Why Don’t You Have a Boyfriend?

The world has turned upside down while I was busy getting old. 

Now I hear some single girls lamenting why titas and friends of their moms always ask,  “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?  

The question suggests a tragedy; the reaction suggests hurt pride. Both puzzle me.  

In the Jurassic world where I grew up, values were different. If you belong to my generation (baby boomers), you know where that is. But if you are of this age (Gen X, Y, and Z), well, you may take this as a lesson in history or humor, whichever is more hilarious.  

Let me summarize our elders’ “words of wisdom” that my cousins and I often heard at home and in family gatherings. 

“Choose your boyfriend very carefully because you’ll eventually marry him.” Meaning, your boyfriend will not propose marriage; it is understood that he will be your husband. From the moment he says, "I love you," his fate is sealed. 

“If a man tries to touch you, he does not respect you.” Meaning, intimacy is not allowed in a relationship. It is reserved for marriage. 

“Why commit yourself to one man when you can cherish the company of others?” Meaning, if you are not in a relationship, you are free to enjoy yourself minus the restrictions of a commitment to only one. 

“If you break up with your boyfriend, the world will look at you as a stained woman.” Meaning, a lady who has had a boyfriend is a second-hand merchandise. 

“A wise, smart lady is complete; she is not a part of a whole. Meaning, those who are aching for a boyfriend feel insufficient or inadequate.     

Now, if you have or had a boyfriend/s, go ahead, ROFL.  

In my time, being a virgin bride was a badge of honor. The groom had valor. And the question, “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” was never asked. 

So if people ask this today, I suggest five bold counter questions for that one eerie query. 

(On a sentimental note, I remember my mom, my titas, and their friends. They were a guiding grace for my choices in life.) 

P.S. This blog post's alternative title: Why don't You Have a Girlfriend? 

ooo

". . . whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8 NIV) 

Thank You, Pnoy

WHAT?! 

That was the reaction of everyone when we heard (a rumor at first; then a confirmation later) that former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino died in the early morning of June 24.

Even his family, close friends, and immediate associates, who knew of his ailments, were shocked when he died peacefully in his sleep. 

He left exactly the way he was in life, averse to calling attention to himself. That’s why during his six-year presidency, he found it unnecessary to defend himself against detractors who used the vilest words to defame him: lazy, addicted to video games, and “abnoy” (short for abnormal, or special).

Worse, he was mutilated beyond recognition when he stepped down. Fake news have peppered social media for five years. Only those who read the newspapers or understand economics knew that he made the Philippines the rising tiger of Asia; upgraded credit to investment rating; increased GDP; reduced unemployment and poverty; built schools; got K-12 going; and defended our exclusive economic zone (EEZ), our jurisdiction over the exploration of marine resources at the West Philippine Sea. 

Those are grand feats by any standard, and appreciated by those in the know. The masses, about 85% of the population, lapped up fake news that his administration accomplished nothing compared to the new dispensation under President Duterte. 

Suddenly Pnoy dies. 

And the outpouring of accolades, stories, narratives of his successes and excellent work ethics as president flood mass media and the Internet. Mind boggling! And yet, Vergel Santos (Trustee for Media Freedom and Responsibility) said, "Those are embarrassingly insufficient.” 

Let me add, incredibly ironic.

With PNoy's death, the country is seeing the polar opposite of what his detractors had cast off as dish rag. 

I cannot cram here all the sterling details that I now know about this extraordinary man and his achievements, but those that touched me most were his (words borrowed from several sources): dedication, decency, dignity, and diligence. He had a non-negotiable moral compass. 

Aren’t those what the Lord expects of us? 

“. . . ‘Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.’” (Jeremiah 22:3)

o o o 

Aside: people have been putting meaning to the atmospheric changes on the day PNoy died:   

1. The yellow (his protest color against the Marcos dictatorship) moon appeared. In June, the moon is lowest in the sky, which we see through a thick atmosphere that turns it yellow. 

2. The skies wept. Again, June is the beginning of the wet season.  

Nobody (not his family or doctors) and nothing (not dialysis or kidney transpal) could have delayed his leaving. Only the Lord decides when life ends: new or full moon; rain or shine; now or tomorrow.  

Photo credits: CTTO/borrowed from the Internet

So Long, PNoy

As one of your bosses, I will not say goodbye—just “So long.”   

Today is a sad day for those who respected you for modelling the values we hold dear: decency, honesty, and transparency as the 15th president of our republic.

While I deeply grieve with them, I prefer to celebrate your life. For your legacy—strict adherence to the rules of law for the greater good, no matter how unpopular, and done with humility and sincerity—I am deeply grateful.  

You brought dignity and civility to the position with your statesmanship. You gave us space to call you out for decisions we thought were wrong, over which you were never defensive nor angry. Many have maligned you, often falsely and mercilessly, but God must have given you the grace of restraint for keeping your silence . . . until your last breath.  

Maraming salamat, PNoy. Salute! 

o o o 

Someday, there will be a day of reckoning, a time when our transgressions are finally laid bare before the great Judge who sees every heart. 

“ . . . when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: 

‘Death is swallowed up in victory. 
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?’

“For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:53-56 NLT) 

A Googolplex of Colors

“What's the color of grace?” a young boy asked, as I signed his books during one Manila International Book Fair. 

Me: Green, that’s my color, my favorite. 

Boy: No, I am not talking about you! I am talking about God’s grace. 

Me: Oh. (long pause) None. No color. It just comes, and we find it . . .

Boy (taking his signed books): Thank you! 

I could have explained, but the next kid in line was asking me another question. 

ooo

We’re on our second year of lockdown due to the coronavirus, and I have been blessed with ample time to use my five senses with no interruptions. 

For one, I’ve been bird watching—both live and online. Many birds visit our garden everyday. Some dawdle to eat orts from our cat and dogs’ plates. They sing lovely tunes. 

The birds online are something else. They leap out of the screen with their grandiose colors.

The first time I saw these mandarin ducks (above) and these other birds (left), I remembered the young boy at the book fair years ago. By now, no thanks to me, he should have discovered that God’s grace is infinitely colored, more than the largest named number to date: googolplex.  

How large is a googolplex? Just write the number one followed by one thousand zeroes. 

These birds' incalculable colors are beyond counting. 

A normal 20/20 vision, according to scientists, can see hundreds of colors. An artist can see quadruple that number. 

And those are just the colors of birds. How about the colors of flowers? And the rest of God’s creation?

Multiply that with the colorful (nothing drab or dull) life we lead with every trial and tribulation that the googolplex of grace see us through. 

Do I need a bigger number to believe there is a God?   

“How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” (Psalm 104:24 NIV)

Photo credit: worldatlas.com

Raising a Reader

“Make sure you are raising a reader." This usually ends my talk in my book tours.  

Often, a young parent approaches me afterwards and complains, “My seven-year-old son dislikes reading.” 

“Do you buy him books?” I ask.

“Oh, yes, tons of them!” she replies proudly.

“Have you read all those books yourself?”

“No, they’re for children.”  

“Have you ever read any book aloud to him when he could not read yet?” I push.

“No . . .” 

“Does he see you reading your own books?” 

“No, too busy with . . .”  

o o o

The many benefits of reading in a child’s development can't be over emphasized, as documented by psychologists and pediatricians. Among them are:   

1. Exercises the brain
2. Develops critical thinking
3. Enhances imagination 
4. Expands vocabulary
5. Relieves stress and tension 
6. Decreases depression
7. Improves memory and focus
8. Strengthens writing skills
9. Boosts sleep

And yet, many busy parents do not encourage reading. Instead, they give their active child a gadget to make him sit still. 

Raising a reading child is not a painful, rigid process. “If you want to raise a reader, be a reader” are wise words of grace from child development experts who research heavily on the subject. 

I know of a couple who takes these words seriously. An ex-colleague and friend sent me this photo of his two-year-old Marty. He said that since the kid was born, he and his wife would read to her a story at bedtime. 

Marty now has over 100 books, read to her many times over. But her excitement still peaks with every re-telling. Marty is also given her own “reading" time. She repeats the stories page after page in her own language, and prefers books to toys! 

This illustration borrowed from the Net says it all: 

My parents did not force reading on me or my siblings. They modeled it. We’d see dad reading early in the morning and late at night and would give us interesting tidbits about his current read at mealtimes. He and mom read the newspapers together every day. We all grew up to be readers.

When our three sons were small, my husband and I limited their TV time (gadgets were not born yet) to two hours per week—and only on weekends. Instead, we encouraged them to pick the books they liked in the store; we also invested on book sets/collection: art, science, dictionary, classic stories for kids, and a Childraft Encyclopedia.  

Their bedroom walls are lined with shelves bursting with books. 

Young moms and dads, if you are reading this, won't you consider raising a reader?  

Torture and Tyranny

The rains have come. After all, it is June, the beginning of the wet season in the Philippines. 

There were those two months (April and May) when all days and nights were too hot in Las Pinas and in many parts of the country.  For two straight months, the daily temperature had ranged from 36°C to 37°C, which is a person’s normal body temperature! 

This torturous and tyrannical heat felt even hotter when I looked up the heat index—the combination of the actual temperature and humidity. In short, the heat that is felt and perceived by our body. 

In one of those wickedly warm days, I incessantly whined, "Hot, hot, hot! This is not only torture, it's tyranny!" 

"Weren't you born in this country?" Tony asked, laughing. "The Philippines is in the . . . read my lips, tropical zone!" 

I found out later that the heat index that day was 51°C! It was 54°C somewhere in my home province.  

It wasn't this bad before the pandemic—retired people like us could spend the whole day in the mall or take a dip in a resort swimming pool. The working crowd would be in their air-conditioned workplaces. But now?  

Electric fans and air-conditioners do help, but if your house is not centrally air-conditioned (which is 95% of homes, including ours) then you'd have to spend all hours in a bedroom.

What’s even worse is that the electricity during summer is unstable (intermittent brown-outs) due to insufficient power generation capacity amid soaring usage. All cooling appliances go pffft. 

My moping took a halt when I scrolled through FB and read a post by my former boss, Abaja, then always a fount of wisdom.      

It rebuked this writer on grace, who allowed the heat index to inflame her, instead of keeping cool and being grateful for the gift of a summer day. Now with a spirit of gratitude, I zigged to what the late author Charles Bowden, with whom I shared the same birthdate, wrote: 

“Summertime is always the best of what might be.” 

The hottest summer ever, for me, is gone now, but it left a stinging scolding. The gallons of sweat it inflicted upon me were nothing compared to my barrel of blessings, for which I must never fail to ernestly say, "Thank you."  

Blood Moon

Almost everyone I know had been abuzz over the full moon to happen that Wednesday night (May 26, 2021)—for a wonderful reason. It’d  be the year’s biggest “supermoon” to feature the first total lunar eclipse in over two years! 

Son #1 and I got our cameras ready at exactly 7:10, eight minutes before the moon would pass through the Earth’s shadow. It would appear red—a blood moon—because light would be scattered through the Earth’s atmosphere, mimicking a sunset.

To our dismay, the clouds wouldn’t budge, not till after eight minutes, ever so slowly, when the glory of the red moon was no more. 

I still clicked away. If you call this bad photography, please blame the clouds, not the camera nor the photographer. I am uploading it here to save in my mind’s hard drive the day the world saw the “blood moon.” 

In contrast, many photographers captured its magnificence. This one’s my favorite (by Anthony Mungcal), which passed through my FB wall hundreds of times.  

The “blood moon” appears in many Bible verses (ESV, highlights mine): 

“The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes . . .” ( Joel 2:30-31)

"The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day." ( Acts 2:20)

“When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood . . .” ( Revelation 6:12)

Many theologians and Bible scholars believe that “the end is near.” How soon is that? 

Scripture says that one blood moon will not be the only heavenly sign. “. . . the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Matthew 24:29)

While the sun and moon are still shining, and the stars, twinkling, I am poised to enjoy the grace that brightens astronomical wonders. 

THE Last Supper

The article “the” is a must when one refers to the final supper Jesus had with His disciples. Without “the,” it could refer to any last supper one had yesterday or with others.  

“The last supper” is so essential that all churches anchored on faith in Jesus re-enact it in holy worship as a vital sacrament (a ceremony regarded as imparting divine grace). 

Here’s how Scripture describes that event (1 Corinthians 11:23-26):  

“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ 

“In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

There is a caveat in verses 27 to 29: 

“So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For . . . without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.” 

People in our predominantly Christian country are familiar with Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century mural (at the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy). In fact, many dining room walls have a picture of this painting. 

In our church, we partake of the bread and wine (communion) at the Lord’s table every month. Not even a pandemic can stop this holy ritual. 

Each time we do (virtually for over a year now), we remember what it stands for. It was given to us by Jesus Himself, so we would remember His great sacrifice for us on the cross and look forward to His return. 

May we then never forget that He gave His body and blood for our sins, so we could ask for forgiveness when we do wrong. 

"The Lord’s Supper," our pastor always reminds us, "is also a time to be in communion, not only with God, but also with all members of Christ’s family to find comfort and support, just as the disciples did." 

Photo credit: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/true-hidden-message-da-vinci-last-supper-581756

Silent Saturday

Vaxxed but Taxed

“Any brand but Sinovac!” Tony scrawled on the Barangay form we filled up for our anti-Covid-19 vaccine. 

This has nothing to do with racism; his and my children's forebears are from China. 

We were alarmed because  our president has been ramming this brand down our throats, despite the FDA being cautious in using it for frontliners; despite people’s clamor for Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson; despite unpublished clinical trials. In fact, he kept repeating in his speeches that we are indebted to China for Sinovac; he personally went to welcome the shipments. 

Our alarm progressed to anxiety when the president chose to be inoculated with China's Sinopharm (smuggled; still unavailable; not FDA approved) over Sinovac. Why this was shrouded in secrecy and mystery was disturbing.       

Then the statement of our foreign Affairs secretary that the Covid-9 task force “dropped the ball” while negotiating with Pfizer increased our unease. We asked ourselves why our government officials are falling all over themselves to offer Sinovac. 

Tony informed his cardiologist that he’d wait for a brand other than Sinovac. 

She vehemently replied, “I am not comfortable with that!”

Son #2, a physician in the US, ordered, “Take what is available. Waiting is risky.” 

Strong, frightening words from two doctors.

So when the Barangay called us for our first jab, we hurried without knowing what brand awaited us. 

One guess: Sinovac. 

Never mind that weeks earlier FDA announced, "Not fit for seniors." Suddenly, the gods that be said it was OK—yet, again, why did the president, aged 76, eschew Sinovac in favor of Sinopharm?!  

The vaccination site was packed and hot. But the staff was helpful to our all-senior batch. Vaxxing took 4 hours—painfully long for hunchbacked oldies held up by canes and walkers.   

Exactly 21 days later, we were called for our 2nd jab. The crowd was bigger and the day was hotter. Every few seconds, we were asked to move to the next chair—sit and stand, stand and sit. 

The whole event taxed our patience, our strength, and our knees. Many growled in silence but some chose to chat—and how! They exchanged illness stories and lifted their face masks so they could be heard. 

Worse, there were initially two jabbers, but one left to attend a government seminar. What?! The only nurse left had to make a call before injecting me. “Ma’am,” she apologized, “I need help from the head office. I can’t do this alone till 3 PM.”

After the painless prick on my arm, I prayed and thanked God, “Grace it is! Thank you!”   

“You’re welcome po," the jabber replied, “but my name is Vivian." 

Our clothes now soaking in sweat, our joints crying “enough!” and our eyes tearing up from the glare, we walked—limped, rather—out of there. 

All told, we were victoriously vaxxed, but thoroughly taxed.

* * * * *

Addendum: Two weeks after our second jab, today (June 2, 2021), WHO approved Sinovac as one of the brands that may be administered in the vaccination drive. Whew!