Alix Dep

A History of Violence

2006-03-06T23:49:00.000-08:00

(Blogger's Note: the anti-PD 1017 rallies showed me that members of rival fraternities can come together in one place not to make "gulo" but to fight as ONE for what they believe in.)

published in Youngblood, PDI, January of 2006.

It was past six in the evening and my class in criminal procedure had just ended. My group mates and I decided to do some late night fieldwork. A male classmate walked up to us and asked if he can go with us. He explained discreetly, “Merong gulo”. Looking over his shoulder, I noticed that there were indeed male students quietly conferring in groups. Fratmen. Then I understood that my classmate only wanted to avoid the impending trouble brewing between his fraternity and some rival, similarly Greek letter named fraternity.

I am not and never had been a member of any fraternity or any organization which uses initiation rites or have the habit of making war with other similarly-oriented organizations. I almost do not care if members of fraternities beat up one another in their glorified sense of brotherhood. I do not want to get into trouble. But the problem here is that non-fraternity members sometimes are caught up in their rumbles and frat wars. We also become victims, as much as members of fraternities become casualties in their own culture of violence and corruption.

Who was it that said "Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence." I prefer to write than to make a lonely protest rally around the school campus and secretly put up posters denouncing fraternity violence. I feel that I would be alone when the time comes members of fraternities get a wind of my defiance against them. In any case, whatever adverse action they take against me will only confirm what I write although I must say that I am only against those members of fraternities who do or espouse acts of violence in pursuit of their brotherhood. I am not saying all members are guilty of violence. My male classmate for one thing avoids trouble and even makes friends with members of other fraternities. But I believe that victims of fraternity-related violence deserve to be heard over the noise of frat wars and empty, brotherhood rhetoric.

I remember how a poor scholar-student met a violent death at the hands of allegedly hired killers just because he was mistakenly identified as a member of a rival fraternity. He was just sitting on a bench, unfortunately near a fraternity tambayan, safe in the thought of not having to worry about fratmen targeting him since he had no affiliation with any fraternity. He was wrong. Recently, a grandson of a high-ranking politician died in the course of his initiation rites. This semester alone, there had been a rise of fraternity-related assaults on campus both on “brods” and non-members, again cases of mistaken identities. Such waste of our nation’s youth.

Some officers of the accused fraternities were suspended by virtue of the Anti-Hazing Law. At least the legislators had finally recognized the need for a law making certain fraternity-related acts criminal. But I believe it is still inadequate. The first time I read RA 8049 for criminal law, I had the impression that this is not an effective solution to the prevention of fraternity-related violence and “physically-taxing” initiation rites. This does not prohibit initiation at all. This is not Anti-Hazing at all but only a regulation of the process of initiation in the sense that those who plan to have those rites must first seek permission.
RA 8049 harshly penalizes the actual participants in the initiation when the recruit suffers physical injuries or becomes insane, imbecile, impotent, or blind. The law even imposes reclusion perpetua when death, rape, sodomy or mutilation results from the hazing. This certainly is a long way from those days when there was no law dealing particularly with hazing. But this does not actually prevent fraternities and other organizations from making their recruits go through excruciatingly painful and emotionally draining initiation rites. This law is only a remedy after the acts had only been done, after the recruit had already gone through these violent acts. Fortunate are those who get out of those initiation rites alive and indeed do become a “brod”. How about those who do not survive or those who will become maimed for life? What will years of imprisonment imposed on the perpetrators do to a dead or disabled recruit? Reclusion perpetua or temporal will not take back a recruit’s life or limb.

I believe that one of the best solutions to end fraternity-related violence is for the fraternity alumni themselves to openly denounce the violent actions of their junior “brods”. I think most are in positions of authority who can certainly influence their juniors. It is time for reforms within the fraternities themselves. I often wonder how these august-sounding, Greek letter name organizations had become immersed in the culture of violence. It is time for members of these organizations ask this question, to return to the true sense of brotherhood not just within one fraternity but also among fraternities. Spare us a history of violence. Rewrite and undo it.

“What’s up, dude?”

2004-10-23T01:58:00.000-07:00

“What’s up, dude?” This is what a son of Gen. Garcia could only muster to say when reached through phone by media people. When asked about the recent controversy over his father’s unexplained wealth, this young American citizen, with a “Filipino” general for a father and who studied all his life in the US, just clammed up refusing to reply to the queries on his family’s vast estates. Of course, I cannot blame him for protecting his beleaguered father. Anybody would come to the aid of a loved one, even if the latter is in the wrong. And I also cannot put him at a fault for being indifferent to the plight of our poor countrymen, who rummaged through trash cans to find something to eat only to die of food poisoning from the rotten chicken. He is after all an American citizen, the most privileged one in the whole wide world. If his father, a “Filipino” general who is supposedly a public servant if we take seriously the meaning of a public office as being a public trust, had stashed away millions of pesos from the Philippine public treasury and had taken advantage of his public office to fund a lavish lifestyle for his family, why would not a non-Filipino citizen care less of spending scarce Philippine money to support a comfortable American life in his good, old “land of the free and the home of the brave”?

And just to answer “What’s up dude” to inquiries on his father’s corruption. Such brash arrogance one would expect from someone who do not have to rummage through trash bins in search for food, who do not have to worry about when his next meal would be, who do not have to make the ultimate choice between continuing his studies or finding a job to send younger siblings to school.

I may be harshly judgmental, but these are the days in which we have to talk against those who arrogantly refuse to. The right not to talk, more pretentiously couched in the constitutional “right against self-incrimination”, although a fundamental right of the accused, can be unfavorable to the quest for justice, for the truth. This may be a scathing critique, but it serves them right, the corrupt public officials and their family. When people like them use public funds or take advantage of their public position to the detriment of the people, it now becomes a personal attack against each and every Filipino. Shame on them, shame on them, hiding behind the cloak of a constitutional right twisted for their own ends to conceal their corruption. And no, I’m not hiding behind the cover of a pen name. I am standing up for what I believe in. I do not have to protect my identity because I know I am in the right. I am no coward.

Gen. Garcia and family is just the tip of the iceberg. There may be many others who are worse than them. Would they have the courage to speak up, or would they just invoke the misused “right against self-incrimination”? There may also be others out there who remain steadfast to their duty of serving the country and the Filipino people. I myself had a very high ranking general’s son for a college classmate. His father, at least, is contented in sending his unassuming, hardworking son “only” to a Philippine university. Gen. Garcia’s dude of a son had to be an American citizen, had to live and study abroad.

Whatever happened to the supposed idealism of the youth, the naiveté, the innocence, the principles which would have prepared us youth for the greater challenges in life – that of fighting corruption. I pity the general’s son, who at all of 23 years of age had already been sucked into the dark, dark world of the corrupted. I haven’t yet turned 23 but at least I haven’t yet yielded to corruption.

Corruption is not just in the public service. It is in the everyday life. In the office, it is in the employees’ penchant for non-productive time, chatting with officemates or using the company’s computers for personal use. In school, it is in the lazy students who cheat their way to a passing grade. In the family, it is the spouse’s infidelity, the children’s refusal to make something out of their lives which would be of benefit not just to themselves but also to the whole family. In the roads, it is the Filipino driver’s stubborn disobedience to traffic rules. In lining up for anything, in the grocery, drugstore, the MRT or LRT, the lottery, it is the impatient people’s refusal to start at the end of the line. This is what I fight against every day in the corrupt world, besides our public officers or public employees’ corrupt ways.

If a youth like me can fight against the everyday corruption by being productive every minute in the office, by studying hard in school, by helping to augment the family’s income, by starting to line up at the end of the line, why can’t a privileged kid like the general’s son do just the same in the bigger corruption that is the public service. Why just live a simple life in the US instead of hauling in 100,000 dollars worth of support funds. I shudder at the thought of 23-year-olds already in the thick of things in the corrupt public service. What would become of them, what would become of the rest of the youth who toil day in, day out to be untouched by the corruption, of those of us who adamantly refuse to be enamored of the easy life promised by corruption.

Now I ask my fellow youths out there, “What’s up dude?” Do you have the courage and the will to stand up against corruption? To be the general’s son or not to be one, now that is the question.

Waiting and Forgetting

2004-10-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

I was almost left alone as a child. I was forgotten in one corner. I did not know it then, but it was just the way it was. I was left at school, or shall I say disposed at school, then picked up late in the afternoon. I still remember the times when I was sent to school very early in the morning. I was six years old then, alone in an empty porch, waiting for the school to open. My older siblings went to the university but I was isolated from them in a small school. So there I was alone, no one to talk to, no one to play with.

I remember shuddering at the coldness of the early morning, being awed at the dews on the leaves, feeling the emptiness and the silence. Sometimes, these made me happy – happy because I was alone. Sometimes these made me sad – sad because I was alone. The feeling of being alone was very clear to me then, I was conscious of the fact that I was alone, but I knew that I was not lonely. I would spend the early morning waiting for the assistant to come and open the school. She would arrive an after me. Even when she was already there, I was still left alone for she was busy preparing for the day and we were the only people then.

Before then, I would wait in the empty porch. I remember that I would stand with my hands folded in front of me or clasped behind my back, staring into the dark wooden walls – walls which were both comforting, for they were then only company I’ve got, and oppressing, for they were silent and unable to speak. So was the empty porch.

The only life that I perceived in those moments of waiting were the very few people passing by the school. I would hear their feet shuffling across the dusty and pebbled street, and the occasional vehicles whizzing through the street, their engines roaring aloud, gone as fast as they appear. This little life that I would witness was as busy as the people in the house or at the school, busy with not a moment to spare to glance at this young girl whom they had forgotten in one corner.

All these memories of my waiting in the empty porch are still very vivid to me – the dark early morning sky, the wooden planks of the floor for I formed this habit of looking down, the feeling of uncertainty in being alone, the joyful sound of the door heaving the moment it was opened by the assistant.

There was this one incident, however, which was worse than those moments of endless waiting. It was when my mother forgot to pick me up after school. The school was already closed then. I was alone again in the empty porch, save for my teacher. She should have gone home already, but she waited for somebody to fetch me. I remember the scene very vividly as if it happened just yesterday. I remember the feeling of patient waiting. I wanted the teacher to just go home and leave me alone. That was what I wanted, to be alone. I was already used to the solitary waiting, why add somebody to share my burden or my happiness at being left alone. My teacher, however, insisted to stay. I was disappointed that somebody was there to share my loneliness. I knew what I was to do, that is, wait for my mother to fetch me. She never came. It was already late so my teacher decided to drop me at our house. When we arrived there, I was totally surprised that my mother was there all along, totally forgetting me.

I have no ill feelings about my mother forgetting to fetch me after school. Now I can understand myself better. I do not fear to be alone. I do not fell loneliness at being alone. In school, even in the company of my close friends, there is always the feeling of being left out. But that does not worry me. I find comfort in the silent solitariness.

As I look back, I realize that it was not bad at all. I even find it funny now, of being left alone and forgotten to be fetched. Now I can stand on my own for I had to fend for my own at such an early age. The only drawback I got from the experience is that I often withdraw from people even when they try to reach out to me. I am emotionally detached. I cannot and refuse to reach out to people emotionally.

I guess I still have not left my six-year-old self in that empty porch sixteen years ago. I guess I am still on that moment of finding my mother at the house, forgetting me. A part of me is still preserved frozen in those scenes of waiting and forgetting.

Saudi Sojourn

2004-10-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

Culture Shock. That was what I felt when I first arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for my vacation in the summer of 1998. I just could not help but stare at the Saudi women with my mouth agape. Who would not be when they were all dressed in black from head to toe with every inch of their faces covered in heavy black veil. The only part of their bodies which were exposed to the world were their well-perfumed hands. That is the only flesh one would expect from them, well, at least in the strict capital. The next thing I noticed when I first set foot on Saudi soil (more like Saudi sand), was how vast and cavernous the airport was. It was a fusion of Muslim architecture and modern engineering. It was like any other airport in any First World country. But I bet the Riyadh scenery was much more interesting for it was a microcosm of the kingdom – the modern trappings of an oil-rich country and the hold of the Muslim culture. I was not prepared to see that much progress and social control rolled into one country.

Me, my mom, and my younger brother and sister got to spend two unforgettable summers in the tradition rich kingdom thanks to my dad’s company. My dad was working then in a top position in JGC Saudi Arabia. It was one of his perks that he gets to bring in his family for a few weeks. We stayed in my dad’s apartment in cosmopolitan Al-Khobar, which was adjacent to Dahran and a few miles away from the highly industrialized oil refinery city of Jeddah. We were on the eastern region of Saudi Arabia, which is where most of Saudi’s oil wells are found.

We were also on the coast of the Persian Gulf. My dad regaled us with stories of the war against Iraq in the early 1990s. The Dahran airport was made the headquarters of the “allied forces”. My dad would hear the fighter jets zoom in and out of the Saudi sky. He heard them live while watching CNN broadcast the same jets. One night, he even brought us to the camp site of the “allied forces” which was hit by an Iraqi smart bomb. Many soldiers died there, the most fatal casualty of the “allied forces”. The place was already empty and there were no buildings for blocks around the area.

We only go out in the evenings. The Saudi temperature could rise to more than 50 degrees Celsius in the day. The malls only open at dusk. The parks only get filled with people at night, jogging, taking a leisurely walk, having a picnic. The city seems to wake up only when night sets in. That is when the roads get crammed with Mercedes Benzes, Chevrolet Suburbans, Volvos, BMWs. Of course, we would not see a female driving a car. The clean streets would be packed with pedestrians out and about after taking refuge from the heat of the Saudi sun in their offices or houses.

A stay in a Middle East country would not be complete without hearing the Muslim cleric saying the prayers at prescribed times of the day. The prayers would be broadcasted throughout the city through large loudspeakers. I would even hear them even inside the apartment. The Saudis also have their “religious police” who would roam the malls and other public places to ensure that the prayers are strictly adhered to, that shops close and all life are at a virtual standstill at the sound of the prayers, that women, even the foreigners, wear the traditional abaya, the black head-to-toe dress worn over the clothes.

And boy, there are a lot of Pinoys there. Although a lot of the Filipino workforce is composed of househelp, I can’t help but be proud that at least we are not the janitors there. No Filipino wipes tables in the food court. We are the ones behind the counter, taking the orders, we are the accountants, the engineers, the doctors. I am not discounting the role of the “ordinary” Filipino househelp in the Saudi household. They are also like any other Filipino who venture out of the country to help their families, to send their children or siblings to school, to put food on the table, to ensure a better future for themselves.

With the brain drain phenomenon of the country, perhaps we are losing a lot of good talent to other countries like Saudi Arabia which can afford to pay well our countrymen. When I look at the good roads and infrastructures in Saudi, I cannot help but think that our Filipino engineers helped build them. If we only have the oil resources of Saudi, but then again, nothing would not come out of those resources if there were no people to build those refineries. After all, their oil would last for only a couple of hundred of years. If they have the oil, we have the people, the most important resource that a country can have. And that I think makes and will make a lot of difference.

Last Day of Work

2004-05-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

a letter to my officemates on my last day of work...

i'm gonna miss you all!!! I will miss Basil, my NBA buddy, and our NBA talk (in the language only we can understand). Lisa and her "kwento" on showbiz people and celebrity sightings. i'm gonna miss teasing Millette on her infatuation with that "gay" actor. Joan and her chicken and buttered vegetables. Augie's comings and goings. Cha's banter, her jokes, and even her noise. Chuck, my seatmate, gushing about his fave seiko films (joke!). Janelle's leadership and her being a fitness guru. Carlo's "kakulitan". George's sexiness (hahahaha). me and Ronald's chance meetings at the Podium, inside Megamall, at the MRT station. and the rest of the team whom i may not had the chance to know but still am going to miss. did i forget to mention anyone else? oh, yes, even katiting (hahaha Cha!!).

i'm gonna miss walking in the maze that is Cubao, or more appropirately, rushing through the thick crowds on my way to work/home. my MRT train rides, lining up for the ticket, waiting on the platform for eternity, praying that the next train would be empty, getting shoved, pushed, my shoes stepped on, squezzing myself in that already full-as-a-can-of-sardines train, getting off the train disheveled, dashing from the MRT station to my office through the rocky parking lot. i'm going to miss reporting for work. logging in/out. working on the CBDs, USABids, Intelliquests, MCs. i'm going to miss my sweet Aurelia, my ever reliable computer, even her mood swings when she would just suddenly hang. i'm going to miss having my lunch at the basement's canteen, at the pantry, washing my dishes. gosh, i'm even going to miss the messenger boys, my almost constant "lunchtime companions", their talk on politics, office intrigues, NBA, their life. and of course, the ever attention-grabbing Mr. Loudy.

gosh, i will miss the place, my office. but worse, the people, my offficemates whom i have made friends with. thanks to you all for making my stay here as wonderful as strawberry and cream. but i have to go, and in the words of a friend:

"Minsan, kailangan lang talaga magpaalam... kailangang buksan ang sarili sa pagbabago... kailangan magbitiw nang sa gayon mabuksan ang palad para tumanggap sa mga darating na biyaya!!! Masakit mang isipan na kailangang lumisan, napakatamis din..."

ingats kayo lahat palagi. thanks and GOD bless everyone!!!

Advertisements Gone Bad

2004-05-25T02:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a liquor campaign ad was criticized for its sexually suggestive line "Have you tasted a 14-year old?". It got the people's attention and those in authority were forced to investigate into the matter. Advertisements such as this, which not only offends the sensibilities but also goes against the grain of molding an upright society through the use of censorship, are a bit rampant nowadays sad to say. Just watch the TV commercials. A foreign fastfood establishment tries too hard to be funny to the extent that it promotes the wrong values. Sharing is a value taught right from day one in kindergarten. But then, people go home, turn on the TV, and watch a young man showing around his favorite fastfood sandwich, telling his schoolmates how heavenly it tastes to the point that they virtually water for that wee bit of a sandwich, only to lick the mayo off before offering the contaminated food, or in some versions not sharing it at all after all the PR talk. Is this what advertisement has come down to? The point of the commercial may be that the product is so good that nobody dare share it with anyone else. This is no excuse, however, because the point is lost on the audience. What the audience sees is that young man trying to be funny by being selfish. Sure, the commercial is creative, and even funny if one does not take it too seriously, but it promotes the wrong values. If the fastfood company really wants to get the message across, that their product is that good to the extent that people who buy it would not want to part with it, they should have used another tactic. A more appropriate approach is to show that because the product is so good, people would want to share it with everybody else even for just affirmation that it is good.

Another commercial in the league with the one above is that of the toothpaste roadtrip dudes. In the commercial, the dudes see billboards of a brand of toothpaste which they assume as refreshing in the heat of the desert that they were traveling through. Then they see a gas station cum one stop shop. They proceed immediately to buy the toothpaste they saw on the billboards. Then with the toothpaste in hand, they drive without even getting their gas tank refilled. Is this plain stupidity or is it just that they found the toothpaste to be so good a product as advertised in the billboards that it is the only thing they remembered buying in their stop? Because of their stupidity, they soon find their gas tank empty with no gas station for miles. But miracles of miracles, two pretty girls drive past them and then turn back because of the toothpaste they see on the dudes' dashboard. The ad people's intention may be that the product is that good to make young women turn their car back for stranded dudes who are so taken with the toothpaste ad that they forget to refill their gas tank. But the commercial's underlying message is that stupidity can even be rewarded just as long as one is in possession of something. This is Pinoy mentality at its worst. The stupid and the lazy get rewarded by virtue of what they have and who they know, not by what hard work they did and what they know.

There is also the commercial in which a woman keeps on praising the bargain finds of her friends and then, when they settle down for a bite, promptly promotes her donut by criticizing those of her friends. And the worse thing here is that she tells a man who happens to pass by that his suit looks good on him only to laugh when he turns his back for apparently, she was just having a good time at the expense of the poor man. It would have been better if she just pointed out the man to her friends without calling his attention and just giggle that his suit is second hand only. There is malice here, same as that of the sandwich-waving young man in that fastfood commercial. Where did all the values go?

I can name many other commercials with the same approach as above. Maybe the ad people were running out of ideas, or maybe they just want to be funny. The advertisements or commercials, however, promotes the wrong values. There may have been no intention to do so. But the ad people have a responsibility just the same. They must be more conscientious in their choice of tactics to grab the viewers or audience’s attention. An advertisement is a powerful medium. It influences not only the people’s tastes and preference, but also, in part, the kind of values they have. The ad people are on holy ground. They must tread on it more carefully.

born in the wrong century

2004-05-22T02:13:00.000-07:00

this is in reaction to a friend's post in his blog (http://m35b.blogspot.com). the subject of the blog is "being born in the wrong century".

me, i've always thought i was born in the right century. i mean i can't imagine living in the time of Thomas Hobbes in which life was "brutish and short". though i find the gowns that women wore in previous centuries as cute, i just can't bear life without the modern amenities that 20th-21st century brings us. this may be superficial but you know, this is exactly what people of past centuries longed for - the security and the comforts of life. be grateful that you've been born into this century. man has arrived, in the present century nonetheless. man has achieved what his ancestors can only dream of, and even beyond that. though you would say that our modern inventions that make life easier comes with a price - the greater capacity for self-destruction (the nukes). a favorite prayer of mine comes to mind: "Disturb us Oh Lord... when having fallen in love with time, we have ceased to dream of eternity... and, in our efforts to build the new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to grow dim". how ironic that this prayer's author is (some say) Sir Francis Drake - a man of the Elizabethan age.

Names of Endearment

2004-05-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

my most favorite sibling among eight is my younger brother, Paolo. he is more like my baby brother (though he's only two years younger than me). it's his 20th birthday tomorrow!!! and i'm going to celebrate it by writing something about him. actually, i already have done so, about 6 years ago, in my high school publication. the article was a product of a writing workshop. but it was more like a spur of the moment. it was free-flowing, spontaneous, no conscious structure. i wrote what came into my mind. i titled it in the most fitting way "My Brother, The Chicken Lover" - something which summarized the whole feature on him, him being fond of poultry in his own endearing fashion. you see, we had poultry and even a mini-piggery right in our spacious backyard. i don't know why my mom built a poultry/piggery house in the backyard. maybe for practical reasons. maybe just for kicks. whatever. but we kids learned quite a lot from our "farm". especially my brother (i hope so).

anyway, my brother is the most charming young man in the world. you would not see for a thousand miles another more charming than him. you should see him, my little brother. the article, him being a chicken lover, was lost. and i can't recover the words anymore which an inspired young girl wrote for her brother. i am so fond of this little brother of mine that i have many 'names of endearment' for him - Papanlo among my most favorite. it's a play of his name. but actually, it's what i would call him when we were little kids, mere toddlers, when i could not pronounce his name properly. the next name would be "Kay-kay" or "nagka-kay-kay" (in our native Waray dialect), which means "rummage" in english, rummage through something. you know, i think one of best measures of how much you are close or fond of a person is the 'names of endearment' you have for him/her. the other yardsticks being picking your nose in front of that person or farting or smelling your socks/feet and doing other "disgusting" things openly, without even giving it a thought. i do it most of the time when i'm home, in front of family members. if you're able to do these things without offending the person, then i say that you're deeply attached to him/her. so i guess family members are the only ones qualified here (you won't do it in front of your boy/girlfriend or friends would you?). anyway, whenever i arrive home, i would always say my 'names of endearment' for my loved ones. for Paolo, i would affectionately say when i see him after all the day's work, "Papanlo Nagka-kay-kay", with my stupid smile, and Paolo would respond with his own 'name of endearment' for me with that endearing expression on his face. that is what love is all about. i think that's what family must be. letting your guard down. no pretensions at all.

Leaving for Mindanao

2004-05-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

the die is cast, i'm leaving for Mindanao. the law school thing was just a diversion, to fool everybody into thinking that i'm still sane. but all along, i've been preparing my papers for the NPA and have undergone military training. yes, you read it right. the NPA. the communist vanguard of this damned democratic country. you can't stop me. nobody can. this has always been my dream. to fight alongside my comrades. to hell with law school. there are other things much more important than reading hundreds of pages of cases everyday. to hell with democracy. yes, i'm a full-pledged communist now. namulat na ako. nagising na ako sa katotohanan. mabuhay Joma Sison!! long live Communist Philippines.

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HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!!!!

a close friend of mine fooled us last year's April Fools by texting that she's getting married, saying that she was in love and everything - this before our senior year in college!! we were really fooled. so i wrote this email to my officemates and some friends just last month, on April 1. lucky that i was out for lunch when my officemates read my email message. i gave them a fright. they really believed it. you should have seen their faces when i returned back ;-)

Dilbert's Words of Wisdom

2004-05-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

funny, but insightful nonetheless...

Dilbert's Words of Wisdom

1. I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow is not looking good either.

2. I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.

3. Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.

4. Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.

5. Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If they aren't there the first time, chances are you won't be needing them again.

6. I don't have an attitude problem, you have a perception problem.

7. Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and thought to myself, where the hell is the ceiling?

8. My reality check bounced.

9. On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.

10. I don't suffer from stress. I am a carrier.

11.You are slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter.

12. Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.

13. Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Letters to a Young Poet

2004-05-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

i find this insightful...

"It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being, that is perhaps the most difficult task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, will all their forces, gathered around their solitary,anxious, up-ward beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for along time ahead and far on into life, is--: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished

and still incoherent--?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person, it is a great demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), may use the love that is given to them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough."

--Rainier Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

and may i add... touching... can't describe lang talaga (and expected from someone exposed to Holocaust readings)

"Do not send to know for whom the Bell tolls. It tolls for thee."

For Whom the Bell Tolls
by John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

5 Simple Rules to be Happy

2004-05-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

cool isn't it?

5 Simple Rules to be Happy check list:

1. Free your heart from hatred. x
2. Free your mind from worries. x
3. Live simply. +
4. Give more. +
5. Expect less. +

naah... i'm certainly not the perfectly "happy" person by these standards.

A Life That Matters

2004-05-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

i hope i'm living a life that matters...

Live A Life That Matters

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten,
will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

Author Unknown

The Invitation

2004-05-19T22:19:00.000-07:00

i've heard/read this somewhere before. really, really good. i really hope i am an interesting person to this writer.

The Invitation
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Canadian Teacher, Writer
Author of The Invitation,

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's
longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a
fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring
your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of
your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are
telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."
It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

© 1995 by Oriah House, From "Dreams Of Desire"
Published by Mountain Dreaming
300 Coxwell Avenue, Box 22546, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M4L 2A0

Public Persona

2004-05-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

okay, you may wonder why the Blog? well, it's part of my Public Persona. we all create our own public personas, the image we want to project to the public in general. for me, it's part of the fun and an outlet for frustrations. i'm a deeply private person. ironic, isn't it? publishing my thoughts in a public medium. but who cares. i find more courage revealing the "real" me in a very public medium than say talking it out with somebody. of course, i do this anonymously. of course this is not my real name, just an alias but one which is a bit essential to me. it is the name of my "alternate" ego. why Alix Dep then? well, Alix is the nickname of Alexandra, the last Russian Empress. but the deciding factor why i chose it is that it sounds like my mother's name - Alice. such a beautiful name, Alice is. and Dep is just my initials. so there.

Alix Dep. my way of coping with the frustrations of being DEP. if DEP can't be this and that, then Alix can be much more than this and that. i'm an insecure person. i hate to admit but deep down, i know that i am. thank God for this college professor (one of most fave teachers) saying that "the beautiful are the most insecure in the world". yeah, i guess that qualifies me as belonging to the beautiful. hehehehehehehe.

okay back to the Public Persona thing. i find security in this very public medium coz i can build my wall of privacy in here. this is where i can be "real", where i won't be afraid of letting somebody down, of voicing my opinions, of "sharing" my thoughts, feelings. i have always been alone, at least felt alone. though i've never been alone in my life. it's just that i tend to push people away. my friends, they try to reach out to me but i push them away. it has always been me and me alone. not that i don't want to be loved though. i thank GOD everyday for the gift of family and friends. they are so precious to me, especially my family. you know that i have a big family? thank GOD for that. my home is always in a loud endearingly ruckus way. but you know, sometimes you want to be left alone, to yourself. that's why i'm here now. creating a public persona. carving my own little private space out of the wide expanse that is the public sphere. by going out into the wild i go deeper inside my little cave. into myself. profoundly, i hope.

regarding Miriam

2004-05-12T01:42:00.000-07:00

the following is a reaction to my well-meaning officemates' remarks. this is unedited, spontaneous, free-flowing. apologies to those who may be offended.

regarding Miriam... i really don't know what to say about AR's mom, but if i had only registered for the elections, i would vote for her not because she is the best one out there but more so out of sympathy.she has just lost her youngest son and all that.

of course i don't like it one bit, her campaign ads i mean. i hate to admit it but it appears that she's using AR's death to gain the sympathy of the voters. and i think it has worked (based on the partial results). but what can i say? she has, how should i say it, she has more right to her son's memory than we all have. she is his mother after all. we are just his friends. just his friends. if we feel too great a pain for his death, how much more for the grieving mother?

though we hated every bit of media attention that his death "garnered", what can we do? it is part of his family, the press, media, them being public figures. we must accept it, the whole package. we came short of shouting "leave us alone, leave him alone". we never gave out interviews, and we may never will. the eulogy by two of his closest friends was even initiated by his mother's secretary. there were hesitations at first. too much grief numbs the hand and dries the pen. but we decided that AR must have his eulogy. we convinced and came short of forcing one of his friends to make a euology. do it for AR, for his memory. tell the world how he was when he was still alive and not some fucking newspaper account of him being this and that. and the funeral, the ninth day novena mass in which we had to sit at the back of the church coz the Erap supporters and those damned politicians were seated in front, every bit of media attention we endured. it was part of the package, it was part of him being a son of public figures.

about the foul play, i must say that he had the intention. he had the intention. the signals, the warnings were there for us to see (and for us to remember afterwards). he gave us his desperate message which we damned overlooked. i will not give out the particular details coz i think it is best that they be kept within his circle of friends. he had warned us of his plan, subtly but obvious if we only gave it more thought. he had the intention. that is what we were and are sure of. did he die by his own hands? we will never know. the how and the why, we will never really know. and it is best kept at that.

how did and how do we move on? acceptance. it is the greatest antidote to such grief. acceptance that he is gone, that he is and no longer will be with us. the how almost will not matter anymore. knowing how he died will not bring him back. knowing why and for what he died will give us some semblance of peace, but it will never bring him back. knowing answers to these nagging questions will never bring him back to us. acceptance. he is gone. he no longer will be. that is the reality, the fact.

it was meant to be. that is the general attitude we take. more so to convince ourselves i believe. the pain, grief still "amazes" me even after almost six months. how such comments will bring all the pain back again. we will never get over this i guess. how should i say it, we have been scarred for life that fateful night we all lost our youth, our innocence. he no longer will be. he is gone.

An Introduction

2004-05-11T01:47:00.000-07:00

HI!! I'm Alix Dep, from the Philippines. i just created a blog mainly because i'm full of ideas and there's just no one to talk to, share insights and all, you know talk with sense. i'm excited to join the "blog world". though i don't really agree to the profile-style since it tends to "box in" the person, i guess it's a good and simple way to introduce myself.

okay here's basically my profile:
a big NBA fan - especially the Spurs
a sporsts enthusiast
a Political Science graduate
about to study law this coming school year
working as a "Content Editor" for an outsourcing company

fave books:
the catcher in the rye
the little prince
portrait of the artist as a young man
the portrait of dorian gray
War and Peace
the works of Edgar Allan Poe
the works of Anton Chekov
Animal Farm
Night (Elie Wiesel)
the works of Machiavelli
The Republic
Harry Potter books

fave films:
The Passion of the Christ
Harry Potter movies
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Cinema Paradiso
Taxi Driver

fave music:
rock
alternative
hip-hop
accoustic
classical

fave college courses:
Philosophy
Theology
Political Theory

family:
has four brothers and four sisters
is the seventh child
real family name means "trouble" or "marriage" in Finnish