Archive for September, 2008
A Filipina is a woman with a big heart and the author, as she journeyed along with life, realized just how big her heart truly is. It’s amazing how people, especially children, can affect in the most wonderful way, the paradigm and life of a Filifina woman and mother.
I don’t want to survive, I want to live. wall-e
Insightful — that’s the best way to describe how my previous week went. It was stressful and eventful. I hardly had time to sleep or have some work done in the house or even blog. In the end, it’s all worth it. All the life’s lessons I learned, all the crying and empathizing… all were worth it.
All those experiences, I learned from real life’s survivors — kids behind bars (mga bata sa likod ng rehas na bakal). They’re usually referred to as “children in conflict with the law” and they were our training participants for our course on values development.
Course or module designing is among my skills as a senior trainor. This time however, it took me days to finally put together a day-session for these kids. I had to do a lot of thinking and research to come up with the right design but that’s not all, our training team had to practice every activity ourselves in order for us to understand and feel how the kids would respond. Most of the kids were in their teens but only few of them managed to get secondary education, our modules were designed to cater to their comprehension level.
Prior the actual training, we visited their penitentiary several times to acquaint ourselves with them but did it in an unobtrusive manner. We observed that the kids have the tendency to be withdrawn and aloof. We readied ourselves with this reaction by making our preliminary sessions more interactive and fun so they would warm-up to us.
Lesson One. We greeted the kids with smiles and warmth that usually come from a good friend or a close kin. We were expecting they would just look at us or ignore us but to our surprise, they smiled back and responded very lively! One of them even honestly remarked: dito lang kami nakaranas na itratong tao, hindi kriminal (it is only here that we were treated like humans, not criminals). Every person wanted to be treated as equal, even kids already condemned not by law but by unlawful judgment.
From then on, the kids were very participative, except to a few who remained distant and aloof. These were the ones we learned were almost totally neglected, no visitors from family members for a long time. Their personality were toughened by hatred. 
Lesson Two. As we went on with our journey with them, we learned very important insights: that all their misbehavior, troubles, and pains rooted from their homes. Indeed, values development starts in the family, it is a primary parenting responsibility. I remember one of our professors from my CPE class said: “if only parents would share their role in caring for and disciplining their children, teachers would be able to concentrate on what should be their primary task — teaching.” Instead, most of their time are devoted to mothering (includes disciplining and arbitrating, guidance and counseling, etc.) their students because of the neglect these kids experience in their own homes.
One of the youngest of the kids, a streetchild whom I would name Dante, was separated from his parents when he was still very young. In an activity where he was asked about the things that matters to him, he silently cried nonstop and was only managed to murmur these words: mahal ko si mama (I love my mama)… This young boy and all the others, though suffered terrible things in life and blame these to their family, still long in the end to be at peace with them and share a loving relationship. It’s ironic isn’t it? This made me believe more that the dearest person to your heart are also the ones who can cause you the most pain.
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Yes, you read it right … Charice Pempengco did it again, she made us all FILIPINOS proud.
This time, Oprah gave the whole episode just for her.. all I can say was.. OH WOW!!!
One thing that struck me in this whole DREAM COME TRUE event in the life of Charice is that she kept a journal of the drawings of her dreams. I have been planning on doing the same thing as well soon, just to keep me focus on what I want to achieve in life and find my real purpose in this world (yeah I know, kindda have an emo soul in me). Seeing a little girl like Charice’s sketches of dreams come into reality one by one made me want to start immediately… so say good bye to my habit of procrastination (one of my really bad habits that I am trying to kick out of my system) hehehe.
I have attached the first part of her Oprah episode video and if you want to see all of them, drop by at Charice Pempengco’s website at http://charicepempengco.com
Charice Featured in Oprah
We are proud of you Charice! Keep up the good work!
and thank you OPRAH for making DREAMS COME TRUE!
..and here is the latest update
Celine and Charice’s duet at the Madison Garden
Celine and Charice Duet Part 1
Celine and Charice Duet Part 2
Celine and Charice Duet Part 3
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I thought of sharing this post in case there will be readers who would be needing some healing and is looking for peace in their hearts and soul but cannot find it anywhere.
When things get rough at my end, I usually say this prayer over and over until I calm down and feel that everything will be alright no matter how hard the task at hand is. I am glad to have found and met Sister Eppie Brasil and the other Dominican Sisters of Regina Rosarii during one of the recollections I attended a few years ago. Visiting their Regina Rosarii Center for Contemplative Prayer in Barangay Laging Handa, Quezon City last March made me cry for joy. Their Prayer for Healing was one of the prayers that I constantly kept and meditated during the time that I was having a hard time dealing with my miscarriage. I would also like to share this to you, so that you too will be healed.
May God shower you with love and blessing as you read this post.
PRAYER FOR HEALING
Dear God,
You said, Come to me all of you who are tired and are heavily burdened and I will give you my rest.
I come to you today.. Right now. Please touch every pore,every fiber, every cell of my body. Touch my mind, my heart, and my spirit.
Fill me with hope. Teach me how to believe that with God, nothing is impossible. Let me forget and forgive all events that make me sad: and when I worry, teach me to rely on you. Help me to believe that nothing happens by chance and everything that happens has a reason.
I trust that no matter what you will fight for me. I only need to be still. I need not fear anymore.
Help me, heal me, hug me, be here in my pain.
Blessed pain, holy pain, Blessed pain, holy pain.
I accept your will, but touch every part of me that needs healing…. heal my body, heal my heart, heal my mind, heal my spirit, heal my pocket, heal my memories.
I have come before you with my burdens. You will give me peace, you will give me REST. You will give me healing…. And this I believe.
I believe that I am healed
I believe that I am whole
I believe that I can now live life to the full.
Mother Mary, REGINA ROSARII, intercede for me to Jesus your Son, I ask this in the name of Jesus the great HEALER, the great PROVIDER. Amen
From ReginaRosarii
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In the last decade alone, Philippine au pairs have gone to Denmark in droves. Out of 2,000 in 2007, 62 % or a total of 1,249 were Filipinos.
Dulce, a 25-year old Filipina, was just beginning to enjoy the sweet life in Copenhagen, not exactly the most cosmopolitan city in northern Europe, but a cozy urban place nonetheless, popular with tourists. She was, for months, an au pair for a young family in the northern suburb of Espergaerde. When she was off work, Dulce would meet up with her friends, usually from her home province of Bohol, for karaoke nights or for church on Sundays. Her family back home in Tagbilaran was quite pleased that she could send money home out of her meager allowance.
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