ben...

today would have marked the 69th birthday of my father, ben, short for buenaventura. i would like to believe that i was also papa's girl, next to my only sister. hehehe

please don't get me wrong. i was never jealous of my sister or any of my siblings. my papa had his special ways of letting me know that I was also his favorite child. i remember during my early childhood days when he would sit me on his lap. he would fondly call me, "bhalah", which he mimicked from me every time i was asked about my nickname. of course, i could not correctly pronounce "guia" then. (yeah, i know. i could not see the connection. hehehe)

to my papa, happy birthday. i love you very much. you will always be the best father in the world.

i hope to see you again, in God's time. :)

erratum...

i recently got a comment that the prior-to-plane-crash photos i previously posted in this blog was, accordingly, taken from the tv series, "lost".

i haven't confronted yet my colleague who emailed that article to me. he is still alive, and i have yet to strangle him. hehehe

seriously speaking, my sincere apologies if that were proven to be bogus pictures. i, too, am a victim of that misleading information.

but one thing is for sure, the gruesome agony leading to the tragic death of those passengers was.. unimaginable and could not even be realistically depicted in a tv series or captured in a camera.

My prayers for their soul...

Quit a Bad Marriage?

When i was still in Butuan, i often heard comments like this, "so easy for you to surrender your marriage". Well, i hope the foregoing article, which i recently got from the e-newsletter of Bo Sanchez, will enlighten them, at least... ;)

I have to answer a difficult question today.

I received 120+ comments in my last Blog entry entitled "Quit Often To Succeed In Life". Six comments were from suffering wives who asked (my paraphrase), "Bo, can I quit my marriage? Jimboy isn't my boyfriend. He's my husband."

Here's my answer. To a married person, marriage is the purpose and the path.
So if you're talking about the ordinary problems of married life—like your hubby is cranky, insensitive, loud, disorganized, or lazy—love him anyway. These aren't marriage-breakers. Besides, if you think you don't have any faults, ask your mother to remind you what they are.
But I believe there are marriage-breakers: If your husband is physically and emotionally abusing you—get out. Or if he's on drugs—get out. Or if he's a gambling addict and can't stop, stealing, and losing everything—get out. Or if he's in adultery, get out.
I'm not saying you separate from him permanently. But by leaving him temporarily, you're telling him in no uncertain terms that the marriage can't go on if he continues to abuse you or continues to be unfaithful to you.

You're doing this to heal the marriage. Sometimes, marriage needs painful surgery. When there are marriage-breakers, your husband needs tough love.

But at the end of the day, if you've tried everything but he still persists in his sin, then he broke the marriage. Not you. Move on with your life. Either remain single, serve God, and live happy. Or seek a Legal and Church annulment if you wish to remarry.

If you're in a difficult marriage, go for counseling. Seek it out from spiritual elders and counselors in your area. You may also call our Counseling Center at Tel. (02) 7259999 or just log on at www.KerygmaFamily.com and click on "Counseling".

Let's pray…

Lord, I lift up the wife who is reading this now who is suffering in a difficult marriage. Embrace her now with your love. Heal the wounds in her heart. Lord, create a miracle and heal her marriage.
Give the abused wife the courage to give tough love.
Give the abused wife the strength to love herself.
Give the abused wife the provision to live apart from her abusive husband.
And I pray for a change in her husband's life.
I pray, if there's still that chance for conversion and transformation, to unite their marriage in love. I also pray for the children especially—be with them, hold them, heal them, and embrace them.
And I also pray for the spouse with an irreparable marriage.
I pray for strength to live life without her spouse, and still be happy with You, with her friends, and her spiritual family. Lead her to a life of love and service and happiness. I claim your promise when you said that all things—no matter how bad—will work for her good—in Jesus name, Amen.

captured photos of a tragic death

Just got this email from an officemate. Read on... :(

OUR PRAYERS FOR THE PASSENGERS OF AF-447. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE IN THE KINGDOM OF OUR LORD.

Feel so sad for all the passengers including the extraordinary photographer, who kept his cool even in his last moments of life and took this photo. Hats off to him!!!
The world saw the disappearance of an A330 Air France during a trans Atlantic flight between Rio to Paris .
Two shots taken inside the plane before it crashed. Unbelievable! Photos taken inside the aircraft....


The two photos attached were apparently taken by one of the passengers before the aircraft crashed. The photos were retrieved from the camera's memory stick. You will never get to see photos like this. In the first photo, there is a gaping hole in the fuselage through which you can see the tailplane and vertical fin of the aircraft. In the second photo, one of the passengers is being sucked out of the gaping hole.

These photos were found in a digital Casio Z750, amidst the remains. Although the camera was destroyed, the Memory Stick was recovered. Investigating the serial number of the camera, the owner was identified as Paulo G. Muller, an actor of a theatre for children known in the outskirts of Porto Alegre . It can be imagined that he was standing during the turbulence, he managed to take these photos, just seconds after the tail loss the aircraft plunged. The structural stress probably ripped the engines away, diminishing the falling speed, protecting the electronic equipment but not unfortunately the victims. Paulo Muller leaves behind two daughters, Bruna and Beatriz.

Being Single... according to a fellow blogger

Here's an article which a fellow blogger wrote and published in the Philippine Star today, May 27. Read on:

It’s the best thing in the world, this business of being single,” Craig, my former college classmate, announced to all of us gathered at a mini reunion. He — 45 years old, VP of a Silicon Valley-based computer and technology giant, smart, sensible and quite the looker — was recently divorced from a wife of 13 years, and dare I say that he has never looked better.

I had met his ex-wife once, many years ago, and she was everything we had expected her to be — or make that everything we had expected Craig to go for — tall, evenly tanned, slim, with long dark hair, whip-smart and as attractive and ambitious as he is. But perhaps everybody — including Craig himself — failed to factor in the most important thing crucial to the sustainability of any union: compatibility.

Craig, a former college varsity basketball player, is sporty and outdoorsy. His ex-wife is a gym rat all right, but more for personal aesthetic reasons than for leisure and enjoyment. He lived to travel to exotic places; she loved the comfort of home. He worked an honest week and then transformed into a weekend warrior, venturing out of town and out of doors to scuba dive, skydive, snow and water ski, mountain climb and rappel, kayak and river raft — anything to taunt the limits of mortality, or feel that he is very much alive and in control. She, on the other hand, lived to enjoy the comforts of home, the warmth of a fireplace with wine glass in hand, and the entertainment that an old, black and white movie afforded the romantic and the sentimental.

Predictably, in time, their differences eroded whatever initial attraction had fueled them. Two children (ages six and 10) later, they found themselves estranged and clamoring for separate lives.

“Love is a decision, you know,” he told me, “not an emotion. To love someone in spite of everything is not humanly possible. It’s not only corny, it’s a load of crap, pardon me saying. If you hear of someone sticking it out with a spouse regardless of their innumerable differences, that’s because he has decided to, not because he loves her. There simply is no such thing.”

“In my country and my culture, the men tend to stay with their wives but maintain mistresses on the side just to keep things tolerable,” I pointed out to him. “We’re Catholic and all, you know. We don’t do no-fault divorces.”

“Sure, I know that — I respect it, actually,” he said. “But I couldn’t live like that. Just couldn’t. Unimaginable. I like things legitimate, ironed out, clean. If I do find the right one and fall in love again — heaven forbid — I would make an honest woman out of her. I’m not going to do anything under the table, crouch around, go to empty, out-of-the-way restaurants and do stunts like that, or however else you guys do it — no offense. Life is much too complicated to engineer clandestine, overt couplings, you know what I mean?” he said, adding, “Best to cut clean and cut your losses. And then start over.

“You ask about my kids,” he continued. “They’re realists; I raised them to be. They’re resilient. I want them to live honest lives so it has to start with me. I need to be truthful.”

I mentioned to Craig that a good friend of mine — 40-something, Filipino, Catholic, and married with children — once told me that he who divorces his wife has no integrity because he has no staying power, no word of honor, and does not make his children’s welfare a priority. Craig immediately responded, “Does this friend have a mistress?” I didn’t answer. Craig looked at me in a funny way and volleyed back, “Now you tell me who has no integrity, he who divorces his wife to be true to himself or he who stays with her and keeps a mistress on the side?”

I sat tight, taking it all in — everything he said, word for word. And thought about all my married men friends and my single men friends and tried to decide which group was happier. I affectionately call my married friends “lifers.” Regardless of sex, regardless of their happiness index, they are all tied down — period. The only option they have left is to live out the rest of destiny, which their decision to get married in the first place, to whoever woman and under whatever circumstances, has predetermined for them. My single friends, on the other hand seem to be living the life: unattached and unaccountable to needling wives. But really, how much do I know about them to conclude that they are happier? Aren’t they forever on the look out for Ms. Right? Aren’t they forever going on first dates? Aren’t they forever going out, dining out, partying? No baggage, no worries, no drama? Okay, you’re right, maybe they’re the happier bunch based on those points.

But still, I find no answers in my head because in Filipino culture, once a man is past his 30s, he is automatically suspected of being gay if he remains single. Either that or he is a mama’s boy with major intimacy problems. I told Craig this and he was not surprised because his line of work has taken him to all corners of the globe. He said, in jest, “Better to be called something you’re not than to be unhappy for the rest of you’re life. Nothing wrong at all about being gay but disastrous to be unhappy and handcuffed to its source all the way to your grave.”

To turn the mood a little lighter I told him something a single male friend once told me in all seriousness. “Craig, I have this friend, a bachelor and mighty proud of it, who told me what a fellow bachelor said to him once: ‘All women are bitches except for your mother and mine.’” He doubled over in laughter and said, “I am dying to agree with him except that I might not walk out of here alive considering how many women are present in this room.”

I looked around me and spotted a dozen women, easily, so I hailed a few over and repeated my remark about bitches and mothers. “And Craig here is reluctant to concur for fear of his life,” I announced. A chorus of cackling women erupted, “Come clean, Craig. What do you say to that?” He raises his glass and says, “Since you asked for it, you’ll get it. I say that yes, according to her friend, all women are complicated bitches except for his mother and mine, and I drink to that.” No sooner had he uttered his last word than an avalanche of throw pillows, cocktail napkins, pieces of Melba toast and half-eaten olives descended on him. For the rest of the evening he puttered around the room smelling like an hors d’oeuvres plate.

But really, I’m curious. Who do you think has more integrity, he who remains single, he who divorces his wife for legitimate reasons, or he who honors his marriage vows but carries on extramarital affairs?

swine flu scare

i entered the hotel this morning only to be surprised by the doorman checking my body temperature. he sounded apologetic when he placed that white device a foot away from my neck. good thing i feel okay except for the occasional cough which has no plan to leave me soon.

does the precautionary measures being taken by the hotel mean the swine flu is for real? now, i am getting scared..