Still Beautiful After All These Years

“You can go back to the place but not the time”
- from a song by Paul Williams, Waking Up Alone


After decades, and with the help of electronic gadgets, two friends & I were able to happily summon ten former classmates from Ateneo de Davao University to a wonderful powwow here in Davao City.

An important part of the preparations was what to show as the best places of Davao City to someone who used to live in the good old Davao City. It is easy to list the usual Davao city showcases if one is just a day or a two day visitor. We went to the Peoples Park with greens and with the monkey eating Eagle sculpture, which is a conspicuous icon in our park by Kublai. The EAGLE is also incidentally the symbol of Ateneo. Linda Altarejos, the Manila resident former classmate remarked to us, “Where else to find the best symbol of Ateneo if not in Davao?”

We capped our Davao City tour with songs by Popong Landero and group at Taboan. I must say that the Matina Town Square where the music literati congregate is also one of Davao’s best artistic sites.

We also spent time returning to Ateneo at Roxas St, and Agnes Miclat, the writer & my modern Babaylan recalled that the area where the Ateneo Finster building is located was a grassland swamp when we were students. Today, Ateneo students fear the expected flood at the slightest hint of rain. Pet shared an indigenous knowledge that Davao City was the rice fields of our Bagobos in recent history. Which is why, a major drift in the conversation during the reunion proper was about the recent floods of Davao City & for this, realtors (represented by Genette Ledesma in our group) can play a crucial role in advocating for proper land use regulation.
Father Finster, SJ, was our teacher in Theology and we burst into laughter recalling how our dear classmate, the late Bernadette “Benjie” Ledesma, would act out in coaching a classmate during class recitation and the Father Finster could read the sign being acted out and instead of getting mad would equally & quickly respond in profound humor by urging the coaching student to belt it out. “Say it, Bernadette,” the late Father Finster, would say. Benjie, of course, before she died, became active at PETA as a stage and movie actress. Even now, that scene could draw heaps of laughter from us that draw the attention of diners at Bistro Rosario where we held the pocket powwow over the weekend.

Someone commented on Facebook when we posted the picture that painted a “thousand” words that our Ateneo freshmen honors’ class turned out powerful & beautiful people : Ivy Abella, businesswoman & proud mother of three children & one of them is a vice consul in Madrid, Linda Altarejos, a finance expert who flew in from Manila, Dina de los Reyes, an Obstetrician-Gynecologist who had to excuse during the powwow to do a dilatation & curettage (d&c) but came back to rejoin, Bel Grandea, our sensual trainor & writer who also flew in from Cebu, Genette Ledesma, a Mutya ng Davao, realtor & proud mother of children working in Europe’s finest companies, Nelia Meren, an accountant at COA, Agnes Miclat, writer, teacher, & my modern Babaylan, Rosario Soriano, an accountant at PAGCOR, Miriam Tan, an entrepreneur & accountant & one of her kids is a Science wizard; and moi.

All of our male classmates except two or so are working out of town: a businessman in Cebu, doctors in Manila & abroad, or engineers abroad. Why, they could not come is another story. I was missing Mabel Gardose, our classmate because our friendship paced through the years from Davao through the Manila years to visits in New York. Mabel who earlier trained as a doctor now owns a building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

To some of us, a source of pride was having raised children but who are now trying out “life’s uniforms” in their chosen work away from home. Some of us are experiencing the so called empty - nest - syndrome. And perhaps, it is one of the reasons why we now have time to organize our long overdue reunions and catching up meetings which can collectively be beneficial for our well being as we journey through the second half of our adult life.

Photo credits : Agnes Miclat   

The Philippines, Libya & the World

I am writing this amidst disasters being flashed in our TV screen: the killing of our soldiers in Basilan,Southern Philippines, the earthquake in Turkey, the flood in Thailand, the debt crisis in Europe, the Occupy Wall Street now a viral Global Protest Movement. With all these tragic stimuli bombarding, I am actually feeling stymied and at a loss for words.

Surely, there must be something hopeful and positive amidst all these disasters.

The policy of an All Out Justice by the Philippine government in the wake of the death of many soldiers in Basilan in Southern Philippines on Oct 18 2011 makes a lot of sense. Yes, we are angry at the senseless violence. And yes, the perpetrators of the heinous crime against our soldiers will be dealt with the full force of the law but without prejudice to honoring the ceasefire agreement with implementing mechanisms to address breach & violations. The policy drift is that government is very conscious of all its peace methodology. This government prefers to honor the soldiers who died with peace instead of a conflagration of a war. Most of all, our government peace panel recognizes the narrative of the aspirations of the Muslim community and the Bangsa Moro nation in the Philippines.

Elsewhere in another part of the world, we empathize with the Libyans who after more than forty years under an absolute totalitarian dictatorship are now breathing a new sense of freedom. The National Transitional Council & Mahmoud Jibril, Acting Prime Minister who presided over the physical battle must now face the political battle. The Council must make preparations towards democracy which is something very new. They will be preparing for elections in a few months much like Tunisia’s Arab spring election. Then they will write their Constitution and hold a referendum. The current Libyan leadership is confident they can make this new found freedom work for them: they have the resources, money, technology and they have a small population. Libya considers their economy to be post-industrial or a service economy.

There is now a backlash in the excesses of the economies of rich countries which during the recent meltdown was bailed out using taxpayers’ money. The Occupy Wall St claims that the US wealth is enjoyed only by the top 1% but not by the 99% or the larger majority and these protests in Wall St are now spreading into a Global Protest Movement. It is a massive movement that wants reforms towards democratizing the economic system. The protest movement is now a month old and has spread from New York, to Chicago, to other countries like Canada, Italy, England, etc.

I wish to quote from Tom Lines, an expert on trade & development who has worked on the history of the finance & banking sector who said and I quote “My final, final thought is about the very widest landscape, and the extent of the hegemony crisis we might be facing. The banking crash of 2008 may well mark as big a turning point in world history as 1492, the year of Columbus’ first voyage to America. This symbolically marked the start of 500 years in which European countries, and their offshoots like the US, dominated the world. If the US no longer has the economic power to control things, and that power is moving to China or Japan or India, it marks a far bigger cultural shift than that of the 20th Century from one English-speaking, Common Law country (the UK) to another (the US). Power relations are indeed changing, but in view of the horrific events in Europe between 1914 and 1945 it leaves me with some apprehension about where this crisis might lead before a new settlement is reached.”

A lot of things are rapidly happening. Life and work goes on and which for me is social development work: the task of increasing capabilities and reducing vulnerabilities. For now, we are focused on assessing vulnerabilities of the informal settlers in the coastal communities in Davao City’s central business district. This is our way of making sense of our world in the here and now.

Photo credits : Karlos Manlupig

Steve Jobs

photo credits : Cristina Pineda


"We all took a bite at his genius." – Hernan Hormillosa

“Three apples that changed the world.
The one that Eve ate.
The one that fell on Newton's head.
and the one that Steve Jobs built.” - a repost from a Facebook friend

Goodbye Steve Jobs, and thank you very much for making our world beautiful through your genius gadgets. Steve Jobs, co –founder of Apple, a personal computer company, himself said, “People are listening to more music. Millions of people have rediscovered the joy of music.”

Steve Jobs did not originally invent these hardware and software. He improved on them through great product design. He brought the word “design” to a new level by popularizing that design is not just structure but more importantly, his concept of design is also about function. So, from the heavy or cumbersome to carry stereo system or walkman, we were introduced to the iPod, the minute music gadget with a cool design, to borrow the language of the young.

Our first computer in the office which was donated, of course, was a Macintosh. It was a time when others were still into the good old typewriter even in England. That Mac was so savvy and it had a mouse while other computers were still using the arrows in the keyboard. Most of all, it had a Mac Draw, Mac Write & Mac Paint which were gadgets for desktop publishing. The fonts were different from the rest of the clones. I remember that others would ask us, what font we were using because they were not into the Mac and the fonts were simply beautiful and different. Now, the sleek iPhone 4S (with a voice command, GPS features & built in compass for location & directions) & the iPad are simply making the other models so last season, so to speak.

In 2009, while we were preparing a living funeral for a dear uncle, a friend sent me the Stanford commencement address. And so, early on, I was introduced to Steve Job’s prescient death words, now a legacy of sorts about what are truly important in this world. I was also awed that THE Stanford University would invite a college drop-out as a commencement speaker. Here is a profound message to the world about education beyond the classroom. Steve Jobs made an academia out of himself.

A biography of Steve Jobs is underway. It will surely be a bestseller. Earlier, the title was “iSteve: The Book of Jobs.” Now, we hear it will just be entitled Steve Jobs and for the better for obvious reasons. The name Steve Jobs per se already paints a thousand words and more.

My take home lesson from the life and work of Steve Jobs is his great genius of combining technology and marketing. Others say, Steve Jobs is The Entrepreneur of all time. The mantra about this great entrepreneur is that he has three basic business stories to tell: the rise, the fall & then the comeback. When he was fired by the managers that he himself recruited, he spent those years honing and mastering his craft that led to his comeback to Apple, the company he co-founded and which he eventually brought to the heights & pinnacle of glory in business and fame.

Now, the mood is gloomy. A friend who is a Steve Jobs’ fan has posted this tribute: “Ten years ago, the United States of America was a Super Power - it had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash and Steve Jobs. Today, the USA is POWERLESS, it has No HOPE, No CASH and No JOBS.”

We bid our farewell and thank heavens for Steve Jobs and his legacy that led us to a whole new wonderful world.