tugon

sa paglubog ng araw
sa paglamon ng liwanag
sa pagdampi ng hangin ng gabi sa pisngi
sa paginog ng mundo sa walang katapusang ligalig

magsisimula ang panibagong ligaya
magsisimula and panibagong pag-asa

yayakapin ang oras kapiling ka
yayakaping sabay ang panahon magkasama
hanggang sa ang panahon ay maubos
at ang matira ay alala

ngayon... bukas...
hindi na titigil pa

non-believer

There was a time in my life where my being an anti-church made me question the existence of my God. For quite a time, the church has been perverting the teachings of God that the church made me question Christ’s divinity. I have been an atheist for I thought there things in supposed God’s existence which are illogical and has not touched my sense of empiricism.

But later did I learn that atheism occurs because people don’t want the idea that they have something they do not know. Religion and rationality are not parallel and therefore the existence of God can never be attributed to the inquisitive mind and what it knows, rather what the heart feels.

And so, atheism is not for me.

Philosophizing is not for philosophy majors only. If you think I am wrong, then the hell with you, this is what I believe in.

"truth will set you free"

yesterday i thought it would not. i thought i would lose ysiad because i said something that i have done in the past. she almost could not accept it and it frightened me that i would end this emotional joyride the moment i start telling her the truth.

so i found myself catching a bus to nueva ecija this morning

everything has a price to pay. i was about to lose her, and that was not the price i am willing to pay for telling the truth or for what i have done in the past.

"affairs mo yun noon, that doesnt have something to do with me today."

what a relief

and i went home smiling all they way from nueva ecije to manila

truth will indeed set you free

missing my bestfriend

missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend
missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend
missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend
missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend
missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend missing my bestfriend

of losing an election ideally fought

The country cannot afford to have a citizen drowned in hopelessness – Raul Roco

The moment Roco ended up fourth in the 2004 election, he never lost alone. We the youth who have believed in him and volunteered to partake with his mission of nation building, also lost. We have spent two years of our lives trying to help his candidacy the best way we knew how. We have joined aksyon kabataan for the single reason that we knew that it was Raul Roco that this doggone country needs.

But we lost and it felt like seeing all our efforts going down the drain.

We felt so betrayed by our own countrymen, the same people whom Roco trusted to have had the idealism to finally vote for who they see fit to become the country’s president. And with all the hooplas going on in this country, it is clear that indeed, the voters have once again failed the country and ultimately the youth.

One year after we lost, we saw ourselves going back to the same office we have frequented. The MRT ride was all too familiar. The steps we took from Ortigas station up to Emerald Avenue, on the same route that we have took for two years, drowned us in nostalgic ride with memories of our idealism and our burning desire for Roco to win the election.

One year after losing the election we find ourselves staying in the same organization, not because of Raul Roco anymore, but because of the principles and because we have never really lost the idealism that our political gospel have taught us.

Yes, Roco may have lost the election, but we have learned more and we have developed ourselves to become the leader that this country needs. Now the hope of raising this country from the loony bin does not rest on Roco’s shoulders alone but also on ours.

Yes, the country cannot not afford to see its youth being drowned in the in the same pool where our geriatric political clowns are. And we will continue where Roco has left off. He did not lose because he taught us to become like him. And tomorrow we will become the same hope that we wanted for this country.

Somehow, we have to keep on believing that the Filipino people learn. And we have to keep on struggling for a better society. Because if there ain’t going to be any, then who will?

re-discovering happiness

Just when you thought that life has become unfair to you, life comes up with something euphoric, something that will make you sigh and say you were wrong to have thought that it is.

The hours I have spent sitting at their kubo, the times I have spent making isboy a paper plane, the time I shook Mang Fred’s hand, the moment I held her close made me think that no matter how much I revile my existence, my existence will always give me the best that it could. It has always been, only now I appreciate it more.

Thank you ysiad… I will wait

fx ride out of sucat

Not everything in life conforms to what we have thought it would.

I have never loved going to parañaque because it is way too out of my way having been living in the northern part of the metro. Of course, out of necessity and wanting to make someone happy, I sometimes had to oblige myself to rather go.

I have gone there I think for a couple of times only and I have hated going back to Makati on a bus and sometimes narrowly making it for the last trip of the MRT.

And now that it has come to this, the end of our four year friendship, I know that, that was the last of it.

When you bid someone farewell you never expect that that person will be back. You may hope that it would but that hope may sometimes be proven to be futile.

The moment I rode an FX out of parañaque, I knew that that was the last time I have to ride a shuttle from park square and alight at Greenheights, the last time I have to ride my way back to Makati as far as we are concerned.

And so the memories came rushing back; the way we first met, the first things we have talked about, the first idiocy that we have laughed at, etcetera etcetera. I was reminded of all the things that we have done for each other, though it was not that much and great, the things we have cried at and the times we have become each others’ comfort.

I will be a hypocrite to say that it does not hurt. It does. And that ride out of parañaque made me realize that somehow, things have been beautiful in my life.

The past has to be over us. And I know that this has to happen. I have never wanted to end a friendship but am aware that somehow I have to give each other the space to grow, the space to finally heal whatever pain I have caused.

To ka: no more apologies for apologies have become a cliché. Thank you for the friendship that you have shared. Thank you for the memories. No regrets because I know somehow, I became happy. Though I may have my own life now and may have moved on from where we took off I will always see you when I look back from where I will be.

I guess this is the part of the song where I have to sing the last lines. I may have failed to save the friendship but I remain hopeful that someday this friendship will again sing its song

bakit ba sa society na ito lagi nalang nakikita na mali ang mga lalake? madalas nagtatago nalang ang mga babae sa notion ng scoiety that they are the weaker sex to escape condemnation.

they always say that they are wronged because the society thinks that they are the "weaker sex" oh c'mon. look at it this way. i say such notion is a crap no not because women are equally existing in this world but because women uses such notion to have an excuse not to accept that they too were wrong...

just thinking aloud

because im crazy for you! touch me once and you know its true. i never wanted anything like this. its so brand new, you feel it in my kiss. im crazy for you

pwede namang sabihinig galit, bakit kailngan pang magsinungaling?
pwede namang sagutin ako ng "oo! fuck off will you?" bakit kailangan pang manahimik pag tinatanong?
pwede namang sabihing wag na akong magparamdam, bakit kailangang sabihing ayos lang pero cold naman?
pwede namang ako kausapin at komprontahin, bakit kailangan pang ganito?
hindi naman ako tanga para hindi maramdaman to ah.
bakit kailangang bale walain?
nakakainggit
pero sana kinakausap mo ako
kahit panay mura lang ang sinasabi mo
basta sigurado ako sa nararamdaman mo
halata naman eh
wag mo itago
hindi ako tanga
nakakainggit
sana kinakausap mo pa rin ako
sana sinasabi mo ang nasa loob mo
sawa na ako sa ganitong sitwasyon
akala mo ba lagi nalang ako ang mali
hindi sa lahat na oras kailangang tanggapin ko iyon
nakakairita kasi hindi mo naman na-apprecite lahat eh
ngayon alam ko na
masyado lahat mataas ang expectation mo
at hindi mo nagustuhan ang binigay ko
non-sense nanaman ako
leche

tax ng ina

I can’t take it! I made a vow that I will never ever post an entry in my blog regarding politics or anything similar to that matter. But hey she has gone way too much! Who else but our “most excellent” president.

Well I have nothing against her personally, as if we know each other personally hehe, but it irks me to read the broadsheet everyday and see an article about her pushing for the expanded value added tax. I am so against that anti-poor legislative bill!

First, VAT is an indirect tax, meaning the entities that will be charged with this can pass the burden of paying it to the consumers by charging a ten percent increase in their products’ invoice. Meaning, processed milk and other dairy products, wheat products, etcetera etcetera will be costlier. Sure, the increase will be a “meager 50 cents to one peso,” as they say in the government, but they can always tell that to those people who live in the slums, or beneath the Tumana Bridge, or to the grease people I often see along recto. These people don’t have that much 50 cents!

It is easy for them to say that because they are not starving!

Second, her government is planning to lift the VAT exemptions imposed to medical doctors, lawyers, and petroleum and electricity firms. Well they can always charge lawyers, for all I care, but charging medical doctors? Or worst taxing the petroleum and electric industry, she must be so out of her mind!

Once you impose a 12 percent VAT to medical practitioners, logic will dictate that the cost of medical service, which is already costly, will increase further! Same thing goes to the oil and electric industry. Now, she will empower these capitalist crocs to raise their rates further. “My heart is for the poor Filipino people.” Bullshit!

Third, she deems it necessary to have the bill passed because the World Bank and International Monetary Fund say that fiscal reforms are slow moving in this country! Sanamagan!

The reason why left leaning groups are so frantically mad with these organizations is because they dip their fingers indirectly to the internal affairs of our country. And what makes them even madder is that our most prestigious leader seems to have loved kissing the asses of the officers of these organizations. How does it taste maam? You can stick your tongue inside their pie holes for as long as you want for all we care.

Fourth, the problem of fiscal deficit is rooted from insufficient revenue collection, incessant governmental borrowings and seemingly unstoppable series of budget deficits. But the solution is not increasing the tax rates alone! First, the government should learn how to practice austerity and not just say it to paint a goody goody government. The government should streamline the bureaucracy. In this way, the government will lessen the government’s expenditures. Second, the government should reform the BIR! Our tax system is one of the most extensive in Asia, yet we still make do with what we have because the agency who is instituted to collect taxes fails to function satisfactorily. Expanding the VAT will not mean additional revenue if government agencies instituted to collect revenues remain inutile.

Fifth, why does the government always go to simple Juan dela Cruz every time it needs additional revenues? Oh I know, the government is the biggest rotten tomato in this country! The biggest white elephant! The biggest sissy of all! It cannot go against the “big fishes” who have long been evading their tax obligations. O baka naman, “ako bahala kampanya mo, ikaw panalo ikaw bahala tago tax ko?”

I stay optimistic that somehow there’s an end to all of these. But we have to wait for another four years for us to have that reforms and hopefully after that four years we will have a true leader. Because such reforms will never start if you have a leader who only knows how to speak but doesn’t know how to put where her mouth will become productive.

Yeah, continue licking those asses maam, I heard Caucasians’ shits taste a lot different…