Petrichor

The gloomy weather unfolds outside (Of course, sun never reaches the window but the rain always does). There is a slight drizzle and I smell the rain. 

I am back to when I first came to stay in this dingy room I've spent so much time in & learned to call home. I remember dragging my feet, unwanting to part with my (old) bed-- the move was a product of circumstance, a necessary change. I remember being in a room empty save for a mattress on the floor. I remember staring at the blank walls.

I am still here. Each foot, each inch now etched with experiences-- the space has already filled up with two years of rest, readings, and feelings. 

I sit inside the room with the window the sun never reaches but the rain always does. The walls are not blank anymore.

It may be time again for a necessary change.

Make or break: My freshman law story on Rappler's iSpeak

READ the whole article HERE. 

On pedigree

Upseting to see how ignorant we can be about animals and how much we devalue dogs simply because of breed— standards of beauty set for these animals that even they are completely unaware about. 

There is no less love that an askal can give and no more love that a purebred dog is willing to give you. Sure, a dog’s pedigree may be responsible for certain traits but it does not define that animal, nor does it limit its capacity in any way. Every single dog has his or her own character and temperament which is, most of the time and more often than we know, attributable to the dog owner. Believing a silly notion that a dog, just because of breed, is better than their mixed breed counterpart is a sweeping generalisation. Believing that a dog is such because he is a certain breed is tantamount to believing something like Filipinos, just because they’re Filipinos, all are discriminatory idiots who assign value depending on pedigree. I’d like to think otherwise.

Moving out, moving on.

I thought that I'd never get you out of my system. You were in my veins and in the air I breathed. But, one day, I woke and there was nothing left-- just the dark dingy streets and unfamiliar corners. The city had ceased to be mine.

So I whine and wonder about how I could've lost this love for you, a place I was so enamored with, a place I was so convinced I belonged to and belonged to me. I walk these unfamiliar roads trying to remember how you smelled, how you tasted, but there is nothing but the sounds of a different city and the sun on my face.

And I think: I could get used to this.

Intellectual Property: Why we should care.

I remember explaining to a very confused classmate that piracy was bad and it was stealing. I remember getting very frustrated because he could not seem to grasp what I was saying, It seemed odd to me that he had no idea that he was stealing intellectual property. “How could he have not known?”, I was asking myself the whole time.

Turns out, most everyone in this country either do not know, do not care, or do not bother to think about it. Having a parent whose work dabbled in IP, I was not part of that majority. Having lived with random lectures on the topic and a strict no pirated rule in our house, I grew to understand and care about this issue.

Why does it matter?

Monkey Tantrums

Today on Rappler's #TalkThursday episode, Jose Ramon Albert, Secretary General of the National Statistical Coordination Board spoke on poverty and statistics in the country. He mentioned that income inequality exists in the Philippines, that there's a divide between the rich and the poor.

THIS VIDEO explains that thought perfectly.

And we wonder why things are this crazy.

Of a Dream

Trapped in this vast, void darkness,

I walk with arms bound and eyes wide open,

although I do not see a thing. 

I do not stop. 

Feeling and groping as I went,

never pausing, 

not noticing there were even others. 

in my own unparalleled mind, 

I was, 

and always will be, 

alone. 

I feel my heart, 

thank God it still beats.

I now have the need to be assured I still live. 

I walk. 

I run. 

But eternity streches far beyond where I can reach. 

I see a light, 

but it is not for me. 

I am failing. 

I have started to fall. 

I wake up at the foot of my bed, 

with a short lived moment of relief as I realize; 

Dearest, I have just witnessed a dream of my emotions. 

(Written by yours truly,  January 10, 2005. Still one of my favorites.)

The Animal Welfare Situation

By Anna Isabel C. Rodriguez

The author with just some of her pet dogs on a normal weekend.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way animals are treated,” Mahatma Gandhi said.

The young doktora smiles as she proudly shows this quote. We are in the City Hall, inside the busy Health office. Being interviewed is Dr. Karen Vicencio, City Vet, Parañaque’s one-woman Animal Welfare Division.

According to Section 7 of Republic Act 9482 or the Anti-Rabies Act of 2007, local government units (LGUs) are not only required by law to employ a veterinarian, they are also required to establish and maintain a city pound and a city veterinary office. The latter provisions have yet to see light as Parañaque struggles to implement RA 9482. In the meantime, Dra. Vicencio, seemingly misplaced in the City Health Office, looks to the future for possible programs and improvements.

Animal Welfare in the Back Seat

Republic Act 8485  of the Animal Welfare Act of 2008 calls for humane and proper treatment of animals, penalizes animal torture and neglect, and empowers the Bureau of Animal Industry to regulate animal handling through proper issuance of permits.

I hurt.

The ability of a person to feel hurt and wretched for another's situation miles & miles away without ever even meeting them-- a fine example of the beauty and complexity of a human being; a fine example that all hope is not lost for those who are in need of help, but most importantly, that all hope is not lost for those who are caught in inaction and apathy.

-in reaction to watching Alkansya, a beautiful documentary by Kara David about Anthony, a boy who dives for sea cucumbers to earn money to help support his schooling.

Welcoming the new year: 2012 Highlights

It's always nice to look back at a year of adventure and accomplishments. This is why we celebrate new year's eve: to cap of a wonderful year that's passed and to celebrate the new stretch in our lives that is just about to begin. More than rejoicing in the possibility of a fresh start, however, I believe that these final days of the year is the time to appreciate all that's come and gone and whatever it is we have learned from these experiences.

Here are the highlights of my 2012, things in the last 360+ days that I love and are most grateful for.

Re-evaluation

Home stretch. This is what it feels like. A few months before graduation and I still find myself as lost as I've always been.

For years I've been floating around, without giving much meaning and importance to details, trying my hardest to make time pass. I never gave importance to little details and the bigger picture until I felt that it was necessary. It's like being backed into a corner, one day you just have to care-- about the future, about things that once seemed insignificant to my adolescent, immature self. You wake up and suddenly realise that this is your life and that you have to take control. If life is what we make it, then what of the mess I've created for myself?

Why am I pro RH?

I am Pro RH because I know how it feels like to be a young girl growing up in a country where sex is taboo and the only semblance of sex ed we had were lessons on menstruation from sanitary napkins promoting their products in school.

I had a classmate who in high-school thought she could get pregnant if she held hands naked with a boy on a bed. I read of young girls getting pregnant at 14 because they didn't understand how it all worked.

So yes, I think it matters. It would have mattered to my classmate, to that pregnant 14 year old, and it certainly matters to me.

It takes a while.

There's always that split second delay-- when anger rises, when desperation grows, when regret finally surfaces.

But it also takes a while for us to learn and succeed and finally figure out who we are in this eternal mess we call our lives, and what we ultimately plan to do with the remaining pieces of our sanity we've managed to salvage.

My friend Reggie asked me just minutes back, "when did life get so fcked up?"

Maybe it always was, we just took a while to realize.

Why you shouldn’t hit “share”: AMALAYER

Life was simpler before all this technology. We talked to people, we breathed fresh air, and we can have a bad day without fear of being prosecuted in cyber space.

We all get mad. At one point or the other, we reach our limits, then all hell breaks lose. And then, the world goes on-- at least that was the case before camera phones and the internet. Today the cyberworld paused as most activity on Facebook circled around a young lady who got mad at the train station.

We all laugh at things we were and things we become.

I just read something recently that made me think. All this time I had been trying to explain this feeling,  this state I find myself in, but I've not found my words. 

What I want to say and feel existed there exactly.

And there is no greater joy than being able to say what you want to say, or no bigger sorrow when someone else, with their words, explains what it was that you could not explain yourself.

I wish I could write.

The ignorance and bliss of being younger.

One day, an even older me will probably laugh at this.

Sleep

3:04, it says on the clock. Time drips into hours, then days, and then nights. The TV is on, a random series of pictures and muted sounds. It is 3 A.M. and I am still awake.

I feel the need to write something, to react to something, but there are no sentences forming in my head. The darkness of the room envelopes me and the only thing I feel are the dogs' breathing against mine, slowly, surely.

I must be falling asleep. There are no thoughts, there are no words. The room is dark but it is getting darker.

I bid the night farewell, I close my eyes and leave you, for now. I give in to the silence, a temporary slumber and the death of all the words, at least until I wake again.

High

Lover,

This is not the first time I am writing a love letter, but this is the first time they are meant for your eyes. When I was younger I wrote dozens of these; dozens of these written in beautiful stationery filled with powerful, big words and  rash declamations all unmeant.

It isn't easy to write another one of these, you know. At some point in time I promised that never would I ever make another one, lest I find myself, again, at the foot of the ruins of another relationship, useless letters in hand and no one to love.

But, it was a few minutes ago, in those silent moments before sleep comes, when I remembered you: That song you used to play in the mornings and how you looked, smirking and in utter delight, when you caught me singing to it. I miss you, I realised. I need to see you.

But then there is no hurry– there is that whole lifetime together ahead of us. Tonight, I'll see you in dreams, my love.

I remember that song and it makes me smile. It seems I'll sing myself to sleep tonight.


Yours.

On the Cybercrime Act, dogfighting, and my obvious lack of sleep.

I come home late from a busy (school) work filled day to this: the whole of the internet is rebelling, and our constitutional rights, I am told, infringed on.

Of course, some people believe that I need not worry my (malleable college student) brain over matters like this– not on finals week and a play performance the following day. But, at almost 2 a.m., I am up and I am thinking. 

Why should I care, why should we care? Because we are all online.

If you are not informed, put the internet to good use and get yourself informed.

I, on the other hand, shall return to that wonderful/gruesome dog fighting documentary I was watching.

I will write more about this later, at a more godly hour, when I finally gain back sensibilities from this school-finals week-auto-pilot. But, all I can say for now is that this debate on the Cybercrime Act DOES matter.

Because I've been crying in front of the computer screen again.

Sometimes I read something and I hurt– genuine, excruciating, exquisite pain. I stare at the screen/book/letter/notebook and feel the tears fall, hot and heavy. I sit and think, I savour every moment.  Those sharp words that jab through my heart– temporary madness, temporary hurt.

I read about love and love in the time of cholera. Of exotic, beautiful men and awkward ones with golden mongoose saviours. Of lightness of being and being infinite. I've read about secrets and (little) princes and (non sparkly) vampires. Of people deciding to die. Of life and the end of it, and the progression of living through loss and death.

And I weep for all of them.

These things I will never know or touch and I feel for all of them.

And this is why I read, this is why I write.