Hello cyberworld! :D Obviously, I’ve been too busy in the past year, I haven’t had time to blog. My last post was June 10, 2009, almost one year ago and so many things had happened. Ito na ang linya ko sa tuwing susulat ako sa naging sponsor ko sa scholarship sa undergrad degree ko. Believe me, marami na talagang nangyari.
I had to leave work to pursue graduate studies in UP Diliman. I’m now enrolled in the Master of Library and Information Science program of UP School of Library and Information Studies.
Ngayong full-time student na ulit ako, I have to exercise my brain again, think more and write more. I expect a lot of reading and a lot of thinking about what I’ve read and writing about what I thought. Hopefully, this return to blogging habit will eventually help my studies. Til my next blog! :)
Friday, June 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Dugyot Ba ang Pinoy?
DUGYOTERS. I have previewed and shotlisted one Imbestigador episode that tries to answer this question. Are we really that messy, filthy, foul, polluted and grubby? The episode is quite sure and positive. It answered a big YES. Footages of people throwing away their garbage on road center islands, men peeing on concrete fences, corners. Some even caught defecating on empty lots and dirt sidewalks. I also vividly remember an I-Witness episode exposing the lack of toilets and bathroom facilities in some Filipino homes.
HEARTBREAKERS. It always breaks my heart when I see people in public transport, both young and old, throw their trash on the road. Kids from school throw away food packaging, plastic cups, food sticks out of the jeepney window.
I just thought, how can they do that?! Did they ever thought of the people living in the area where they are throwing their trash? Come to think of it, those garbage would be piling up and clogging the waterways in the area.
Did their mothers and fathers taught them to throw away garbage anywhere? Is it the Filipino mentality that if a lot of people do it, it is considered legal? "Marami namang gumagawa kaya ako din ginagawa ko na rin..." Mag-isip naman sana tayo.
I had enough of the flooding here in Valenzuela and generally in our area here in Camanava. I know you don't want garbage to be thrown in your backyard or smoke to be fumed on your face.
Please help us in cleaning up our world. Please be a responsible citizen. Prove that we Filipinos are not dugyot.
Here are just a few of the countless reminders: (what MMDA might call urbanidad :D):
* When riding in public transport, walking on streets or just waiting for a ride, please do not throw away your litter in trash bins and proper garbage containers. If you can't find one, place it in your bag, in your pocket or just hold on to it. Don't let it get away until you find its proper container.
* Plan your trips, where you will eat and where you can relieve your bladder so you don't have to pee anywhere.
* Segregate and try to save up. Recycle paper and carton boxes. Sell it to Manong Junk Shop. The money may be quite small but it helps to save up in these trying times.
* Teach kids on proper waste disposal. It helps to start young for you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.
It all boils down to discipline, responsibility and accountabilty. Remember that no man is an island and we're living in an open system. Anything that we do affects everyone around us and, ultimately the entire planet.
HEARTBREAKERS. It always breaks my heart when I see people in public transport, both young and old, throw their trash on the road. Kids from school throw away food packaging, plastic cups, food sticks out of the jeepney window.
I just thought, how can they do that?! Did they ever thought of the people living in the area where they are throwing their trash? Come to think of it, those garbage would be piling up and clogging the waterways in the area.
Did their mothers and fathers taught them to throw away garbage anywhere? Is it the Filipino mentality that if a lot of people do it, it is considered legal? "Marami namang gumagawa kaya ako din ginagawa ko na rin..." Mag-isip naman sana tayo.
I had enough of the flooding here in Valenzuela and generally in our area here in Camanava. I know you don't want garbage to be thrown in your backyard or smoke to be fumed on your face.
Please help us in cleaning up our world. Please be a responsible citizen. Prove that we Filipinos are not dugyot.
Here are just a few of the countless reminders: (what MMDA might call urbanidad :D):
* When riding in public transport, walking on streets or just waiting for a ride, please do not throw away your litter in trash bins and proper garbage containers. If you can't find one, place it in your bag, in your pocket or just hold on to it. Don't let it get away until you find its proper container.
* Plan your trips, where you will eat and where you can relieve your bladder so you don't have to pee anywhere.
* Segregate and try to save up. Recycle paper and carton boxes. Sell it to Manong Junk Shop. The money may be quite small but it helps to save up in these trying times.
* Teach kids on proper waste disposal. It helps to start young for you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.
It all boils down to discipline, responsibility and accountabilty. Remember that no man is an island and we're living in an open system. Anything that we do affects everyone around us and, ultimately the entire planet.
A Note to Irresponsible Smokers
June 9, 2009. On my way to work, I boarded an ordinary bus bound south. I sat near the end, right beside the window to catch a glimpse of the train construction on EDSA. I was enjoying the music fed through my ears but I noticed that there was a familiar scent but quite odd in that place on the road. I surely know it wasn't the fumes from a smoke-belching diesel engine nor the dusty musk of EDSA traffic.
I turned to my back, saw a man looking out of the window and realized what the whiff was. Yeah, friends, he was smoking inside the bus right beside the window. I tried to restlessly look back to him, like saying "Manong, pwedeng paki-patay na yan..." When the wind blew towards us, I can smell the fumes of his yosi. Well, the manong didn't quite understand my message for maybe he was quite occupied with other things or just enjoying the ride and the ciggy.
June 10, 2009. I was on my way home past 12MN from work. Waiting inside the jeep bound to our town proper, I was quietly sitting on the innermost part of the jeep, right behind the front passenger area. Quite tired and exhausted from the eight-hour duty, I needed some breathing space to relax and hopefully end my day peacefully.
But one of my life's horrors came and sat down on the front passenger seat. A teenager, maybe a high schooler's age, was trying to finish fuming on the jeep to secure a seat. She, and not a he, finished up the cigar with me coughing up on her fumes.
In that same jeepney, another passenger was smoking, maybe to pass time waiting for the jeep to go. After finishing his yosi, he just threw away the cigarrette butt outside the jeep entrance onto the murky puddle on the road.
All these things reflect a majority of Filipino smokers. Smoking in public transport shows lack of etiquette and respect towards other passengers. Studies have shown that passive smoking, or inhaling secondhand smoke is more dangerous compared to active smoking. A non-smoker inhaling cigarette smoke may increase the risks of having lung cancer by 20-30% (http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Second-hand+smoking). Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines (FCAP) also noted that around 75,000 Filipinos die of smoking-related ailments such as pulmonary and heart diseases.
Throwing away cigarette butts anywhere is also dangerous to our health and to our environment. EcoWaste Coalition, an environmental group notes that discarded cigarette butts are "the most littered toxic waste in the country". Though small and sometimes unnoticeable, these are non-biodegradable waste and it would take up to 25 years to break these waste down. (Lopez). Elsie Brandes-de Veyra highlights “Butts may look small but with the Filipinos’ addiction to cigarette and tobacco and the quantity of carelessly thrown butts in the environment, these items can pose real toxic threats to humans and wildlife.”
Our health officials has reminded us of cleaning-up our areas to prevent the spread of dengue fever. As I remember, one health official even noted that a single candy wrapper with stagnant water can be a breeding place for mosquitos. The cigarette butt's just the same as the candy wrapper. These waste may be small but when millions of road users throw such waste around the Metro, piles of cigarette butts and candy wrappers may pose threatening environmental misfortunes.
I don't want to preach something here. I just hope that smokers may be responsible enough to throw away their butts on proper bins and cans. I also wish that they would think not only of their own health but of other's healths and Mother Earth's fitness as well.
References:
I turned to my back, saw a man looking out of the window and realized what the whiff was. Yeah, friends, he was smoking inside the bus right beside the window. I tried to restlessly look back to him, like saying "Manong, pwedeng paki-patay na yan..." When the wind blew towards us, I can smell the fumes of his yosi. Well, the manong didn't quite understand my message for maybe he was quite occupied with other things or just enjoying the ride and the ciggy.
June 10, 2009. I was on my way home past 12MN from work. Waiting inside the jeep bound to our town proper, I was quietly sitting on the innermost part of the jeep, right behind the front passenger area. Quite tired and exhausted from the eight-hour duty, I needed some breathing space to relax and hopefully end my day peacefully.
But one of my life's horrors came and sat down on the front passenger seat. A teenager, maybe a high schooler's age, was trying to finish fuming on the jeep to secure a seat. She, and not a he, finished up the cigar with me coughing up on her fumes.
In that same jeepney, another passenger was smoking, maybe to pass time waiting for the jeep to go. After finishing his yosi, he just threw away the cigarrette butt outside the jeep entrance onto the murky puddle on the road.
All these things reflect a majority of Filipino smokers. Smoking in public transport shows lack of etiquette and respect towards other passengers. Studies have shown that passive smoking, or inhaling secondhand smoke is more dangerous compared to active smoking. A non-smoker inhaling cigarette smoke may increase the risks of having lung cancer by 20-30% (http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Second-hand+smoking). Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines (FCAP) also noted that around 75,000 Filipinos die of smoking-related ailments such as pulmonary and heart diseases.
Throwing away cigarette butts anywhere is also dangerous to our health and to our environment. EcoWaste Coalition, an environmental group notes that discarded cigarette butts are "the most littered toxic waste in the country". Though small and sometimes unnoticeable, these are non-biodegradable waste and it would take up to 25 years to break these waste down. (Lopez). Elsie Brandes-de Veyra highlights “Butts may look small but with the Filipinos’ addiction to cigarette and tobacco and the quantity of carelessly thrown butts in the environment, these items can pose real toxic threats to humans and wildlife.”
Our health officials has reminded us of cleaning-up our areas to prevent the spread of dengue fever. As I remember, one health official even noted that a single candy wrapper with stagnant water can be a breeding place for mosquitos. The cigarette butt's just the same as the candy wrapper. These waste may be small but when millions of road users throw such waste around the Metro, piles of cigarette butts and candy wrappers may pose threatening environmental misfortunes.
I don't want to preach something here. I just hope that smokers may be responsible enough to throw away their butts on proper bins and cans. I also wish that they would think not only of their own health but of other's healths and Mother Earth's fitness as well.
References:
- Lopez, Allison. "Cigarette butts deadly to environment". Philippine Daily Inquirer. ttp://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20080306-123214/Cigarette-butts-deadly-to-environment. First Posted 22:11:00 03/06/2008. Accessed: June 10, 2009.
- "Second Hand Smoking". The Free Dictionary. http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Second-hand+smoking. Accessed: June 10, 2009.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Lola Letty's Heartwarming Letter
One of our elderly members in church, around 75-80 years of age, asked me a favor to encode and print-out her poetic autobiography written just recently. She did not gave me a deadline so I just left the manuscript in my file tray, planning to work on it some other time.Weeks passed and I somewhat forgot about it until news came in that she will be leaving soon. On Good Friday, I immediately rushed to encode the manuscript to produce a more-than-ten-page document showing her masterpiece. I had it enclosed in a brown envelope and sent to her residence for she missed some Sundays in church. I know I had been a blessing to her just as I was blessed and challenged by what she wrote in her poem. I didn’t charge any amount for this typing job for I learned so much and related her experiences to my own.
After a few Sundays, I was heartened and humbled by her appreciation of what I have done. Calling me by my childhood petname, Elay, her observations of me seem very colorful, vivid, elaborate and detailed. Here’s what the letter says:
Dear Bro. Elay,
Just like Elijah, the biblical prophet, you are always “on the lead.”
1.) A topnotcher in a board examination;
2.) A famous and seemingly dramatic church leader in song and prayer;
3.) young, good-looking, multi-talented, very likeable, possesed of a distinct cheerful disposition; and above all
4.) an undeniably credible and dedicated born-again Christian.
Actually, you have an edge over the original Elijah. Why? Well - unlike him who was a loner, you are gregarious and surely find pleasure in working with others. Consequently, you are loved by everybody.
Dear Elay, thank you for spending much time and effort in producing an excellent masterpiece out of my simple poem (with accurate typing and masked artistry). Kahanga-hanga! At hindi ko rin matatawaran ang iyong pagiging galante. Isipin mong lahat iyon ay libre?
Thank you very, very much. Rest assured that I shall always cherish the memory of this deed of yours, as long as I live.
Most sincerely,
Sis. Lety (Lola)
PS: Now - please allow me to express my own interpretation of the meaning of your name:
E - Energetic
L - Loyal
I - Ingenuous
J - Joyful
A - Attentive
H - Hospitable
And much, much more.
Honestly, I run short of words to describe your wonderful person. Tunay naman, kahanga-hanga ka. How lucky your parents and sister are. Alam mo, masuerte rin ang magiging life partner mo; kids, too.
Thanks again. May God bless you always.
Ako pa rin.
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