Go for Peace

With Rey, EIC of the NDMC Pub; Jay Pee, fellow student leader at NDDU and Rean, SSG Officer from NDMC - student peace advocates

I saw this pix somewhere..... then copied it. What is its relevance aside from having me in it? It's a remembrance of my peace advocacy years in college. I hope there are opportunities to still actively take part in this advocacy.

Economy vs Environment

There have been so many changes in my hometown in just less than two months that I’ve been away.

I was supposed to go to Davao to visit friends and take exams at Ateneo. But due to the recent bombings and threats, I decided to postpone the trip. I spent Friday night at home and went back here in Marbel today.

But before going back, I had a breakfast date with Lyda. I asked papa to take me to her place in Casa Luisa Village; and on our way there, we saw tents and some construction activities in the lot in front of SocSarGen Hospital which used to be vacant. Robinson’s Mall is being constructed there. I thought it was just chismis. Apparently, it’s true.

A hundred meters from that site, houses were also being built in what will be Agan Homes Subdivision. There were already a dozen houses which are done. I heard about the said subdivision last April because my bestfriend Kris said then that he’d like to buy a unit. And at that time, Lyda told us that all the units have already been sold. So the houses were already sold out even before the very first house was built. Lyda also told Kris that he most likely could not afford a unit because the lowest monthly payment is around P7,000. Come on!! That’s the biggest monthly payment for any subdivision unit in GenSan. We live in the subdivision, too, and I believe that our monthly payment is only P2,000plus. But then, we’ve been living there for almost 15 years now.

That area is residential although there are many vacant lots and in not so far away are rice fields. With the construction of Robinson’s, it is inevitable that other commercial establishments will also follow. Businessmen will offer to buy lands from homeowners in the area who most likely will sell their lands because of the tempting high prices. They are not exactly rich people and a P1M offer for a 100 sq. meter land will probably pay off their debts. But that is not really alarming. With the activities and noise in the mall and other establishments even at late nights and early mornings, residents of the area are probably better off somewhere else. But I suggest that they don’t take the first offer. Wait some more, invest in time, be patient and let businessmen continually increase their offers.

Have you heard of rice fields a few hundred meters away from a big mall? That will be the scenario in Lagao and Casa Luisa soon. Right now, tenants are not too worried yet. But when businessmen and investors will start offering big bucks to land owners and others start selling lands, the rest will probably follow. What good is their farm in the middle of commercial establishments? With pollution and toxic wastes produced by such establishments, directly or indirectly, the lands will not anymore be conducive for farming.

Am I in favor of these changes? I really have no strong opinion of the matter but I can point out pros and cons. With the industrial development, there will be an increase in job opportunities. There will also be greater competition, leading to better quality of products and services which are offered at lower prices. Consumers will have more choices; and city and party people will have more venues to have fun. But in exchange for all these, there will be more pollutants, noise and probably crimes, too. What used to be agricultural lands will become industrial. Farmers who rent/lease the lands will lose jobs and they could not be expected to work for commercial firms because they are not qualified.

Economy versus environment has been a topic of many debates since Industrial Revolution. I hope it is possible that we all come out winners out of these changes.

Find Your Way Out

Women empowerment is one of the goals of gender equality advocacy.... I hope my opinion is not exaggerated.

There is balance in everything - yin and yang, positive and negative, north and south, right and left. Therefore, for every entrance, there is an exit.

I have no choice, we hear this lots of times, and more often from married unhappy women who cling to their marriage; who could not leave their abusive, idle, drunkard husbands because they stick to the vow - for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part. Death may actually come sooner to them if they will not take actions.

If your husband does not respect you now, do not expect too much that he'd change in the future. And if he does, it's most likely for worse!

I have nothing against getting married. I admire couples whose partnership and love grow stronger each day. I only speak strongly about abusive and unhappy marriages - physical, financial, psychological and emotional torture.

You have a choice. You may have chosen to get married but you do not have to stay married if it's demeaning or killing you. There is an exit. You can choose a happier and better life. You deserve that.

If you feel that you are not given justice as a person and as a child of God, leave. . . The God who created us does not even harm us, so why would we allow others to do so.

But what if I couldn't find a door out? Look at the door where you got in. It could not evaporate. From the outside, it's called an entrance; and from the inside, it may be your exit door. Mind you, this entrance-exit concept applies to almost anything, not just in relationships. . .

A Gender-Fair World

The quest for gender fairness and equality is a long battle. Are we winning? I believe so....

There have been so many positive changes already. And we have to thank the courageous people of the past and present who fought and are fighting for this cause.

Women now have equal rights with men - to vote, work, own property, etc. Gender is not anymore limited to the concepts and standards set on being men and women.

On the surface, we can say that we can now choose how to live our life, who our partners will be, what our personal choices are in clothes, style, profession, etc.

But beyond the surface, we still battle with judgmental people, some laws and the norms in our society.

This had been a long battle indeed. And the fight is not yet over. Let us choose the right side....


Four years ago, gender equality advocates in NDDU (including me) organized and founded Notre Dame Students Task Force on Gender Awareness and Equality Advocacy (NDSTF-GAEA) . NDSTF was Virgilio's idea while GAEA was John's. It is only now, as I read in a material, that I learned that GAEA is more than an acronym. GAEA is the goddess of the Earth, a symbol of women empowerment...... hehe, I should have known earlier.