Today, now 7yo, she walked in and said, “Grandma, I have to do a book chapter. I have no time for sitdown snacks.”
Then, spread out on the table in the library are various pages, with headings. She is writing a book on composting, recycling, reusing, and renewing.
I made a quick snack of scrambled egg, cheese on pandesal with coconut water.
She is so excited, she keeps asking me for the correct spellings of nutrients, add, compost, author, illustrator.
Gosh, I love her inner motivation, focus, attention and smarts.
I credit her parents who, despite their busy jobs, take time outdoors to camp with her, and more.
We named her immediate family members and counted them. I said, wow you are loved by more than a dozen folks. She corrected me, “Grandma, no, if you include those in Mexico, hundreds love me.” It is paying off that she knows she is surrounded with love.
She likes to introduce herself as Mexican.
“But what about your mom who is Filipina?”
And if you include me, Grandpa and my mom and dad, we are all Filipinos and on my side, my mom and dad have Chinese origins in them, so you are 1/2 Mexican, 1/2 Filipino and even Chinese.
She likes knowing that she is many ethnicities and likes eating Mexican, Filipino and Chinese food. Her parents also bring her up knowing friends of diverse backgrounds.
For most days in the year, my 7yo granddaughter is upbeat, excited about her snacks and to play.
Today, she went to read her books first and about dinnertime got hungry. I gave her Lumpiang Shanghai and strawberries.
I asked her: “How do you stay joyful everyday?”
“I try to have fun and not argue. I also listen so I don’t get in trouble.”
What happens when you argue, I asked?
“When I argue, I get hurt, I become emotional, then, I become mad, I yell and I scream.”
“Oh, is that right?” I have not seen you do that.
She demurred. “Grandma, twice, when I was 5yo.”
I couldn’t remember, I told her.
“I did, Grandma, as I get hurt easily when I get yelled at.”
Reflection: She has an awareness of her emotional capacities. She knows how fragile her heart is and has set up boundaries for not being hurt, including what she can do to prevent from being hurt. That’s self-care.
I am not looking for a perfect world, not even a zero-mistake election process. But when you have results, ahead of closing the polls overseas, in a magical 2 hours’ time, after 50% of the precincts are still tabulating, there’s a stinky rat smelling up the process. Then when you have worldwide folks invested and watching the process unfold, you start seeing the loss of credibility halfway through the tabulation, as now the lead gap is frozen at 47%, then you see a simultaneous increase and decrease of numbers as if resetting and rebooting the numbers scheme, you cannot trust the computerized tabulation. It has lost reliability and credibility and worldwide trust.
You then recall all the indicators of fraud you kept seeing since December 2020.
It is too much to simply sit back and accept being victimized by systematic fraud while man after man candidates conceding so early as if they just ran to eat up votes and create chaos in the field that the end point of their toxic machismo is confusion.
God, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Mama Mary, more than 4 million of us, volunteers, online supporters, campaign supporters worldwide, we all did what we could to stand up for truth, values of incorruptible, God-centered, good governance, and bayanihan spirit of loving others.
The May 9, 2022 elections are now in Your divine hands. Please be the Philippines’ Universal Teammate and may Your divine will be done!!
We need and want to have a new narrative that #angelsonearth#angelsamongus are running our Philippine government at all levels!! Please make corruption, cheating, stealing, failures from incompetence and lack of quality service become archival relics of our past.
I am a Catholic who voted according to my conscience, informed by my values on truth, social justice, equality and most of all fairness.
For over several decades we saw the Philippines suffer injustices from corruption, indiscriminate killings, conscious indifference to the value and worth of human lives and a reversal of quality of lives for thousands due to Coronavirus.
We saw one leader who stood up, mustered personal courage and using limited public resources and private donations – she became the symbol of hope and loving care. Let’s elect her as our 17th Philippine President and stand tall and erect that our government will be incorruptible and honest.
Photos by Yvette Fernandez
I heard one Filipino today speak cynically about government: “Pare-pareho lang iyan naman sa guberyno.” That defeatist statement justifies his not voting in this election as he has given up on his birth country’s government. His consciously indifferent attitude mirrors what we have in our present government officials who couldn’t show adequate leadership during the pandemic. Indeed, we deserve the leaders we have now.
Love photo in purple by Nathan Glenn and meme on Jose Rizal by Manuel Quezon III.
Since October 2021, Leni Gerona Robredo has inspired us all to care by her example of deep care and concern that all of us succeed. She is consciously aware and knows intimately what each sector needs. In over 20 cities, she has mobilized over 2, 000, 000 (millions) to volunteer, to show up, to make a difference, to provide meals and free legal, medical, nursing services, even transportation services to others. This unprecedented caring and concerned and loving attitude towards others reverses past conscious indifference into a love of our country, concerned about human rights, deep respect, honesty, fairness, and good governance.
Our first exodus from the dark decades of Marcos’ dictatorship mobilized millions to show up in EDSA in Feb. 1986. It was an anti dictatorship movement from 1972 to 1986, until vestiges of propped up dictatorship by military aid were removed. It was upended by 8 military coups against President Corazon Aquino.
Our second exodus is happening now…from October 2021 to May 9, 2022, and beyond, as Vice President Leni Gerona Robredo has inspired over 2,009,000 folks in 26 cities. The inspiring message of ‘it’s radical to love’ has activated unpaid creatives and volunteers to show up in rallies, to compose songs, to create public murals, to write books and to write poems, to perform, to signify their full support of her candidacy to become our Philippines’ 17th President.
Unprecedented, unpredictable showing of 530 creative forces, artists who are imbued with living hearts to express what their love for what we all want our country to be, to be led by incorruptible, transparent, accountable government servants at all levels.
Unprecedented showing of support from 61 priests and ecumenical bishops who assert their moral choice of Leni Gerona Robredo’s love-driven leadership: “vision to see each other’s talent, potential, and dignity; the courage, passion, and commitment to unlock that potential; and the resulting loyalty and mutual support that energize and unite teams.”
Unprecedented that teams around her willingly travel and support her, sometimes a 19-hour day, to cover a rally in Pasay and earlier, travelling to Mindanao, to accept the support of the MILF.
Unprecedented to see University Presidents, school faculty, student councils of 8-member schools, including 10,000 member strong Association of Professional Security Guards, and 200 children’s book writers, all signifying why they support her, including the family of the late President Manuel Quezon.
We are all standing up, together, and in solidarity, to write a new narrative of voting out the darkness of corruption, theft of public funds, and stolen futures resulting from random killings of citizens in the thousands, voting a new future, into the light.
The light of asserting our sovereignty over the West Philippine Seas; the light of using billions of pesos for job creation; the light of using public funds for health care services by transparent and accountable government services; the light of honest public officials that secures higher quality of lives and livelihoods for farmers, fishermen and those marginalized by prior administrations, and the light of active, responsible citizenship who will not be silenced by fear and cowardice. We deserve our leaders to be honest and incorruptible and smart.
As of May 1, I have tallied in my limited network that 12 out of 12 Fil-Ams have already voted for Leni Robredo. Prior elections did not even generate any interest or enthusiasm of voting overseas. This time, they are even taking an extra step of delivering their ballots in person.
As Ignatius Loyola once said, “No one perceives others accurately without first achieving healthy self-regard. Appreciate your potential, unique talent, and fundamental human dignity. Then see others, their birthright nothing less than the very same human dignity.”
Come May 9, eight days from now, we, the voters whose collective human dignities are being seen by @Leni Gerona Robredo and her chosen VP Kiko Pangilinan, will deserve a new honest, accountable, transparent government in this team, plus a new set of Senators and local officials.
May the Holy Spirit animate the May 9th elections and may all ways of corrupting the people’s will be defeated! -@Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz
