Speech #6

CHANGE IS YET TO COME

(Voiceover 1) The prophesies of Nostradamus are part of the historical record.  Though they are highly speculative and controversial, their legacy endures up to now.  Listener discretion is advised.

(Voiceover 2) Dec. 21st, 2012, the day has broken, but the skies are dark.  Could it be the end of days, as predicted by the Mayans, the earliest civilization of mankind?  And as many cultures, religions, scientists and people believe so?  Are the events that are happening now all pointing to 2012?

I don’t know the answer about the FUTURE… But in the NOW, I think we humans need to get serious and get our acts together.

The quadruple typhoons that hit us recently, Big Boy Ondoy who gave us the flood that could put our modern-day Noah’s Ark to the test, Persistent Pepeng who landed on us not once, not twice, but thrice, No-Feel Ramil who’s worth forgetting and the initially windy and gusty but really Holy Santi who spared us, they all have something to tell us: we will we will blow you…(with whistling)…Go back to your home and run to a safe place, I’ll knock your face, you big disgrace, gather your mess all over the place…I say, we will, we will blow you…(whistling)

Blown away we were, we went home and our homes were unsafe and unsecure.  We drowned with our homes, we were thrown in the wind with them, some even got buried under them.  Some didn’t even get to see their home.  But our big home, the environment we were born and lived in, the shelter that seeks to nurture us, whose plentiful resources serve us, now revolts against us.  Why?

Let us count our ways: We choked it with CO2 from our cars and factories, we poisoned its blood with chemicals and obstructed its circulatory system with garbage, we shaved its hair of trees and forests to make money, we raped its body and violated its flora and fauna.  In short, we have damaged the place we call home.  Poor or rich, squatting in Welfare Vill or living in Provident Vill, walking or driving when the tragedy happened, we are all guilty of these acts.

The winds have blown furiously and the rains have inundated us.  Floods…landslides…many dead, many missing, many grieving..so much loss..so much distress…What’s the meaning to all of these?  I don’t know…But I think they are necessary.

We don’t need to wait for the ground beneath our feet to shake and crack, for the volcanoes to erupt and throw lava once more for us to feel like it’s 2012.  Let us start thinking of solutions and doing some actions. The future is NOW, whether we believe it or not.

(Voiceover)  Meanwhile, as the truth of Nostradamus’ predictions are being debated, the world continues to exist to serve humans, the most honorable of all creatures.  Let us prove we are worthy of this honor…

Good evening, fellow Toastmasters!

Speech #5

MEASURING SUCCESS

 We often would say that life was simpler back then when we were younger.  For an average guy like me, this is definitely true. Life in high school for me was all about attending classes everyday, seeing my crush, playing pranks on other classmates, sneaking out of school to eat streetfoods, and passing quizzes.  Success was a rather abstract term then—I had an idea what it is, but it’s not something that I lived for.  But when I graduated from high school, I got my first shot at success.  My parents told me graduating is a success on its own.  But looking back, I think it is more of their success than mine because in the first place, I never settled on any goal and I really didn’t make sense of my activities then.

 But going back to success, if we really want to get it, we have to think of it not as a one-way street wherein you just stop after achieving something.  Instead, it is a continuous journey that tells us: it’s not how we achieve success, but how we sustain it.  

So after finishing high school, I arrived at my first crossroad.  What good course to take in college?  My parents, always in support of their eldest son, advised that it has to be consistent with my ambition in life.  Suddenly I imagined myself being a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, a scientist, even an artist.  Being a person with different inclinations, coming down to decide what only one path in life to tread was mind-boggling for me.  So by some wisdom I got from my parents and relatives, I chose to root for the greater dream.  I planned to become a doctor so I took pre-med.

Pre-med should lead to medicine so qualifying for medicine in a decent medical school was the obvious goal.  I went through pre-med with much difficulty but fortunately, I was able to make it again.  I was admitted to medical school.

This was the most gruelling part of my life.  This was when studies took over my life totally, taking me away from my other preoccupations and taking time away from me.  After all the patience and hard work, we finally passed Medicine.  Next natural goal afterwards was to pass the boards without passing which I won’t have the right to be called a doctor.

So hard did I study for the boards that I secluded myself from the outside world.  This paid off when I saw my name in the list of successful board passers.  I was very happy with that big success and the celebration and jubilation seemed to have no end.  Until I arrived at a crossroad again.  After the boards, what’s next?  Will I specialize?  In what field?  Will I moonlight?  Will I be employed in a company?  Will I go abroad?  Will I take up nursing?       

I decided to be employed.  I went from one company to the other until I was promoted to a managerial position.  But then, something was missing.  I thought I was doing something that is far from what I really want to do in life.  I wanted to be a doctor.  And I already was.  But I was being pulled from doing hospital work to do my passion: reaching out to more people as a doctor.  So it was then that I decided to shift to Public Health.  I took masters for this squeezing studies with work for the first time and I almost gave up.  I tried to recall my other successes and these strengthened my resolve.  Lately, I was able to finish my masters.  When I got my second degree though, I sustained my success further.  I applied for work in the government until I got accepted. Next goal, my ultimate goal: the World Health Organization. 

I just turned 30…and it’s still a long journey ahead.  Failure is also part of the journey, but why fail, when you don’t stop trying?

Salt and Lepto

A funny newsbit recently that found itself in mainstream media is the use of  salt to dilute the leptospira bacteria in floodwaters.  In fact, one tabloid headline yesterday read: TUBIG-DAGAT, GAMOT SA LEPTO.  Although this might have some basis scientifically, because the bacteria might be susceptible to high saline content, novel studies must be done.  And should this be conclusively favorable, how many tons of rock salt will we need to rid the Metro of lepto-causing bacteria.

Solution: Get rid of floodwaters by all means, through the concerted efforts of governments (national and local) and the people.  With this, the lepto scare will die soon.

Back to Us

It all comes down to this series of typhoons that almost wiped out Metro Manila, the capital of this archipelago, whose streets have recently been converted to tributaries of rivers and other large bodies of water, lakes, seas what have you removing traces of structures that once stood on them.  Ondoy knocked down the city to its feet when it released a huge volume of rainfall that is unprecendented in recent history.  All drainage systems were clogged with garbage that is severalfold more than we could imagine if all our own garbage comes back to us humans.

The flood that we had in our place was the worst flood I experienced in my lifetime.  The experience was almost surreal but in reality was close to being tragic when I saw the floodings in other areas.  Too much water claimed so many lives and damaged properties in so little time.  The rise of water was really fast and unabated.  There was nothing that we could do to save some of our important stuff.  The sense of powerlessness was there.  Disaster it really was.

To this day, the water level in the river at the back of our house knows no boundaries.  It rises and falls with the tide and comes and goes in our house. 

Meanwhile, footages of the effects of Pepeng, the weird typhoon that it was–the first typhoon to ever stray off course on its way out of the country only to come back again and wreak more havoc–makes us feel how fortunate we still are.  Landslides burying living people dead are more terrible than floodings.

Environmental degradation, climate change, the end of days, these take on almost similar meanings now in the context of what’s happening to the country and to some of our neighbors in Asia.  A deep sense of atonement for our acts should be in the making in order for us to be saved.  Lord, help us!

Mosquitoes

A recent study in the UK gives light to the mystery why mosquitoes are drawn to certain people and not to others.  I am one who is always followed by mosquitoes wherever I go, with every tissue of my skin (no matter how hard I try to conceal it) a potential garden for the blood meal of these pesky mosquitoes.  It’s disgusting sometimes to see others relax in their presence while I continually scratch and worse, I get mosquito bites that are bad and big.  Repellents don’t seem to work sometimes so it’s really annoying.

Enter the results of the study that mosquitoes are drawn to people who are not so stressed out.  It’s because they’ve shown that mosquitoes are not attracted to people whose bodies secrete chemicals that are byproducts of stress and thus are offensive.  Stress as mosquito repellent. Cool!  Ergo, if mosquitoes root for you instead of others, you are less stressed than them.  Kinda comforting conclusion.  But I think this doesn’t help solve the problem.  I am still worried by their presence.

Wounded Healers

All healers are wounded.  This is one reflection in the recent training cum workshop on mental health and psychosocial support that we’ve organized/attended.  Therefore, it is important that we, as service providers, keep a deep sense of self-awareness and control as we face life’s adversities before we’re able to relieve the sufferings of others.  Like a rope that’s stuck, we can’t relieve our suffering if we don’t know its cause.  We first need to find where it’s stuck to and remove the knot to freely pull it.

Swimming

The new job is real work, with lots of things to do, too many ideas to fill up one’s mind.  It’s tiring and mind-boggling at the same time.  The 8 hours in a day isn’t enough to fit in all necessary tasks and plans in mind.  From the time one takes the commute to office in the morning trying to beat the bundy clock to the time one goes home after sundown past six or seven when most office workers are already home resting, work gets into the system and becomes part of the self.

In my first month with the new job, I am admittedly stressed but am happy with work because of a different sense of fulfilment.  When one does things that one really likes, no matter now difficult or heavy it is to accomplish, one will feel a certain lift, a lightness of being that’s quite difficult to reconcile with the amount of work one does.

My boss asked me if I’m submerging.  I replied, “I am swimming.”

Prophesy

To fill in my Sunday morning blues, I got to watch the Nostradamus: 2012 torrent that I downloaded last night.  I never expected the docu to be very realistic and true to what have happened and what still are happening now in the world.  From the disasters, economic crisis, wars and conflicts, poverty, hunger and disease, humanity is indeed in a very precarious situation.  When the sun aligns with the dark and deep center of the Milky Way galaxy on Dec. 21, 2012, every school of philosophy (even religion) agrees that the world will be wiped out by some super cosmic wave on that fateful day.  Either humanity dies or the world gives rise to another life.  But the world as we know it is nothing like us–it is permanent, it can withstand the test of time.  It will just undergo transformation.  But as humans who are just transient beings on earth, we must make our final stand if we want to live long to see the next generation. A new way of thinking, a new way of life is our only way to survive.

Let’s love nature, love one another, and most important of all, love God, the most supreme being there is.

Long Live Democracy!

When Cory died early Saturday morning when most of us are still deep in sleep, a true icon of democracy was taken away from us.  We said there can never be another Ninoy when he was gunned down, he who sacrificed a lot for us Pinoys by protesting vehemently against the dictatorial regime of Marcos, but when his better half “housewife” (as she was called by Marcos) died in peace, we know there can never be another Cory in the history of the Philippines as a nation.  She is irreplaceable.  Comparing any of our leaders now, especially the one in power, with Cory will be a waste of thought.  Her life story moved us, and her memories will stay with us forever.

Cory’s death has silenced all big news, especially political ones–even the much-talked about SONA and GMA’s Obama experience lately.  Wednesday will be a non-working Holiday in honor of her.  That’s good news.

Climate Change

If your work gets you involved in planning for ways to reduce the impact of disasters and to make people and communities resilient in the face of them, you’ll be paranoid if you think of the concept of climate change.  The fact that we’re in the Philippines makes the situation worse.  We are hazard-prone–to earthquakes, typhoons and volcanic eruptions most especially–we are more susceptible to the effects of climate change.  So disasters can only become a more frequent visitor of the country.  Health emergency cases will be on the rise.  And our work will have a more defined purpose.