Globe Telecommunications, one of the two major telco providers in the country, recently changed its Internet surfing rate to P5/15 minutes.

Previously, Globe was charging P0.15/kilobyte downloaded, which made it unsuitable for Internet surfing. However, with this rather major change in rates, Globe can now compete better with Smart.

There’s one problem, though. quago.wordpress.com explains that

The problem is, at any time during your 15 minutes and your connection is dropped for whatever reason, you will again be charged P5 upon reconnection.

Smart charges P10 every 30 minutes, no matter how many times you log out. Also, with a wider reach and better facilities, I think Smart will still rule the mobile Internet market–unless Globe does something radical and new to take over.

[SOME INFORMATION TAKEN FROM THIS POST: New Data Pricing from Globe]

I heard them in the distance. The consistent rattling of machine guns and explosion of cannons filled my heart with trepidation, but I knew I had no other choice. I took the earthen jar in the kitchen and started on my way, knowing that this day could be my last.

I heard an explosion from afar. The suicide bombers must have struck again. I whispered a prayer to Allah. Guide me. Don’t let me die. I continued to tread the dusty path, every second anticipating a sudden explosion or rainfall of bullets. Thankfully, there was none. For the time being, at least.

My hand was getting weary from carrying the enormous jar. I set it on the ground, eager to get some rest. Sweat was collecting on my eyebrow, and my forehead was drenched. I knew it would be hours before I could return home. My son was surely already thirsty, and I hoped my sister had arrived so he wouldn’t be alone. I decided it would be best if I continued on my way already so I could get back home soonest.

Just as I was about to pick up the jar, I heard the rattling of a machine gun. It wasn’t from afar–I swear it was around the bend. Out of what had become instinct over the past few years, I dived for the ground. I didn’t care if I got dust in my mouth, or if my clothes got dirty; all I wanted to do was to keep alive. The Americans had instructed us to immediately dive for the ground and look for cover the moment we heard gunshots. I decided that the tree to the left was my best bet. I left the jar out there on the path–all I could do now was pray that it would still be there after the gunfight.

The tears began to fall. You’d think I’d get used to the anarchy around here after five years, but I haven’t. It was still agonizing to be caught in the middle of a gunfight. The simple fact that I’m still alive is miraculous, seeing as how I’ve lost count of how many crossfires I’ve been caught in the middle of. I ducked for cover, not at all confident in this tree’s capacity to protect me.

I sent another prayer to Allah. Guide me. Don’t let me die.

After what was actually five minutes but seemed like an eternity, the gunfire stopped, and the small band of Allied soldiers were on their way. Looked like an ambush. Gathering myself, I headed for where I’d left the jar. I prayed for it to be still there–if it was pelted with bullets during the ambush, I would have had to go home and get another jar.

Dear God.

The jar was still there, but several pockmarks had been made around it. It looked like an orange cheesecake now, and I was doubtful whether it would hold any water at all. But now, as I looked at the scene surrounding me, the jar was irrelevant.

At least thirty lifeless bodies, scattered around me, their rigid hands still clutching the guns they used to fight a war they considered sacred. One was shot in the stomach, blood still flowing out of the puncture. Another one with two or three bullets into his left forearm. I could’ve sworn he’d blinked once or twice before finally expiring.

A teenager, who’d died in an especially grisly death–two bullets had drilled right into his head, the blood still oozing out, parts of his brain spattered on his forehead. I wanted to look away, I really did. But somehow, my gaze was glued onto this body. Suddenly, the desert heat lost the agony it inflicted on me. The dryness of my mouth did not matter anymore. I stared at this dead soldier’s face.

Dear God. This was my nephew.

My sister had told me about her eldest child, a charismatic 17-year-old, becoming a rebel. He wanted to fight the invading Americans, she’d told me. I told her it was not a good idea, but he’d already left.

The last time I saw him was two years ago.

And now, we were reunited in the most unlikely of places. On a lonely desert trail. Under the heat of the noontime sun. I was on my way to fetch a jar of water, and he was fighting the fight of his life.

My heart was palpitating madly; his beat no more. I could not bare the sight. I took my towel and covered his face as my tears started pouring in torrents.

I started on my way back home, not bothering to take the pockmarked jar with me. As I walked, I whispered a prayer to Allah.

Guide me. Don’t let me die.

As I walked, I felt the journey would never end. If not for the dehydration that was slowly but surely setting in, I would have run home. How would I tell my sister about this? I couldn’t just spit it out. “Your son’s dead. I saw his body on the way to the well. I saw him die. I put a towel on his face and returned here to tell you about it.” No, I couldn’t even say that to myself. But how else could I relay the news?

Finally, I reached my house. I had never seen it the way I saw it now. After five years, I now really felt how it was to be caught in the crossfire. An innocent life, who had nothing to do with the war being fought, was now forced to endure this day-to-day hellhole. And now, she had to relay the hardest news of all: the death of a son.

I entered the home, and found my son and sister sitting down, expressionless. But then again, this was how things always were. Forever wrapped in the tension, the possibility of all hell breaking lose at any second. I told to my sister, “please come outside. I have to tell you something.”

She looked at me quizzically. “What’s wrong? Where’s the jar?”

“Your son,” I said, the tears already welling up in my eyes. “He died today. I saw his body. I saw him die.”

I knew no other way to convey the news. The harshness of the war had drilled into my soul. We cried and cried, not even thinking about going inside. We did not care if an Allied tank came and tore our house down–the pain had become so excruciating that it had made us numb.

It was now more painful than ever to be caught in the crossfire. It was now more painful to recognize the fact that we live today to live another day. This was not the life we were used to; I guess we now have no other choice.

This is how it feels to be caught in the crossfire.

She is, quite literally, standing in the threshold between life and death. She is on the edge of a precipice, and it is her decision to make.

All the pain, the hurt, the agony and anguish. She cannot take it anymore, she says to herself. Life is no longer worth living. Ending it right now will make no difference.

Even in these final moments, when she has convinced herself to kick the bucket, doubt exists in her conscience. She knows that in the young age of 14, a whole life is before her, and by doing what she is about to do, a whole life is wasted.

Her friends, her reliable refuge when she felt pain. She could always rely on them, no matter what the hour. How would they feel if they woke in the morning to hear the news of her death? A dear treasure lost. She felt guilty thinking about that.

Her parents, the hands that guided her all throughout. The everlasting support and encouragement they offered. The sometimes strict discipline they applied to her, which she knew was for the best. That smile, that hug, that little peck on the cheek when they realized she was having difficulty. All the pain they endured to raise her and put her through school. The clothes on her back, the food she ate–everything was from the sweat on her parents’ brows. And to equate that with suicide? She was feeling more remorseful by the second.

The Almighty. He gave her life. Only He could take it away. In her last moments, she raised her head to the heavens, and the teardrops began pouring. She could not muffle her sobbing anymore. “Dear Lord,” was all she could mutter. “Dear Lord,” she managed in between sobs.

Her enemies. They were the people who made the world a nasty place. “What did I ever do to them to deserve this?” She asks herself. All the things they said to her, and about her to other people. She did not think they would stop what they were doing, and to have to endure that for another day–she cringed at that thought.

The tears flowed down her cheeks even more now, as she contemplated finally whether to kick the stool and gruesomely end it all, or to remove this rope from her slender neck and live another painful day. The tears were drenching her clothes, and her face was even wetter now.

“What should I do?”

She closed her eyes, and in a surge of adrenaline, kicked the stool off her feet. The ensuing pain was quick. She kicked her feet wildly in the air, realizing how agonizing these last moments were. The physical agony of being unable to breathe, and the emotional agony of realizing just what she was leaving behind–all the while knowing that she’d passed the point of no return.

Her neck snapped, and she slowly lost her vision, and breathed her last. It was over.

Meanwhile, her frightened parents awoke in the next room after sensing something was wrong. They hurried over to their only child’s bedroom, kicked the locked door open, and were greeted by the painful sight of their daughter lifelessly hanging from a rope by her neck.

There is barely a more gruesome sight on Earth, and no more painful thought, than to think about this. Even as I write this, the pain feels real–a friend of mine had once attempted to take her own life by a razor blade, and the miracle of her being alive today cannot be anything else but the Lord’s work.

And I pray to the Lord to save more confused young lives, so that they can realize their predicament and know that the solution is not death. 

Yes, folks, I’ve got seven weeks of this crap to go through. Sometimes I wonder whether summer’s cool or not.

MY 9-yr-old BROTHER SAYS: You think THAT’s crappy? We still have to go to Kumon.

And, a small airport.

Maybe you’re wondering why I placed that last sentence in a paragraph by itself. Since my childhood, I’ve always been thrilled by airplanes and flying. (Never mind the fact that my first time aboard a plane was September of 2007.) My father always flew to Manila while I was growing up (and continues to do so now), and I’d always wanted to meet him at the airport every time he came home. At around noon, a siren would sound–indicating that the airplane was making either its downwind turn or final approach, and I would excitedly rush to a gate which separated the parking space from the airport apron. From there, I would watch the airplane land. You’d imagine how wide my eyes would get as the plane crept to a halt on the apron in front of me.

My dad’s once- or twice-a-month travel to Manila meant trips to the airport, and every time I watched a plane land (and, on occasion, take off), my fascination for the big flying chunk of metal was fed. Slowly, the back pages of my notebooks became occupied with drawings of different aircraft–very funny- looking ones, thanks to the fact that I was never very good at drawing. Soon, I was begging my folks to buy all sorts of airplane toys, and of course, to take me on an airplane ride.

I thought I’d get over the whole airplane addiction as I got older, but I didn’t. Recently, I downloaded a flight simulation system called YSFlight, and then later, FlightGear. For some time (until my first plane ride), using the flightsim was my most tangible sense of airplane flight.

I’d thought that this affection for flight was just that–an affection that stuck with me since my younger days. It would seem to be nothing more than that, come to think of it.

But perhaps my love of flying is a representation of my aspiration to soar high. (Yes, I’ve been thinking again. My theories may be somewhat weird, maybe even resembling a drug-induced idea, but stick with me here.)

Since my preschool days, I have always been pressured by my parents and peers (and myself) to excel. Whether it was the honor roll or the Speechfest or the journalism contest or the student government elections, my name was always expected to be at the very top of the winners’ list. Second was not an option. These high expectations drove me to at least try to soar high. Ever since, that has always been my goal: to get to the top.

To get to the top. For me, those words invoke so many thoughts. To get away from this city, to move to Manila, where more opportunities await. To at least get my name on the banner roll. To climb back to Section One. To finish high school. So many definitions of soaring high, of getting to the top.

I haven’t been there in a while, to tell you the truth. My academic heyday was way back in preschool, in Kindergarten, when I was accelerated to first grade without experiencing graduation. Perhaps the skies are the best representation of academic excellence for me. To fly and be amidst the clouds, to soar in the sky as much as I would like my grades to soar.

You could say that the skies are my asylum, my temporary amphetamine. So long as I cannot achieve the academic excellence my peers, parents and I aspire for myself, my admiration of flying will be one of my refuges.

Pressuring a student to excel is not the best thing to do, as this post illustrates. But I could say that the need to excel has been wired into my DNA. I now and forevermore feel the need to soar. Since I cannot do so academically (at least not yet; I promise I’ll start doing my assignments come June!), I guess the skies are my best bet.

I write for many reasons — to while away the hours, to keep my writing skills sharp, to express my feelings. Today, I am again held in a trance by my notebook computer because a question just popped in my mind.

What will become of me in fifteen years’ time?

I have asked this out loud before, and my peers have discouraged me from thinking about it. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, they say. And they aren’t wrong. At thirteen, I still have so much of the world to explore, and so much of my life to live.

But perhaps my greatest fear is that I will live it the wrong way, and that I will look back and regret my actions. Haven’t we all felt regret before? That little, “I wish I did that instead of this.” Didn’t we, at some point, ask ourselves how our lives would’ve turned out had we made a different decision? I have always been afraid to make a wrong decision Now, as I enter the audacious teenage years, and as the rest of my life is starting to unfold, I feel the need to make a plan, to plot things out, so that I live my life to the fullest and the way I want to. I feel that my life is better off prearranged, so that I would not need to worry about it anymore. In other words, I’d be better off without a risk to take.

But today, as I was reading Paulo Coelho‘s novel By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, I came across these sentences which told me that having a prearranged life would probably not be the best thing in the world:

You have to take risks…We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks…because when they are finally able to believe in miracles, their life’s magic moments will have already passed them by.

“Magic moments” will be understood by those who have read By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. Essentially, these are moments in our life when a “yes” or a “no” can change it forever. To quote the book verbatim, magic moments

“may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us.”

I feel that this was speaking directly to me (although it is highly improbable). If my life were plotted out prior to my actually living it, then everything I would do would become “just another task”; my magic moments would go unnoticed. I realize that although a prearranged life would be devoid of the precariousness and unpredictability of a life lived spontaneously, it would also be devoid of the thrill of a spontaneously lived life. This leads me to another quote from the novel By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept:

“The person who is afraid of taking risks…perhaps will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back…she will hear her heart saying…’So this is your heritage: the certainty that you wasted your life.‘”

I do not want to waste my life. Taking risks is better than having wasted a whole lifetime. I have a dream to follow, and I will follow that dream. I will stumble, and I will get bruised. I will fall seven times, and get up eight.

What will become of me in fifteen years? I will become an accomplished person. A bruised person, but a learned person. A person with failures, but with even more accomplishments. My heritage will not be the certainty that I wasted my life; instead, it will be the certainty that I lived my life to the fullest.

For the gazillionth time since my dad bought me this
laptop, I exit Microsoft Word with dissatisfaction. I ponder, for a
moment, on the possibility of scrapping this prospective novel and
working on another one, with a different plot. The story, entitled
One More Time, is probably my tenth one. Like all others, it did not
go so well, and I finally decided to relocate it — to the recycle
bin.

I’ve been an aspiring novelist ever since I picked up The Da Vinci
Code. My thirst for prose began to stir at around age 11, and what
really sparked my interest was the Dan Brown bestseller. (On a side
note, I do not know what the big deal is about TDVC. I read it as a
novel, not a religious book, and it did nothing to destroy my
convictions.) As soon as I finished the novel, I Googled the keywords
“how to write a bestseller”, and after taking tips from the websites I
visited, embarked on writing my first story.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last. About five chapters into the story,
I paused and read the whole thing from the top. I realized that it
wasn’t good enough, that the plot was too shallow, that the
characters weren’t compelling enough. I cast the Word document into
its Pit of Eternal Torment, the Recycle Bin (and eventually, I
shredded it altogether).

As a novelist, I screw up from Day One. My many plot outlines are
irrational, to say the least. There is no magic, unexpected twist, no
shocking revelation, no gripping plot point — just a plot. Sure, it
might be different from your everyday life, but it’s not worth
immersing in for hours.

My writing is less than brilliant, too. There are not enough
metaphors and clever references, if any do exist within the pages of
my stories. When I describe a gripping scene in the story, I cannot
make it sound gripping enough. Although I can safely say that some
paragraphs are colorfully worded, the majority of my writing is just
a bunch of words precariously sewn together to try to make a point.

Once, in a National Bookstore, I picked up a novel by a
not-very-known author and investigated its pages, to see if I was
competent enough to measure up to at least the lesser-known of
novelists. Within the first four paragraphs of the novel, I knew that
no publisher would ever pick my work for print.

At first, I was persistent about my would-be career. I saw the first
trashy story as a bump in the road, and that that was normal for a
newbie in the writing world. I quickly grabbed a ball point and a
piece of paper and began outlining the plot of my new story. This
time, I was barely finished with the prologue when I thought it was
trashier than my first one, and I didn’t bother save the work at all.
That cycle went on for the next story. And the next. And the one after
that. And after that. And…well, you get the drift.

This time, I was sure I had no future in writing. Until Mibba came
along. Mibba is an online community for aspiring creative writers
(such as myself) to be able to display their works (and works in
progress) to other Mibbians. I began my own short story there,
entitled ‘Calhoun Beach’. To give you a bit of insight, it was a
story about two seniors in love living in fictional Calhoun,
California. With their imminent graduation from high school, the girl
cheats on her boyfriend. He has to decide whether to try to work the
problem out, or to break up and get back together with his former
girl, who confesses that she’s still in love with him.

I had already completed four or five chapters (which, I thought, were
okay enough). But something told me that it still lacked the luster of
a true novel, so I discontinued updating.

Up until now, I have put off working on another story, because I am
afraid (and perhaps sure) that it will end up in the trash, like all
my past stories. Perhaps, I have to deal with the fact that writing
is not the career for me. Paulo Coelho said in his novel The
Alchemist that we should all follow our heart so we can find our
Personal Legend. If my Personal Legend is not to become a novelist, I
guess I have to part ways with that path and look for the one that’s
right for me.

Now, I stare into my laptop monitor, and with satisfaction, put a
concluding paragraph to this write-up. Perhaps, somewhere down the
road, I will find the path the Lord intended. I hope to be able to
continue to (try to) inspire through my writing, because I know that
we can all impact the world, in one way or another.

So I bid adieu to the world of writing novels, at least until my
heart tells me to reunite with it again. Creative writing will always
be my place of comfort, though, and rest assured I will continue to
write as I breathe.

Despite the Philippines’ incredible financial performance (now P42-$1, when before it was P55-$1), the Philippines is in deep sh*t. Let me tell you why.

Public education here is pitiful, to say the least. That may sound blasphemous, especially coming from a public school student, but here are the facts. Our class was given a 1:1 student-book ratio for our Filipino textbook, but all other textbooks are distributed on a 2:1 ratio, meaning two students have to share one textbook. These books are not in the best condition, either; some are missing pages, others have tattered covers; there are even horribly vandalized copies which would be of no use to a student. Classrooms have broken electric fans, nonfunctional fluorescent light bulbs, ready-to-fall-apart armchairs and dilapidated chalkboards. Teachers, I’m told, are paid less than what they deserve.

Infrastructure is in need of more attention. Although our national highways are excellently maintained, many city streets have potholes and fissures. Many communities lack street lamps, creating a viable environment for thieves and robbers to thrive. Canal systems are poorly built. As a result, during heavy rains, roadways become rivers, and the ordinary commuter cannot avoid getting his/her feet wet in the process. (Rainwater carries all sorts of diseases, and one can never be too careful.)

Corruption is evident and obvious, so much so that I sometimes ask myself why these people bother to hide the fact in the first place. During the last local elections, the convention center in front of our house became a bribery center where people would get paid about P200 ($5) to put the name of the incumbent mayor (who was running for reelection) on their ballots. The ZTE Broadband deal (which the Senate is thankfully scrutinizing) is another example of the deceit in the higher echelons of government, clear proof of the fact that today’s public servants are no longer interested in public service.

If that isn’t deep sh*t, I don’t know what is. I am startled by the government not giving a damn for the country it serves. I look back to a time when public servants were revered, were respected for their work. To a time when to be a government official was to serve the country greatly. To a time when the office was respected. To a time when people who sat in Malacañang took extra care not to tarnish the position they held.

All of that has obviously gone down the drain. Today, taxpayers’ money goes not to the nation’s coffers, but to the influential. The government plasters tarpaulin banners all over the city with a picture of a newly-constructed bridge and the words, “THIS IS WHERE YOUR TAX GOES”. I do not — cannot — believe that.

So, it is time to oust the president. People argue that that cannot be done. Why? “The succeeding government would be far worse than the present,” they contend.

That, I believe, is out of the question. Should the questionable capacity of a would-be president be reason enough not to oust the current, incapable president? NOTHING should be reason enough not to oust an distrusted president. When it comes to the preservation of a country’s morale, we should do what is warranted, no matter what the cost.

“And what if the succeeding President will be far worse?”

Let me tell you one thing: he SHOULDN’T be far worse. If he would still have a functional conscience, he would realize that he’d been put in his current position by the people in the hopes that he would map a new future for the country. He would not betray his people’s trust. He would do his best to fulfill his duties to his country — as we all must, if only in our own little way.

And, if it so happens that corruption continues under a new leadership, we must never tire of taking our voice to the streets and exercising democracy should the need arise. If we need to keep ousting presidents until we find one that will surely live up to what is expected of him, then we shan’t stop until we find the one for our country. With the Almighty by our side and with faith, hope and patriotism in our hearts, our search shouldn’t last too long.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas.

Television, radio and print media were once the only ways to express ideas freely. This meant that only influential and wealthy people could put up a radio station, establish a TV station or publish a broadsheet. Free speech was still exercised, but with somewhat of a filter. TV stations could choose not to air sensitive material; radio stations could turn down an offer to air a racially or sexually offensive message; editors of newspapers could choose not to put sensitive articles on their issues. It was a controlled environment for ideas — if yours didn’t appeal to the masses, then it couldn’t be heard.

With the advent of the Internet, this “filtering system” could be ignored. This new technology tore down the walls of conventional media. Soon, ideas flowed faster than floodwater during Hurricane Katrina. Blogging (a portmanteau word[2] composed of “web” + “log”), the main avenue for ideas on the Internet, soon reached popularity as an easy and inexpensive way to express one’s ideas and thoughts. The number of blogs on the Internet increased exponentially: today, upwards of 50 million have been registered.

This obviously created a whole new medium of expression. It was a welcome deviation from the restricted “conventional” media. It delivered everything TV, radio and print media could — and maybe even more. This was obviously a potential avenue for freethinkers, a virtually unregulated medium. Virtually no more censors could be imposed. You could speak your mind. No barriers would stand in the way of free speech.

Isn’t this the embodiment of the Filipino’s view of democracy? You would think that blogging was a craze here in the Philippines, that it would be bigger than Friendster.

Well, surprise, surprise.

My personal guess is that about 40-60% of Filipinos own a Friendster account, but only 20-30% know about blogging. Although there is already a concrete Filipino blogosphere on the Internet today (so much so that in 2007, the first Philippine Blog Awards were held), blogging has not reached the kind of audience Friendster has. This, for me, is wasted potential; Filipinos’ penchant for freethinking and the speak-your-mind attitude could be better exercised through blogging, yet we neglect this blessing of technology.

Why haven’t Pinoys embraced blogging yet?

Good question. Perhaps, it is because Filipinos have limited access to the Internet. While in other countries, virtually every home is connected to the Net, here in the Philippines, the same cannot be said.

This lack of exposure to blogging can also be attributed to the fact that most Filipinos access the Internet to:

• Go on social networking sites such as Friendster and MySpace

• Research information on search engines such as Google and Yahoo!

• Use chat clients such as Yahoo Messenger; mail clients such as Yahoo mail and Gmail

• Other uses, such as listening to music, watching videos, and the like.

Blogging is not on that list. While it is slowly gaining popularity (maybe because of the recent controversy about Brian Gorrell), I forecast a long road ahead for blogging in the Philippines.

It is a shock and shame, really, for such a democratic nation as the Philippines to be narrow-minded about blogging. Such a powerful tool — one that can break down the barriers conventional media had put up — should never be neglected. Sulong, Pinoy!

FOOTNOTES:
[1]  I am unsure if that is verbatim.
[2] portmanteau word — a word that combines the sound and meaning of two words, e.g. “smog,” a combination of “smoke” and “fog”. (Definition from Encarta Dictionaries)