published 8 Sept 2008. MST
Nowadays, 32-year-old Tummy Gabasa walks around with a slight bulge over her heart. Doctors at the Makati Medical Center last month inserted what they called the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator into her system, a rechargeable device that works like a pacemaker and is on constant standby to revive her heart should it all of a sudden beat irregularly, or altogether stop.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy -- just another one of those multi-syllabic medical terms -- was how her doctors called her condition. She was diagnosed with it when she was barely 13, after she had already lost her mother and an older sister to the same ailment. Essentially, this meant that her heart was growing bigger. Since it’s a family affair, she lost a brother, and yet another sister, in succeeding years.
Tummy and I were part of a group of scrawny fourteen-year-olds whose idea of happiness was to sit on the grass of our high school in the late afternoon, munch on sour cream-flavored popcorn and revel at the mystery of the individual futures that awaited us. There were just too many possibilities. What course would I end up taking? What university would I get into? What would be my husband's name? How many children would I have? What would be my life work? Tummy was of the opinion that everything had been pre-designed and that living was a matter of accepting what was meant for you -- and believing there was a reason for it.
In our junior year in high school, as if the threat carried by her heart condition were not enough, Tummy figured in an LPG tank explosion in her house. The sight of her helplessness was revolting. I remember visiting her every Saturday morning at Capitol Medical Center and thinking that these things should be happening to the many bad people out there. Not to the promising student leader and perennial optimist that my friend was.
But Tummy was Tummy -- she recovered, caught up with her lessons, and in our graduation rites the following year became the recipient of the Alfonso Yuchengco Foundation Award for Excellence in Leadership. She was an officer of the student council and was active in the community organizing prayer groups for teenagers.
She tried hard to lead a normal life. After high school, she enrolled in a behavioral science course at St. Paul's College Manila. Then she shifted to dentistry at Centro Escolar University because becoming a dentist was the closest she could ever get to putting on a white suit. Her dream was to become a doctor, but she knew she could not sustain the pressure, the late nights and the stress that came with pursuing a medical degree.
But she was not able to finish college. In the late 1990s, her condition had become more precarious. Her remaining older sister, spared from the disease that has downed their family, had increasingly become more protective of her. In May 2002, Tummy had her first stroke. The second stroke came in November of that year. There was a long interval – and then the third attack happened just this July. She was confined to the intensive care unit for several days. Her doctors told her the device should be plugged in – or else.
The AICD prolongs the patient's life but does not address nor cure the basic problem. Tummy, however, remains irrepressible. She jokes that more than not having the opportunity to get a career, she has not been able to get a love life. Her heart problems started early, to be sure, but they have always been purely literal.
In the meantime, her sister has asked me to help organize a fund-raising activity among our batch mates in the RVM-run Our Lady of Grace Academy (now St. Mary’s Academy of Caloocan City.) The medical expenses have caused the family to be in debt. I thought a reunion would be the best venue for the cause. But in the last month or so, I have had a difficult time dealing with our former classmates as a group. I realized this was the stage they were building careers and establishing families. As a result, we have had to settle for individual inquiries, messages, and, yes, contributions.
The outpouring of support, albeit individually, was good. It is in causes like this that technology is put to good use. Spreading the word among our contemporaries, anywhere they may be in the world, has become easier.
As for Tummy, she says that her main challenge is adjusting to sporting the AICD that does not even permit her to get anywhere near a cell phone or any other device that may interfere with the signals of the device. When she texts her friends or writes a blog entry, she dictates it to a cousin who in turn executes the posting. Tummy wonders whether she can ever feel whole and normal again. There are a lot of things she wishes she could still do. In her younger days, she was often running around campus involved in one activity or another. As a student leader, she used to plan and organize programs and make sure they are done. She dealt with administrators, teachers, religious leaders, students and parents alike. Being the center of attention – pampered, even, or assisted by others to do the most basic of tasks like walking to the bathroom or changing her clothes -- does not come naturally to Tummy.
And yet my friend maintains, as she always has, that she is meant to shine – and give glory to her Maker -- in this manner.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
It's in the genes (conclusion)
published 1 September 2008, MST
I have talked about the more popular applications of DNA technology in the last two weeks. Analyzing a person’s deoxyribonucleic acid profile, which is uniquely his unless he has an identical twin, is most commonly used in the determination of paternity and the investigation of criminal cases, usually rape.
There is another application, and it involves the task of determining the identity of victims of tragedies in the event that conventional methods like recognition of facial features, identification of clothes and accessories, the approximation of height and even comparison with dental records may be insufficient.
Recall for instance the fire that razed the Asociacion de Damas Filipinas, a social welfare institution located in Paco, Manila, in the early morning hours of Dec. 3, 1998. Twenty-three were reported dead, all of them children, ranging in age from 6 months to 8 years. Among the dead, only one was identified by kin using conventional methods. The rest of the casualties were buried, only to be exhumed about three months later for identification purposes.
A team of Filipino scientists (Gayvelline Calacal, Frederick Delfin, Michelle Music Tan, Lutz Roewer, Danilo Magtanong, Myra Lara, Raquel Fortun and Maria Corazon de Ungria) worked on the remains of 21 of the victims. They documented their efforts and, much later, in September 2005, published an article in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. The combination of conventional techniques and autosomal and Y-chromosomal Short Tandem Repeat methods of DNA analysis helped identify 18 of the 21 bodies exhumed.
The victims were mostly orphans and children of single parents. While the loss was overwhelming for the children’s relatives and the personnel of the Damas, the identification provided some closure—and a bit of consolation.
Fast forward to June 2008, when more than 700 passengers of Sulpicio Lines’ m/v Princess of the Stars perished after the ship sailed into Typhoon Frank, battled huge waves, and capsized. After the initial chaos and the knee-jerk finger-pointing among many different agencies and the passenger line, local scientists offered their expertise to help identify the bodies that had been washed ashore or remained trapped in the ship.
Alas, the collected samples were shipped to Sarajevo, where the DNA profiling was done by the International Commission on Missing Persons, upon coordination with the Interpol and our National Bureau of Investigation. Interpol is reported to have spent $700,000 already trying to identify the remains of no less than 312 of the sunken ship’s passengers.
The help extended by these institutions is to be thankful for. But the head of the DNA Analysis Laboratory of the National Science Research Institute of the University of the Philippines, Maria Corazon de Ungria, PhD, takes exception to this decision to “export the dead” when in fact the technology that can establish the identities of the victims is available here. Is this indicative of the level of our officials’ level of appreciation—regard, even—of local expertise?
***
Day in and day out, academics do what they do best: Conduct studies, read volumes of literature, analyze data, and try to make sense of their findings. These experts, with credentials that could land them jobs at the most prestigious international organizations (and with attractive compensation packages, too, no doubt), however choose to stick it out in the country in the hope of making a difference here. They hope that their studies would serve as empirical bases for policy decisions that would eventually transform society. Or nudge it to the right direction, at least.
Actually, De Ungria thinks there should be a stronger and more defined partnership among the academe (for the expertise), the private sector (for its generosity and flexibility) and the government (for its network and structure). This ideal system would definitely work well for the campaign she has waged so that advances in DNA technology right within Philippine territory can be made known to as many people as possible. As I have been attempting to illustrate in the past weeks, the technology is a powerful tool for closure and for justice.
Via e-mail, De Ungria shares some of her ideas at generating public awareness of the use and of the availability of DNA technology. She is of the belief that this should be done at the local level. On one hand, direct stakeholders on the government’s side must be made aware of both the possibilities and the limitations of gene typing. On the other, community participation must also be encouraged.
By direct stakeholders, De Ungria means law enforcement personnel which must be trained in the collection and handling of DNA evidence, and who must coordinate with Women’s Desks and Child Protection Units of each city or municipality. She means local health care providers who have to be educated on the methods of collecting samples and who should stock up on rape investigation kits (I talked about these last week.) She means court personnel, lawyers and judges who have to be briefed on the relevance of the Rules on DNA Evidence released by the Supreme Court just last October. Finally, she also means educators who should impress upon their students the importance of such advances.
But scientists—thinkers like De Ungria—can only do as much. Her proposed solutions and the thousands of equally good ideas from other enlightened minds will remain as mere good intentions unless decision makers muster enough will to make things happen.
I have talked about the more popular applications of DNA technology in the last two weeks. Analyzing a person’s deoxyribonucleic acid profile, which is uniquely his unless he has an identical twin, is most commonly used in the determination of paternity and the investigation of criminal cases, usually rape.
There is another application, and it involves the task of determining the identity of victims of tragedies in the event that conventional methods like recognition of facial features, identification of clothes and accessories, the approximation of height and even comparison with dental records may be insufficient.
Recall for instance the fire that razed the Asociacion de Damas Filipinas, a social welfare institution located in Paco, Manila, in the early morning hours of Dec. 3, 1998. Twenty-three were reported dead, all of them children, ranging in age from 6 months to 8 years. Among the dead, only one was identified by kin using conventional methods. The rest of the casualties were buried, only to be exhumed about three months later for identification purposes.
A team of Filipino scientists (Gayvelline Calacal, Frederick Delfin, Michelle Music Tan, Lutz Roewer, Danilo Magtanong, Myra Lara, Raquel Fortun and Maria Corazon de Ungria) worked on the remains of 21 of the victims. They documented their efforts and, much later, in September 2005, published an article in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. The combination of conventional techniques and autosomal and Y-chromosomal Short Tandem Repeat methods of DNA analysis helped identify 18 of the 21 bodies exhumed.
The victims were mostly orphans and children of single parents. While the loss was overwhelming for the children’s relatives and the personnel of the Damas, the identification provided some closure—and a bit of consolation.
Fast forward to June 2008, when more than 700 passengers of Sulpicio Lines’ m/v Princess of the Stars perished after the ship sailed into Typhoon Frank, battled huge waves, and capsized. After the initial chaos and the knee-jerk finger-pointing among many different agencies and the passenger line, local scientists offered their expertise to help identify the bodies that had been washed ashore or remained trapped in the ship.
Alas, the collected samples were shipped to Sarajevo, where the DNA profiling was done by the International Commission on Missing Persons, upon coordination with the Interpol and our National Bureau of Investigation. Interpol is reported to have spent $700,000 already trying to identify the remains of no less than 312 of the sunken ship’s passengers.
The help extended by these institutions is to be thankful for. But the head of the DNA Analysis Laboratory of the National Science Research Institute of the University of the Philippines, Maria Corazon de Ungria, PhD, takes exception to this decision to “export the dead” when in fact the technology that can establish the identities of the victims is available here. Is this indicative of the level of our officials’ level of appreciation—regard, even—of local expertise?
***
Day in and day out, academics do what they do best: Conduct studies, read volumes of literature, analyze data, and try to make sense of their findings. These experts, with credentials that could land them jobs at the most prestigious international organizations (and with attractive compensation packages, too, no doubt), however choose to stick it out in the country in the hope of making a difference here. They hope that their studies would serve as empirical bases for policy decisions that would eventually transform society. Or nudge it to the right direction, at least.
Actually, De Ungria thinks there should be a stronger and more defined partnership among the academe (for the expertise), the private sector (for its generosity and flexibility) and the government (for its network and structure). This ideal system would definitely work well for the campaign she has waged so that advances in DNA technology right within Philippine territory can be made known to as many people as possible. As I have been attempting to illustrate in the past weeks, the technology is a powerful tool for closure and for justice.
Via e-mail, De Ungria shares some of her ideas at generating public awareness of the use and of the availability of DNA technology. She is of the belief that this should be done at the local level. On one hand, direct stakeholders on the government’s side must be made aware of both the possibilities and the limitations of gene typing. On the other, community participation must also be encouraged.
By direct stakeholders, De Ungria means law enforcement personnel which must be trained in the collection and handling of DNA evidence, and who must coordinate with Women’s Desks and Child Protection Units of each city or municipality. She means local health care providers who have to be educated on the methods of collecting samples and who should stock up on rape investigation kits (I talked about these last week.) She means court personnel, lawyers and judges who have to be briefed on the relevance of the Rules on DNA Evidence released by the Supreme Court just last October. Finally, she also means educators who should impress upon their students the importance of such advances.
But scientists—thinkers like De Ungria—can only do as much. Her proposed solutions and the thousands of equally good ideas from other enlightened minds will remain as mere good intentions unless decision makers muster enough will to make things happen.
Friday, August 29, 2008
My elected helplessness
Over the last two months, I "let go" -- okay,fired -- two helpers, one after the other. So if we are to be literal about it, I am really help-less nowadays. The reasons were basically the same: the costs of having them aboard far outweighed the benefits of their contributions to my domestic workload. Merlie had the baggage of a three-year-old (serious) Pinoy challenger to Dennis the Menace, whose antics did not sit well with my children nor myself. Cristy acquired the habit of "borrowing," with which I empathized in the beginning, until it evolved into a vice.
Now I am relieved at having an extra two thousand pesos a month. I have the option of increasing my grocery budget, getting the kids a celebratory box of pizza at the end of a full week, or padding up a passbook that has always tided me through life's occasional crunches.
I am also glad that there is no extra plate to consider and one couch less occupied by somebody not quite akin. Actually I'm easily vexed at the longer-than-desired presence of an acquaintance. How much more at an overstaying stranger? I know. I'm clique-ish.
But I am most grateful for the solitude.
The children are growing fast and they now spend a considerable part of their day in school. I take advantage of their absence by scheduling both my tasks and indulgences. There is a day to do the laundry. A day to go to the wet market, yet another to go to the grocery. On some days I lie around doing nothing but watch foreign news. It is comforting to be reminded that the world is big. Or Fox Crime. Sometimes, if I feel like it, I close the windows and practice my hip-hop moves. Hey, nobody's looking.
Who says it is easy? Most days I am wiped out by noontime, two square hours before I even have to prepare myself to go to work. There are meals and dirty clothes and assignments and allowances and lazy teenagers and kid fights one must break. I am not only clique-ish; I am also moody. My kids know better than to vex me even more when I've already stopped talking. Especially when I remember I am still not as prolific, writing-wise, as I'd like to be.
Still, on my way to work, as I drop by for a minute of silent prayer at the Santa Cruz Church, I find that my level of gratitude is directly proportional to my sense of accomplishment measured by the number of boxes I've ticked on my task list for that day. Likewise, my good mood seems to rest on the amount of time I spend with my favorite companion -- myself. An hour a day would be enough. Solitude is a great stabilizer. Hearing nothing but one's thoughts does wonders and brings one back to earth -- from heaven or hell alike.
What a paradox. My help-lessness is empowering. And it is because it is a conscious choice.
Now I am relieved at having an extra two thousand pesos a month. I have the option of increasing my grocery budget, getting the kids a celebratory box of pizza at the end of a full week, or padding up a passbook that has always tided me through life's occasional crunches.
I am also glad that there is no extra plate to consider and one couch less occupied by somebody not quite akin. Actually I'm easily vexed at the longer-than-desired presence of an acquaintance. How much more at an overstaying stranger? I know. I'm clique-ish.
But I am most grateful for the solitude.
The children are growing fast and they now spend a considerable part of their day in school. I take advantage of their absence by scheduling both my tasks and indulgences. There is a day to do the laundry. A day to go to the wet market, yet another to go to the grocery. On some days I lie around doing nothing but watch foreign news. It is comforting to be reminded that the world is big. Or Fox Crime. Sometimes, if I feel like it, I close the windows and practice my hip-hop moves. Hey, nobody's looking.
Who says it is easy? Most days I am wiped out by noontime, two square hours before I even have to prepare myself to go to work. There are meals and dirty clothes and assignments and allowances and lazy teenagers and kid fights one must break. I am not only clique-ish; I am also moody. My kids know better than to vex me even more when I've already stopped talking. Especially when I remember I am still not as prolific, writing-wise, as I'd like to be.
Still, on my way to work, as I drop by for a minute of silent prayer at the Santa Cruz Church, I find that my level of gratitude is directly proportional to my sense of accomplishment measured by the number of boxes I've ticked on my task list for that day. Likewise, my good mood seems to rest on the amount of time I spend with my favorite companion -- myself. An hour a day would be enough. Solitude is a great stabilizer. Hearing nothing but one's thoughts does wonders and brings one back to earth -- from heaven or hell alike.
What a paradox. My help-lessness is empowering. And it is because it is a conscious choice.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life
This song has been interpreted by some of my favorite artists. Sinatra, Streisand, Chris Botti and Sting. How can you go wrong? Since I cannot cough up essays at my usual pace, I am putting up a "favorites" category. They may not be many, but they are priceless.
(You will be blown away by Sting and Botti. I will paste the video from YouTube just as soon as I figure a I figure out how. Let me just ask my daughter how to do it.)
What are you doing the rest of your life?
North and South and East and West of your life?
I have only one request of your life
That you spend it all with me.
All the seasons and the times of your days.
All the nickels and the dimes of your days.
Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days.
All begin and end with me.
I want to see your face,
In every kind of light,
In fields of gold and
Forests of the night;
And when you stand before
The candles on a cake.
Oh let me be the one to hear
The silent wish you make.
Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes
In the world of love you keep in your eyes,
I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes,
It may take a kiss or two..
Through all of my life..
Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall of my life,
All I ever will recall of my life
Is all of my life with you.
(You will be blown away by Sting and Botti. I will paste the video from YouTube just as soon as I figure a I figure out how. Let me just ask my daughter how to do it.)
What are you doing the rest of your life?
North and South and East and West of your life?
I have only one request of your life
That you spend it all with me.
All the seasons and the times of your days.
All the nickels and the dimes of your days.
Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days.
All begin and end with me.
I want to see your face,
In every kind of light,
In fields of gold and
Forests of the night;
And when you stand before
The candles on a cake.
Oh let me be the one to hear
The silent wish you make.
Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes
In the world of love you keep in your eyes,
I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes,
It may take a kiss or two..
Through all of my life..
Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall of my life,
All I ever will recall of my life
Is all of my life with you.
It's in the genes (part 2)
published 25 Aug 2008, MST
Reynaldo was convicted of rape in 1995. The victim, his niece Aileen, also claimed that she bore a child from this incident. Reynaldo was sentenced to death. Upon automatic review, the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 2001 but brought down the sentence to life imprisonment. Reynaldo was also ordered to support the child, Leahlyn.
In that six-year gap between 1995 and 2001, significant developments in DNA technology have taken place in the Philippines. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, the genetic blueprint that makes every person (except identical twins) unique.
Reynaldo was one of 106 death-row inmates who volunteered to participate in a study, Forensic DNA evidence and the death penalty in the Philippines, conducted between 2002 and 2004 by a team of scientists (De Ungria, Sagum, Calacal, Delfin, Tabbada, Dalet, Te, J. Diokno, M. Diokno, and Asplen) and published just this year in Forensic Science International. The team wanted to see whether the Short Tandem Repeat method of DNA typing could challenge—and possibly overturn—convictions that relied heavily on victims’ and eyewitnesses’ testimonies. A DNA test was performed on Reynaldo and Leahlyn. The results, released in March 2003, was a mismatch: Reynaldo could not be Leahlyn’s father.
Armed with this information, Reynaldo and his son, June, asked the Supreme Court for a new trial in 2004. Their petition was denied. The court said the evidence should have been presented at the trial court level, and that the exculpation of Reynaldo as the father of the child was a separate matter altogether from the crime of rape.
The new technology would have also been able to establish the presence of Reynaldo ‘s DNA inside the victim’s body and hence determine his guilt or innocence—that is, if only biological samples had been taken from the victim within 72 hours of the time of the incident. Alas, Aileen did not tell her mother that she had been raped until many months later.
(In 2005, the 78-year-old Reynaldo was pardoned and released. Eventually, in October 2007, the Supreme Court released its Rules on DNA Evidence. In the same month, it remanded the case of People vs. Umanito to the trial court for reception of DNA evidence.)
***
One might ask: Won’t the option to invoke DNA technology to question promulgated decisions clog the courts even more? The answer is surprising. According to Dr. Maria Corazon de Ungria, head of the DNA Analysis Laboratory of the University of the Philippines- National Science Research Institute, while the study confirmed the vital role of DNA evidence in overturning convictions, it also revealed that post-conviction applications of the technology can only help up to a certain point.
Foremost, the samples have to be available at the time of the trial. Second, not all who are convicted avail themselves of this option. Only the truly innocent—and the informed among the innocent—do. Third, the courts must deem DNA evidence crucial to the resolution of the case.
Instead, De Ungria says the order of the day is to get it right the first time—at the trial level. She means there must be proper collection, handling and preservation of evidence that may later on prove crucial to the case. In the study I mentioned earlier, no biological samples were collected at the time of investigation for 89 of the 106 cases. In seven cases, the samples were collected but not stored properly. In eight cases, the samples were collected but were lost.
***
A sexual assault investigation kit costs three hundred thirty pesos. That’s a fast food meal for two or three people. A single dish, maybe less, in a more upscale restaurant. Yet that amount can make all the difference between justice being served and justice being thrown out the window—for the victim, the accused, and their families.
An offshoot of the post-conviction application study, the kit was one of the projects funded for a year by the World Bank’s Development Innovation Marketplace, otherwise known as Panibagong Paraan. This rape investigation kit is something that can be used by women’s desks in police stations the moment a victim comes forward and claims she (or he) has been raped. Biological samples can thus be taken and stored at once, and the first observation made in the study would now be addressed. Evidence would be available at the trial level.
The kit contains four swabs—two are for immediate DNA extraction and the other two for storage, in the event that there are questions raised on the handling of the other two. Medical professionals are trained on the use of these kits. The extraction and analysis are conducted free by the National Bureau of Investigation if the sampling is done to support a criminal case.
But that’s only collection and handling. How about storage? Certainly, the NBI cannot ever dream of being able, or willing, to store all samples from all criminal cases throughout the country.
To this practical problem, De Ungria has a simple solution. Local governments have to be more involved. City or municipality mayors would only have to shell out no more than few tens of thousands of pesos for several refrigerators to house the samples. The risk of the evidence being lost, contaminated or switched must be minimized at the local level through the police. And then the evidence would be ready when the court asks for it.
“We have the technology in place; we also know the solutions,” De Ungria says. “Having the will to actually do it is another matter altogether.”
I will conclude this series on DNA technology next week with an academic’s thoughts on the collaboration among government, the private sector and the academe as well as of the pursuit of knowledge for social transformation.
adelle_tulagan@yahoo.com
Reynaldo was convicted of rape in 1995. The victim, his niece Aileen, also claimed that she bore a child from this incident. Reynaldo was sentenced to death. Upon automatic review, the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 2001 but brought down the sentence to life imprisonment. Reynaldo was also ordered to support the child, Leahlyn.
In that six-year gap between 1995 and 2001, significant developments in DNA technology have taken place in the Philippines. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, the genetic blueprint that makes every person (except identical twins) unique.
Reynaldo was one of 106 death-row inmates who volunteered to participate in a study, Forensic DNA evidence and the death penalty in the Philippines, conducted between 2002 and 2004 by a team of scientists (De Ungria, Sagum, Calacal, Delfin, Tabbada, Dalet, Te, J. Diokno, M. Diokno, and Asplen) and published just this year in Forensic Science International. The team wanted to see whether the Short Tandem Repeat method of DNA typing could challenge—and possibly overturn—convictions that relied heavily on victims’ and eyewitnesses’ testimonies. A DNA test was performed on Reynaldo and Leahlyn. The results, released in March 2003, was a mismatch: Reynaldo could not be Leahlyn’s father.
Armed with this information, Reynaldo and his son, June, asked the Supreme Court for a new trial in 2004. Their petition was denied. The court said the evidence should have been presented at the trial court level, and that the exculpation of Reynaldo as the father of the child was a separate matter altogether from the crime of rape.
The new technology would have also been able to establish the presence of Reynaldo ‘s DNA inside the victim’s body and hence determine his guilt or innocence—that is, if only biological samples had been taken from the victim within 72 hours of the time of the incident. Alas, Aileen did not tell her mother that she had been raped until many months later.
(In 2005, the 78-year-old Reynaldo was pardoned and released. Eventually, in October 2007, the Supreme Court released its Rules on DNA Evidence. In the same month, it remanded the case of People vs. Umanito to the trial court for reception of DNA evidence.)
***
One might ask: Won’t the option to invoke DNA technology to question promulgated decisions clog the courts even more? The answer is surprising. According to Dr. Maria Corazon de Ungria, head of the DNA Analysis Laboratory of the University of the Philippines- National Science Research Institute, while the study confirmed the vital role of DNA evidence in overturning convictions, it also revealed that post-conviction applications of the technology can only help up to a certain point.
Foremost, the samples have to be available at the time of the trial. Second, not all who are convicted avail themselves of this option. Only the truly innocent—and the informed among the innocent—do. Third, the courts must deem DNA evidence crucial to the resolution of the case.
Instead, De Ungria says the order of the day is to get it right the first time—at the trial level. She means there must be proper collection, handling and preservation of evidence that may later on prove crucial to the case. In the study I mentioned earlier, no biological samples were collected at the time of investigation for 89 of the 106 cases. In seven cases, the samples were collected but not stored properly. In eight cases, the samples were collected but were lost.
***
A sexual assault investigation kit costs three hundred thirty pesos. That’s a fast food meal for two or three people. A single dish, maybe less, in a more upscale restaurant. Yet that amount can make all the difference between justice being served and justice being thrown out the window—for the victim, the accused, and their families.
An offshoot of the post-conviction application study, the kit was one of the projects funded for a year by the World Bank’s Development Innovation Marketplace, otherwise known as Panibagong Paraan. This rape investigation kit is something that can be used by women’s desks in police stations the moment a victim comes forward and claims she (or he) has been raped. Biological samples can thus be taken and stored at once, and the first observation made in the study would now be addressed. Evidence would be available at the trial level.
The kit contains four swabs—two are for immediate DNA extraction and the other two for storage, in the event that there are questions raised on the handling of the other two. Medical professionals are trained on the use of these kits. The extraction and analysis are conducted free by the National Bureau of Investigation if the sampling is done to support a criminal case.
But that’s only collection and handling. How about storage? Certainly, the NBI cannot ever dream of being able, or willing, to store all samples from all criminal cases throughout the country.
To this practical problem, De Ungria has a simple solution. Local governments have to be more involved. City or municipality mayors would only have to shell out no more than few tens of thousands of pesos for several refrigerators to house the samples. The risk of the evidence being lost, contaminated or switched must be minimized at the local level through the police. And then the evidence would be ready when the court asks for it.
“We have the technology in place; we also know the solutions,” De Ungria says. “Having the will to actually do it is another matter altogether.”
I will conclude this series on DNA technology next week with an academic’s thoughts on the collaboration among government, the private sector and the academe as well as of the pursuit of knowledge for social transformation.
adelle_tulagan@yahoo.com
Monday, August 18, 2008
Thomas Proposas
My friend Jennie's new main photo in her friendster account is that of her left hand, sporting the ring that transformed one Thomas Hamilton from boyfriend to fiance. She actually called me Sunday afternoon, from Ontario, Canada, to break the news herself. He had proposed and she had accepted just hours before. I swear I got goosebumps.
I've known Jennie since kindergarten. We have been classmates for the longest time in dear old Lady of Grace. Her mom, Tita Myrna, knew all (and had the opportunity of chatting, while waiting for us at the gate of our school, with) my dearly departed: my Lola Deling, my mom, my Papa Edwin, even my yaya, Nanay Susan. Come to think of it, everybody in the house that I grew up in is now dead. But I digress.
In sophomore year, we traipsed around the newly-constructed Grand Central -- we fondly called it GC -- one afternoon after classes had been dismissed due to a storm. Jennie and I, along with her dad, mom, and brother, munched on hamburgers and fries while waiting for the rain to stop. When it did, the floods came and we were stranded. In those days, there were no cell phones, no beepers, and applying for a landline took years. I got a good scolding from my Lola, but the warm fuzzy feeling remained.
During the summer, we snail-mailed letters telling each other how our vacation was coming along. We were well-informed about the other's crushes and suitors. We thought up crazy code names for our flavors-of-the-month so we could talk about them in public without blowing our cover. Giggling teenagers that we were, we drew up our own wedding plans, promising to be each other's bridesmaid, and planned our weddings down to the details of our mothers' gowns -- even as the face and the name of our grooms were yet to be revealed to us.
When I met John Tulagan at age 16, and started spending most of my free time with him, Jennie cautioned me not to get too carried away. She felt that I was getting way ahead of my time and may end up in a premature pregnancy, or marriage. That I would jeopardize an otherwise bright future. I resented her comments and from then on maintained a safe distance. I felt she was being unreasonable and even envious that I had found The One and she had not. A year or two later, when she had all the right to gloat and say "I told you so," she said nothing and instead gladly held a candle as she stood as godmother to my first-born, Beatrice. Over the years, every one of my four children referred to her as "Ninang."
Adulthood and its complications set in. In early 2007, Jennie made a very brave decision to leave her life in the Philippines and see what Canada had to offer. No doubt she had seen many things, the good and the bad as well. What was really admirable was that the bad seemed only to strengthen her resolve to stick it out and wait for a turning of the tide. Her self-esteem was firmly in place, and for this I take my hats off to her parents. Whereas others would have been tormented at the idea of being a UP honors student doing irregular jobs in a foreign country, Jennie's attitude was: "I am not my job." That's something many people should start picking up. Our jobs, titles, and even properties are never extensions of ourselves.
And now the ring.
Really, I've never seen my friend as happy as she sounds right now with this Thomas guy, who I hope knows that much is expected of him by the people who love the girl he is marrying. He must be something else if he can make our Jennie, the normally pragmatic and jaded devil's advocate most people know her to be, glow like she does. She deserves this much, and more.
Jennie has been a gem of a daughter and friend. This is her time.
I've known Jennie since kindergarten. We have been classmates for the longest time in dear old Lady of Grace. Her mom, Tita Myrna, knew all (and had the opportunity of chatting, while waiting for us at the gate of our school, with) my dearly departed: my Lola Deling, my mom, my Papa Edwin, even my yaya, Nanay Susan. Come to think of it, everybody in the house that I grew up in is now dead. But I digress.
In sophomore year, we traipsed around the newly-constructed Grand Central -- we fondly called it GC -- one afternoon after classes had been dismissed due to a storm. Jennie and I, along with her dad, mom, and brother, munched on hamburgers and fries while waiting for the rain to stop. When it did, the floods came and we were stranded. In those days, there were no cell phones, no beepers, and applying for a landline took years. I got a good scolding from my Lola, but the warm fuzzy feeling remained.
During the summer, we snail-mailed letters telling each other how our vacation was coming along. We were well-informed about the other's crushes and suitors. We thought up crazy code names for our flavors-of-the-month so we could talk about them in public without blowing our cover. Giggling teenagers that we were, we drew up our own wedding plans, promising to be each other's bridesmaid, and planned our weddings down to the details of our mothers' gowns -- even as the face and the name of our grooms were yet to be revealed to us.
When I met John Tulagan at age 16, and started spending most of my free time with him, Jennie cautioned me not to get too carried away. She felt that I was getting way ahead of my time and may end up in a premature pregnancy, or marriage. That I would jeopardize an otherwise bright future. I resented her comments and from then on maintained a safe distance. I felt she was being unreasonable and even envious that I had found The One and she had not. A year or two later, when she had all the right to gloat and say "I told you so," she said nothing and instead gladly held a candle as she stood as godmother to my first-born, Beatrice. Over the years, every one of my four children referred to her as "Ninang."
Adulthood and its complications set in. In early 2007, Jennie made a very brave decision to leave her life in the Philippines and see what Canada had to offer. No doubt she had seen many things, the good and the bad as well. What was really admirable was that the bad seemed only to strengthen her resolve to stick it out and wait for a turning of the tide. Her self-esteem was firmly in place, and for this I take my hats off to her parents. Whereas others would have been tormented at the idea of being a UP honors student doing irregular jobs in a foreign country, Jennie's attitude was: "I am not my job." That's something many people should start picking up. Our jobs, titles, and even properties are never extensions of ourselves.
And now the ring.
Really, I've never seen my friend as happy as she sounds right now with this Thomas guy, who I hope knows that much is expected of him by the people who love the girl he is marrying. He must be something else if he can make our Jennie, the normally pragmatic and jaded devil's advocate most people know her to be, glow like she does. She deserves this much, and more.
Jennie has been a gem of a daughter and friend. This is her time.
It's in the genes (part 1)
published 18 Aug 2008,MST
Not too many are aware that the technology for DNA typing is already available in the Philippines. DNA, of course, stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, the genetic blueprint that makes each person, except identical twins, unique. DNA typing is a process of extracting and analyzing the genetic information from a biological sample—such as blood (most common), saliva, semen, hair, tissues and bones.
Maria Corazon de Ungria, Ph.D. heads the University of the Philippines-National Science Research Institute DNA Analysis Laboratory. Established in 1996, the laboratory is one of the four institutions (the others are the National Bureau of Investigation, the National Police and St. Luke’s Medical Center) that make use of the short-tandem repeat (STR) method for genetic analysis. She says that advances in the field have made breakthroughs in civil and criminal disputes possible. Philippine law has made provisions for the admissibility of DNA evidence for the determination of paternity as well as for the establishment of guilt in sexual abuse cases. Genetic information can also identify of casualties of mass disasters like fires or sunken vessels.
In 2001, the Supreme Court, in the case of Tijing and Tijing vs. Court of Appeals and Diamante, ruled in favor of a couple whose child was taken by a woman, brought to her hometown and passed off as her own son. The court based its judgment on the conventional methods of determining paternity—for example, the admission of the respondent that she was no longer able to bear children, the incapacity of her common-law husband to sire children, the striking facial resemblance of the child with the petitioner, and the irregular way in which the child’s birth certificate was filed. As a final note, the court also suggested the option of using DNA analysis for a scientific basis for determining the child’s parentage.
Certainly, much has happened since this “suggestion.”
In the landmark case of the People vs. Vallejo (2002), the Supreme Court convicted a man for raping and later killing a 9-year-old child. This was the first time the court admitted DNA information as evidence in court. The DNA obtained from vaginal swabs taken from the child was found to be consistent with that of the accused.
The decision laid down the essential standards for the admissibility of DNA information in court. Among those to be considered: The manner of collecting and handling samples, the possibility of contamination, the procedure followed in the analysis, observation of the proper standards and procedures in the conduct of the test, as well as the accreditation of the DNA laboratory conducting the test or, in the absence of accreditation, the qualification of the analyst performing the typing.
The UP laboratory, with funding from the UP Center for Integrative Studies, is currently working on formulating a national strategy for the local accreditation of forensic DNA laboratories in the Philippines to address the issue of accreditation.
In the meantime, only the best and most accomplished in the field, such as De Ungria herself, lend their expertise to the typing process to satisfy this last condition of the Supreme Court. The results of the test are only ready after at least 14 working days from the date of the sampling. More complex cases, of course, require more time. De Ungria says the results take longer to release because the laboratory uses a three-level review process. A probability of 99.9 percent or greater is considered presumptive proof of parentage.
In October 2007, the high court released its Rules on DNA Evidence, honing the standards it had already set in the Vallejo case. It enumerated requirements in the determination of the reliability of the testing method and the testing results. At around the same time, the court remanded the case of the People vs. Umanito to the trial court for reception of DNA evidence. These are, of course, questions of fact, something which the Supreme Court is not a trier of.
De Ungria says that after the rules had been promulgated, the laboratory saw an increase in its casework. These cases in paternity testing and human identification are usually used in civil (recognition, support, inheritance) or criminal (rape) disputes.
Then again, working on actual cases is only part of the institute’s mandate. Scientists at the laboratory, in collaboration with specialists from related fields, also conduct research and publish them in journals that make up literature—and spell authority—on the subject.
For example, De Ungria’s work, DNA Evidence in Paternity Cases, was printed in the Philippine Law Journal in December 2005. In her paper, De Ungria emphasized that DNA provided scientific evidence that was more conclusive than testimonies, which could be affected by numerous external factors.
Ascendancy over the victim, for instance, is a factor that may affect testimonies. Imagine a child who had been sexually abused. It is naturally difficult for her (or him) to narrate her experiences in court. Furthermore, it might be traumatic for her to actually point to her assailant if that aggressor has authority over her—a father, older brother, grandfather, or even a respected neighbor or teacher.
Y-STR Analysis for Detection and Confirmation of Child Sexual Abuse, conducted by Frederick Delfin, Bernadette Madrid, Merle Tan and De Ungria, was published in the International Journal of Legal Medicine in 2004. The study sought to establish that rape could be proven, using DNA evidence, without having to subject the child to the traumatic experience of recounting their tales or actually pointing to their aggressors. Samples from 26 abused children (25 female and one male) between the ages of 2 and 17 were collected between six and 72 hours after the incident allegedly took place. The scientists employed a Y-chromosome STR analysis (as opposed to another method, the autosomal STR analysis) and obtained a 92.33 percent “success” rate (24 of the 26 tested positive for rape). Assuming that the victims have had no sexual history prior to the incident, a contaminated DNA proves only that some other person’s blueprint found its way into the victim’s body. Such an objective finding would be impossible to overturn by the testimonies of a traumatized victim or denials of an accused.
More on the applications of DNA typing next week.
* * *
In last Monday’s column (Mental training in sports), I made reference to the Southeast Asian International Table Tennis Championship. It should have read the Southeast Asian Junior Table Tennis Championships. My apologies.
Not too many are aware that the technology for DNA typing is already available in the Philippines. DNA, of course, stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, the genetic blueprint that makes each person, except identical twins, unique. DNA typing is a process of extracting and analyzing the genetic information from a biological sample—such as blood (most common), saliva, semen, hair, tissues and bones.
Maria Corazon de Ungria, Ph.D. heads the University of the Philippines-National Science Research Institute DNA Analysis Laboratory. Established in 1996, the laboratory is one of the four institutions (the others are the National Bureau of Investigation, the National Police and St. Luke’s Medical Center) that make use of the short-tandem repeat (STR) method for genetic analysis. She says that advances in the field have made breakthroughs in civil and criminal disputes possible. Philippine law has made provisions for the admissibility of DNA evidence for the determination of paternity as well as for the establishment of guilt in sexual abuse cases. Genetic information can also identify of casualties of mass disasters like fires or sunken vessels.
In 2001, the Supreme Court, in the case of Tijing and Tijing vs. Court of Appeals and Diamante, ruled in favor of a couple whose child was taken by a woman, brought to her hometown and passed off as her own son. The court based its judgment on the conventional methods of determining paternity—for example, the admission of the respondent that she was no longer able to bear children, the incapacity of her common-law husband to sire children, the striking facial resemblance of the child with the petitioner, and the irregular way in which the child’s birth certificate was filed. As a final note, the court also suggested the option of using DNA analysis for a scientific basis for determining the child’s parentage.
Certainly, much has happened since this “suggestion.”
In the landmark case of the People vs. Vallejo (2002), the Supreme Court convicted a man for raping and later killing a 9-year-old child. This was the first time the court admitted DNA information as evidence in court. The DNA obtained from vaginal swabs taken from the child was found to be consistent with that of the accused.
The decision laid down the essential standards for the admissibility of DNA information in court. Among those to be considered: The manner of collecting and handling samples, the possibility of contamination, the procedure followed in the analysis, observation of the proper standards and procedures in the conduct of the test, as well as the accreditation of the DNA laboratory conducting the test or, in the absence of accreditation, the qualification of the analyst performing the typing.
The UP laboratory, with funding from the UP Center for Integrative Studies, is currently working on formulating a national strategy for the local accreditation of forensic DNA laboratories in the Philippines to address the issue of accreditation.
In the meantime, only the best and most accomplished in the field, such as De Ungria herself, lend their expertise to the typing process to satisfy this last condition of the Supreme Court. The results of the test are only ready after at least 14 working days from the date of the sampling. More complex cases, of course, require more time. De Ungria says the results take longer to release because the laboratory uses a three-level review process. A probability of 99.9 percent or greater is considered presumptive proof of parentage.
In October 2007, the high court released its Rules on DNA Evidence, honing the standards it had already set in the Vallejo case. It enumerated requirements in the determination of the reliability of the testing method and the testing results. At around the same time, the court remanded the case of the People vs. Umanito to the trial court for reception of DNA evidence. These are, of course, questions of fact, something which the Supreme Court is not a trier of.
De Ungria says that after the rules had been promulgated, the laboratory saw an increase in its casework. These cases in paternity testing and human identification are usually used in civil (recognition, support, inheritance) or criminal (rape) disputes.
Then again, working on actual cases is only part of the institute’s mandate. Scientists at the laboratory, in collaboration with specialists from related fields, also conduct research and publish them in journals that make up literature—and spell authority—on the subject.
For example, De Ungria’s work, DNA Evidence in Paternity Cases, was printed in the Philippine Law Journal in December 2005. In her paper, De Ungria emphasized that DNA provided scientific evidence that was more conclusive than testimonies, which could be affected by numerous external factors.
Ascendancy over the victim, for instance, is a factor that may affect testimonies. Imagine a child who had been sexually abused. It is naturally difficult for her (or him) to narrate her experiences in court. Furthermore, it might be traumatic for her to actually point to her assailant if that aggressor has authority over her—a father, older brother, grandfather, or even a respected neighbor or teacher.
Y-STR Analysis for Detection and Confirmation of Child Sexual Abuse, conducted by Frederick Delfin, Bernadette Madrid, Merle Tan and De Ungria, was published in the International Journal of Legal Medicine in 2004. The study sought to establish that rape could be proven, using DNA evidence, without having to subject the child to the traumatic experience of recounting their tales or actually pointing to their aggressors. Samples from 26 abused children (25 female and one male) between the ages of 2 and 17 were collected between six and 72 hours after the incident allegedly took place. The scientists employed a Y-chromosome STR analysis (as opposed to another method, the autosomal STR analysis) and obtained a 92.33 percent “success” rate (24 of the 26 tested positive for rape). Assuming that the victims have had no sexual history prior to the incident, a contaminated DNA proves only that some other person’s blueprint found its way into the victim’s body. Such an objective finding would be impossible to overturn by the testimonies of a traumatized victim or denials of an accused.
More on the applications of DNA typing next week.
* * *
In last Monday’s column (Mental training in sports), I made reference to the Southeast Asian International Table Tennis Championship. It should have read the Southeast Asian Junior Table Tennis Championships. My apologies.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Youth is No Excuse
(note: My son's band requested me to write this profile on them. Look them up on friendster and better yet, watch their gigs.) - from the not-so-stage mom.
**
Youth is No Excuse
The real deal with Copperfront
Even if you find yourself in a bar that's full of people, pounding from loud music and the clicking of beer bottles, and hazy from the smoke and the colorful lights, it wont be hard to miss them. Copperfront members don't look like your typical grunge-alternative rock performers -- none of the frizzy, long (unwashed) hair, the statement t-shirts, the mean tattoos, not even that look that's a cross between angst and intoxication sported by most (wannabe) musicians.
Instead, these five boys would look just as comfortable in school uniforms, strumming guitars in their classrooms on a rainy afternoon. And why wouldn't they? They're just that – young men whose passion for music enabled them to start their journey a little too soon, even as all the great artists would probably say that “too soon” is nonexistent.
Adhee Lasala, vocals, is 20 years old and has been singing for his church choir for 2 years. Miko Villareal, drums, is 21, now studying to become a computer technician. He has been drumming for 4 years. The rest of the members are in high school – lead guitarist Thom Cruz is 15 while rhythm guitarist EJ Borja is 17. They are both juniors. The bassist, Josh Tulagan, is a freshman. He is 12 years old. Yes, 12.
So what brought them together in the first place?
The idea to form a band presented itself to them one night in April 2008. They were watching their friends, members of up-and-coming band Hi-Fi Indios, perform in Kublai's Bar in Katipunan. Somebody walked up to them and asked whether they knew any other band who would be willing to perform a set of four or five songs.
Now they themselves had been jamming here and there, whenever they chanced upon each other in their favorite hangout, Soundgarden Music Studio in good old Lorex Avenue in Valenzuela. See, that studio offers music courses as well as rents out instruments by the hour. Why not expand their audience beyond the walls of the studio? The more they thought about it, the better the idea seemed to sound.
They were given a month to get their act together. It was a good thing that the band members had a few compositions ready. They don't just perform; they create as well. All they had to do was rehearse more often. They started to introduce improvements on each other's compositions, with the end in mind of making the song better, more appealing to their audience. This was not just jamming anymore. Nor horsing around. This was business.
Their maiden performance on May 16 gave the boys an unexplainable high. Maybe it was the applause they earned from the handful of friends, family members and other bands who watched them. The gratification of expressing themselves to more spectators. The realization that if they tried hard enough, they could make good music together.
And as the gigs came one after another – they have played, so far, in Grindhaus (Valenzuela), Stoodio Bar, Sausage Bar and 9-Mile (all in Quezon City) – they got an even clearer picture of how they wanted to make their mark in an industry that is already deluged with performers in every musical genre. Filipinos are, after all, a highly talented people – and a driven one, as well. Amid the abundance of talent and drive, thus, how can these boys convince the rest of us that they're more than just another band and that their musical passion is more than just a phase in their young lives?
Adhee is candid enough to admit that they can't say for sure, whether or when opportunity – in the form of record deals and international performances -- would come knocking at their door. Certainly it would require their undivided attention. In the meantime, they will be happy juggling their music with their other responsibilities, studying and eventually pursuing careers.
What they can say for sure now, though, is that they are immensely grateful to those who have shown them support and confidence. Their families and friends who have shown unconditional love and belief in their abilities. Their mentors, primarily Hi-Fi Indios and the people behind Fatjack Productions, who hone their skills and expand their horizons.
For now, they are happy spending time together – they are each other's best friends, by the way – and sharing their music, their views on life, love and everything else, with anyone who cares to listen. They know they don't have to present themselves as experts. They just have to be themselves.
At this point, the boys recognize that they still need to do and learn a lot. More than the technical aspects, they need to get a good grip on themselves. Discipline is key, and it is as basic as showing up for rehearsals on time or playing their part at performance level all the time.
Ultimately, Copperfront wants to challenge perceptions that rock musicians are drug addicts, impolite with the ladies, and basically have their lives in the trash bin. On the contrary, the boys want to build on the promise held by the blank page that is the rest of their lives. And this early, they know they want this page to, well, rock.
**
Youth is No Excuse
The real deal with Copperfront
Even if you find yourself in a bar that's full of people, pounding from loud music and the clicking of beer bottles, and hazy from the smoke and the colorful lights, it wont be hard to miss them. Copperfront members don't look like your typical grunge-alternative rock performers -- none of the frizzy, long (unwashed) hair, the statement t-shirts, the mean tattoos, not even that look that's a cross between angst and intoxication sported by most (wannabe) musicians.
Instead, these five boys would look just as comfortable in school uniforms, strumming guitars in their classrooms on a rainy afternoon. And why wouldn't they? They're just that – young men whose passion for music enabled them to start their journey a little too soon, even as all the great artists would probably say that “too soon” is nonexistent.
Adhee Lasala, vocals, is 20 years old and has been singing for his church choir for 2 years. Miko Villareal, drums, is 21, now studying to become a computer technician. He has been drumming for 4 years. The rest of the members are in high school – lead guitarist Thom Cruz is 15 while rhythm guitarist EJ Borja is 17. They are both juniors. The bassist, Josh Tulagan, is a freshman. He is 12 years old. Yes, 12.
So what brought them together in the first place?
The idea to form a band presented itself to them one night in April 2008. They were watching their friends, members of up-and-coming band Hi-Fi Indios, perform in Kublai's Bar in Katipunan. Somebody walked up to them and asked whether they knew any other band who would be willing to perform a set of four or five songs.
Now they themselves had been jamming here and there, whenever they chanced upon each other in their favorite hangout, Soundgarden Music Studio in good old Lorex Avenue in Valenzuela. See, that studio offers music courses as well as rents out instruments by the hour. Why not expand their audience beyond the walls of the studio? The more they thought about it, the better the idea seemed to sound.
They were given a month to get their act together. It was a good thing that the band members had a few compositions ready. They don't just perform; they create as well. All they had to do was rehearse more often. They started to introduce improvements on each other's compositions, with the end in mind of making the song better, more appealing to their audience. This was not just jamming anymore. Nor horsing around. This was business.
Their maiden performance on May 16 gave the boys an unexplainable high. Maybe it was the applause they earned from the handful of friends, family members and other bands who watched them. The gratification of expressing themselves to more spectators. The realization that if they tried hard enough, they could make good music together.
And as the gigs came one after another – they have played, so far, in Grindhaus (Valenzuela), Stoodio Bar, Sausage Bar and 9-Mile (all in Quezon City) – they got an even clearer picture of how they wanted to make their mark in an industry that is already deluged with performers in every musical genre. Filipinos are, after all, a highly talented people – and a driven one, as well. Amid the abundance of talent and drive, thus, how can these boys convince the rest of us that they're more than just another band and that their musical passion is more than just a phase in their young lives?
Adhee is candid enough to admit that they can't say for sure, whether or when opportunity – in the form of record deals and international performances -- would come knocking at their door. Certainly it would require their undivided attention. In the meantime, they will be happy juggling their music with their other responsibilities, studying and eventually pursuing careers.
What they can say for sure now, though, is that they are immensely grateful to those who have shown them support and confidence. Their families and friends who have shown unconditional love and belief in their abilities. Their mentors, primarily Hi-Fi Indios and the people behind Fatjack Productions, who hone their skills and expand their horizons.
For now, they are happy spending time together – they are each other's best friends, by the way – and sharing their music, their views on life, love and everything else, with anyone who cares to listen. They know they don't have to present themselves as experts. They just have to be themselves.
At this point, the boys recognize that they still need to do and learn a lot. More than the technical aspects, they need to get a good grip on themselves. Discipline is key, and it is as basic as showing up for rehearsals on time or playing their part at performance level all the time.
Ultimately, Copperfront wants to challenge perceptions that rock musicians are drug addicts, impolite with the ladies, and basically have their lives in the trash bin. On the contrary, the boys want to build on the promise held by the blank page that is the rest of their lives. And this early, they know they want this page to, well, rock.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Father's Day (DNA 2)
I celebrated today. A first. And I have a puncture on my left ring finger to remember it by.
First, last night's fitful sleep and the morning's vertigo. Weird dreams I had. Flagging a cab in the rain. Ascending an escalator hearing my kids' voices calling me. Looking around but not finding them.
The clock said 430 in the morning. I had to get going soon, my drowsy mind said. A little more snoozing, countered my eyes. My head was spinning. When I looked again, it was 530 -- and I was still dizzy. I tried getting up. I couldn't.
I staggered through my morning preparations, hurrying along with the children. I remembered to put all test requirements in a manila envelope. I had to be in Greenhills at 8. There was no way I would make it if I took public transportation. I left ahead of the children. Fortunately as I crossed the street there was a taxi passing by. I told the driver to speed on.
Second, the breakfast. I was ten minutes early, but so was he. He was seated near the entrance of Bangus Restaurant, looking smart in a striped shirt, when I came in. We buzzed. A laptop was in front of him. We ordered; he recommended his favorite. I followed suit as it sounded sumptuous. That out of the way, he asked me to look into an essay he had written, a personal one. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work, but found I didn't have to work too hard. I was not surprised, not if he was supposed to be my father. As I had believed in the last 11 years.
The food arrived. Pinaksiw na tyan ng bangus. Six cuts of that, vegetables, four eggs sunny side up, a plate of garlic rice and four cups of brewed coffee between ourselves.
We must have begun with anecdotes, updates on each other's life. He said he just recovered from an attack of gout. I reminded him of his television guesting that was airing soon. He asked what time I needed to be at the office. We talked about the things I had written about in my column.
Sufficiently warmed up, I fired off questions I had been wanting to ask since the time he e-mailed me, asking whether I was still “up to” taking the DNA Paternity Test. For example, why now? We had been toying with the possibility for years. But whjat gave him the final push was the knowledge that the technology was already available in the Philippines, and even more so, that somebody he knew knew somebody who knew the head of the testing institute. So he had no further excuse not to take action.
Likewise, in so many words, I understood that he wanted to come to terms with the many issues in his life. He's a senior citizen. I – our relationship – was one of the pieces that had to fit. Or bust.
Dreaded question number 2. What if we tested negative? “It won't make a difference,” he said. “We will remain friends. All these years, you've been like a breath of fresh air. You probably know me more about me than my own family does.” I did not quite believe that last part. You have to live with somebody and see them for more often than a meal every other month to really know them. But then, why would he lie?
He was seeing this thing entirely from his point of view. But it would make a difference for me, I insisted. If you are not my father, who is???
Finally he told me the story of how he and my mother met – at least his version of it. She was working as a secretary for a fellow he was doing business with. He thought she was nice and accommodating – she was then 19. He was 29 – married with two children but very adventurous. One day he asked her out; they went dancing, on a double date with a friend and his girl. Should there be intimacies afterwards? She told him she was uninitiated; thus he held back. He did not hear from her for months.
May 1975. He was surprised that she called him. Do you want to go out, she asked. What about your problem, he wanted to know. Oh that's been taken care of, she said. And off they went. He did not hear from her again. Not until I was born.
Stupefied at the possibility of having been the fruit of a one-night stand between two reckless young people, I wished my mother were still around to give me her own version of the story. But alas, there was nobody else to ask.
I tried to dismiss the story as something about which I could not do anything at that point. The food was good and my companion seemed to be in a good mood. As if trying to mollify me, or convince himself the inevitable result would be a DNA match, he made references at our being related more than once. He said his father wrote short stories and an older brother who was now in the US was also a good writer. A younger brother, of course, is a prominent visual artist. “So it's in the genes,” he said, twice if I am not mistaken. He also told me his three grown children would probably know I was no stranger because of facial resemblances. And when,much later, when it was my turn to tell my stories, I told him I was worried my son despised his father so and had no alternative role model, he said: “Nandyan naman ang lolo.”
On the road to UP we alternated between work, the government, and our personal lives. We talked about the peace agreement with the MILF. My article about the former head of the SSS. Ways to improve my section of the newspaper. His own dilemmas. Before long we were at the parking lot of Miranda hall, at the National Sciences Research Institute. We filled out forms. We submitted the requirements -- pictures, Ids, birth certificates. He made small talk with the girl in charge of the documents. I was too jittery to even try. He whipped out a manager's check for sixty grand. Whew. Truth did come at a price. He gave instructions that the official receipt be in my name.
Finally the camera was turned on, the medical technologist was called in. The sampling began. Both he and the institute director engaged me in conversation while the medtech prepared to sting my finger. It still hurt, but after that I was fine. His turn. I was back to my normal self and started smelling a good story for my column. The institute and the technology was not known among many. Most (including me) believed we still had to ship our samples to other countries for a DNA profile. In fact, when we were both finished with the blood-drawing exercise, (and because we seemed to ask a lot of questions), the institute head showed us around the place describing their completed studies and their practical applications in civil and criminal law, among others. I can't wait now to draft more questions and email them to the accomplished, low profile yet dedicated scientist we just came to know. And I would have a good piece in the paper on Monday.
It was almost noon. I had spent an entire morning with him. I hitched back to the Ortigas area where I would be getting my ride. On the drive back, he opened up yet more about his predicament and how he intended to come to terms with it. The conversation was spontaneous, free-flowing and honest. As i prepared to alight at the FX terminal behind Megamall, he buzzed me again and reminded me not to worry. “Life is too short to be spent worrying. Nothing will change.”
In the trip to my office I kept wondering if that will indeed be true. Should anything change, positive or negative as the results may say?
I texted him: “I had a nice morning. Thanks again for all and good luck to us.:)” After a few minutes he replied: “Same here. I've always cherished our bonding times.”
I psyched myself to put my worries away in the meantime. The results would be out in a month. I had given my blood and prayed that this man be indeed who I thought he was. At the moment, I had other things to attend to. My work, my writing and my children were waiting for me. And when we meet again next month, all the uncertainty will end. He is either my father or he is not. If he is not, somebody else is. Somebody had to be – or I would not be here.
First, last night's fitful sleep and the morning's vertigo. Weird dreams I had. Flagging a cab in the rain. Ascending an escalator hearing my kids' voices calling me. Looking around but not finding them.
The clock said 430 in the morning. I had to get going soon, my drowsy mind said. A little more snoozing, countered my eyes. My head was spinning. When I looked again, it was 530 -- and I was still dizzy. I tried getting up. I couldn't.
I staggered through my morning preparations, hurrying along with the children. I remembered to put all test requirements in a manila envelope. I had to be in Greenhills at 8. There was no way I would make it if I took public transportation. I left ahead of the children. Fortunately as I crossed the street there was a taxi passing by. I told the driver to speed on.
Second, the breakfast. I was ten minutes early, but so was he. He was seated near the entrance of Bangus Restaurant, looking smart in a striped shirt, when I came in. We buzzed. A laptop was in front of him. We ordered; he recommended his favorite. I followed suit as it sounded sumptuous. That out of the way, he asked me to look into an essay he had written, a personal one. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work, but found I didn't have to work too hard. I was not surprised, not if he was supposed to be my father. As I had believed in the last 11 years.
The food arrived. Pinaksiw na tyan ng bangus. Six cuts of that, vegetables, four eggs sunny side up, a plate of garlic rice and four cups of brewed coffee between ourselves.
We must have begun with anecdotes, updates on each other's life. He said he just recovered from an attack of gout. I reminded him of his television guesting that was airing soon. He asked what time I needed to be at the office. We talked about the things I had written about in my column.
Sufficiently warmed up, I fired off questions I had been wanting to ask since the time he e-mailed me, asking whether I was still “up to” taking the DNA Paternity Test. For example, why now? We had been toying with the possibility for years. But whjat gave him the final push was the knowledge that the technology was already available in the Philippines, and even more so, that somebody he knew knew somebody who knew the head of the testing institute. So he had no further excuse not to take action.
Likewise, in so many words, I understood that he wanted to come to terms with the many issues in his life. He's a senior citizen. I – our relationship – was one of the pieces that had to fit. Or bust.
Dreaded question number 2. What if we tested negative? “It won't make a difference,” he said. “We will remain friends. All these years, you've been like a breath of fresh air. You probably know me more about me than my own family does.” I did not quite believe that last part. You have to live with somebody and see them for more often than a meal every other month to really know them. But then, why would he lie?
He was seeing this thing entirely from his point of view. But it would make a difference for me, I insisted. If you are not my father, who is???
Finally he told me the story of how he and my mother met – at least his version of it. She was working as a secretary for a fellow he was doing business with. He thought she was nice and accommodating – she was then 19. He was 29 – married with two children but very adventurous. One day he asked her out; they went dancing, on a double date with a friend and his girl. Should there be intimacies afterwards? She told him she was uninitiated; thus he held back. He did not hear from her for months.
May 1975. He was surprised that she called him. Do you want to go out, she asked. What about your problem, he wanted to know. Oh that's been taken care of, she said. And off they went. He did not hear from her again. Not until I was born.
Stupefied at the possibility of having been the fruit of a one-night stand between two reckless young people, I wished my mother were still around to give me her own version of the story. But alas, there was nobody else to ask.
I tried to dismiss the story as something about which I could not do anything at that point. The food was good and my companion seemed to be in a good mood. As if trying to mollify me, or convince himself the inevitable result would be a DNA match, he made references at our being related more than once. He said his father wrote short stories and an older brother who was now in the US was also a good writer. A younger brother, of course, is a prominent visual artist. “So it's in the genes,” he said, twice if I am not mistaken. He also told me his three grown children would probably know I was no stranger because of facial resemblances. And when,much later, when it was my turn to tell my stories, I told him I was worried my son despised his father so and had no alternative role model, he said: “Nandyan naman ang lolo.”
On the road to UP we alternated between work, the government, and our personal lives. We talked about the peace agreement with the MILF. My article about the former head of the SSS. Ways to improve my section of the newspaper. His own dilemmas. Before long we were at the parking lot of Miranda hall, at the National Sciences Research Institute. We filled out forms. We submitted the requirements -- pictures, Ids, birth certificates. He made small talk with the girl in charge of the documents. I was too jittery to even try. He whipped out a manager's check for sixty grand. Whew. Truth did come at a price. He gave instructions that the official receipt be in my name.
Finally the camera was turned on, the medical technologist was called in. The sampling began. Both he and the institute director engaged me in conversation while the medtech prepared to sting my finger. It still hurt, but after that I was fine. His turn. I was back to my normal self and started smelling a good story for my column. The institute and the technology was not known among many. Most (including me) believed we still had to ship our samples to other countries for a DNA profile. In fact, when we were both finished with the blood-drawing exercise, (and because we seemed to ask a lot of questions), the institute head showed us around the place describing their completed studies and their practical applications in civil and criminal law, among others. I can't wait now to draft more questions and email them to the accomplished, low profile yet dedicated scientist we just came to know. And I would have a good piece in the paper on Monday.
It was almost noon. I had spent an entire morning with him. I hitched back to the Ortigas area where I would be getting my ride. On the drive back, he opened up yet more about his predicament and how he intended to come to terms with it. The conversation was spontaneous, free-flowing and honest. As i prepared to alight at the FX terminal behind Megamall, he buzzed me again and reminded me not to worry. “Life is too short to be spent worrying. Nothing will change.”
In the trip to my office I kept wondering if that will indeed be true. Should anything change, positive or negative as the results may say?
I texted him: “I had a nice morning. Thanks again for all and good luck to us.:)” After a few minutes he replied: “Same here. I've always cherished our bonding times.”
I psyched myself to put my worries away in the meantime. The results would be out in a month. I had given my blood and prayed that this man be indeed who I thought he was. At the moment, I had other things to attend to. My work, my writing and my children were waiting for me. And when we meet again next month, all the uncertainty will end. He is either my father or he is not. If he is not, somebody else is. Somebody had to be – or I would not be here.
Mental training in sports
published 11 Aug 2008, MST
Mental training as an essential part of the athletic preparation is not a recent discovery. It has been used around the world, by thousands of athletes, in all sports and at all competition levels from varsity tournaments to the Olympics.
Its effects are not disputed. The common—and fairly accurate view is that mental preparedness gives an athlete an edge among others,assuming they are of equal physical prowess and are subjected to equally rigorous physical training.
A book by Steven Ungerleider, Ph.D, Mental Training for Peak Performance, discusses the benefits of mental training through examples culled from actual international athletes, sporting events and interviews with the athletes themselves and their coaches.
Ungerleider, a collegiate varsity gymnast in earlier days, enumerates mental techniques that have been proven benefit athletes. Among these: building confidence with affirmation and self-talk; clearing the mind with breathing and meditation; maximizing performance with mental snapshots; relaxing to cool down and rev up; improving the game with guided imagery; using visual rehearsal to fine-tune one’s style; tapping into the power of dreams and getting psyched without losing one’s edge. The succeeding chapters discuss the application of these techniques in specific sports.
Amid the worldwide hype on the Beijing Olympics, we Filipinos continue to pin our hopes on Team Philippines, much too aware the gold has eluded us since we first participated in the Games in 1924.
What seems to be the problem? Are we essentially an non-athletic people? Or simply not up to par with the capabilities of other athletes in the world?
Like most of us are inclined to say, Arnold Lopez does not think so. There must be ways to unleash the best in our sportsmen so that the Philippines, like the Russians or Americans or Chinese, could be known for reaping sports medals internationally. He says it is a matter of tuning up our advantages so that they translate into tangible results, namely, victories in competitions.
Lopez is not talking above his head. He has a doctorate in clinical psychology and has been giving lectures in mental training for varsity athletes in numerous universities—Letran, La Salle, UP. He also teaches sports psychology at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School. In 2003, he was tapped by the Table Tennis Association of the Philippines to administer a mental training program for its athletes. That year, and for the first time, the Philippine women’s team won the Southeast Asian International Table Tennis Championship.
That may have been nothing but a happy coincidence. But it was more likely due to the fact that it was the first time the team underwent intensive training under a program that spanned the course of and complemented their physical preparations.
It also helps that Lopez is, himself, an athlete. He used to be a varsity table tennis player. He continues to play the sport to unwind, to stay fit, and nurture friendships with players and coaches he has come to know over the years. The theories he preaches about don’t just float in the air they translate into muscle action.
* * *
Of course, Lopez says, mental training amounts to nothing if there is no physical capability in the first place. Inherent ability is a given, and so are religious training and discipline. He emphasizes, nonetheless, that sports is more than a physical exercise. The body has its limits, after all. On the contrary, the mind does not.
Two examples come to mind. In the 2008 Wimbledon Championships, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal slugged it out for hours. Both were simply exceptional tennis players. But toward the end, it was the latter, displaying more consistent moves, more managed psychological arousal and better concentration, who bagged the title.
Another illustration is the 2007 World Pool Championship held here in the country last November. Twenty-nine-year-old Roberto Gomez, previously unheard of, promised to be a superstar against his opponent, England’s Daryl Peach. The Filipino was off to a good start, but alas, he could not sustain his advantage. “Kinapos,” Lopez says. The Englishman was more mentally composed.
Here in the Philippines, it appears that the value of mental training a programmed one, he hastens to add, in contrast to sporadic attempts by sedentary pseudo-psychologists, in the form of one-hour lectures or pep-talks here and there is lost on coaches, team owners and sports authorities altogether. They focus too much on the physical conditioning of the players without regard for the well-being of the individuals.
And yet they expect their players to be confident and focused, and bag medals and trophies here and there. They dangle the prospect of millions of pesos, of cars, of national pride. All of these spell extrinsic motivation. But how is all this possible when athletes themselves, just like any other fellow on the street, has some psychological baggage or anxieties that impede optimum performance?
Or maybe some coaches are convinced, Lopez concedes. They have just not incorporated this conviction into their budgets. These things come at a price, after all.
On the other hand, some athletes themselves are not keen on the idea. They find the sessions funny or awkward. They believe they already have all it takes to succeed. Sigh.
Victory in sports has a unifying effect on a nation. Notice how empty the streets become (and how traffic eases up) during a Manny Pacquiao fight. Even political squabbles come to a pause to celebrate such a victory. Would it not be nice if we can enhance the capabilities of our athletes in multi-dimensional ways?
Mental training as an essential part of the athletic preparation is not a recent discovery. It has been used around the world, by thousands of athletes, in all sports and at all competition levels from varsity tournaments to the Olympics.
Its effects are not disputed. The common—and fairly accurate view is that mental preparedness gives an athlete an edge among others,assuming they are of equal physical prowess and are subjected to equally rigorous physical training.
A book by Steven Ungerleider, Ph.D, Mental Training for Peak Performance, discusses the benefits of mental training through examples culled from actual international athletes, sporting events and interviews with the athletes themselves and their coaches.
Ungerleider, a collegiate varsity gymnast in earlier days, enumerates mental techniques that have been proven benefit athletes. Among these: building confidence with affirmation and self-talk; clearing the mind with breathing and meditation; maximizing performance with mental snapshots; relaxing to cool down and rev up; improving the game with guided imagery; using visual rehearsal to fine-tune one’s style; tapping into the power of dreams and getting psyched without losing one’s edge. The succeeding chapters discuss the application of these techniques in specific sports.
Amid the worldwide hype on the Beijing Olympics, we Filipinos continue to pin our hopes on Team Philippines, much too aware the gold has eluded us since we first participated in the Games in 1924.
What seems to be the problem? Are we essentially an non-athletic people? Or simply not up to par with the capabilities of other athletes in the world?
Like most of us are inclined to say, Arnold Lopez does not think so. There must be ways to unleash the best in our sportsmen so that the Philippines, like the Russians or Americans or Chinese, could be known for reaping sports medals internationally. He says it is a matter of tuning up our advantages so that they translate into tangible results, namely, victories in competitions.
Lopez is not talking above his head. He has a doctorate in clinical psychology and has been giving lectures in mental training for varsity athletes in numerous universities—Letran, La Salle, UP. He also teaches sports psychology at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School. In 2003, he was tapped by the Table Tennis Association of the Philippines to administer a mental training program for its athletes. That year, and for the first time, the Philippine women’s team won the Southeast Asian International Table Tennis Championship.
That may have been nothing but a happy coincidence. But it was more likely due to the fact that it was the first time the team underwent intensive training under a program that spanned the course of and complemented their physical preparations.
It also helps that Lopez is, himself, an athlete. He used to be a varsity table tennis player. He continues to play the sport to unwind, to stay fit, and nurture friendships with players and coaches he has come to know over the years. The theories he preaches about don’t just float in the air they translate into muscle action.
* * *
Of course, Lopez says, mental training amounts to nothing if there is no physical capability in the first place. Inherent ability is a given, and so are religious training and discipline. He emphasizes, nonetheless, that sports is more than a physical exercise. The body has its limits, after all. On the contrary, the mind does not.
Two examples come to mind. In the 2008 Wimbledon Championships, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal slugged it out for hours. Both were simply exceptional tennis players. But toward the end, it was the latter, displaying more consistent moves, more managed psychological arousal and better concentration, who bagged the title.
Another illustration is the 2007 World Pool Championship held here in the country last November. Twenty-nine-year-old Roberto Gomez, previously unheard of, promised to be a superstar against his opponent, England’s Daryl Peach. The Filipino was off to a good start, but alas, he could not sustain his advantage. “Kinapos,” Lopez says. The Englishman was more mentally composed.
Here in the Philippines, it appears that the value of mental training a programmed one, he hastens to add, in contrast to sporadic attempts by sedentary pseudo-psychologists, in the form of one-hour lectures or pep-talks here and there is lost on coaches, team owners and sports authorities altogether. They focus too much on the physical conditioning of the players without regard for the well-being of the individuals.
And yet they expect their players to be confident and focused, and bag medals and trophies here and there. They dangle the prospect of millions of pesos, of cars, of national pride. All of these spell extrinsic motivation. But how is all this possible when athletes themselves, just like any other fellow on the street, has some psychological baggage or anxieties that impede optimum performance?
Or maybe some coaches are convinced, Lopez concedes. They have just not incorporated this conviction into their budgets. These things come at a price, after all.
On the other hand, some athletes themselves are not keen on the idea. They find the sessions funny or awkward. They believe they already have all it takes to succeed. Sigh.
Victory in sports has a unifying effect on a nation. Notice how empty the streets become (and how traffic eases up) during a Manny Pacquiao fight. Even political squabbles come to a pause to celebrate such a victory. Would it not be nice if we can enhance the capabilities of our athletes in multi-dimensional ways?
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Fugitive
for M.B.
08.08.08
If I could
I would take you
and wrap you around my shirt.
I won't tell.
I would turn you into a hologram.
Shrink you.
Flatten, fold you
into as many times as my purse can contain.
I will keep you there. Safe.
But now you rack your brains
for sympathetic names
known by those known
by those known to you.
What tragedy.
In this country you seek
to change, and drastically,
(to which I don't agree)
being right does not mean
you won't be wronged.
and having nothing doesn't mean
they won't take more.
But enough of this. Think now.
You must cough up funds, and soon.
The need is so urgent – it is immeasurable
in currencies.
A respite:
Sheriff's gone for the weekend.
You will unfold and cast light on shadows.
Stumble upon solutions. Act.
But I cannot emerge from my hiding.
Constantly scarce,
I must learn of your troubles
on the Second Day.
08.08.08
If I could
I would take you
and wrap you around my shirt.
I won't tell.
I would turn you into a hologram.
Shrink you.
Flatten, fold you
into as many times as my purse can contain.
I will keep you there. Safe.
But now you rack your brains
for sympathetic names
known by those known
by those known to you.
What tragedy.
In this country you seek
to change, and drastically,
(to which I don't agree)
being right does not mean
you won't be wronged.
and having nothing doesn't mean
they won't take more.
But enough of this. Think now.
You must cough up funds, and soon.
The need is so urgent – it is immeasurable
in currencies.
A respite:
Sheriff's gone for the weekend.
You will unfold and cast light on shadows.
Stumble upon solutions. Act.
But I cannot emerge from my hiding.
Constantly scarce,
I must learn of your troubles
on the Second Day.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Tummy's Fight
MIRACLES DO HAPPEN
by Adelle Liezl Chua
Associate Editor, The Gracean Envoy
November 1991
The evening of September 4, 1991 might just be like any other evening to most of you, but for Aileen Gabasa, 3-Modesty class president, campus minister and a friend to many, it was a turning point in her life. Their household LPG exploded due to leaks, and the fair-skinned junior who was then nearest the stove could not do anything but feel rooted on the spot
2-Simplicity batch 90-91, 3-Modesty 91-92, and anybody who was a friend or acquaintance to Aileen, naturally, were taken back by the news. Said her barkada: “...we couldn't imagine that just 24 hours ago she was with us, fooling around, hindi makapaniwala nung una kasi parang hindi pwedeng mangyari sa kanya yun e...”
Lying on her bed, burned and unable to move but deep in thought, Aileen recalls that she never once felt helpless. “I felt the need to fight whatever was trying to overcome me, kasi marami pa akong gustong gawin sa buhay ko. I just put my trust in the Lord because I know he will never leave my side.”
She added that “the visits, the letters and cards from the people I never expected to give me a second thought made everything much more bearable, every pain worth enduring. I realized na marami rin palang nagki-care kahit pano.”
Aileen says she wants to laugh when she heard about the exaggerated versions of her accident that circulated among campus, juniors, mostly. “Grabe naman!” was all she said. Who wouldn't laugh, anyway, if you suddenly found out from an outsider that you're going to be paralyzed for life and attend the DECS home study program?
Miraculously enough, Aileen is recovering faster than her doctors expect. Three weeks after the accident, he is back to her usual jolly self. “Kahit masakit yung treatment, parang may nagsasabi sa akin na kayanin ko.” Her doctors remarked that “parang walang nangyari” - they did not think she would recover that fast!
“Thank you sa prayers, kina Sister, sa teachers, sa Graceans, you made it easier for me” Aileen says. Sure enough, no match is any accident to this spunky miss who has a lot of guts in her. As parting words, this we have from her: “In any challenge, kailangan ng lakas ng loob and tiwala kay God. And never, ever give up.”
**
I wrote this piece for our school paper almost seventeen years ago. I'm a better writer now, I hope.
Aileen (or Tummy to the rest of us),myself, and our friends were then scrawny fifteen-year-olds whose idea of happiness was to sit on the grass in the late afternoon, munch on sour cream-flavored popcorn and revel at the mystery of the individual futures that awaited us. There were just too many possibilities, numerous exhilirating thoughts: What course would i end up taking? What university would I get into? How would a first kiss feel? How would my wedding gown look like? What would be my husband's name? How many children would I have? What would be my life work? And then a comforting thought, warm as a cup of cocoa on a rainy day. Those days, we did not have to have all the answers. They would take care of themselves. For now, before we had the world to conquer, we had each other. What a delicious pause.
And then Tummy had her accident.
The idea and the sight of her, helpless, was revolting. I remember visiting her every Saturday morning at Capitol Medical and thinking that these things should be happening to the very old, or the very bad. Not to the promising student leader and perennial optimist that my friend was. But Tummy was Tummy -- she recovered, caught up with her lessons, and in our graduation rites the following year, she was the recipient of the Alfonso Yuchengco Foundation Award for Excellence in Leadership. She was an officer of the student council and was active in the community organizing prayer groups for teenagers.
Soon she started college at St. Paul's Manila under the behavioral sciences program. Then she shifted to dentistry at Centro Escolar. But she was not anymore able to take her board exams, much less practice her profession or even experience having a job. See, at the age of 13, Tummy had been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, something to which she had lost her mother, 2 sisters and a brother. In the late 1990s to early 2000, Tummy's condition had become precarious. Her older sister, Ate Charl, had increasingly become more protective of her. In May 2002, she had her first stroke. The second stroke followed in November of that year.
**
Fast forward to 2008. Tummy brings her fight to Room 445 of the telemetry section of the Makati Medical Center. She had her third attack in mid-July. I pop in one Friday afternoon on my way to work. I am surprised to see her walking around her room; I expected Tummy to be lying, immobile, on the bed. I hug her and peck her cheeks. “Did you apply some lipstick in honor of my visit?” She giggled. “That's my natural color,” she insists. “So how are you?”
Two years, more or less, since i last met up with her at Glorietta for a lunch that spilled over to coffee and cake. I guess that's how it is with old friends. You get by with occasional text messages, forwarded e-mails and Friendster comments without seeing each other for years. And when you do see each other again, there are no barriers. You start talking at once. Just like the old times.
A cousin, Paula, bustles about the room keeping Tummy company. Paula is now in charge of my friend's cell phone as the signal interferes with the electrodes attached to her body for monitoring purposes. Tummy settles into the visitor's couch, narrating how she ended up – again -- in this room. I feel a little bad at missing the latest lunch gathering I missed just two months ago. In fact, after that, she sent me a message saying she hoped we could get together before July. Could she have known another attack was imminent? But anyway. I am here now.
I ask her how she is. “Im ok, today,” she says, and she looks it. She has just been released from intensive care to which they rushed her during the second week of her confinement. Apparently, for a moment, her heart just stopped beating. And then, as though it had a mind of its own, it started beating again.
Not without any help,Tummy says, from the internal cardioverter defibrillator that was fortunately available in the hospital. After this episode, her doctor sat down with her and her sister and explained she needed to be operated on. A take-home version of the equipment, known as the automatic internal cardioverter defibrillator this time,would have to be plugged into her system. Jesus. These multisyllabic medical terms.
According to Tummy, the AICD is a subcutaneous device that automatically senses when a patient's heart beats erratically, slows, or even momentarily stops. If any of these happens, the machine acts to revive the beating. To be sure, the procedure and the AICD do not come cheap. It is why I've been asked to help organize a fund raiser for Tummy. One million pesos,ore or less.
My friend continues. "The doctor said that without the machine, I may not make it." Tummy is not blinking and is all matter-of-fact. Wow. I feel my troubles dwarfed by her struggles.
The machine cannot of course reverse her illness, but it can prolong her life. As we continue talking, Tummy reveals she is worried she may feel like a robot with all these devices in her body. Can she ever feel whole and human and normal again? What would life be like with all these "enhancements?"
**
Well, robots are not able to answer their own questions, no matter how nominal they are. Now all grown-up, we have more questions, those which cannot be addressed slum-book style. We are older and don't anymore feel invincible.
But there is a providential surprise. Not everything changes. Certainly not that warm fuzzy feeling in the company of friends.
by Adelle Liezl Chua
Associate Editor, The Gracean Envoy
November 1991
The evening of September 4, 1991 might just be like any other evening to most of you, but for Aileen Gabasa, 3-Modesty class president, campus minister and a friend to many, it was a turning point in her life. Their household LPG exploded due to leaks, and the fair-skinned junior who was then nearest the stove could not do anything but feel rooted on the spot
2-Simplicity batch 90-91, 3-Modesty 91-92, and anybody who was a friend or acquaintance to Aileen, naturally, were taken back by the news. Said her barkada: “...we couldn't imagine that just 24 hours ago she was with us, fooling around, hindi makapaniwala nung una kasi parang hindi pwedeng mangyari sa kanya yun e...”
Lying on her bed, burned and unable to move but deep in thought, Aileen recalls that she never once felt helpless. “I felt the need to fight whatever was trying to overcome me, kasi marami pa akong gustong gawin sa buhay ko. I just put my trust in the Lord because I know he will never leave my side.”
She added that “the visits, the letters and cards from the people I never expected to give me a second thought made everything much more bearable, every pain worth enduring. I realized na marami rin palang nagki-care kahit pano.”
Aileen says she wants to laugh when she heard about the exaggerated versions of her accident that circulated among campus, juniors, mostly. “Grabe naman!” was all she said. Who wouldn't laugh, anyway, if you suddenly found out from an outsider that you're going to be paralyzed for life and attend the DECS home study program?
Miraculously enough, Aileen is recovering faster than her doctors expect. Three weeks after the accident, he is back to her usual jolly self. “Kahit masakit yung treatment, parang may nagsasabi sa akin na kayanin ko.” Her doctors remarked that “parang walang nangyari” - they did not think she would recover that fast!
“Thank you sa prayers, kina Sister, sa teachers, sa Graceans, you made it easier for me” Aileen says. Sure enough, no match is any accident to this spunky miss who has a lot of guts in her. As parting words, this we have from her: “In any challenge, kailangan ng lakas ng loob and tiwala kay God. And never, ever give up.”
**
I wrote this piece for our school paper almost seventeen years ago. I'm a better writer now, I hope.
Aileen (or Tummy to the rest of us),myself, and our friends were then scrawny fifteen-year-olds whose idea of happiness was to sit on the grass in the late afternoon, munch on sour cream-flavored popcorn and revel at the mystery of the individual futures that awaited us. There were just too many possibilities, numerous exhilirating thoughts: What course would i end up taking? What university would I get into? How would a first kiss feel? How would my wedding gown look like? What would be my husband's name? How many children would I have? What would be my life work? And then a comforting thought, warm as a cup of cocoa on a rainy day. Those days, we did not have to have all the answers. They would take care of themselves. For now, before we had the world to conquer, we had each other. What a delicious pause.
And then Tummy had her accident.
The idea and the sight of her, helpless, was revolting. I remember visiting her every Saturday morning at Capitol Medical and thinking that these things should be happening to the very old, or the very bad. Not to the promising student leader and perennial optimist that my friend was. But Tummy was Tummy -- she recovered, caught up with her lessons, and in our graduation rites the following year, she was the recipient of the Alfonso Yuchengco Foundation Award for Excellence in Leadership. She was an officer of the student council and was active in the community organizing prayer groups for teenagers.
Soon she started college at St. Paul's Manila under the behavioral sciences program. Then she shifted to dentistry at Centro Escolar. But she was not anymore able to take her board exams, much less practice her profession or even experience having a job. See, at the age of 13, Tummy had been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, something to which she had lost her mother, 2 sisters and a brother. In the late 1990s to early 2000, Tummy's condition had become precarious. Her older sister, Ate Charl, had increasingly become more protective of her. In May 2002, she had her first stroke. The second stroke followed in November of that year.
**
Fast forward to 2008. Tummy brings her fight to Room 445 of the telemetry section of the Makati Medical Center. She had her third attack in mid-July. I pop in one Friday afternoon on my way to work. I am surprised to see her walking around her room; I expected Tummy to be lying, immobile, on the bed. I hug her and peck her cheeks. “Did you apply some lipstick in honor of my visit?” She giggled. “That's my natural color,” she insists. “So how are you?”
Two years, more or less, since i last met up with her at Glorietta for a lunch that spilled over to coffee and cake. I guess that's how it is with old friends. You get by with occasional text messages, forwarded e-mails and Friendster comments without seeing each other for years. And when you do see each other again, there are no barriers. You start talking at once. Just like the old times.
A cousin, Paula, bustles about the room keeping Tummy company. Paula is now in charge of my friend's cell phone as the signal interferes with the electrodes attached to her body for monitoring purposes. Tummy settles into the visitor's couch, narrating how she ended up – again -- in this room. I feel a little bad at missing the latest lunch gathering I missed just two months ago. In fact, after that, she sent me a message saying she hoped we could get together before July. Could she have known another attack was imminent? But anyway. I am here now.
I ask her how she is. “Im ok, today,” she says, and she looks it. She has just been released from intensive care to which they rushed her during the second week of her confinement. Apparently, for a moment, her heart just stopped beating. And then, as though it had a mind of its own, it started beating again.
Not without any help,Tummy says, from the internal cardioverter defibrillator that was fortunately available in the hospital. After this episode, her doctor sat down with her and her sister and explained she needed to be operated on. A take-home version of the equipment, known as the automatic internal cardioverter defibrillator this time,would have to be plugged into her system. Jesus. These multisyllabic medical terms.
According to Tummy, the AICD is a subcutaneous device that automatically senses when a patient's heart beats erratically, slows, or even momentarily stops. If any of these happens, the machine acts to revive the beating. To be sure, the procedure and the AICD do not come cheap. It is why I've been asked to help organize a fund raiser for Tummy. One million pesos,ore or less.
My friend continues. "The doctor said that without the machine, I may not make it." Tummy is not blinking and is all matter-of-fact. Wow. I feel my troubles dwarfed by her struggles.
The machine cannot of course reverse her illness, but it can prolong her life. As we continue talking, Tummy reveals she is worried she may feel like a robot with all these devices in her body. Can she ever feel whole and human and normal again? What would life be like with all these "enhancements?"
**
Well, robots are not able to answer their own questions, no matter how nominal they are. Now all grown-up, we have more questions, those which cannot be addressed slum-book style. We are older and don't anymore feel invincible.
But there is a providential surprise. Not everything changes. Certainly not that warm fuzzy feeling in the company of friends.
Monday, August 4, 2008
No Offense
I am getting ready for work. Sophia approaches me, slowly, as though she is meaning to tell me something but cannot not quite bring herself to begin. "Mommy..." she mutters.
"What is it?" I ask her. I suspect she wants to go with me to the office, as she always does. I prepare a good way to turn her down. The weather is not good.
"Please don't be angry..."
"I'm not angry but I may get impatient," I say. It is two in the afternoon and I want to leave early; Monday is one of my two heaviest days in the work week.
She fiddles with her ID. She has just come from school herself and has not yet finished changing into house clothes. "I hit Jed."
"You hid what?"
"I hit my classmate, Jed. He told Teacher. Is that a minor offense, a less serious offense or a grave offense?"
Now my Sophie is meek as an angel, sometimes to a fault. She would be the last person you'd expect to pick a fight with anyone in school or at home. Indeed it is more likely for her to be picked on or bullied. This is something new.
I put my comb down and bid her to come sit beside me tell me her story.
I learn that this boy, Jed, was her seatmate. The teacher was giving back their quiz booklets. Jed started poking at Sophie's hair with his booklet. She told him to stop. He didn't. she slapped his wrist. He was startled, ran to the teacher, and told her Sophia had hit him.
Teacher was fair enough to hear my daughter's explanation. "But he started it," she claimed.
And now Sophia faces me, awaiting my verdict. I think it is no offense at all that she wrist-slapped a boy who was bothering her,most probably because he liked her. So I say "congratulations." The girl is perplexed. She expects me to be vexed.
"You should have done one thing, though," I tell her. "You should have called teacher's attention first." We laugh.
I hug my girl. How many more bullies and predators will she face -- and stand up to -- in her lifetime? I cannot know that today. What I do know is that she had a good start.
"What is it?" I ask her. I suspect she wants to go with me to the office, as she always does. I prepare a good way to turn her down. The weather is not good.
"Please don't be angry..."
"I'm not angry but I may get impatient," I say. It is two in the afternoon and I want to leave early; Monday is one of my two heaviest days in the work week.
She fiddles with her ID. She has just come from school herself and has not yet finished changing into house clothes. "I hit Jed."
"You hid what?"
"I hit my classmate, Jed. He told Teacher. Is that a minor offense, a less serious offense or a grave offense?"
Now my Sophie is meek as an angel, sometimes to a fault. She would be the last person you'd expect to pick a fight with anyone in school or at home. Indeed it is more likely for her to be picked on or bullied. This is something new.
I put my comb down and bid her to come sit beside me tell me her story.
I learn that this boy, Jed, was her seatmate. The teacher was giving back their quiz booklets. Jed started poking at Sophie's hair with his booklet. She told him to stop. He didn't. she slapped his wrist. He was startled, ran to the teacher, and told her Sophia had hit him.
Teacher was fair enough to hear my daughter's explanation. "But he started it," she claimed.
And now Sophia faces me, awaiting my verdict. I think it is no offense at all that she wrist-slapped a boy who was bothering her,most probably because he liked her. So I say "congratulations." The girl is perplexed. She expects me to be vexed.
"You should have done one thing, though," I tell her. "You should have called teacher's attention first." We laugh.
I hug my girl. How many more bullies and predators will she face -- and stand up to -- in her lifetime? I cannot know that today. What I do know is that she had a good start.
Setting benchmarks at the SSS (Conclusion)
published 4 August 2008, MST
This is the first Monday in seven years that just-resigned Social Security System president and chief executive officer Corazon De la Paz-Bernardo would be spending as she wished.
She intends to catch up: Spend more time with her daughter as well as with her husband of a few months (she remarried in October), Mr. Enrique Bernardo, a high school classmate and former golfing buddy. She wishes she could go back to the sport, but she needs time to rest and recover. “I want to heal myself,” she says, “so I would not be a burden to other people.”
She had been used to being the strong one, the one who defied odds and hurdled obstacles—professional and otherwise. She graduated salutatorian from Rizal High School, what used to be the biggest high school in the world. She finished accounting, magna cum laude, at the University of the East. She placed first in her batch’s licensure exams. She moved on to pursue her MBA in Cornell University as a Fulbright and UE scholar. Then she joined Price Waterhouse, stayed there for decades and retired as senior partner.
And yet, more than her natural intelligence, drive and management skills, De la Paz-Bernardo says she has built her reputation on saying no.
“If I tell you to do something and you think I am wrong, I expect you to tell me,” she says, adding that she used this approach with her team at the SSS when she went on board in 2001. In the same manner, “if you tell me to do something, and I believe it is not doable, I will tell you it cannot be done.” Certainly, for all her years in the private sector and in the government combined, this attitude has displeased some people. But it has also earned for her their respect.
De la Paz-Bernardo attributes this approach to her partnership background. Because of this, she refuses to take all the credit for the gains made by the SSS in recent years under her watch. She says her people have been her indispensable partners in moving closer to the agency’s goals. They had to sacrifice much and give up perks they had been used to as well as their lighter workload. They became mindful that they had to make themselves relevant to the SSS members. Employees became empowered, knowing that the solution was not an elusive magic formula, but had been in their hands all this time.
This, aside from making collections exceed benefit payments, extending the Fund’s actuarial life by 21 years, and increasing employers’ contributions, is what De la Paz-Bernardo considers her greatest achievement at the agency.
***
In fact, her good work in social security has gone beyond the country’s territorial bounds. In 2004, De la Paz-Bernardo was elected president of the Geneva-based International Social Security Association. This group is closely associated with the International Labor organization, a United Nations agency. Her election is a first for Filipinos, for Asians, and for non-Europeans—and for women. She was re-elected in 2007; and now, notwithstanding her resignation as SSS president, it is likely she would be asked to complete her term until 2010.
The international forum seeks to strengthen the administrative and organizational capacity of social security agencies. Employees of member-nations are trained to improve compliance with international standards and resist political interference from their governments. The agency also wants to involve people from the informal sector into the system.
Through the ISSA, De la Paz-Bernardo has been acquainted with the social security problems of other countries For instance, in Africa, a parent’s affliction with HIV means the other parent is sick as well. How then does the system take care of orphans and deal with the loss of manpower resources at the same time? In China, where the one-child policy has been in place for quite some time now, there is a growing number of old people and less of the young to take care of them. One way or another, the state has to step in.
Here at home, De la Paz-Bernardo says the migrant worker phenomenon has significantly changed the situation. All of a sudden, there are grandparents, who must be taken care of themselves, now taking care of very young children whose parents are working abroad. Our vast workforce in foreign lands also needs more protection than ever, especially if their host countries or employers are content with just giving them their salaries and nothing more. Clearly, there is a need for more ways to reach out to the expanded membership.
After seven years at the SSS, De la Paz-Bernardo has seen more of “the other side” of the Philippines. In her private sector days, she led a cloistered life in Makati. She lived, worked and held meetings there. But the SSS has brought her to more places and into interaction with all kinds of people. “When you see old people waiting in line for money that they will use to pay for their grandchildren’s tuition, that really makes you sit up and evaluate the things you may be taking for grated.” Why, she says there is not even that much pressure to dress as elegantly as she used to!
Working at SSS may have worsened her health problems. But De la Paz-Bernardo steps down rewarded at, in her own way, having helped others and being “part of something bigger than myself.” She wishes that her successor, former National Economic and Development Authority Director General Romulo Neri, would pursue the reforms and do well by the SSS members by making the Fund’s interest a priority.
De la Paz-Bernardo looks forward to the day when the economy would flourish (the extraneous shocks of food and fuel prices out of the way), when people would have bigger incomes, and thus would be able to make bigger contributions to a relevant, trustworthy and efficient Social Security System. The agency would in turn make sure that the young help the old, the men help the women, the able help the sick, and a member is helped, not so much based on the manner of payment ( a function of income level) but on his or her specific needs. Now that’s real security in the system.
This is the first Monday in seven years that just-resigned Social Security System president and chief executive officer Corazon De la Paz-Bernardo would be spending as she wished.
She intends to catch up: Spend more time with her daughter as well as with her husband of a few months (she remarried in October), Mr. Enrique Bernardo, a high school classmate and former golfing buddy. She wishes she could go back to the sport, but she needs time to rest and recover. “I want to heal myself,” she says, “so I would not be a burden to other people.”
She had been used to being the strong one, the one who defied odds and hurdled obstacles—professional and otherwise. She graduated salutatorian from Rizal High School, what used to be the biggest high school in the world. She finished accounting, magna cum laude, at the University of the East. She placed first in her batch’s licensure exams. She moved on to pursue her MBA in Cornell University as a Fulbright and UE scholar. Then she joined Price Waterhouse, stayed there for decades and retired as senior partner.
And yet, more than her natural intelligence, drive and management skills, De la Paz-Bernardo says she has built her reputation on saying no.
“If I tell you to do something and you think I am wrong, I expect you to tell me,” she says, adding that she used this approach with her team at the SSS when she went on board in 2001. In the same manner, “if you tell me to do something, and I believe it is not doable, I will tell you it cannot be done.” Certainly, for all her years in the private sector and in the government combined, this attitude has displeased some people. But it has also earned for her their respect.
De la Paz-Bernardo attributes this approach to her partnership background. Because of this, she refuses to take all the credit for the gains made by the SSS in recent years under her watch. She says her people have been her indispensable partners in moving closer to the agency’s goals. They had to sacrifice much and give up perks they had been used to as well as their lighter workload. They became mindful that they had to make themselves relevant to the SSS members. Employees became empowered, knowing that the solution was not an elusive magic formula, but had been in their hands all this time.
This, aside from making collections exceed benefit payments, extending the Fund’s actuarial life by 21 years, and increasing employers’ contributions, is what De la Paz-Bernardo considers her greatest achievement at the agency.
***
In fact, her good work in social security has gone beyond the country’s territorial bounds. In 2004, De la Paz-Bernardo was elected president of the Geneva-based International Social Security Association. This group is closely associated with the International Labor organization, a United Nations agency. Her election is a first for Filipinos, for Asians, and for non-Europeans—and for women. She was re-elected in 2007; and now, notwithstanding her resignation as SSS president, it is likely she would be asked to complete her term until 2010.
The international forum seeks to strengthen the administrative and organizational capacity of social security agencies. Employees of member-nations are trained to improve compliance with international standards and resist political interference from their governments. The agency also wants to involve people from the informal sector into the system.
Through the ISSA, De la Paz-Bernardo has been acquainted with the social security problems of other countries For instance, in Africa, a parent’s affliction with HIV means the other parent is sick as well. How then does the system take care of orphans and deal with the loss of manpower resources at the same time? In China, where the one-child policy has been in place for quite some time now, there is a growing number of old people and less of the young to take care of them. One way or another, the state has to step in.
Here at home, De la Paz-Bernardo says the migrant worker phenomenon has significantly changed the situation. All of a sudden, there are grandparents, who must be taken care of themselves, now taking care of very young children whose parents are working abroad. Our vast workforce in foreign lands also needs more protection than ever, especially if their host countries or employers are content with just giving them their salaries and nothing more. Clearly, there is a need for more ways to reach out to the expanded membership.
After seven years at the SSS, De la Paz-Bernardo has seen more of “the other side” of the Philippines. In her private sector days, she led a cloistered life in Makati. She lived, worked and held meetings there. But the SSS has brought her to more places and into interaction with all kinds of people. “When you see old people waiting in line for money that they will use to pay for their grandchildren’s tuition, that really makes you sit up and evaluate the things you may be taking for grated.” Why, she says there is not even that much pressure to dress as elegantly as she used to!
Working at SSS may have worsened her health problems. But De la Paz-Bernardo steps down rewarded at, in her own way, having helped others and being “part of something bigger than myself.” She wishes that her successor, former National Economic and Development Authority Director General Romulo Neri, would pursue the reforms and do well by the SSS members by making the Fund’s interest a priority.
De la Paz-Bernardo looks forward to the day when the economy would flourish (the extraneous shocks of food and fuel prices out of the way), when people would have bigger incomes, and thus would be able to make bigger contributions to a relevant, trustworthy and efficient Social Security System. The agency would in turn make sure that the young help the old, the men help the women, the able help the sick, and a member is helped, not so much based on the manner of payment ( a function of income level) but on his or her specific needs. Now that’s real security in the system.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Keeping House
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
Apartment No. 22061
Burgermeister-Reuter-Stiftung
Iranische Strasse 6
13347 Berlin
At five pm sharp, we were hauled out of our classes (some of my classmates weren’t finished with the writing assignment) and told to bring our luggage downstairs. By six pm we arrived at the apartment complex – and it’s really really on the other side of town. It is nice, though not as luxurious and as proximate to the Institute as the hotel.
Funny I never even considered the thought of living on my own, in a real apartment, doing my groceries, laundering my clothes, and enjoying my own company. The fact that all this is now happening in a foreign country, a European city teeming with history, makes it even more exciting. I feel so independent, so whole.
Upon arriving here, we were given our room assignments and given a quick tour of the complex. They call this the Reuters complex and from what I understand, students from all over the world studying in Berlin are billeted here. Our sponsor, the International Institute of Journalism, rents the apartments where we are staying now. The view from my window, however, is not as great as I had hoped. But I’m not in a position to complain. Ive been blessed with so much already.
It doesn’t feel like the city here. It looks all country and quiet…parang Baguio. There are even birds chirping. Big trees. Park benches. Oh well. Perhaps pictures would do a better job describing it.
The surprise is that it’s not even countryside, really. Walk straight ahead for about 5 minutes and you get back to the real world: Cars, traffic lights, etc. The train station is a 15 minute walk from the apartment. The other station where we are supposed to alight is right behind the school.
Then the entire groups, led by the seminar assistants, were led into the grocery store. Here I purchased some food provisions, which aren’t much, really, because I have decided to be a soup-bread-fruit person for the remainder of my stay here. That these kinds of food come in cheap is a good enough reason, too. I didn’t pick up a lot of groceries because I didn’t want to pay for the pushcart that costs 1 euro.(I would later learn that one gets his euro back when one returns the carts properly.) Result: a loaf of bread, strawberry jam, an assortment of cheese spreads, 3 packs of soup, a jar of seedless plum, apple juice and yogurt – all of eight euros. I could last for three days I guess with the stuff I got.
My classmates, especially the Africans, got all excited and started filling their pushcarts. They got all sorts of spices and cooking aids. I guess they despise the food here so much that they cant wait to cook the things that would remind them of home.
**
6 April
I moved into this apartment two days ago. Aside from the internet facility that I have yet to turn to my best advantage (I may be able to do that on Tuesday morning), I really don’t have anything much to complain. Everything is wood and neat and orderly. This is the kind of life that would qualify as good for me – aside from being with my four wonderful children.
I cant believe I'm sleepy again. It’s almost seven in the evening in Manila now. I just had lunch, on the contrary. Some easy cooking pasta and some fruits and juice.
Fortunately I don’t belong to any particular wing. Because my apartment is at the landing between the second and third floors, and when you open my door you would find the stairs already. I'm pretty safe where I am.
I really like my apartment and I try to keep it clean and neat all the time, even when I'm in a hurry. The housekeeping services come every two weeks, in between that, we take care of our own houses.
If everyone looked only after himself there would be no problem. We are all equipped with the ability to keep our own individual houses. I think it is a natural impulse to straighten out a chaotic scenario, such as when your closet is messy, you sit down and fold your stuff and separate the shirts from the skirts, etc. Complications arise when we start looking after other people – spouses, children – because the natural ability is just good for one person’s mess. Beyond that, there is just too much entropy for one person to handle.
It would have been ok if there were just the kids to look after. Because time passes, kids grow up and start taking care of their own selves. Actually, that is a parent’s greatest mission, right, to be dispensable to their kids one day? You train children to be self sufficient so that one day, when you cannot anymore be there to hold their hand, they will manage, and somehow manage superbly.
First Impressions
Bel ahr Hotel. Room 404
Berlin
430 am Friday, 30 March
Things are looking good. That last flight was short and uneventful, and my confidence had been boosted with my eventual reunion with my companion
We arrived in Berlin at around 930 pm and I was able to recover my baggage without much difficulty. There was this girl, Anna, waiting for us upon the exit and she led us to a cab which led us to this hotel.
See it’s not the apartment all at once. This hotel is indeed very nice. And I'm not rooming with anyone so I really have time alone to organize my things, my thoughts.
I’ve learned too that in the school itself, we could access our email and all. There are also many internet cafes all around. Staying connected with the office shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Im not too tired anymore because I had been able to sleep in the airplane on the way here. Of course, though, the seats were cramped and killed my back. In this hotel, I got myself a good three hours before I got up, eager not to waste this solitude – and the newness of everything – in sleep.
It is cold, too. They are correct. It is like Baguio in December and still a little colder than that.
I hope Ill be able to do something about my PC plug today.
I also wish I had the foresight to get a global roaming SIM so I could text people, even only for emergency purposes. Not that I intend to have any of those.
Friday, 30 march
It’s 512 pm here so it must be a little after 11 at night back in Manila.
I talked to all four kids about 3 hours ago. It was great. I miss them so. I was also able to send some brief emails: to the office, to some close friends, to Bea. The keyboards are impossible, though, the ys and the zs are all mixed up.
I think I will get by. The course promises to be interesting. 2 Filipinos, two Pakistanis, ten more Africans. Feels good to be with people you otherwise would not have met in your lifetime.
WANDERLUST
It would have been better, of course, if this blog already existed when I was "in exile" in Europe last year. I would have been able to record and publish my impressions of all the new places I saw, as well as the introspection each new experience occasioned, instantly. But I only discovered the wonders of blogging this summer.
This is not to say though that I did not do some recording in any other means. I wrote profusely, too, on my journal and to a handful of close friends.
It took me a year, I know. But here are those words now, under the label WANDERLUST. Suffice it to say that I am looking forward to succeeding entries I will post, real time, from some other place somewhere else in the globe.
This is not to say though that I did not do some recording in any other means. I wrote profusely, too, on my journal and to a handful of close friends.
It took me a year, I know. But here are those words now, under the label WANDERLUST. Suffice it to say that I am looking forward to succeeding entries I will post, real time, from some other place somewhere else in the globe.
AIRBORNE
Thursday, 29 March 2007
No sense of time, somewhere over India
According to the flight information screen in front of my seat, there’s still 9 hours left to hurdle in this 13-hour flight. It’s like Ive been up here forever, in this cramped middle seat in Row 16. It’s like I've been fumbling with everything, from the remote of the in-flight entertainment system to the door of the lavatory to the recliner of my chair (that last one I still haven’t figured, really). I don’t think I will get bored, either. I’ve slept and have had my first full meal and have watched The Devil Wears Prada which I had seen in Manila some six months ago. There’s a lot of music and a lot of movies. I have my going-around-Berlin book and I'm writing on this journal, which smells heavenly , pure.
I’m thousands – well maybe only hundreds, I cant say for sure – of miles away from my concerns in the Philippines. I will be away for two moths and I'm praying I will come back in a more coherent form than what I was when I left.
First off, we’ll hit Amsterdam. I will stay there for some two hours, after which I will take a much shorter flight to my final destination, Berlin.
It feels funny to be writing from way up here. I guess now I can be convinced I'm really going. Hey, because I’ve actually gone.
( changed the disc playing from Foo Fighters to the Pussycat dolls. So now even though I still feel like a zombie I am at least playing familiar music. Music I recall I love to dance to, in my attempt to just forget everything, even momentarily. It has the same effect on me everywhere -- whether I'm alone dancing till my heart stopped in my home office, in the gym alongside strangers, or in this KLM aircraft crossing continents.
I think this journal will be decently full when I return after two months. I'm really so messed up despite my recent apparent gains. I still feel I have some unfinished business. I've remained fragile and vulnerable and paralyzed. Maybe ill find that final push in Germany.
**
I don’t know what time it is where I am, where I'm headed, or back home. I surmise that if I have been traveling for ten hours or so, it should already be Thursday night in Manila. I wonder how my kids are, and what they really think and feel about the fact that I had to go. And “desert” them for two months. Oh well. Maybe someday they will realize I had to do this for myself so I could be a better mother to them. Or else I will forever be...cluttered. High-strung. Out of sorts.
I’ve been able to sleep. The full meal served earlier, the fish, was nice too. Now I'm just enjoying the in-flight music (jazz channel) while scribbling away here. On my screen is the progress of our flight. Actually I kind of like being updated where we are, exactly, and how much longer before we land. We just finished crossing the Caspian Sea. We are now over Central Europe. Got barely 3 hours to go.
I was greatly disoriented by that earlier mishap regarding the excess baggage, back in manila. My fault, really. I should have bothered to check the allowable baggage weight and weighed my own luggage before stepping out of the house. I should, too, have bothered to find out how much the airline actually charged for every kilo of excess baggage. No wonder that upon stepping out of my beloved country, I was faced with a moral dilemma – one that I had to bite. Of course I put out. Did I have any other choice?
Still it sucks. I was a party to the corruption I am supposed to rile against. And i was too dazed to be in control. Until when shall I just allow things to happen to me? Then again, maybe that's why i am on this plane.
It’s terrifying, really, all these new things, being in this foreign countries that don’t even primarily speak English. But by golly I'm 31 and I should really be stepping out of my comfort zones. Big time.
I do need this trip. This experience of being yanked out of a myopic existence, a reminder that I need to step back and see that there’s a bigger picture. An immensely bigger one.
**
Fifty-one minutes before touchdown and I am giddy – no, really, I'm hell drunk – from the white wine I just had for dinner. For a moment I was afraid I wouldn’t be taken into Amsterdam, then I remembered that even marijuana was legal in this place. Space cake? Deuce Bigalow?
I'm drunk and sleepy and my lower extremities feel tender. Must be midnight thereabouts in Manila.
No sense of time, somewhere over India
According to the flight information screen in front of my seat, there’s still 9 hours left to hurdle in this 13-hour flight. It’s like Ive been up here forever, in this cramped middle seat in Row 16. It’s like I've been fumbling with everything, from the remote of the in-flight entertainment system to the door of the lavatory to the recliner of my chair (that last one I still haven’t figured, really). I don’t think I will get bored, either. I’ve slept and have had my first full meal and have watched The Devil Wears Prada which I had seen in Manila some six months ago. There’s a lot of music and a lot of movies. I have my going-around-Berlin book and I'm writing on this journal, which smells heavenly , pure.
I’m thousands – well maybe only hundreds, I cant say for sure – of miles away from my concerns in the Philippines. I will be away for two moths and I'm praying I will come back in a more coherent form than what I was when I left.
First off, we’ll hit Amsterdam. I will stay there for some two hours, after which I will take a much shorter flight to my final destination, Berlin.
It feels funny to be writing from way up here. I guess now I can be convinced I'm really going. Hey, because I’ve actually gone.
( changed the disc playing from Foo Fighters to the Pussycat dolls. So now even though I still feel like a zombie I am at least playing familiar music. Music I recall I love to dance to, in my attempt to just forget everything, even momentarily. It has the same effect on me everywhere -- whether I'm alone dancing till my heart stopped in my home office, in the gym alongside strangers, or in this KLM aircraft crossing continents.
I think this journal will be decently full when I return after two months. I'm really so messed up despite my recent apparent gains. I still feel I have some unfinished business. I've remained fragile and vulnerable and paralyzed. Maybe ill find that final push in Germany.
**
I don’t know what time it is where I am, where I'm headed, or back home. I surmise that if I have been traveling for ten hours or so, it should already be Thursday night in Manila. I wonder how my kids are, and what they really think and feel about the fact that I had to go. And “desert” them for two months. Oh well. Maybe someday they will realize I had to do this for myself so I could be a better mother to them. Or else I will forever be...cluttered. High-strung. Out of sorts.
I’ve been able to sleep. The full meal served earlier, the fish, was nice too. Now I'm just enjoying the in-flight music (jazz channel) while scribbling away here. On my screen is the progress of our flight. Actually I kind of like being updated where we are, exactly, and how much longer before we land. We just finished crossing the Caspian Sea. We are now over Central Europe. Got barely 3 hours to go.
I was greatly disoriented by that earlier mishap regarding the excess baggage, back in manila. My fault, really. I should have bothered to check the allowable baggage weight and weighed my own luggage before stepping out of the house. I should, too, have bothered to find out how much the airline actually charged for every kilo of excess baggage. No wonder that upon stepping out of my beloved country, I was faced with a moral dilemma – one that I had to bite. Of course I put out. Did I have any other choice?
Still it sucks. I was a party to the corruption I am supposed to rile against. And i was too dazed to be in control. Until when shall I just allow things to happen to me? Then again, maybe that's why i am on this plane.
It’s terrifying, really, all these new things, being in this foreign countries that don’t even primarily speak English. But by golly I'm 31 and I should really be stepping out of my comfort zones. Big time.
I do need this trip. This experience of being yanked out of a myopic existence, a reminder that I need to step back and see that there’s a bigger picture. An immensely bigger one.
**
Fifty-one minutes before touchdown and I am giddy – no, really, I'm hell drunk – from the white wine I just had for dinner. For a moment I was afraid I wouldn’t be taken into Amsterdam, then I remembered that even marijuana was legal in this place. Space cake? Deuce Bigalow?
I'm drunk and sleepy and my lower extremities feel tender. Must be midnight thereabouts in Manila.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Setting benchmarks at the SSS (Part 1)
published 28 July 2008, MST
Corazon dela Paz-Bernardo would not suffer being called “unpatriotic,” even if former Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho, who was given the task of persuading her to be president and chief executive officer of the Social Security System in 2001, told her so in jest.
Now, at the beginning of her last week on the job, dela Paz-Bernardo goes with mixed feelings.
“I am sad,” admits the SSS chief in an interview last week at her agency's Makati building. “I have learned to love this office and its people, and they have shown me much appreciation.” She refers to a recent trip to Cebu where employees paid tribute to her and thanked her for her role in shoring up the agency's image to its members. “In a way I wish I can see to it that our reforms are continued.”
“At the same time, I am relieved. I will be free of the stress that comes from being accountable to millions.”
That dela Paz-Bernardo takes her accountability seriously has pushed her to work so hard in her first full-time stint in government. Her typical day when she's not traveling: Meetings, phone calls, paper work. She brings home more of the latter and works until midnight. In the last seven years, this frenetic lifestyle has worsened her scoliosis -- it is now deemed degenerative. She has also gone through a colon surgery. Actually, she came to the interview in a wheelchair, only standing up as she entered the conference room. She still has problems with her digestive system. So now she bows out with the perfect excuse.
And on Friday, former National Economic and Development Authority director general and acting Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri will take the reins of the SSS from Dela Paz-Bernardo. The transition fueled much speculation, but the outgoing president herself exhorted SSS employees, members and the general public to give Neri a chance.
He sent her a text message thanking her for her “kind words in the media.” She replied that he deserved it and reminded him that the agency's members needed nothing less. If not, “kawawa naman sila.” Neri texted back: “Yes. I will do my best.”
But really, Neri should be thanking dela Paz-Bernardo for more than her words. In the last seven years, she has worked painstakingly to make the SSS a financially viable institution and redeemed its image before the public. This mean feat now gives Neri a benchmark against which to measure his intentions, his diligence, his resolve, his results, his loyalties.
And maybe even his patriotism as well.
**
Dela Paz Bernardo initially thought one year would be a reasonable time to stay at the SSS. She figured that period was long enough to introduce a change or two. She thought herself a fast learner, even though her expertise lay elsewhere, having spent decades of her illustrious career at Price Waterhouse, an international audit firm.
But she was overwhelmed when she beheld for the first time the problems at the agency. When she came in, the employees were on strike. The agency was well in excess of the administrative costs allowed it by the SSS Charter itself. Benefit payments far exceeded collections. The actuarial life of the reserve fund was only good until 2015. Who knew what would happen beyond that? Worst of all, the SSS was perceived to be the epitome of all that was wrong in a bureaucratic agency, where lines were long and the processing of claims even longer. Clearly, its members were unhappy.
She broke the ice between herself and the employees by introducing herself this way. “Taga Pateros po ako. Galing po ako sa public school. Nagtatagalog po ako.” She listened to employees' presentations on their analyses of the problems and what could be done to address them.
Dela paz-Bernardo was amazed. Her predecessor as well as the employees themselves had plenty of good ideas. They knew their troubles and what caused them. They had all the solutions spelled out, too. Their main problem was implementation. These ideas needed to go beyond the drawing board to really make a difference. They already knew the what; the how was now the question.
Immediately, she created a task force to implement cost-cutting measures – drastic ones. Employees did not really have much choice as the perks they had gotten used to were stopped. Dela Paz Bernardo commends the SSS employees for this great deal of sacrifice.
And the people had to work longer hours, too, not to mention harder. They made a covenant of service in which they committed to act on members' claims in a shorter time. On the other hand, they also worked doubly hard to collect the payments. The SSS reached out to the people, improving its branch network, installing tellering functions in its offices and hooking up with malls, banks and bayad centers to make remitting contributions less of a hassle. All these to cater more effectively to the 26.7 million individual- and 781,763 employer-members.
Several years into the job, Dela Paz-Bernardo was able to increase contributions from employers. She made the rounds of business groups explaining the SSS’ dire need. She must have argued convincingly, as she was able to secure employers’ support. Ultimately, in 2005, collections surpassed benefit payments. The surplus amounted to P1.21 billion; in the following year, collections again exceeded payments by P421 million. The 2006 surplus would have been much higher if not for the 10 percent across-the-board pension increase adopted by the agency, much to the delight of its pensioners. Likewise, the actuarial life of the reserve fund has been extended by 21 years, to 2036.
**
So what should be at the top of Mr. Neri’s agenda?
Corazon dela Paz-Bernardo would not suffer being called “unpatriotic,” even if former Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho, who was given the task of persuading her to be president and chief executive officer of the Social Security System in 2001, told her so in jest.
Now, at the beginning of her last week on the job, dela Paz-Bernardo goes with mixed feelings.
“I am sad,” admits the SSS chief in an interview last week at her agency's Makati building. “I have learned to love this office and its people, and they have shown me much appreciation.” She refers to a recent trip to Cebu where employees paid tribute to her and thanked her for her role in shoring up the agency's image to its members. “In a way I wish I can see to it that our reforms are continued.”
“At the same time, I am relieved. I will be free of the stress that comes from being accountable to millions.”
That dela Paz-Bernardo takes her accountability seriously has pushed her to work so hard in her first full-time stint in government. Her typical day when she's not traveling: Meetings, phone calls, paper work. She brings home more of the latter and works until midnight. In the last seven years, this frenetic lifestyle has worsened her scoliosis -- it is now deemed degenerative. She has also gone through a colon surgery. Actually, she came to the interview in a wheelchair, only standing up as she entered the conference room. She still has problems with her digestive system. So now she bows out with the perfect excuse.
And on Friday, former National Economic and Development Authority director general and acting Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri will take the reins of the SSS from Dela Paz-Bernardo. The transition fueled much speculation, but the outgoing president herself exhorted SSS employees, members and the general public to give Neri a chance.
He sent her a text message thanking her for her “kind words in the media.” She replied that he deserved it and reminded him that the agency's members needed nothing less. If not, “kawawa naman sila.” Neri texted back: “Yes. I will do my best.”
But really, Neri should be thanking dela Paz-Bernardo for more than her words. In the last seven years, she has worked painstakingly to make the SSS a financially viable institution and redeemed its image before the public. This mean feat now gives Neri a benchmark against which to measure his intentions, his diligence, his resolve, his results, his loyalties.
And maybe even his patriotism as well.
**
Dela Paz Bernardo initially thought one year would be a reasonable time to stay at the SSS. She figured that period was long enough to introduce a change or two. She thought herself a fast learner, even though her expertise lay elsewhere, having spent decades of her illustrious career at Price Waterhouse, an international audit firm.
But she was overwhelmed when she beheld for the first time the problems at the agency. When she came in, the employees were on strike. The agency was well in excess of the administrative costs allowed it by the SSS Charter itself. Benefit payments far exceeded collections. The actuarial life of the reserve fund was only good until 2015. Who knew what would happen beyond that? Worst of all, the SSS was perceived to be the epitome of all that was wrong in a bureaucratic agency, where lines were long and the processing of claims even longer. Clearly, its members were unhappy.
She broke the ice between herself and the employees by introducing herself this way. “Taga Pateros po ako. Galing po ako sa public school. Nagtatagalog po ako.” She listened to employees' presentations on their analyses of the problems and what could be done to address them.
Dela paz-Bernardo was amazed. Her predecessor as well as the employees themselves had plenty of good ideas. They knew their troubles and what caused them. They had all the solutions spelled out, too. Their main problem was implementation. These ideas needed to go beyond the drawing board to really make a difference. They already knew the what; the how was now the question.
Immediately, she created a task force to implement cost-cutting measures – drastic ones. Employees did not really have much choice as the perks they had gotten used to were stopped. Dela Paz Bernardo commends the SSS employees for this great deal of sacrifice.
And the people had to work longer hours, too, not to mention harder. They made a covenant of service in which they committed to act on members' claims in a shorter time. On the other hand, they also worked doubly hard to collect the payments. The SSS reached out to the people, improving its branch network, installing tellering functions in its offices and hooking up with malls, banks and bayad centers to make remitting contributions less of a hassle. All these to cater more effectively to the 26.7 million individual- and 781,763 employer-members.
Several years into the job, Dela Paz-Bernardo was able to increase contributions from employers. She made the rounds of business groups explaining the SSS’ dire need. She must have argued convincingly, as she was able to secure employers’ support. Ultimately, in 2005, collections surpassed benefit payments. The surplus amounted to P1.21 billion; in the following year, collections again exceeded payments by P421 million. The 2006 surplus would have been much higher if not for the 10 percent across-the-board pension increase adopted by the agency, much to the delight of its pensioners. Likewise, the actuarial life of the reserve fund has been extended by 21 years, to 2036.
**
So what should be at the top of Mr. Neri’s agenda?