A little boy asked his mother, “Why are you crying?” “Because I’m a woman,” she told him.

“I don’t understand,” he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, “And you never will.”

Later the little boy asked his father, “Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?”

“All women cry for no reason,” was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, “God, why do women cry so easily?”

God said, “When I made the woman she had to be special.

I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world,

yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.

And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed.”

“You see my son,” said God, “the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides.”

Clock is tick-ling, it’s almost 12 midnight but still, my most favorite visitor “Mr. Sleep” isn’t yet saying “Hi.” 

So I’m gonna write randoms—— updates to my boring and hideous life.

Well, last June 26, I finally bid farewell to my job. And decided to make a brand new start. (Rhyme?) Though, I did not make enough money despite satan’s endless persuasion to steal defeated by my effortless and outright refusal, I can say, I was happy with my decision to not to and to. 

Papa came here 2 weeks after my arrival, in such a short notice. After almost a decade, finally, we have been reunited once again.

Being jobless, everyday is just a routine. Facebooking all day and all night. Going to nearby malls, treat yourself with other countries cuisines (All Free for an unemployed), chilling at cinemas, drinking coffee, eating either pastries or ice cream, bored yourself to gym, going out with family and friends at night and relaxing at any McDonald’s branch.

It’s boring and conscientiously not right. Unhealthy. and Discouraging.

But what I truly after is going home.

It’s like seeing “them” again. Laughing ‘til your hearts’ out. Eating street foods. Walking together. Joke ‘til someone gets pissed. Talk about the highlights. And most specially, being with them. 

Oh! How I miss my yesterdays.

Today is not something I am willing to exchange for my yesterday, it’s what I am looking for in the future.

Dear Sir,

Since you left for Europe, we never had a rough day. We are blissfully thankful each day God giveth thee. We can do our task completely uninterrupted and with ease. We do not have to work extra for a scanty repayment. And we now wear big cute smiles that were overshadowed when you were around.

And for all these sir, THANK YOU!

But now, days are getting too soon and we expect you’d be arrived not later than next month and we worry a lot - a lot, for our happiest days will be finally over.

But I am gleefully excited, not of your eventual presence but for my immediate exit a week after you arrive. But I am not the only one doing that, sir, most of my colleagues by the way. A handful of resignation letters will greet you the first day you come back to work and all are lame excuses about getting a new job. The fact is they don’t like it here, not anymore, not with you around. And they are getting of their nerves each and every day. 

But what exactly should we complain about? You pay for our food, our shelter, our gasoline and laundry. But seems like you have overlooked the most sir, YOUR STAFF.

And I feel sorry for you, sir. 

We can’t be forever numb. And you know what’s wrong.

P.S. I know you don’t like to be called “Sir,” SIR!

Sincerely,

:)

WATCHING THE congressional debates on reproductive health, I am baffled by the anti-RH arguments.

One, the argument that contraceptives are abortifacients. Anti-RH advocates argue passionately that life begins at the moment of fertilization (and not much later, as their opponents say, at the moment of implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus). And then Rep. Amado Bagatsing now says that anything that prevents fertilization is abortion! “Ang contraceptives ay humaharang para huwag magbuntis, huwag magkita ang egg at ang ovum [sic] … Pagka hinadlangan mo, sa Ingles, ina-abort mo.”

Now tell me: How can a condom be an abortifacient when, simply stated, there is no fertilized egg to abort? How can one say with a straight face that life begins at fertilization but you can end life even before it begins? To quote Representative Bagatsing himself, “Mahirap ba maintindihan ’yon?”

Even more perplexing, if Bagatsing sincerely wishes to stop the almost half a million abortions annually in the Philippines, stopping unwanted pregnancies is the best antidote. Why would a woman choose the physical and emotional pain of abortion when a simple condom could have saved her from it all?

Two, the argument that RH goes against the beliefs of the Catholic majority and thus violates the constitutional separation of church and state. Rep. Pablo Garcia says that the RH bill discriminates against the Catholic Church because it goes against the grain of Catholic teaching and the law must respect the religion of majority of Filipinos.

He is confused. On one hand, he states that the state must be neutral to religion. In the next breath, he reminds us that our Constitution’s preamble begins with the clause where we “implor[e] the aid of Almighty God” and that refers only to “the Catholic God.” The good congressman must make up his mind. Either we are a secular state or we are a theocracy.

Representative Garcia has taken a new, and very clever, tack. You see, when the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines blocks any legal recognition for RH, it is actually imposing its conservative interpretation of Catholic doctrine upon non-believers. In effect, Catholics object to RH, so the law must not promote RH.

Ironically that is precisely what the non-Establishment doctrine seeks to prevent, that is, God muscling his way using Caesar’s sword. The Philippine Congress is not an arm of the CBCP; the congressmen are not accountable to the Vatican. If the religion clause means anything in the Philippines, it means that the Catholic majority cannot veto congressional action on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Yet if you listen to Representative Garcia, it is we—I obviously count myself as an RH advocate—who violate neutrality when we try to stop the mighty CBCP. He is terribly mistaken. The RH bill does not impinge on the religious beliefs of traditional Catholics. Under the RH bill, all couples are free to choose how many children they want and, if they so choose, what family planning method to use. It guarantees free and informed choice. It is neutral on what method a couple chooses for themselves.

It doesn’t impose any choice on anybody. Traditional Catholics are absolutely and completely free to follow their faith, have unprotected sex and beget all the children they want. What the RH bill secures is equal freedom to parents who believe differently—who would plan the spacing and number of children so that they shelter, feed and nurture them well.

Third, that is why, if there was one congressman who made sense this week, it was Manny Pacquiao. The RH bill is superfluous, he says, because people are already using condoms or birth control pills. (But what did Nanay Dionisia mean on TV when she said on Jinkee’s using the pill in the past: “Gumamit siya nung bago pa sila kasal”?)

Manny is absolutely correct. That is the state of the law. Condoms can be bought over-the-counter, except in Alabang, which metaphorically situates itself in Islamabad. What is at the heart of the RH law—and this is what the anti-RH groups strangely underplay—is using government money to subsidize reproductive choices.

If all we want is to let couples choose whether and how to plan their families, they already have that choice—except that poor Filipinos can’t afford it on their own. They have no access to contraceptive information and rely on superstitious mumbo-jumbo. They would rather spend their little cash on food rather than condoms.

Manny is right: Filipino couples already have reproductive freedom. What the RH bill does is to help poor couples who can’t afford to enjoy that freedom. Ramon Magsaysay said: They who have less in life should have more in law. We have since codified this “social justice” principle into the Constitution, recognized the “right to health” and the duty of the state to make essential “health and other social services available to all the people at affordable cost.”

I surmise that anti-RH groups have fudged the social justice argument for two reasons. One, on reproductive liberty, they can invoke the Bible (“Go forth and multiply…), but on social justice, we can invoke the Bible against them (“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren…”). Two, religion-based arguments are constitutionally privileged and politically potent. In terms of debating strategy, Manny was well-advised to argue that to enjoy reproductive liberty, we do not need any new law. But the poor can’t afford it without government help. Surely the poor kid from GenSan hasn’t forgotten from whence he came.

By: Raul C. Pangalangan

      Philippine Daily Inquirer