The Journey. It’s Mine. [My personal take on love, life, parenting and blogging.]

I don’t agree with what Erap said that “history will vindicate not only this executive action but my innocence as well with regard to these charges”.

Innocence my foot!!!

For sure the pardon was GMA’s political move to stop the opposition from impeaching her from the presidential throne.

My God, if we come to think of it, nothing really improved since the Marcoses were forced to leave. The general situation has even gotten worse.

Ewan ko ba ba’t tinatawag ang Pilipinas na democratic country eh talaga naman merong naghaharing uri. Nagbabago lang ang mga pangalan pero isang klase pa rin ang naghahari. Kawawa ang mga bagong politiko na merong magandang hangarin sa bansa. Sana lang hindi sila magpakain sa sobrang bulok na sistema na inirereklamo pa ni Jose Rizal.

Sigh.

Sa mga ganitong pagkakataon, masarap magpalit ng nationality. At sa puntong ganito, bakit ka magmamalaki na Pinoy ka?

Wala. Hindi pa ako pinapanganak ipina-kakain na ang Pinas sa mga aso. Bakit pa ako aasa na balang araw eh liliwanag ang sitwasyon dito at maghahari ang totoong demokrasya. In fact, every year things are getting worse.

Putek talaga. Binigyan ng pardon si Erap. Kunsabagay, marami pa namang andiyan sa paligid na dapat eh matagal nang naikulong (o kaya nailibing!).

Arrgh!!! Bakit ba nabigyan ng pardon si Erap?!!

I need not go to parties alone. Give it a few more years, then he can pass as my young boyfriend:

[In photo: dancing with Raine, 10/6/07,  (my) High School Reunion]

I have a new blogging gig: Battling Arthritis at the Hart-Empire-Network and under their Battling for Health umbrella.

Template and the works are still under construction but I already have a couple of posts.

My blogging pimp sent me the ad and I fortunately got accepted.

It was awfully difficult leaving LB 18 months ago. But I had to do what I gotta do. Before I left, I had to go through three despedida parties, whihc even made leaving difficult.

This photo I just got yesterday, from one of those parties:

I may have family here, but I have more friends in LB, i have to admit.

And there are times you want to be with friends so badly over being with family.

Some times. He he.

Raine may not remember them all in the future (have to make though that he does), but I always will.

(In photo is just one set of friends!)

At least not as rural as it used to be, the way i remembered it.

In 1989 (May 21 to be exact) I left to go to college. There was already electricity in this far-flung little barrio, though we didn’t have television and listening to radio news (and drama!) was the norm. Radio alone was our link to civilization. There were movie houses but they’re showing movies half a year behind than their showing in Manila.

Each semestral break I would go home to the very same idle place i left where neighbors have more time talking. My favorite is exchanging foods even if there is no special occasion. This was a great refuge from the hussle and bustle of university life. I am that used to rural life that’s why I chose UPLB instead of Diliman (UP Baguio was my second choice of campus in my UPCAT) and why I opted to work not far from there.

Now that cellphone, satellite TV, internet and computers made it here, we rarely see our neighbors. We don’t talk that much either and we don’t share our food as often as we used too. But then we only had one family that we consider neighbor back then and me and my brother grew up with their kids like brothers and sisters. We were that close, then they moved maybe a hundred meters away. Now there are more than 10 families of them neighbors, and each are locked in their little cocoons inside their homes.

This must be better times, technology is here right? But then I can’t but help sometimes to just text my cousin who lives just two blocks away across the road, instead of going there personally myself. We used to be inseparable. Except for the few text-exchanges, we rarely talk. Sometimes modernization and technology just sort of pull people away from each other instead of bringing them closer together. It really sucks. The only consolation? Less gossip! At least not everyday.

(LB isn’t that rural anymore when i left last year. Still, I wouldn’t trade it for any other city in the Metro. Admittedly, I am more at home in LB and I miss everything that the place represents to me every single day.)

Anyways, I’ve learned to just accept every single situation and then move on. After all, I wouldn’t even like to live in that past of no TV, no cellphone and no internet. Can you?!

(And I definitely cannot live alone with Raine in LB anymore. Those sleep-derived, tired and kalat kalat ang utak days are over.)

September 27, 2006. Araw ng typhoon Milenyo.

This date I will never forget, nakatatak na sa puwet ko yan katulad ng periodic table of elements nung college.

Typhoon Milenyo. Sinira ng tropical storm na ito ang nakaladlad na na schedule sa pagpagawa ng bahay. Ang target sana naming magkapatid eh sa babang-luksa ng kamatayan ng tatay ko (October 3,2006) buo na sana ang bubong nang bahay na ito. Pero ito lang ang nakaya namin:

But then Milenyo came closely followed by Reming. Marami kaming nasirang gamit, at saka nagbago ang bayaran dun sa isang pinagsusulatan ko.

Tapos bumalik na sa kolehiyo ang kambal. Hindi naman UP pero kamamahal ng tuition! Hindi nga nag-bo-board dahil uwian, yung pamasahe at baon sa araw-araw ang magpapa-pulubi sayo.

Kaya ang pag-gawa sa bahay na ito ay naging makupad pa sa pagong ang pag-usad.

Nasa barko pa ngayon kapatid ko, sana pagbaba niya bago mag-pasko eh may baong pera para mapagawa uli ang bahay na ito.

At least, kesa dati na halos kalbo mga puno at halaman, ngayon naman halos matabuhan na kami ng berdeng mga dahon at damo.

…my father died on this date, sometime between 2:30 and 3:00 that Monday afternoon.

Even if I don’t close my eyes, i can see him in my mind smiling at me with those trademark laugh-lines that appears when his eyes laugh. And I rarely know a person whose eyes laugh on their own.

Though I don’t cry that often anymore, there is this slight ache in the middle of my chest that don’t go away each time I think of him.

Two years. But i sill remember that sad day like it was yesterday.

ayan ang sakit na ng dibdib ko...

I guess I will miss him forever.

I’m not surprised.

That’s what you get if you keep on partying all night (’til morning) and using illegal substances on top of abusing alcohol. It doesn’t matter if you have all the money in the world to spend on partying and nannies. You are a mother. Period. Your kids come first.

Mothers behaving like Britney, do not deserve their kids.