Hail @ 15: The Reunion Concert

For fifteen years, the choir has been serving God with His God-given talent: that is to sing for His greater glory. For the past years, there have been achievements won, opportunities grabbed and members loved. For the past years, old members say goodbye and newcomers say hi.

A cheesy introduction to start it, huh? Anyways, it is now time to see old and new faces of the choir in one concert stage, in one concert time. For fifteen years, we are hailing God and Mary, we helped many people to pray and praise Him, and we sing at our best. As St. Augustine said, "He who sings well, praise twice."

The best part of this show is that it will be going to fund the Mariano Marcos Memorial Elementary School Library in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

Please watch this spectacular concert. We are gonna sing you Christmas carols, from traditional to popular yuletide carols. We serve discounts for students and senior citizens.

For fifteen years, we inculcated our rallying call "Our song, our prayer" in every performances we do. And still, we lift up our voices to the Highest skies to reach the One who deserves beautiful singing, He who gave us these talents and blessings, and to her who blessed us and guided us to reach these awesome fifteen years of bringing a holy experience to the audience.

Not My Own Field Trip

While my blockmates are having their rest day for it was Thursday, and we had no classes, I am having my 'field trip' (actually I just wanted to join my sister's field trip to accomplish something on that day).

We went first to the Manila Cathedral, where the seat of the bishop of the Diocese of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, is located.

We saw how grand and big the church was. You can actually feel the holiness of the ambiance of the place.

We had our orientation of the basilica, and we were shocked and amazed as to how the church was built. It was built for six times already, and guess what, they used egg whites to strengthen the posts of the last building! 

I hope the egg whites are the answer to its foundations. Now that the Marikina Faultline is rumored to quake anytime soon.

It was also named after Mary, the Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception Manila Metropolitan Cathedral.

Outside is the European feel of the Intramuros.

Next was Myth of the Human Body that can be found in Boom na Boom Compound in Pasay.

Inside are real corpses arranged and designed scientifically to show the different systems inside our body.

It was a good thing to visit this place.

After seeing corpses and body parts, it was time then to eat! In a cone ice cream. At first it looks like an intestine with some sort of digested food inside. But no! It is vanilla in flavor.

Up next was the GSIS Museo ng Sining. Here you can find many artworks, be it abstract, etc.

The last place was my most awaited, the National Museum of the Philippines. I got no pictures for it is prohibited. Anyways, here I saw many artifacts of our culture. I also got to see the Spolarium. It was so enchanting and big! I was amused both to the work and the message behind it.

Why Filipinos Are Shallow?

http://www.philstar.com/arts-and-culture/725822/why-we-are-shallow

F. Sionil Jose’s article titled “Why we are shallow” again opened my eyes into many perspectives. “Shallow” is not caring about or involving serious or important things. In this article, it opened my eyes that our shallowness had rooted in many reasons, like media, the one I am going to be in the nearest future, and our arrogance and the rugged educational system.

I agreed to Jose’s opinion, that media is one of the reasons to our shallowness, because aside from they are bias, they also bring news that does not contain any information to ponder and they also contain unserious matters. Media plays a big role in the popularity of every person who wanted to be recognized; popularity, not the quality.

But what struck me the most was that shallowness rooted in this arrogance. Because we have this boosted confidence and pride within us, we think we can do it and therefore accept far behind our qualifications, and we are trained to see them as if they are the real deal, as if they are true. It shows shallowness, and immaturity, because we make our own burden to which will scourge us and will make us suffer, as well as those who will be affected by a “little show”. I say immaturity because as the opposite term implements, maturity needs full development physically and has wisdom. Let me ask you, do people with wisdom do such fake shows and over-believing? I believe not. “We are shallow because we lack this most important knowledge — who we are and the limits to what we can do.”, stated F. Sionil Jose.

I also believed that Filipinos don’t read much that is why we are shallow, and this belief was strenghthened by his situation in hospitals and from other countries. But this article also gave me this belief that Filipinos are shallow because some life situations made them arise to this state of self, a state of shallowness, and also because they wanted to attain something they have never done before. 

Activism: Its Rhythm and Blues

(This is a reaction essay to the article ‘The Intellectual Bankruptcy of UP Activism’ that is already published last October)

The University of the Philippines and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines do both have activism in their names and prestige. Both these universities struggle to shout their advocacy and complaints to the government and to the higher positions to them. Recently, activists from the University of the Philippines attacked the Budget Secretary Butch Abad after his budget forum on the UP School of Economics and even pulled his collar to prevent him from leaving, merely also because of anger and dismay to the secretary.

Winnie Monsod, a professor emeritus in the university, criticized them as hooligans and they criticized how intimidating “bearers of contrary and unfashionable ideas” can only result “in an impoverishment of intellectual life and a reduction of debate to a monologue among the already-converted.” Thus did they articulate a deeper assault on the very essence of a UP “where debates are won … not by shouting down but by speaking up.” (c) Oscar Franklin Tan.

I agree to Mr. Tan, the writer of the article. Not every matters and propositions can be won by shouting what you feel about the topic. It also removes the concept UP have according to Ms. Monsod, debates win and not shouting down. I personally believe that activists today left marks on those who see them fighting for what is right. This mark is the mark of discrimination that activists are these negative elements of the society and are very rebellious. They made this concept of activism because of the outlook of the activists themselves; they are closing doors for hope and solution by the locks of revolution and pessimism.

I think noisy activism for UP and PUP ruins the status of the said universities, because this two are the homes of the scholars of the country. Scholars are intelligent, educated, and smart, and I think this shouting situations negates to what a scholar should look like. “Ang taong sumisigaw o sinisigaw ang himutok ay isang makitid na tao.” An open-minded person never shouts because he/she knows that everything is solved through good communication between parties. It is time that activists change clothes and start wearing more decent outfit, the outfit of order and speaking up.

The World According to the Youth

http://eryica.org/sites/default/files/youth%20on%20the%20move_cropped.jpg

The world goes like this ...

When the time we are infants, our parents taught us everything we should know. They are the first 'socializers' in our socialization for we opened our eyes seeing them.

Inquisitiveness is what toddlers/children possess. They always ask things about anything under the sun. We always scold them for they are very naughty and we are irritated, but they are just wanting to seek answers that they still don't know. Don't you know that an inquisitive kid is smart? Are we taking away their chance to be smart? If they are not naughty, then they are not children anymore.

It comes to that moment when we stop seeking answers and we see it ourselves. There are problems we see in the society, because of the different socialization we underwent during our childhood, and we intend to ask 'why?', but we know even our parents and elderly cannot answer because itis their generation doing it. Now why we, the youth, do have that keen perspective on things that elder doesn't have anymore?

I think we have the capability to see positive things from negative things and vice versa, is because we are the YOUTH, the next in line, the future of this world. If we do not see this anomalies and gifts, maybe we cannot be good citizens of our country. It is now our natural possession that we have an observant, critical, and skeptic mind so that we can determine what may have done and what have been already done.

http://y2m.ae/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Youth_To_Power_c.jpg

The point - we see these mistakes for us to correct in the future, not to follow and repeat them. We are the hope of the nation. Maybe the past generation isn't proud that they had not done what must have been done during their time. And so as a consequence, the youth today do not have the motivation and the inspiration to do what is right, to be the hope, because what they are following are junks!

I am a youth, and it is clear that my job is to observe every single and small details of imperfection and to accredit the future with the observation I had done during my youthful days, so that I may be proud to say that, "I did my job to be the hope of this country". I hope this can be an awakening to every YOUTH who are reading this. It is never late to try, and there is no harm in doing so.