Is there such a thing as judicial killing in the RP? and blah,blah,blah....

Every time I hear  the TV network's hourly news, I watch out for updates about the senate hearing on extra judicial killing. I am specially interested on who would be the next witness or witnesses.

Motabato, the latest witness, was an interesting one. His statements were a little off the norm and though both senators Delima and Trillanes thought he was reliable and credible , his narratives were a little too tall even for me, like shooting someone with 200 rounds yet still lives, or ripping a salvage victims stomach and feeding the innards to the crocs, killing 50 up to a thousand people, etc. 

I don't know if I am making sense when I say that in order for lies to be believable it must at least be believable. He should have at least put an effort to camouflage his stories with a little logic and a semblance of consistency. I don't know how lawyers appreciate a witness' statements but even an uneducated tambay knows when he is being taken for a ride.

   

I have followed a lot of senate hearing and the last major hearing-in-aid-of-legislation was the blue ribbon committee hearing about the Binay family, the plunder case, which everybody knows was really a demolition job against presidential candidate VP Binay. That hearing was a prime time hit because of the publicity created by the tons of money and people involved, the intricate money laundering operations, and the various conspiracy theories floated around.  

I remember how Senators Cayetano and Trillanes worked harmoniously in tandem to prosecute the Binays. Tons of documents have been photocopied and distributed and scores of experts called upon to swear and tell the truth and nothing but the truth but after a prolonged and sometimes heated exchanges, the issues suddenly died out without any proper closure.

I have yet to hear any law or laws that have been crafted as an output from that hearing. 

Now, another senate hearing-in-aid-of-legislation is being conducted by Senator Delima's Justice Committee that seeks to dig deep into the alleged extra judicial killings (EJK) brought about by the government's anti-drug war.  

In one of those twist of fate, like in an inter-generation Michener novel, but in this case it's just a few months time difference, the senate's dynamic senator-prosecutor duo find themselves on opposing sides. what was once a lovey-dovey duo are now hissing rival cats out to kill one another's microphone. In a show of childishness, Trillanes tried to bully Cayetano into silence and when it did not work, Trillanes shut off the latter's microphone. Trillanes behaved badly but Cayetano overplayed the victim part, I think. 

Anyway...

Like many of my fellow countrymen, I am interested with the hearing. I was, admittedly, taken by Sen. Cayetanos PowerPoint presentation on the term "extra-judicial-killing". His argument was that under AO 35 there must be certain qualifications before a killing could be labeled "extra-judicial-killing." The media has been reporting a lot of killings and most of these deaths are simply labeled EJK even though some are obviously common-crime related .

But I was thinking, if there's an animal called  "Extra-Judicial-Killing", there must be an anti-thesis, an animal called ''Judicial-Killing." It follows then to ask, what is judicial killing? I searched google but there was no hit. So, using my knowledge of basic English, I could only surmise that judicial killing is a killing of a person or animals even plants that is sanctioned by the law--a legal execution. Of course, this is a layman's definition, there could a three-thousand-page-Latin laced definition of Judicial Killing, but, heck, I'm just a grade school music teacher.

The next question, is there even such a thing as judicial killing here in the country. The death penalty has been indefinitely suspended since 2006 by then president Gloria Arroyo and the last judicial killing was the case of convicted rapist Leo Echegaray in 1999. 

I mean, just follow my meanderings here, so if there has been no judicial killings or legal executions since 1999, it must follow then that every killing from self defense, to homicide, to rodenticide, to insecticide, to parricide, to murder, to massacre, to fighting insurgency, in the Philippines can be technically classified as EJK since these killings are not sanctioned by law. 

The legal semantics must have driven former President Aquino's legal team into crafting AO 35, which defines EJK and distinguishes  it from common crime related and non crime related killings.

Crazy...

Anyway, the hearing is really about Delima vs. Duterte. The bad blood between these two have been going on for decades now and there's little chance that both will back down. Even though I am a pro-Duterte guy (but not a Diehard one because there are things I don't agree with PRRD), and though I disagree with Senator Delima, I admire her efforts to oppose Duterte because in any democracy an opposition is a requisite, without an opposition, democracy becomes an oxymoron.

Coffee-rnican revolution in religion and why too much coffee drives me nuts

Okay, it must be the three cups of coffee I drunk this afternoon. Classes were suspended, it was raining hard and the temperature dropped, coffee was irresistible. The caffeine is still running around my head.

I have read John Hick's God and the Universe of Faiths. 

I have been thinking about what's in the book since I dabbled into theology, which I was never good at  by the way, a couple of years back. 

One of the things that I find difficult to wrap my head around about religion is the idea of exclusivity. Exclusivity is the claim that one's faith is the only true faith and all the other religions are false, that they need proselytizing and at it's worst enemies to be overcome or conquered.

Exclusivity is a mechanism used by a group of people, family or tribe or nation to preserve its cultural identity. This idea is associated with a local god or a tribal god. A good example of this are the Jews. By maintaining a unique relationship with their tribal god, they have fought off foreign influences.  They formulated codes and laws that encompasses the whole aspect of their identity. And these laws are written by their god himself and this made their laws inseparable from their god. 

With the destruction of Israel, the Jews were dispersed. They were scattered among the neighboring kingdoms but despite the dispersion, they have kept their identity. They have accomplished this through strict and rigid adherence to their laws and traditions. The Jews also forbade intermarriages. Adultery both religious and interracial marriages are dealt with harshly by banishment and even death. This preserved not only their culture and faith but it also assured the genetic conservation of the race. 

Their identity is inseparable and indistinguishable from their god: their religion is their citizenship.

Then came Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, a Jewish heretic. He professed to be the messiah introduced a new and improved version of Judaism which the old school rejected. he was crucified by the Romans with the instigation of the Jews.

A few hundred years later, Paul discovered Jesus and became the missionary that spread Christianity. Christianity is basically a Judaic religion,hence the idea of exclusivity, though expanded to include non-Jews, is still  at it's core. This exclusivity, like the Jews, assured its survival, But unlike the Jews, the laws and traditions, which was repudiated by the new testament, was too porous, hence pagan (which means non-Christian religions then) slowly seeped into the new religion hence many non-Christian doctrines were assimilated into it. 

The reformation came. 

The reformers broke away from the Roman Church which they deemed was corrupted by pagan and mystic philosophical thoughts. So, the Roman Catholic Church has stopped to be the only vehicle towards salvation. She is not the bride anymore.

The church split and with each split came the idea of exclusivity, with each schism and division, exclusivity becomes narrower and narrower that even among denominations there those who consider their brethren church not pure enough to be included among the elect.

Of course, in the book, John Hicks' discussed the relationships of Christianity with other world religions but it need not go far because within the Christian faith exclusivity is claimed by each denominations, though evangelicalism is a movement that seemed to be moving towards inclusion but in general it still a strict exclusivist because of their doctrine that only Jesus saves.

Exclusivity promotes the idea that the religion or the church one belongs to or born into is the only real church or religion  and this ecclesiocentricism denies the truths or only recognizes partial truths from other religions and treats them as inferior, even enemies. This is analogous to Ptolemy's idea that the earth was the center of the universe. The church becomes the earth in Ptolemaic universe and other faiths or denominations are revolving around that specific church.

The Ptolemaic view of religion, according to John Hicks must give way to the Copernican revolution. Instead of a religion or a church being at the center of the religious universe, it should be theocentric, God should be placed at the center where religions revolves around it.

This solves the a lot of problem from revelation to salvation. 

Anyway, I'm tired. Read the book or wait till I get into the mood and talk about Hick' ideas.

This post sucks.

American coconut, Spanish Hermit and why Digong made me think about foreign policy stuff

I was a young boy when I had my first experience of seeing white Americans. They looked big, huge, tall and they wore ties. While they were walking down our street, I saw many children my age following them, touching them while flashing a "V" sign and shouting  "Victory Joe!" 

Because it looked fun, I too joined in following the pied pipers.  The Americans were smiling and some even threw candies to the children.

This was the late 70's and many World War II veterans were still alive to tell stories of the war and the "liberation". The Americans were the hero and MacArthur was venerated as a national hero and his famous promise "I shall return" had become part of the  everyday Filipino language. 

Look at how small they look at us.

In the 80's, when our family converted to the Southern Baptist denomination and my father became a Baptist pastor our home had frequent American visitors. Baptist missionaries who were planting churches in Rizal often worked with my father doing evangelistic crusades and Bible studies. Back then, I had this experience of awe whenever these missionaries came into house. I admit I felt proud then; I felt important as I saw my neighbors looked in awe at the white foreigners coming in and out of our house. Even up to now there are still neighbors who remember the American missionary Jack Branan, my father's friend, who used to frequent our house.

Americans easily open Filipino doors then, I guess the GI Joes of the war were still revered by the adults of the time who were mostly war veterans and those who were old enough to witness the liberation and the war reparation and reconstruction led by the American soldiers and engineers.

My parents and siblings have developed friendships with these missionaries. They were good Americans and have been great help in providing spiritual, medical, and other help to the Filipinos.

But time has changed. About three decades ago, I had this hundred year old looking neighbor who told me war stories and how his brother died when the Americans liberated Manila from the Japanese. I was amazed by the way he spoke because his Tagalog was interspersed with Spanish words. I found out that one of his parents was a Spaniard and his brother and sister in law, who was also a neighbor, both spoke Spanish too which made them very ancient in my eyes, from the Conquestadores era. 

From the Old Man, I heard a different story. A story so opposite from what I was used to hear that I had difficult time processing it. To him, the Americans were the villains. It was the Americans who dragged the Philippines into the war. World War II was not our war, it was the white men's war. He was quite literate and knowledgeable which was surprising because he looked rugged. Then I realized then, at a young age, that history and stories were not what they were at all. There was always the other side. There were a lot of truths in his words and since then I had read a few works about history and the war, how the Americans colonized us and how they introduced a lot of good things into the country but the cost especially with the introduction of their culture and values and the displacement of our's almost destroyed our cultural identity. Our language reflected this, obviously, we speak neither pure English nor pure Filipino.

Anyway...

The Americans (i.e. the government) must have been dazed and confused by the insolence of President Digong. They must not have imagined that their " little brown monkey brothers" would suddenly snarl and bark at them. The US  is  used to Philippines presidents who automatically aligned their policies to the American's. But here comes Digong who it seems is aligning the with the US mortal enemies, Russia and China. 

Why? I am offering my guesses here. Digong knew that in this South China Sea conflict, the US needs the Philippines more than the Philippines needs the US. 

I remember when Obama visited the Philippines during the Aquino administration, a reporter asked Obama if the US would defend the Philippines once attacked by China and Obama answered in a most obscure and vaguest manner that the US would think about it, all those fancy words amounted to this synopsis. Which is really what the US has been all about when it comes to its mutual defense treaty  with RP. This was the time when Pnoy was fighting off the Chinese incursion by threatening to invoke the automatic reprisal in the RP- US mutual defense treaty. It was embarrassing to see our president almost begging the Americans to send in their ships and ousts the Chinese off Scarborough shoal and out of our Exclusive Economic Zone.

Now things have changed. The Americans have taken for granted the Philippines plea for help and have dillydallied for so long that when they found the Chinese have established themselves in the South china Sea and that their interest is threatened, they sent their armadas to conduct regular right of passage patrol, costly. But the truth hurts for them, the Chinese have already established control. It must be insulting for the Americans to hear high pitched Chinese voices telling them that they are in Chinese territory. 

Where would these ships dock if the Philippines deny them ports. 

Anyway...I'm way over my head here, just getting rid of thoughts here and there.

Why my butt is itching, the story of Ananias and the bishops' mantra...

I admit the often quoted mantra of the Catholic Bishops that “all life is sacred” and Cardinal Tagle’s reminder to the Filipinos about “selective respect for human life” has been tickling my butt for a while. An itching butt, as everybody knows, has to be scratched or else it would not stop, the itch would fester on and on until it torments the mind.

Anyway...

I guess being the repository of the church's doctrines, they have to uphold and defend the church's official stand about the sanctity of life especially today when there's a perception that Filipinos are dying like flies as a result of Duterte's anti-illegal drugs war. 

Thanks to a few biased media, the number has bloated to thousands because almost all killings are attributed to the cops even the riding in tandem shootings (the official tagline of the previous administration) are now considered as extra judicial killings (EJK).

Even the United States is alarmed about the numbers that President Obama has stated that he would discuss with our president the EJK when they meet at the ASEAN Summit. But, as expected, Digong did not like the idea and instead warned Obama that he would be cussed if he ever brought it up to the meeting. Obama was offended so the meeting was cancelled and after an apology from the Philippine Government (not Digong, I think), it was rescheduled at a later date.

Here we go...

Whenever sanctity of life is mentioned, a lot of things start popping up in my head. 

Life is so precious that it should be preserved at all cost and these includes those who have committed heinous crimes. I guess there are those who believe that everyone deserves a second chance; that no sin is unforgivable and that no one has the right to take life even that of the nefariously evil person. Some would even argue that self defense does not justify killing. Kinda extreme pacifism but not everyone shares that belief, including me.

I don't want to sound anti-Christian here but every time the Bible is picked up to support the arguments for the sanctity of life, I have this urge to say, uurgggghh. Honestly, as textbook for the defense of human rights, I gotta say it's the wrong book.

There's this story in Acts 5 about Ananias and Sapphira. The story of a husband and wife who sold their land to give the money as an offering to the church. But Annanias, with Sapphira's knowledge, shortchanged the Lord. The Apostle confronted them both and rebuked them ,and because they lied to God, they were struck dead. Just like that.

Although it was an isolated case, the message is worrying. Why made an example of the couple who, whatever their motivations might be, gave money for the church and hid a portion for themselves, for whatever reasons? Why did that specific act so offend the deity that they were killed instantaneously? Why not drop dead the rapists, plunderers, murderers, the arsonists etc.  

I understand, an example must be made. But the method is disproportionate to the offense. I guess when it comes to financial stuffs, the Deity is quite harsh compared to what happened to Judas, the guy who sold Jesus, who was at least given the choice of taking his own life, or to Peter, the same guy here, who denied Jesus three times and yet was even promoted to apostleship. The precedents are quite confusing and the jurisprudence is not prudent.


I did not pick that story to debunk the Bible. What I'm trying to say here is that sanctity of life is not an absolute Biblical principle judging from Ananias' story and other stories. A person's life is always expendable for a higher good although in this instance two people died for a cause which in today's law and in today's society would not even be considered a crime against any person, or any state, or any church. 

I will not intrude into the thinking of the Deity, but I guess, from the viewpoint of a human bean, sanctity of life and second chances are subjects to the whims of the deity. As Jesus once said : "But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them--bring them here and kill them in front of me." You know this reminds of someone...forget it.

Life sucks for us mere mortals but at least we're doing something.

About the Marcos Burial and my floorwax proposal

I don't know the charter of the Libingan ng mga Bayani, but if there's a sectionfor 

presidents, then presidents must have been buried there. Why put it there if it's not for presidents

 in the first place?

I’m thinking about the Marcos Libingan ng Mga Bayani burial issue...

The issue has been taken into the Supreme Court by the anti-Marcos groups. It’s the court now that will decide whether the burial have legal impediments or none.

Those who have suffered under the Marcos regime are asserting that Ferdie is not a hero; he’s a despot. They are fighting tooth and nails to have Marcos denied the honor of being interred along with the heroes of the republic to the Libingan ng mga Bayani. For them, a burial in Libingan ng mga Bayani erases the Marcos atrocities and even elevates him to a hero status.

Knock, knock, are you still there Ferdie?

On the other side are the Marcos supporters who looked upon Marcos as the best president that the Philippines ever had, even a hero. Marcos to them is a liberator and a protector. His presidency is the golden age of the Republic. They cite his infrastructure projects as living monuments of his visions and to them the martial law was a blessing because it saved the country from the communists. They reminisce of the Maharlika Era.

Madam Toussad's fire damaged wax figures.

The country is divided between the two opposing sides. Though I don't know which has the number, it cannot be denied that a lot of Filipinos still regard Ferdie in a positive light. That's why President Duterte once proposed a plebiscite to decide whether the former president deserves a hero's burial. I have a feeling that the pro-Marcos may have the number and could eventually win the election, if ever it's pushed through.

Of course there's more to it than a legal or numbers battle. The anti-Marcos group are insisting that this is most of all a moral issue. This makes me ask who determines what is moral or not? History? 

History is written by the winners.

History is always subject to revision and re-interpretation depending on the availability of new research, documents, findings, studies, evidence etc. and most of all by who is in power. 

What is hero? (Here we go...)

In ancient time a hero is someone or a warrior selected among the many to represent a nation, or tribe to fight on their behalf against an opposing army's champion, usually this battle is to the death. They are the champions known for their prowess and military skills.

Loser!

Heroes are mythologized to the point of adoration and even worshiped as deities. Their deeds are immortalized as legends and epic stories. Monuments are built for them and holidays are named after them. But they are not all virtue for their most important characteristic is bravery and a wanton disregard for life, their own and for their enemies. Honesty, integrity, humility, these are not their stuffs. They win battles by treachery and deceit; they defeat their enemies by wounding them, killing them, destroying them. Human rights, respect to life, battles and wars do not know these. Heroes win battles and wars with blood and not with oratories and philosophical meanderings. (I think the Philippines is the only country in the world with a nerd for a national hero and not a front line warrior-leader. that's why I believe Bonifacio should have been the national hero or at least he should have been given equal footing with Dr. Rizal.)

Unfortunately, for the loser, they are forever portrayed in the story as the evil nemesis of the hero. They are portrayed as monsters, half man, half beast possessing dangerous powers and magic, immortalized as the epitome of evil. 

It's just wax for heaven's sake.

This is what happened to Marcos. Although it can be said that he didn't lose and he could have fight it out with the EDSA rallyists and could've won easily, but instead he capitulated and ceded Malacanang to the Yellow Army and the Aquinos and from that time on Philippine history has been viewed through yellowed lens. 

I am not saying Marcos is a hero or a good president, but the way his name is anathematized in schools through  textbooks and the catechism like question and answer surveys about the EDSA revolution seemed to have this nasty purpose of mythologizing Benigno Aquino into a super national hero.  

Anyway, If ever the pro-Marcos would lose the case in the Supreme Court, they could always change tact and argue that they are not burying Ferdinand Marcos. Instead they could ask the Supreme Court's permission to retire Madame Tussauds' Marcos wax figure in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. It's been thirty years and whatever Marcos organic substance left in that wax shell has long since been de-atomized.

Dark clouds: I was expecting the Biblical Armageddon and Independence Day to happen

Sunday. 

Went to church in a good mood which I think was due to the good weather. I was listening to the sermon when all of a sudden strong cold wind blew through the church's window and temperature dropped which made me shivered.  

Looking out through the windows, I saw dark clouds merging into one pregnant super cumulunimbus cloud. My imagination was running wild. I was expecting the four horsemen to emerge racing through the clouds charging with their weapons raised above their heads ready to harvest the unsaved while the heavenly hosts' trumpet corps played the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Armageddon was coming upon us but I was sure that I would be spared because I am one of the elect, that's idea of belonging in a church, by the way. 

But it was just a burst of rainstorm. Maybe next time.

I didn't mean to be irreverent but I had no control over the visualization. Anyway, alien invasion did not kicked in. I guess the...never mind.

There were two things that kept me awake and praying at night when I was little. One was the rapture. I had nightmares about being left behind after the Almighty, in a blink of an eye, teleported all the elect into heaven leaving the dammed to be marked by the beast or, to get another chance to be saved,  by dying in defiance of the anti-Christ. 

This fear was reinforced by rapture and hell movies used by American missionaries to scare the hell out of Filipinos into accepting Jesus as their savior. 

But after the doctrine of assurance calmed my fear of rapture, I was struck by another phobia: fear of alien invasion. 

Thanks to TV series like Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, Twiligh Zone, Buck Rogers, I spent many nights looking out our window expecting lights to come down from heaven and little green men or metallic centurion to come charging and rounding up people in the neighborhood. 

The idea of being hit by a disintegration laser beam or being host to alien spores gave me nightmares. I guess the images from movies and TV drove my imagination into hyperdrive. 

I think that's one reasons why my notebooks were full of intergalactic battle drawings. I remember my grade three teacher checking my notebook and making a face at the saucers and space battleships exchanging cosmic rays and missiles. But ironically, I see the same drawings from some of my pupils now.

I grew up and with it the fear just went away. That's why I find it hard to relate to religion that preach fear in order to entice or to coerce people into accepting their doctrine or their church. 

They paint this bleak picture of humanity, of life, their insistence on the reward of eternal life and the picture they paint reflected the worldview of their holy books writers' age.  


Well, anyway, same old, same old...How I wished I was a gullible child again.

Is there "Forever"? An inquiry into the mystery of "forever" with my Grade Six pupils and how they proved Wittgenstein's language game theory

Lunch break was almost over and I had collected my pupils and asked them to settle down while I prepare to give them a seat work till the next teacher arrives.

But there was a debate going on in the other side of the class room. I overheard words like "I don't believe in forever; I believe in destiny." There was agreement and, also, there's protest from another side. These kids can be passionate about stuffs they hold on to, young and naive as they are, that they'd go as far as outshout their opponents.

So, to put a stop to the arguments, I stood up and told the class that there is "forever." There was an uproar especially among the girls. They were adamant that there was no such a thing as "forever." It was unbelievable and crazy, almost religious fanaticism.

I backed off, lest I'd be mugged by children. 

I knew how I'm going to attack the issue but I needed to chill the room's temperature down. 

"You!" I pointed to a pupil, "stand up and in the front and bring your dictionary!" To which Mark obliged with a smile. "Look for the word 'Forever'!". 

"Forever: magpakailanman." He read. 

"See, there's forever in the dictionary!" I said. 

"That's not true!" The class shouted and I'm starting to feel that my logic was useless against their almost fanatical belief.

'Why?" I pleaded. "The dictionary proves it."

"Sir, that's not true!" Ellis protested, he's one of the leaders of the anti-"forever" group. "Why?" I reasoned and the answer was a loud denial of the authority of the dictionary.

"Ok, children, listen to me. Words are there because they point to something. Example, a dog, there is a word 'dog' because there is a dog. If there is no dog, then there is no reason to have the word 'dog'.

I wrote the words "dog" on the board and put an arrow to a "real, true dog." See, dog: dog. Or cat: cat.

Again, Ellis, Jerish, Lara and the rest of the gang refused to accept my argument. "You cannot touch and see 'forever' like a dog!"

There goes the analogy. The problem with this argument is when abstracts are introduced. So, my picture/representation-meaning argument was starting to crack.

But I persisted, "can you touch love?"

"No," a short retort.

"But is there love?"

"Yes!"

"Then there must be forever!"

"No!"

"Why?"

"Because it's not true, and there's no forever."

I could not get through and if I persisted with my arguments and analogies, well just go into full circle again because it seems they couldn't and wouldn't accept reason. 

I am tempted to go into a long discussion about abstract nouns and why even though they do not exist in the concrete they do exist as a concept. 

Like unicorns, though we know that unicorns do not exist yet they are composite of things that exist: the horse and the horn. 

It is the same with forever. Though it is not real, or it has no concrete existence, yet it exist, as a concept at least, because we know time, we know the concept of time and we are subject to the reality of time. We are finite; we know things end; we know people die; we know things don't last. "Forever" is simply an antonym of these. 

But, I'm talking with children and even if I explain this to them, I didn't think it would work.

As a last resort, as was practiced by the Greeks and adapted by modern democratic countries, I am bringing the issue to the people. I conducted a plebiscite among my pupils to determine whether there's "forever" and otherwise.

As i expected, I lost. Though I had few votes especially among the boys, I knew it was a sympathy vote and nothing more.

Here's the thing:

I knew that I will never be able to convince them that there's forever. No matter how I try and what I reasoning I use because we are talking of two different things. For me "forever" is a word, a concept. But for them, "Forever" is a soap opera. Their phonetics of "forever" they learned from the plot of the telenovela "Forevermore." The semantics is a distillation of the failing in, falling out, fighting for, love affair of Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil.

This is why, for them, "forever" will never be true because for them "forever" is a telenovela.

We're in a different language game.

Well, at least I tried.

The Early Crickets or why I've become a morning person

"Age is my alarm clock," the old man said. "Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have a longer day?

This is Old man Santiago talking to Manolin the little boy in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." I guess age wakes you up when you're growing old.

When I was in my youth, just like everybody else, I used to sleep as if there's no tomorrow, as if I have all the time in the world. I had no sense of urgency at all and time was measured by fun, and fun accelerated time. So, I found out.

Now in my middle age, time revealed how precious time is. I guess when I realized that I have already spent half of my life, that is granting I lived to be ninety years old, there's this growing desire to slow things down. To take it easy because who knows, the ninety may turn out to be just be sixty, or fifty, no one ever knows and to spend that precious little time pursuing dreams and careers seems to me to be a waste of little time left.

I remember an OFW acquaintance who spent almost a third of his life working in the middle east ruing how mean life is. Now that he has the money to eat and enjoy the things he wants, and now that he has all the time in the world, he just couldn't anymore. He is old, hypertensive, diabetic, rheumatic, his body tired. Lucky are those who are born with silver spoons.

Slowing down time...

I wake up at four, usually. I take my coffee outside while it's still dark with Alden, our dog, half awake, looking at me. I guess the dog got used to the routine that it stopped barking at being disturbed. Coffee outside is even more enjoyable when it's raining. The sight of rainwater cascading from tree branches is so soothing that the desire to go back to bed is defeated by the joy of seeing refreshment. 

 To go to work before the sunrises is an experience that I have come to enjoy. The view outside my classroom windows are mostly corrugated tin roofs but farther there's a hill where I could see the sun rising. The light slowly entering the classroom is something to behold. Maybe age does that, sentimental something.

Hearing the crickets still singing and our janitor busy collecting trash. 

Watching the early morning news with the class early bird. And looking down from my classroom and watcing the pupils arrive to school first by ones, twos, then slowly building up to a crowd. The sight gives my mind the time to adjust to the building up noise, ruckus of pupils crowding to their classrooms.

Anyway, still have some stuff to do..."grades."