I’M NOT talking about tenses here nor about girlfriends.

I’ve never had a conversation with an online friend quite a long time. Just this afternoon, we had the chance to chat on Facebook.

Our conversation came to a point that he said he doesn’t have a future anymore. He told me that his parents used to tell him to always think about the future but until now, he said, that future hasn’t come.

Then I told him, “What you are today, was once your future. The future you are thinking of today will soon come. That future will become your present, and eventually, your past.”

He only said, “Ang gulo pala ni future” (Mr. Future is such a chaos).

It made me think further that if we only listened to our elders, whose wisdom had been shaped by experience, the future that we have been dreaming of could have been attained by the time that we expect it to be within our reach.

When you think that you haven’t gotten what you have aspired for is because you failed to do what is required to achieve it. You didn’t do what you gotta do because you didn’t fully believe that such a vision could turn into reality.

Time is the only thing that is constant. Although time is relative (dilated) at speeds approaching the speed of light, it certainly doesn’t go backwards. We cannot return to the past except through walking down memory lane. All we can change is the course of our future, which is shaped by the decisions we make today.

If you believe that your future is bleak, then you’d probably be working towards that bleak future, but if you believe that you’ll go big time in the coming days, I’m sure all you’ll be doing today will help you become what you hoped you would be.

I am not really superstitious—spiritual, may be—and I believe that God is communicating to us in various ways but definitely not through horoscopes.

Nonetheless, it is right that we always remind ourselves to be watchful. We learn by keenly observing everything that exists or takes place around us. By doing so, we make conscientious judgments and actions, which ultimately leads us to a peaceful and happy life.

We should not let fate shape our future.

As we start the year it is imperative that we set goals and discover ways of attaining these goals. In addition to that, we should also know how to measure our accomplishments so that by the end of the year we would be able to assess our journey and use our findings to improve the way we live the following year.

So let’s being with the goals. Here are my goals for a good start:

Personal development

• Keep updating and improving this blog
• Learn/master a new skill every month
• Maintain proper diet, exercise regulalry, and get enough rest

Professional development

• Continue with graduate studies and earn additional 9 units
• Attend at least 5 trainings and seminars within the year
• Continue developing the physics courseware I’m working on
• Accomplish and submit reports on time

Social development

• Participate in recreational activities/blog events and meetups at most twice a month
• Meet with the church young people every Sunday

Financial/Material development

• Prepare a monthly budget plan and do my best to abide by it
• Save at least Php 500 from my salary (small, eh?) for a project to be accomplished or a material to be acquired at the end of the year

To make this possible, I need a planner to list down reminders and other stuff. I haven’t purchased one yet. Uhm, if you want to do someone a good turn as the year begins, that someone could just be me an dthat good turn could just be giving me a handy planner. *wink*

IN A country where leaders are into endless political bickering due to their personal ambitions the real social problems remain unseen and, therefore, not addressed.

Noralyn Obrial Ramos sent me emails on Facebook entitled, “Frustrating Facts About Regular Philippine Public High Schools” and “More Frustrating Facts About Regular Philippine Public High Schools“.

In the email–which she also posted on her blog– she blurted out her frustrations about the situation in Philippine public schools, where she has spent 16 years of her life as a teacher. She presented a cross-sectional view of the problems in the school.

Indeed, the public school is a challenging environment. It poses a challenge to the students, teachers, and school administrators as well. Many of us can attest to that.

Educators know that the schools must be a place of where students can feel warmth and acceptance so they could learn best. How could that be possible in the situation described by Ramos?

At our level, the faculty and school administration can mitigate the problems at a very limited extent. It does take a village to raise a child.

In the 2010 elections, we should elect leaders who value education. Leaders who are driven to change the climate in public schools and will change the impression of the people about public schools from being shabby institutions where students waste their time into being high standard training ground for highly-skilled and morally upright persons.

RIGHT NOW, as I am writing this, throngs of locals  flock to the municipal plaza of Alabel, Sarangani Province to welcome the boxing champ.

Aside from the chance of meeting the famous boxing icon, most of the people here expect to receive, if not cash, giveaways from Pacman.

Last year, the Pacman team distributed bags to gradeschool pupils. He’s also sponsoring free embalming and free casket for indigenous Sarangans. His political ads are also being shown on local TV since last month. All these are proofs that his camp is more than ready for the political battle.

While Pacquiao failed in his bid in Gensan in the 2007 elections, I could see some reasons why Pacquiao is a probable winner in Sarangani.

The province has been established through the efforts of the Chiongbians, who have always been its leaders for the past 17 years. There is no question that they have contributed to the development of the province. But in the recent years, they haven’t been very visible to the Sarangans.

I am referring to our congressman, Erwin Chiongbian, who is rarely seen in the province and is not a major character in the Congress, whose public presence is far duller than that of GenSan’s Darlene Antonino. He also doesn’t have publicized flagship projects in the province, which makes the people wonder if he is really working for the our progress.

Several mayors have also signified their support for Pacquiao’s candidacy. Our own mayor, Corazon Grafilo and Mayor Reynaldo Constantino of Malungon  are known staunch supporters. With the support of these mayors of two big towns in the province, Pacquiao has a better chance.

If the Chiongbian camp will be complacent in its campaign, it could be a knockout win for Pacman, especially that they are endorsing Roy Chiongbian, whose name has just been heard recently.

Picture from Imageshack.us

But I couldn’t figure it out. What I came up with instead is a list of things I hate about growing up and grown ups. My inability to fit in is what I think caused all this mess.

Four Things I Hate About the Grown Ups’ World:

1. You couldn’t be the same carefree dude you used to be. You have lots of responsibilities on your shoulders and you can’t afford to just set them aside or else, you suffer. You couldn’t just smile and say, well, there’s a second chance, I’ll do better next time. You fail and you’d get kicked out and starting over again is so much harder.

2. There’s always a boss. I hate the bureaucracy. I hate the seniority rule. Why do they always think that since they are older they can do better? I hate the SOP on purchases. I hate the immunity of the boss. I hate the way they make rules and how they get away spotless once they break them. I hate how vague they write job descriptions such that you could be tasked according to your boss’ whims. I hate the way teachers study to master their craft and find themselves doing supervisory tasks and doing office jobs. We couldn’t do away with bosses, but do they need to be bossy when they are already the boss?

3. Things (and people) are valued for their monetary equivalent. Jobs are classified as high-paying or low-paying. Success is measured by the pay you receive or the properties you acquire. They couldn’t work without compensation. They’d always ask, what’s in it for me? The rich and the prominent gets the best accommodation in offices while the poor wait in long queues. You are judged by what you wear and how you look.

4. There’s too much formalities and too little essence. They spend too much time on the non-essentials and real work is left undone. There’s too much paperwork and too little service to those who actually need it. Believe me, you can get promoted by compiling documents instead of making a difference in the lives of your clientele.

SCRAP HR 1109. Let Arroyo finish her term in 2010.

I’m not a lawyer. I have not studied the Philippine Constitution in depth, either. I cannot talk about the constitutionality of the constituent assembly but I believe that the House Resolution that paves the way for the Constituent Assembly is nothing but the administration’s show of strength as it holds the loyalty of the majority of the members of the House of Representatives. How else could they take advantage of the number of congressmen on their side than to use it to spur Charter Change that may extend Arroyo’s term?

I have talked to someone who fought against Marcos and she told me that she is seeing today the same game that the late President played more than two decades ago. She also told me that the people behind the Arroyo administration today are old-timers in the game called manipulation.

I can see greed.

What actually prompted me to write this post was an article on Philippine Daily Inquirer that quoted Executive Eduardo Ermita saying that we should keep mum about the Con-Ass and observe if it really has something to do with the upcoming elections.

What the hell is he talking about? He wants the people to keep quite in the corner and wait for doom to come! Come on, we’ve been through this before. The Filipino people will never again let the ghosts of the Marcos dictatorship haunt us again.

Grade one pupils from Alabel Central Elementary School and SPED Center receive books from the Alcantara Foundation last year. *Image from QUEST

To help solve this problem, the Conrado and Ladislawa Alcantara Foundation Inc., the Office of the Provincial Governor of Sarangani, the Provincial SK Federation (PPSK), the Local Government Units of each municipality, the Department of Education, and the Ayala Foundation, Inc. joined hands in the Sarangani Big Brother Season 2: Reading is Fun, a reading program.

Sarangani Big Brother, which started last year, is a volunteer-based reading program that runs for 15 days during the summer. Volunteer school teachers will extend their services to the identified frustration readers. Youth volunteers, the Ate’s and Kuya’s of the paraticipants, are also mobilized as teacher aids that will help ensure that the participants obtain optimum learning in the program.

Tomorrow, April 14-16 is the first round of the training of the teachers and the youth volunteers in Maasim, Sarangani Province. That will be followed by the other six municipalities of Sarangani.

Ayala Young Leaders Congress alumni, together with other volunteers from PPSK and the units under the Office of the Governor, will facilitate the training.

***

Being the senior AYLC alumnus in the group, I was tasked to talk on Servant Leadership. I am both honored and pressured because this is the topic that I think our Mentor, Sir Monch Mossessgeld, has the credibility to deliver. Haha. I think I will just borrow his words.

He lived to opposed oppression as caused by development aggression

He lived as an intelligent critic to all wicked

He lived to protect the environment

He lived to stand for what is right

He lived to value life

He lived

He was killed

— Lui –

WHEN I came home this afternoon the news on TVPatrol SocSKSarGen mentioned the name, Eliezer “Boy” Billanes and I my attention was glued on the report.

No, not again, I thought. He’s the nth activitist that has been killed in this country, another name in the long list of good men and women who had been killed because of their convictions.

I met Sir Boy at a multisectoral conference on various social issues back in college and in the mobilizations that followed. The people of South Cotabato is fortunate to have people like him who stands up for them.

He’s been active in the protests against large-scale copper and gold mining in Tampakan, South Cotabato.

He was shot dead at about 4:30PM yesterday, March 9, 2009 in Koronadal City, South Cotabato.

His death is a loss for the progressive community. But definitely, the fight will go on. This has just given his comrades all the more reason to stand up for justice.

*The photo above is from Kuya Lui’s blog

And note, I did it so painlessly, thanks to WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin. Although this plugin has given me some troubles about a month ago with my other WP installs, it work perfectly well (so far) with this one. So, hooray to WPAU and WP 2.7!

And guess what, I’m still here in school even if today is Christmas Day. Well, I’ve got no choice, I gotta work on some important details for our Alumni Homecoming tomorrow. And it’s okay since I’m inspired to work today.

Ta-ta for now. Gotta get back to work! Merry Christmas everybody!

WAS IT fun?

Sure, sure. Haha. As I’ve anticipated, it was quite stressful because of some eventual glitches. But a dip in the crystal clear water, a sumptuous meal of grilled talakitok and malasugue, kinilaw na maya-maya, among others, and some hearty laughter with co-teachers were are worth it.

It’s been over a year since I last went to Gumasa. There were some developments — the road from the Poblacion of Glan was being concretized and new resorts have opened. In fact the venue of the event was a new resort called Coco White Beach.

So why were we there today?

It was a treat for Sarangani Teachers from Gov. Miguel Dominguez and Vice-Gov. Steve Solon called I Love My Teachers. But there was so much comotion during the distribution of food that I think made some teachers feel uneasy. It looked as though we were evacuees waiting for our ration. I don’t know who was to blame for it but I certainly did not like it.

There was a program where home appliances and other stuff were given away as prizes. Our principal won a coffeemaker.

When I described what took place in Gumasa to my people at home, my ever critical uncle said that it’s early politicking. Well, who isn’t these days? Manny Pacquiao gave away multicabs for members of Guardians Brotherhood in General Santos City, while Migs and Steve wooed the teachers. Rumors have it that Pacquiao and Dominguez are running opposite each other in 2010. With what happened today, battle has begun, so to speak.

… View more pictures on Digital Detours