only 23 Chromosomes which, of course, came from His Mother Mary.
And our Lord’s favorite attribute to His Self – “Son of Man.”
Just fitting that we must be grateful to the gentle Woman Who gave birth to our Lord.
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.
My childhood was made wonderful not only with available comics: Wakasan at Itutuloy in the vernacular, Archie and Charlie Brown in English; science journals like OMNI, magazines which we cut out for pop-up play, encyclopedia which must be handled with care, textbooks, and books, the best of which, I deemed, was the huge atlas that showcased maps of the world and the universe.
There was so much information in that hard-bound atlas but my child’s eyes was satisfied with the pictures of the solar system with our home planet Earth, the constellations of the stars, the Milky Way, our galaxy, and other amazing images of the great, infinite universe.
Nope, there was no Big Bang Theory to bother my simple mind. I was all right knowing the universe was vast and if I close my eyes and travel through the great out there, I would experience a vision of creation and probably say hello to its Maker, our God.
The other day, the news was filled with images of the great beyond captured by James Webb’s telescope. The astrophysicists and science was ultra or mega jubilant with finally seeing what man has never seen before – a stun of jewels of the great universe.
Grateful to have seen it while I am still alive, probably a full circle of my childhood wonder.
Eileen C. Leyva 
Fourteen Years on Social Media!
11 Mar 2023 Leave a comment
by eileenleyva in Commentary, Educational, Language, Memories, Opinion, Personal Journal
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.
Thank you.