Dangerous liaisons: Probing the forbidden

I met Mary at a convention somewhere in the Visayas last year. She works in an advertising firm in Makati.

At first glance, one would see her as a rotten spoiled kid, the type that ruins your day. She gives you the impression that you are boring – no matter who you are.

One night, she barged into my hotel room and borrowed my laptop. She didn't give any explanation. She said she needed to get online. Pronto. She needed to catch someone, she said.

How does one say no to somebody like Mary?

Well, I didn't. I reluctantly, and sort of sarcastically, handed out to her my computer commenting about the weather and the convention in between her somewhat "weird" liaison with that other person in cyberspace.

A few minutes later, she was crying. I'm not talking here about minor drops – but major sobs. I had to get her a glass of water. After a few minutes that seemed to take forever, she went out embarrassed, I think, at her little theatrics.

I've heard Mary laughing about her clumsiness, telling stories about how she forgot to pay her food in a restaurant, of how she would stumble into anything and everything, and break glasses on a dining table.

So it wasn't very surprising that she left her "precious" correspondence in all its naked glory. It was all there waiting to be read. This, I thought, was classic Mary. Apparently, she was having some sort of cyber–relationship with someone.

The last mail was titled "if only" and the guy, Mark, was enumerating things he wanted to do if only things were "different." Sort of mushy, but sounded very real.

I'm not into poking my nose into other people's lives. But the idea of writing about a cyber–affair came up, and Mary and Mark, I thought, were the perfect subjects.

In a situation where everything seems to have no tomorrow, nothing worse could probably turn up for these two. Mark is married and has a child. He finds fulfillment in a work that brings him thousands of miles away from home.

On the other hand, there's Mary. She too is married and has a child.

When this assignment came up, I asked Mary if it was OK if I wrote her story. At first she didn't want any part of it. in the end, however, she agreed and wrote it herself for me.

Here's Mary's story.

* * *

My life is too complicated for games. And I am too complex a person to be just looking for an easy lay.

He's not some movie protagonist. And neither is he a romance novel hero. But that's the point. Mark is not perfect. He's flawed and there's something very human and very endearing about that.

It was purely my being a klutz that led me to him.

An organization where he belongs had this elaborate fund–raising activity. And what do you know, I lost my cellular phone somewhere during the fund–raising lunch. It turned out Mark got it.

I knew up front his "personal circumstances." His profile, along with several other "top guys" of the organization, was in the program for the fund–raising.

My circumstances came out during coffee when I claimed my phone.

I dare not say that was the "start." There was nothing – as in nothing – to begin with. There was no prelude to greatness whatsoever, no fireworks, no bells ringing when I first saw him.

All I knew was that there was me and Mark, and coffee, and cigarettes, great conversation, greater arguments, no put–ons.

The possibility of a relationship was inconceivable. We merely exchanged cards and wished each other good luck.

Two days after, Mark came up to me in my office and asked if I had plans for the night. I nearly fainted. I didn't know if that was relief or fright. Here, finally, was that person who had been pestering me during my waking hours, sort of asking me out. Sort of because he had the perfect excuse to seek company: He had to buy something.

It was a fascinating time we had. It was like being a kid again in a huge playground where you had giant Lego blocks scattered all around you.

Then he took me out to dinner. I don't really know how he did it, but we had that whole huge place for ourselves.

The food was great but I wasn't able to enjoy it. My emotions were interfering with my digestive tract and I had to throw up. It's some sort of psychosomatic manifestation of my weirdness: OVERJOYED = THROW–UP.

I had to explain somehow and I told him that something had been keeping me awake until dawn for the past two days. I told him that somebody might be thinking of me too much that I couldn't sleep.

I downplayed my own emotions for him and said it was just this schoolgirl crush that I thought he was my intellectual hero but it was all very harmless.

Mark blushed as he struggled to explain to me that he might be guilty for my sleepless nights. He was not able to eat. He said he also had this psychosomatic reaction whenever he was overjoyed, that he couldn't eat.

So I sat there worrying about two things. First, that we were spoiling expensive food. Second, I must get Mark to assure me that I'd get a good night's sleep that evening because I terribly needed to rest.

The next time we met, Mark brought me to a place where you could just hang out and stargaze. He pointed out the stars. I came very near saying: "Mark, do you know why there are only those small stars? Because somebody came ahead of you and took the Milky Way from the sky and gave it to me."

Nothing was happening on the physical level. We barely held hands. But elsewhere, something cool and nice and chaotic was going on and both of us were just trying to conceal it, if not quash it.

My brain was rejecting the notion that this thing with Mark was one of those illicit affairs you read in crummy paperbacks.

I couldn't be having that. It was breaking the Ten Commandments and too dangerous. It would ruin us both – our families, our careers, our lives.

The worse case scenario I could think of was of him being rubbed out. Either that or we would become fugitives and get hunted down like rats. My child's future would be jeopardized. I couldn't allow that to happen.

* * *

Globalization brought about increased mobility to Filipino family members. It also brought about expanded means of choices, including choices of partners.

Humanities Prof. Felice Yeban of the Philippine Normal University said because of globalization one "millennial disease" that threatens family life is boredom.

"Unlike before when individuals are rooted in their communities, people these days are being uprooted physically as well as psychologically," Yeban said.

She said unlike before when friends and lovers promise each other to live and die together, the "value of staying in one place" is gone.

"Marriage has to strengthen itself to face the psychological impact of being mobile," Yeban said, adding that it is the tendency of people these days to have more affairs because of mobility.

Prof. Caroline De Leon of Mirriam College, however, said it is normal for married people to get attracted to others. "You can't help that," she said.

De Leon, who heads the Department of Family Psychology and Education in the Catholic school, said extramarital affairs could happen.

"But it's what you do about it that matters," she said. "You get married because you love each other and you promised to love each other for life. That's why the word commitment should have some meaning."

She added that "impulse control" is important.

"I can't imagine what would happen to society if people have just affairs right and left," she said. "What happens to the kids? It would create a deep impact on children and their concept of what love is, what fidelity is and what real love is."

* * *

Jenny is 24 years old, single and is in love with Lito, 30, a married man. I met Jenny in one coffee shop. She was crying while writing a letter to her lover.

The night before, Ana, the man's wife, had found Jenny's picture in Lito's wallet. Lito admitted that Jenny was his other woman and that he was in love with her.

Jenny told me her story as she drowned her feelings over cups of unsweetened coffee and several sticks of cigarettes one rainy evening.

After she finished her letter, she showed it to me.

* * *

"In Philippine society, it seems that extramarital affairs are quite acceptable," De Leon said. "It's quite fashionable. It's not something to hide anymore. Maybe it's because society has become quite tolerant of everything. But I don't know if it is a good sign or not. People are more open regarding that."

The psychology professor reminds couples to remember their marriage vows. "Getting married is not something that is 'chow–and-chew'," she said. It is really something that you think about and deliberate on before getting a partner for life.

"But still, it can happen and it's a question of living up to one's commitment," De Leon said, adding that social acceptability is not a license to justify the seriousness of the issue.

* * *

Here is Jenny's last letter to Lito. After more than a month, it remains unsent.

Dear Lito,

As of this writing, I still could not believe this is happening. Although I prayed for that day to arrive before (so I could recover as early), I never wished it would be this soon.

I was not prepared for this sudden parting. I still see us together or at least trying to be together for some more months and even years, just as you have told me.

I wish to stop the time while you were thanking me for everything, while you were telling me you love me and that you'll never forget me.

Those were words that are supposed to flatter me but it made me sad. Tears drowned my face as I read between the lines that you were telling me goodbye.

I am still crying. I guess I have not stopped since that early Tuesday evening. I instantly went back to sullen mornings and sleepless, weeping nights.

It's been two weeks now but I have not wholly accepted that our days are gone. My mind somehow understands it but my heart violently refuses to conceive it. I wished these were all just dreams.

Everything came so fast. Only days before that fatal Tuesday, we were happily together. We had lunch at that special place.

You must agree that the ********* is the place we could virtually call our own. We both know that nothing can ever replace it. Not even the posh and expensive fine dining restaurants anywhere in the world.

You know what? I even plan to buy it when the right time comes just to save our memories.

What makes it more special is the ********* being right within that extra special place where we always spend our time – talking, walking, laughing, and crying for the kind of fate we have.

Although we knew from the start that ours is really a sad story, we usually would laugh about it for we seldom think we are hapless.

To know how much we feel for each other is enough to forget the grim reality that we could never be what we wanted us to be – we could never be together for long. You could never be mine and I could never be yours in this lifetime.

Perhaps, I came much too late or maybe you went too ahead of me in everything. I may have been too slow in finding you or you have not waited enough to find me.

Then here we are consoling ourselves that maybe we were not really meant to be together at all, though we both know our hearts do not believe it.

The sadness that's swallowing me now is graver than when I lost a relative. I don't feel that I lost somebody but I lost an essential part of me.

We died somehow. And we could not do anything to revive or at least prolong our last breath to be able to hold each other, be with each other, and share ourselves with each other longer.

It is as if we had a cardiac arrest with half our bodies alive and dead. Well, we must really try to live half of our lives to be able to see each other again and eventually reactivate the other half. Who knows? Maybe when that time comes, we could already call it our own.

I have worn my heart out on my sleeves twice before but I am wearing it now around my finger so you could see it clearly and touch it. I think you have touched it several times and even kissed it. I would never forget that.

If you were a chapter of my book, I would not want to close it. You are the chapter where I want to be stuck a little longer, if not forever. I guess it would take so much of me to turn the pages and move on.

But then maybe, that's what I should do. So I could go fast to that time where we could finally be together. I strongly feel that it would come.

Yet I assure you I would always look back to these pages with incessant excitement, with the same vigor, and smile on my face.

Don't worry I would take good care of myself just as you want me to. Just the same, I would never ever forget you and I thank you for the love and concern.

I know you tried to make things easier for us, only that we could not always have things our own way. And if only we could, I am sure you have done whatever it takes to make me happy.

This might be the last letter. But I hope that my way of letting you know about the passion I have for you would not stop here. You must constantly feel it in your heart until we see each other again.

In between now and that moment, I guess I would just have to get my hope, strength and smile from the tapes, books and shirts you left with me.

I love you,

Jenny

* * *

The acquisition of values begins at home, in the family, said psychologist De Leon. The changing and shifting values in the new millennium could be a factor that would make people want to have affairs, she said.

"I believe children who are brought up in some solid traditional values, which are family–oriented would think twice before going into affairs," De Leon said.

* * *

I asked Mary over the Internet what happened to her and Mark. This is what she wrote:

"I struggled to say the words to Mark that I had to go. And it hit me like lightning that this has to be goodbye.

"Inside, I was wishing I could come up with something. Like, probably promise him forever. But I can't. I already did that, and with someone else, just as he probably had, and with someone else, too.

"We held hands. We were happy and he said it might be the best time to go.

"For all its glories and pains, it's enough most of the time that you know you're not suffering alone.

"I don't know about those problematic love affairs immortalized in print and in movies. But whenever I feel I'm dying to hold him or something, I know he's dying along with me.

"Now he's gone."

- This article first appeared in a slightly different version in the Philippine Post sometime in 2000. This edition appeared on GMANews.TV's Valentine's Special this year.

Shopping in KL

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon in Kuala Lumpur when I decided to leave my hotel room and see the city. I was staying a few steps from the famous Petronas Tower, so there was no need for me to discover the place where most tourists and expat workers congregate especially on a Sunday afternoon.

I hailed a cab and asked to be brought to the nearest place where computers, ipods and other gadgets are supposed to be sold cheap. After about ten minutes and ten ringgits later, I closed the door of the cab under a light shower outside a not-so-imposing building.

From the ground floor up I saw the latest original and “hybrid” gadgets – from notebook computers, ipods, accessories, and other equipment only techie guys would enjoy.

I was surprised by the very low prices. Very low indeed that I bought two new Asus Eee PC computers and an 8G Nikon Coolpix camera for the price of a brand new Eee PC in Manila. If only I could walk my way back to the airport I would have bought the 160G external hard drive that was offered to me by a Chinese vendor for only P1,800.

A layman on economics, I wondered why computers and gadgets are priced much cheaper in neighboring countries. Why can't we have it here cheap too? There might be something wrong with how we do business.

Eee PC

I'm writing this from my new Asus Eee PC to familiarize myself with its miniature keyboard.

I bought this gadget because I found it cheap in Malaysia. I got it for only about P8,000 in an IT mall in Singapore while it's being sold here in Manila from P16,000 to P19,000.

This very basic computer is ideal for journalists, as if it's really designed for our needs. It's small that it can be inserted between the pages of a Time or Newsweek magazine. It can connect to the Internet as long as there's a Wifi signal or a LAN connection.

The downside is it's too small that one has to get the hang of it to be able to type faster. Of course it's better than using one's cell fone to file stories.

This is a test entry.

Mornings

I've always loved mornings. The problem is I am just too tired to wake up early to welcome the rising sun and wave goodbye to the morning star's fading light.

These past weeks, however, I've witnessed several sunrises during my trips to some parts of the country - while driving a car, while walking in the middle of the field or while washing my face near a well.

How I wish I could share those beautiful sights with someone who wakes up early and walks with me to the middle of the field to recite a poem or just murmur a short prayer of thanks. I did it once, somewhere in Central Luzon, and regretted it years later. My friend took the magic of the morning from me.

Seeing the sun rise - when dawn breaks and darkness turns to light after passing through what seem to be millions of stages of colorful variations - I realized that the sunrise - the bukangliwayway - is still there for my taking. I only have to wake up early. No friend or fiend can steal it from me.

And yes, I was able to write again after seeing a very beautiful sunrise Monday morning. I wrote it on the spot on my new Moleskine notebook (feeling like Hemingway, ha!). I even wrote something for my friend:

Like a pool
of water
on an empty
parking lot
your stillness
makes the engine
of my old car
roar like thunder

And this one's for my friend:

will there still be
color on the horizon
when you wake up
and remember me

Pa-cute moment

Photo by Trina

A New Year's reflection

From my friend and brother, Fr. James Castro, CMF

As we begin the year 2008, we honor Mary, the Mother of God. We begin this New Year with new hopes, new life, and new dreams.

Mary carried into our world the true Hope of our life, the giver of Life, and the fulfillment of every dream - Jesus Christ our Lord. Her simple and generous Yes to God made all the difference.

The gospel today presents Mary to us as a model of that new life in Christ that all of us wish for ourselves in the New Year. There we see that Mary was prepared to do something to realize this goal.

What did she do? We read that the shepherds, when they went to adore the Child Jesus in the manger, told all that the angels had said to them. "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19).

Again after the boy Jesus was found in the Temple, we are told that "His mother treasured all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51).

Mary was a woman who valued the word of God, who treasured it and made time to meditate and ponder it. It is true that the holiness of Mary is attributed to the grace of God, but this should not make us forget that she needed to make an effort in order to cooperate with the grace of God.

She pondered the word of God in order to discern what God was saying to her at every stage in her life as the handmaid of God.

We are invited today to stop and listen to God. He talks to us everyday, every moment of our life but at times we are so busy to listen to Him or even to take
time to talk with Him. The new hopes, new lives and new dreams will only come true if we learn to listen to God and ponder His Words in our life. Just like Mary let say Yes to God and make a difference in our World.

Happy New Year to all of you!

New things on the Web

I've been trying several new things on the Web these past days.

I've got already a Facebook account. (I'm still wondering what's so exciting about throwing a sheep at Raffy, hehehe.)

I've accounts in Multiply, MySpace, Classmate Finder, WAYN, etc. Unfortunately I already forgot all my account numbers and passwords.

Still there's the reliable Friendster and my several blog sites that are updated from time to time.

I just opened a twitter account and am still trying to find ways to make use of it in my work. (I've already thought of one, but am not revealing it here, hehehe.)

Recommended reading

Look for a copy of Boying Pimentel's "Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street" at National Bookstore or Powerbooks.

It's a good read and a good tour of the other San Francisco, where Filipino migrants make their lives colorful.

Enter the hearts and minds of Filipino migrants in the United States and experience their joys and sorrows in Boying's first novel.

Satisfaction guaranteed.

Cold mornings

The weather bureau is saying that a tail-end of a cold front is affecting the country.

I don't know if it has an influence on the cold mornings I've been experiencing.

Got to get up early today for work, but it was a struggle to get up and take a bath.

The cold morning was made worse with that early morning feeling of missing/remembering people whose images surfaced in one's dreams during the night.

Some things just refuse to leave one's life despite the many books one read through the night.

Among my "Best Reads" in 2007 (not in order of importance) are:

- Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark
- The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
- Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

What I'm reading:

- Children of Jihad by Jared Cohen
- The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
- The Elements of Journalism (Updated Edition) by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
- Journalism 2.0

A good year to all of us! Mabuhay!

Most of Metro Manila welcomed the new year in darkness after lights went off minutes before midnight in several areas of the national capital.

There was supposed to be an emergency power interruption, a recorded message on Meralco's hotline said.

I went down the office minutes after the clock struck 12 to start my car and went around the vicinity of the office. The streets were deserted - Timog Avenue, Quezon Avenue, Scout Esguerra St., East Avenue, the Elliptical Circle.

The restaurants, beer gardens, karaoke bars, and the other establishments were closed. Smoke from firecrackers blanketed the city. I imagined people sitting around the table, sharing food and exchanging gifts and greetings.

I wish to thank all those who sent messages to greet a happy new year. Thank you. Thank you to all of you for the support, especially in our fight for press freedom in the country.

The year 2007 has been good to me. Please join me in praying for a good year this 2008. May our tribe increase! Mabuhay!

Happy New Year!

What am I doing in the office in the middle of the night, when the old year ends and the world welcomes the new one.

Police officers, medical workers and journalists are here to make sure people are safe and informed when all else seems to break lose in the middle of all the merriment.

Happy New Year to one and all!

Moleskine

I got my first Moleskine (VAN GOGH MEMO—POCKETS: 6 cardboard and cloth pockets to hold tickets, documents, memories) from Inday last Christmas.

When I read the history of the notebook, I thought of giving myself a gift like the ones on the left.

The one on top is Pablo Picasso's Notebook No. 53 (June-September 1912, 9 x 13.5 cm kept in the Musée National Picasso of Paris), while the second one is the sketchbook of Vincent van Gogh (1888–1890) kept in the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam.

MOLESKINE IS THE LEGENDARY NOTEBOOK, USED BY EUROPEAN ARTISTS AND THINKERS FOR THE PAST TWO CENTURIES, FROM VAN GOGH TO PICASSO, FROM ERNEST HEMINGWAY TO BRUCE CHATWIN.

This trusty, pocket-size travel companion held sketches,
notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into
famous images or pages of beloved books.

Originally produced by small French bookbinders who
supplied the Parisian stationery shops frequented by the
international avant-garde, by the end of the twentieth
century the Moleskine notebook was no longer available.
In 1986, the last manufacturer of Moleskine, a family
operation in Tours, closed its shutters forever.

“Le vrai Moleskine n’est plus” were the lapidary words
of the owner of the stationery shop in Rue de l’Ancienne
Comédie where Chatwin stocked up on the notebooks.
The English writer had ordered a hundred of them before
leaving for Australia: he bought up all the Moleskine
that he could find, but they were not enough.

In 1998, a small Milanese publisher brought Moleskine
back again. As the self-effacing keeper of an extraordinary
tradition, Moleskine once again began to travel the globe.
To capture reality on the move, pin down details, impress
upon paper unique aspects of experience: Moleskine
is a reservoir of ideas and feelings, a battery that stores
discoveries and perceptions, and whose energy can be
tapped over time.

The legendary black notebook is once again being passed
from one pocket to the next; with its various different page
styles it accompanies the creative professions and the
imagination of our time. The adventure of Moleskine
continues, and its still-blank pages will tell the rest.

Christmas lanterns in our hearts

The time to recycle those dusty capiz lanterns is here. The time to remember the dead is over. It's that time of year again to celebrate life. For many, it's that time of year to forget the challenges that we encounter daily the rest of the year.

The first surprise of the season came on Halloween. My Sri Lankan roommate two decades ago arrived in the country for a visit. We last saw each other when his hair was still black and when I still weighed 110 lbs. It has been a long time indeed.

The two hours we shared anecdotes about our life were not enough. It was not even enough to finish the mud pie at the newly opened Bubba Gump restaurant at Trinoma. We still remember those days when the only place we could go to on weekends was SM North Edsa.

Rohan lived in a remote village in Sri Lanka, “where there was no chapel, no convent, no place to stay,” after his ordination to the priesthood in 1992. There were no regrets, however, he said.

I believe him. There was still that glow in his eyes, a look that one can only find in a child’s innocent stare or in a holy man’s gaze that penetrates one’s soul, a look that I might once had when I still went to mass daily and wore a sotana on Sundays.

Rohan brought me a shirt – a gift from his country. The best gift, however, was the slap on the back that I used to hate when we were still together almost 20 years ago. I still hate it when he does it. I still have to punch him, as I used to do, to get even.

One thing I realized was we didn’t even talk that much as we shared a dinner of shrimps. There seems to be no need for talk, for stories. It seems we’ve never really parted ways. It seems only yesterday when we last teased each other about the future. We didn’t know then what would happen to us. We still don’t know now what awaits us.

We went our separate ways many years ago as we did after a dinner of shrimps and after posing for pictures outside the restaurant and in front of a man-made spring inside the Trinoma several days ago. We will go and live our separate lives. We will pursue whatever dreams we have. One thing that’s certain though is that we will continue to be brothers. And it’s always Christmas when we meet.

There might be no need to recycle old capiz lanterns anymore to remember Christmas. The thought of a brother that never forgets, a loved one that remains true to oneself, even a dream that never fades, are lanterns that live in one’s heart, where Christmas is always celebrated every day of the year.

Headless white ladies in haunted dorms, elevators

“It is when pain is almost unendurable that I remember what my mother instilled in me: a belief not so much in ghosts but in the limitlessness of love. And then I know how love releases hope, how hope transforms the unknowable, the intangible into something you can grasp and hold close to your heart.” – Amy Tan

It seems to take forever for the elevator to go down. You glance around the mirrored walls and realize that you are not alone. You thought it was only your reflection. The tingling sensation, an icy breath on the back of your neck, travels down your spine as the headless woman in a long white gown grabs your throat. You have no time to scream.

It’s that time of year again when tales of headless white ladies in empty elevators and darkened corridors, of strange smells and of hallow voices, creep into our dreams in the dead of night. It’s the time of year when ghost stories capture our imagination, if not our lives. It’s the time of year when fact competes with fiction on the front pages of national dailies, in radio programs and television shows.

It’s the time of year when we defy the economic and social divide to enjoy the richness of our culture, our tradition and beliefs, many of which were handed to us by our dear departed great, great grandparents. It’s the time of year when we relive our childhood to enjoy a good old tale.

In the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, ghost stories are not just tales. Students, guards and residents all claim to have at least one creepy encounter with the “other kind.” People in this leading intellectual hive easily point to buildings and sites where beautiful white ladies fly and headless priests reveal themselves.

“It’s real. We even watch ghosts play the piano at the College of Music,” said a security guard who refused to be named. He claimed to have seen “apparitions” in other buildings and dormitories.

“I haven’t seen one. But I acknowledge their presence,” said a head of one dormitory for ladies. She said she heard “strange incidents” happening in the campus, but she refused to investigate its veracity.

University campuses have become a favorite source of reports of ghost sightings and apparitions. A lot of stories involve stressed-out students who ended their lives. In one university, a ghost of a student, who supposedly killed herself during the exam week, can be heard sobbing. She has been “spotted” peering from a dormitory window, pleading for help from passersby.

Seeking revenge

If some ghosts just want to have fun, the spirits who supposedly dwell at the old Film Center in Manila want justice from the Marcoses.

“They really want justice from the family of the Marcoses,” Jocelyn Buenafe, a teacher and real-life Filipino ghostbuster, told reporters a few years ago. Buenafe and some 40 members of a group that calls itself Questors held a seance in the deserted building to contact the spirits of workers who died there in an accident in 1981.

A still undetermined number of workers died when scaffolding came crashing down on November 17 that year while work was being done to complete the building in time for the Manila International Film Festival, a pet project of then first lady Imelda Marcos. Several bodies were not recovered. The bodies were simply entombed in cement and work on the building continued.

The Questors attempted to contact the dead to give the spirits some peace, for them to move on “to a higher level.” One of the group’s objectives is to teach the ghosts forgiveness. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have came back from the dead to say if they have finally forgiven the Marcoses.

Are ghosts for real?

People believe in physics or mathematics because proof exists, but in parapsychology, a field that studies things beyond the common experiences of people, evidence is less tangible, so people tend to refuse to believe. Those who believe are thought to have a very particular strong faith.

The experts in the field of parapsychology are scientists who have made a career out of studying abnormal things or strange occurrences, things that cannot be explained in the normal way.

One of these experts in the Philippines is Jaime Licauco. He believes that there already exists a consciousness around the globe of the “Spirit World.” He said: “In every turn of a millennium there is always a surge of spiritualization to prepare for the next generation and for the coming change.”

Licauco claimed that there are evidence to prove the existence of ghosts. There are even countries that have developed machines to detect ghosts, he said.

Ghosts vs apparitions

Javier Martin, an American author, wrote that ghosts and apparitions are not the same. He said apparitions have a much broader definition and application than ghosts.

Ghosts are strictly defined as “visual apparitions of a deceased human being and the term implies that this is the spirit of the person it represents,” while an apparition refers to anything that appears, especially something startling. “It is an aspect of the individual’s existence that survives bodily death.”

All apparitions don’t take the form of visual images. They can manifest themselves as animals and inanimate objects like voices, sounds, even smells. But the most common apparitions are ghosts, that is, human apparitions, Martin wrote.

The belief that identifies an apparition with the spirit of the creature it represents is directly traceable to the ancient and still prevalent doctrine of animism. Animism is the belief that “natural objects and phenomena possess souls or consciousness.”

Primitive man believed that when a man is asleep or in a trance, his soul is temporarily absent. A man’s death is explained by its total absence. The apparition of a deceased person would imply the continuance of the soul’s existence beyond the grave.

In his paper titled “Are Ghosts for Real?” Martin said the custom of closing the eyes of the dead is said to have arisen out of the fear that the ghost would find its way home again.

Among primitive races, the survivors do not mention the names of the departed. Any among them with the same name changes it for another because the name of the person appears to be related to the soul, wrote Martin.

Church view

“Spiritism” is the name properly given to the belief that living beings can and do communicate with the spirits of the departed, and to the various practices by which such communication is attempted.

The Catholic Encyclopedia warns that “spiritism” should be carefully distinguished from “spiritualism,” the philosophical doctrine which holds, in general, that there is a spiritual order of beings no less real than the material and, in particular, that the soul of man is a spiritual substance.

As “spiritism” in the ancient times has been closely allied with the practices of “animal magnetism” and hypnotism, these phenomena have been treated under the same general heading in the discussions of Catholic theologians and in the decisions of the ecclesiastical authority.

The Congregation of the Inquisition on June 25, 1840, decreed: “Where all error, sorcery, and invocation of the demon, implicit or explicit, is excluded, the mere use of physical means which are otherwise lawful, is not morally forbidden, provided it does not aim at unlawful or evil results.

"But the application of purely physical principles and means to things or effects that are really supernatural, in order to explain these on physical grounds, is nothing else than unlawful and heretical deception.”

This decision was reiterated on July 28, 1847, and a further decree was issued on July 30, 1856, which, after mentioning discourses about religion, evocation of departed spirits and “other superstitious practices” of spiritism, exhorts the bishops to put forth every effort for the suppression of these abuses “in order that the flock of the Lord may be protected against the enemy, the deposit of faith safeguarded, and the faithful preserved from moral corruption.”

Detecting ghosts

In modern times machines have supposedly been developed to detect or contact ghosts. People who are “gifted” with the “third eye” can see ghosts. The third eye is supposedly identified with a small gland in the center of the brain which is the seat of human intuition.

There are academic theories of what ghosts (if they indeed exist) are. Some people believe that ghosts are the residual energy left behind by an emotionally strong person or event. This theory holds that more energy/electrical impulses are expended during periods of high stress or excitement, and that the energy lingers for a long time.

Freud thought that ghosts are actually the visions of people who are afraid of death. In this sense, ghosts would not be real at all but rather a projection of our subconscious mind.

Some people maintain the theory that ghosts are telepathic images, that is, a sensitive person would pick up past vibrations from the area they were in and witness an event or person as it appeared many years ago.

They believe that the telepathic images theory would also explain instances when a person sees a loved one at or near the moment of his or her death because the loved one could be unconsciously projecting his or her thoughts to a receptive person.

Ghosts might also be the result of time slips, if time is nonlinear. An event that happened in the past might be seen briefly in our time because of a fluctuation in time or space.

Bestselling author Amy Tan, however, puts her belief in ghosts this way: “Like many people, I have had times in my life when I desperately wanted to see once again a friend or family member who had passed from life too soon and gone to that favorite spot in the sky. At those moments, I have had to trust that our existence doesn’t end with the last breath and heartbeat.

"What are ghosts if not the hope that love continues beyond our ordinary senses? What is the supernatural if not the irrefutable proof that suffering is not meaningless, that luck, both bad and good, occurs for a reason?”

The Nobel season and more

It's the season of the Nobel prizes.

Doris Lessing was unexpected. I haven't even read a single book of hers.

Al Gore's win was timely. Other than Greenpeace and the hundreds of environment groups, nobody seems to articulate the need to save the world more than Gore.

If only the "mechanism design theory" of Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson would save me from debts, then they deserve the Nobel prize in economics. Who knows?

Then there's Gerhard Ertl of Germany. How could one spend one's life studying chemical processes on solid surfaces. His research supposedly advanced the understanding of why the ozone layer is thinning.

Albert Fert and Peter Gruenberg discovered a physical effect that led to sensitive tools for reading the information stored on hard disks. That sensitivity lets the electronics industry use smaller and smaller disks.

Thanks, Albert, Pete. I still dream of having a 10 gig flash drive.

Then there's Mario R. Capecchi, Oliver Smithies and Sir Martin J. Evans who won the 2007 Nobel in medicine for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technique for manipulating mouse genes.

Does a mouse have a soul? Oh, well...

What led me to write this entry was Capecchi's story. Do you know that this year's Nobel winner for medicine started as a homeless Italian street kid who never took a bath from when he was four years old until he was nine?

Here's Mario's story from wikipedia:

Mario Capecchi was born in the Italian city of Verona in 1937 to Luciano Capecchi, an Italian airman who would be later reported as missing in action while manning an anti-aircraft gun in Libya, and Lucy Ramberg, an American-born daughter of Impressionist painter Lucy Dodd Ramberg and German archaeologist Walter Ramberg.

During World War II, his mother was sent to the Dachau concentration camp as punishment for pamphleteering and belonging to an anti-Fascist group. Prior to her arrest, she had already made contingency plans by selling her belongings and giving the proceeds to an agricultural family near Bolzano to provide housing for her son. However, after one year, the money had been completely depleted and the family was unable to care for him.

The four-and-a-half year old was left to fend for himself on the streets of northern Italy for the next four years, living in various orphanages and roving through towns with other groups of homeless children.

He almost died of malnutrition. His mother, meanwhile, had been freed from Dachau due to the arrival of the United States military and she began a year-long search for her son. She finally found him in a hospital bed in Reggio Emilia, ill with a fever and subsisting on a daily bowl of chicory coffee and bread crust. She took him to Rome, where he had his first bath in six years.

In 1946 his uncle, Edward Ramberg, an American physicist at RCA, sent his mother money to return to the United States. He and his mother moved to Pennsylvania to live at a Quaker commune called Bryn Gweled, which had been co-founded by his uncle. (Capecchi's other maternal uncle, Walter Ramberg, was also an American physicist who served as the tenth president of the Society for Experimental Stress Analysis. He graduated from George School, a Quaker boarding school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1956.

Mario Capecchi received his B.S. in chemistry and physics in 1961 from Antioch College in Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in biophysics in 1967 from Harvard University with a doctoral thesis under the tutelage of James D. Watson. Capecchi was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University from 1967 to 1969. In 1969 he became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Harvard School of Medicine. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1971. In 1973 he joined the faculty at the University of Utah. Since 1988 Capecchi has also been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has taught for Duke University's Program in Genetics and Genomics.

PS:

Congratulations to Claire Sy-Delfin, winner of this year's Global Media Awards for 2007, Individual Reporting Category, for her story published on GMANews.TV titled "The forbidden games children play."

Claire will receive her award in Washington DC during the first week of December. Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" won as best documentary in the same Awards last year. Congrats, day. I'm proud of you! Pasalamat ka kay gi-edit nako, ha,ha, ha, ha.

Ang aking 'frat'

Sayang na buhay.

'Yan ang pumasok sa isipan ko habang pinanood ko ang kwento ni Howie Severino sa i-witness.

Tulad sa maraming tao na hindi sumali sa fraternity noong kabataan, naitanong ko kung bakit naisip nila, sa mura nilang edad, na pumasok sa fraternity.

May fraternity sa bayan ko noong bata pa ako. Saksi ako sa kanilang pagpapaluan sa tabing dagat sa dilim ng gabi tuwing meron silang initiation. Marami silang mga pagsubok na dapat lampasan upang mapasali sa samahan. Marami sa kanila ang mga maykaya sa buhay. Marami sa kanila ang may bisyo dahil may pambili sila ng pambisyo, tulad ng alak at marijuana.

Niyaya nila ako noon na sumali. Umayaw ako.

Naisip ko noon, sapat na ang sapok ng tatay ko sa akin tuwing 'di ko mapakain ang alaga naming baboy, o maipastol ang alagang kambing at baka. Sapat na ang palo sa puwet kapag di ako magising ng madaling araw upang mag-igib ng tubig, maghanap ng panggatong at kumuha ng kangkong sa parang.

Bakit ko pa papahirapan ang sarili sa 'di pagtulog ng maaga upang makipagpaluan lamang o makipag-inuman o makipag-hithitan sa dalampasigan. E lagi naman akong nasa tabing-dagat tuwing gabi upang "manahid" para may pang-ulam na "kuyom" at isda sa umaga.

Kaya 'di ako naging miembro ng frat.

Hindi naman pwedeng sabihing duwag kaming mga hindi frat member sa bayan namin dahil mga frat members ang pumupunta sa lugar namin upang humingi ng pabor o magpaalam na dumaan sa nag-iisang lansangan papasok at papalabas sa aming bayan. Baka kasi mapag-tripan namin sila at ulanin ng bala ng tirador o putik kapag di magpaalam na dumaan. Nalaman ko kinalaunan na mas naging notorious pa pala ang lugar namin na pugad ng mga "sira ulo" noong wala na ako.

Ang pamilya ko - mga kapatid (ang kapatid kong babae ang pinakasiga sa amin), mga pinsan at mga kapitbahay sa baryo - ang naging frat ko. Napatunayan namin ang samahan na walang iwanan mula bata pa kami hanggang ngayon na may edad na. Napatutunayan namin ito kapag may namamatay sa amin, kapag may kinakaharap kaming problema, kapag may selebrasyon, kapag kailangan naming magkaisa, kapag kailangan naming maglasing, magsaya o di kaya lumuha. Wala kaming atrasan, sa pagtakas man sa mga kalokohan o pagharap sa mga dapat paninindigan.

Nang mapunta ako sa Maynila, naging subsob ako sa pag-aaral at sa pagtingala at pagtunganga, kaya di ko na naisip na sumali pa sa frat. Ang mga kaklase ko at mga kasamahang kong mga probinsyano rin ang naging mga ka-brod.

Siempre may nangumbinse sa amin na sumali sa frat para magkatulungan daw sa pag-aaral o magkaroon ng kontak sa trabaho kung papalarin man. Subalit, ewan ko ba. Wala kaming pakialam noon. Ayaw naman namin ng mataas na grado. Ayaw din naming sumikat. Gusto lang namin noon may rali lagi para walang pasok o kaya tatakas kami papuntang Quiapo para manood ng mga babaeng hubo sa Gala at Center theaters.

Mahigit 30 kaming magbabarkada at magkakasama araw at gabi. Pinaka-hazing namin ang mga nakakaasar naming mga teacher na maraming iniutos na gawin. Sa awa ng Diyos, matapos ang apat na taon, wala pang sampu kaming nakatapos at umakyat sa bundok at namuhay sa gitna ng hirap sa bukid sa loob ng isang taon.

Yon ang pinaka-bonding namin. Magkasama kaming namumutol ng puno para sa aming kubo, nagtatanim sa palayan, nag-aaral, nagdadasal, nagtuturo sa mga bata, matatanda, magsasaka, mangngisda at pinagtatawanan pa namin ang kasamang magsasabi na galing siya sa Kilometer 20 at kailangan niyang magpahinga ng maaga dahil may lakad pa siya kinabukasan sa Kilometro 30. As in, lakad yan ha, hindi uso ang sasakyan sa gubat.

Pito ang nag-survive matapos ang isang taon at nagpatuloy sa pag-aaral ng apat pang taon upang maging misyonero. Sa kalauna'y may isang natira. Tuwang-tuwang kaming lahat at panay "congratulations" ang aming ipinaabot sa tanging "nagwagi" sa amin at naging "successful," ika nga. Lalo kaming natuwa nang malaman namin na nasa isang liblib na baryo na siya ng Colombia, tumutulong sa mga "hampas-lupang" 'di naman namin kilala.

Swerteng buhay. Mabuti na lang 'di kami nagpaluan noong aming kabataan.

'La lang

Ang daming nakakalito sa bayan ko.

Na-convict ng plunder ang dating pangulong si Estrada. Kumbaga, napatunayan na nagnakaw siya. Pero sa lahat na magnanakaw, siya lang ang hindi sinungaling. Not guilty kasi siya sa kasong perjury.

Magulo, no?

May explanation ang mga abogado, pero ang hirap ipaintindi sa mga tao.

Ngayon naman, may imbestigasyon sa Senado tungkol sa sinasabing maanomalyang National Broadband deal. Sabit daw ang ilang matataas na opisyal ng gobyerno sa kontrata (wala daw kontrata o) sa kompanyang ZTE.

Ay, ang daming kailangang intindihin. Ano ba yang broadband? Ano ba ang kanilang mga kanta? Hehehe. Ano naman, aber, ang ibig sabihin ng ZTE.

Hirap ng walang magawa dahil hilo sa kakainom ng kape at kakayosi. Parang dinuduyan ang utak mo ng love songs ni Jose Mari Chan habang pinagtatawanan ng isang kaibigan.

'Di mo malaman kung baduy ka talaga o napag-tripan lang ng kaibigan. Nakakalito. Buhay nga naman.

Sa kabilang banda, salamat sa kape at yosi, kusang nahihilo ka na lang at di na makapag-isip kung ano ang dapat iisipin. Kaya heto, para may magawa, magsusulat ng blog entry habang umaalingawngaw ang boses ni Senadora Madrigal na pilit igisa ang DOTC secretary na si Leandro Mendoza.

Wow, OK sa tripping.

Ang aming kabataan

Got this in my e-mail. I'm posting it here with comments dahil hindi applicable sa bayan namin ang ilan sa mga entries.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1950's, 60's and 70's !

First, some of us survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. (sioktong ang inumin)

Hindi umiinom nanay ko (paminsan-minsan lang kung may matamis na tuba sa umaga pagkababa ng manananggot sa sanggutan sa likod ng kubo namin). Hindi rin siya nagyoyosi.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, fish from a can (brand :ligo ) , and didn't get tested for diabetes.

'Di ako nakakita ng blue cheese sa bayan namin, o kahit anumang cheese noong bata pa ako. Ang aspirin ay ipinapainum sa amin kapag may lagnat kami. Di pa uso yata noon ang dengue. Tama, may Ligo sardines na noon pero nakakain lang kami kapag may special occassion, pangsahog sa Udong na noodles.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints, pati na yung laruang kabayu-kabayuhan.

Wala kaming crib at kabayu-kabayuan e.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, no kneepads, sometimes wala ngang preno yung bisikleta.

Wala nga kaming medicine e. Meron kaming altar, nandon lahat kasama na ang orchid na ang tawag ay pangadlaw na nakababad sa tubig - gamot sa lahat na sakit.

Yup, may bike kami, walang brake.

As children, we would ride in car with no seat belts or air bags – hanggang ngayon naman, di ba ? (jeep )

Walang kotse sa bayan namin noong bata pa ako.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. (maykaya kayo pare !)

Nakikisakay kami sa truck (wala ring pick-up sa bayan ko).

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle (minsan straight from the faucet)

Wala kaming garden hose, pero umiinom kami ng tubig mula sa balon o kaya sa water pump, walang faucet sa bayan ko noon.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. Or contacted hepatitis.

Tama, lagi akong nakikiinom kasi wala akong pambili ng softdrink.

We ate rice with tinunaw na purico (dahil ubos na ang star margarine) , nutribuns na galing kay macoy and drank sopdrinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight kasi nga .....

Yong kanin sinasabawan namin ng kape na gawa sa singangag na mais at binubudburan namin ng asin o kaya asukal. Ang purico pang-prito lang. May nutribun na noon at napakabango nito, inspirasyon namin noon na pumasok.

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. Sarap mag patintero, tumbang preso , habulan taguan….

Hindi talaga kami umuuwi hanggang di masigawan ng nanay. Uuwi lang kami kung sobrang dilim na dahil nakakatakot tumawid sa niyugan at sa pilapilan.

No one was able to reach us all day (di uso ang celfon , walang beepers). And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our trolleys or slides out of scraps and then ride down the street, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

Wala kaming trolley. Tumatalon-talon lang kami sa umpok ng mga dayami at doon na rin kami nagi-slide. Marami-rami pa rin akong remembrance sa mga sugat na nakuha ko sa kasasakay ng bike na walang brake.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms....... ...WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents . The only rubbing we get is from our friends with the words…..masakit ba ? pero pag galit yung kalaro mo,,,,ang sasabihin sa iyo…..beh buti nga !

We play in the dirt , wash our hands a little and ate with our barehands…we were not afraid of getting worms in our stomachs.

We have to live with homemade guns – gawa sa kahoy, tinali ng rubberband , sumpit , tirador at kung ano ano pa na puedeng makasakit…..pero walang nagrereklamo.

May baril-barilan din kami na gawa sa "palwa" sa saging.

made up games with sticks (syatong) and cans (tumbang preso) and although we were told it would happen, wala naman tayong binulag o napatay….paminsan minsan may nabubukulan.

We r ode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Sigaw o sipol lang kami. Minsan pag trip talaga, binabato namin ang bahay, hahaha.

Mini basketball teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Walang sumasama ang loob.

Basebal ang uso sa amin noong panahon ko.

Ang magulang ay nandoon lang para tignan kung ayos lang ang bata….hindi para makialam.

This generation of ours has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and managers ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

call for blood donation

Just got this text message:

Nino Coronel's daughter batu in icu. fresh type A+ blood needed asap for the platelets. Pls. contact Heart Center rm 336 and donate. the situation is critical. Nino is Miriam and Sheila coronel's brother.

Books and music

I only got three books from this year's National Book Fair last Saturday.

I bought the latest edition of Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" from PowerBooks although I haven't finished reading the book's "Release 2.0."

Now I'm in Chapter 2 of "Release 3.0."

I also got a discounted copy of John Grisham's "The Innocent Man," which I haven't read although I know a friend of mine has a hardbound copy since last year.

Thanks to Father Toots of the Carmelites, I got my "review copy" of "Fired from Within," a book that tackles the "spirituality of the social movement." (I'm excited to immediately plunge myself into reading it.)

I missed a lot of things (and people) in this year's fair. As expected, the big book shops and publishing houses dominated the five-day event. There were few giveaways. Time and NewsWeek were not even distributing free copies this year. (At least when I was there on Saturday.)

A lecture on the writings of Virgilio Almario was still "standing room only." I had to stay outside the door of the lecture room to listen to snippets of wisdom from the speakers. Rio Alma of course was there later in the afternoon to speak before the students who were brought (by the busloads) by their teachers.

There were no more familiar faces unlike before. I saw a party-list representative, a political opposition spokesman, one or two young writers, and hundreds of children and students, some wearing their school uniform, ushered by their teachers.

I missed the freebies, the small publishing houses offering cheap, sometimes second-hand books, friends and colleagues who used to congregate at the fair during its weekend run.

On Sunday, I dropped by my favorite mall on the corner of EDSA and North Avenue in Quezon City. I chanced upon Jose Marie Chan who was on a rare mall tour for his latest album (the first in six years) "Love Letters and Other Souvenirs."

I had to buy the CD for a seat to listen to the songwriter/singer of "Christmas in Our Hearts," a song that became my favorite since I first heard it the first time several years ago. The CD of the song is one of the best Christmas gifts of all time I got. (Baduy na kung baduy, a dear friend gave it to me last Christmas.)