minsan lang ako nagmumura, at hindi ako nagmumura ng tao, lalong hindi dito sa blog ko. i have a policy of writing only positive entries in my blog.

pero sobra ka na. sobra ka na!

minutes after the verdict was delivered last monday, i received messages from friends congratulating me on the victory. i thanked them, but added that they should send the greetings to the legal team and to the countless others who devoted night and day in the struggle, and not to me, because i only played an insignificant part in it.

i was touched by their replies to that. they said they congratulated me because they knew how much i cared for it, and they knew i was very happy with the result. and they were right. i had gone around the office grinning like a silly girl, announcing the news to everyone, not caring if they thought a screw had broken loose in my brain.

this case changed me a great deal. while working on it, a lot of what i believed in crumbled to pieces, until i didn't know what to believe in anymore. how would you feel if you find out that the news, which you took as the bible since you were a child, and which you hoped to devote a lifetime for, isn't and hasn't been for a long time reflecting the naked truth? what would you feel if you see that lawyers, whom you once hoped to follow the footsteps of one day, do not deserve their title? what would you feel if you are disgusted by the actions of people, some of whom you once looked up to, around you?

add to that the herculean task of trying to change a mentality that has been there probably since the world began. at first i thought it was easy, that i just had to teach people how to be gender-sesitive and educate them on the many myths of rape, that i just had to write what actually transpired in the courtroom and the truth would come out.

but i learned the hard way that changing a mentality so ingrained in a culture was like transferring a mountain from one continent to another. i met the lowest of the low while working on the case.

the worst for me happened when a sex video came out bearing nicole's name. perhaps it was another tactic of the other camp, or just the work of a shrewd businessman taking advantage of the case's prominenece. there was also a smearing campaign on the internet that involved revealing the victim's true identity. i felt then that i was swimming in a sea of lies, cheating, and dirty tactics, so much that i almost lost my faith in what i used to preach was the innate goodness of humans.

and yet i cannot deny that i also met the best of the best through this also. they were the men and women, professionals and poor folks alike, who gave their time and services, poured their hearts and souls into this, for free. they went to all troubles imaginable just to help. they were brave and aggressive, and yet they played fair. they saw the odds and yet they kept going. watching them, i decided to be one of them someday.

the verdict last monday taught me another important lesson: a battle, no matter how difficult it is, can be won. despite the lowness of people, there are still a few exemplary ones, and it should be them i should be looking at as examples. despite anything, there is always hope. nicole had everything against her--our government, the government of the most powerful country in the world, plus 95% of the filipino nation--but she won.

i wrote in my diary last monday that i will always remember what happened that day. someday in my future struggles, personal and political, i will remember that once when i was young, a difficult battle was won, and if it was, why not all the other battles?

idealism may be outdated, but ideals are still worth fighting for.

i am so hapeeeeeeeeee!

i almost jumped from my chair when i read this:

US Marine guilty of raping Filipina, 3 others acquitted

i always knew that benjamin pozon was a fair judge. (walang kokontra, blog ko 'to!)

naalala ko lang yung time na pinagalitan nya yung isang defense lawyer for trying to mix up statements and confuse everyone in the courtroom. sabi nya sa lawyer, "can't you understand? it was garcia (a marine) who moved, not the table and the pitcher!"

of course that's not verbatim, but that was his point. ang cute nya non. haha.

***
i wish i was there to hug everyone who put their hearts and souls into this: nicole and her family, atty. ursua, dr lopez, ma'am sicam, feliz, janina, shirley, karla, irish, ate balot, arlene, the TOWNS women, TFSR, and several others. it's a partial victory, but it is still a victory. :)

i felt sad when i read this and this in the news. i can't imagine coming home to see my entire family wiped out by a calamity, which is exactly what happened to the boy's family in the first story. 

i think the people of albay has had enough this year. first they were driven out of their homes when mayon volcano erupted in july, and now they get washed away by a massive landslide from the same volcano. more than 300 have been found dead, while another 300 have yet to be dug out of the mud.

i bleed especially for the children who lost their parents, and for the parents who lost their children. it was only recently that i have begun to understand what parents feel when they see a child suffer, or worse, die. 

there is an initiative by a child health advocate to raise 1,000 bears for the children in bicol. i learned from reading her blog that toys are effective tools in helping them cope with and heal from tragedies like this. let us support the campaign.

is today.

i hope she wins.

i believe in miracles.

this is stale news, but i am posting it anyway.

last week, i met up with aileen apolo, google country consultant for the philippines, and other cebu-based members of seo philippines. she had gone on a nationwide tour and i grabbed the chance to see her, after having missed her at two previous events of the group. i am not an expert nor do i earn from the little that i know, but i share the other members' reverence for anyone and anything that has to do with google. thus the immeasurable joy i had when i won the shirt. 

it was a two-day gathering. i won the shirt at the forum on women in the web, wireless, and outsourcing, sponsored by digital filipino, on the first day. aileen asked us to name as many google products as we could in 30 seconds. google fanatic that i am, i got the most answers and easily won the coveted shirt. 

i realized even more at the forum how valuable seo is, and how very few are aware of it, even among techies. one woman hinted on hiring me, even though i made it clear that i was new to it, and was not looking to be hired.

the second day was an informal meet-up during which aileen tried to convince us to take an exam to get a google professional certificate. i am not taking it, not yet. i still have a lot to learn. i was more interested in meeting her and the other optimizers in cebu as a first step. it was disappointing because there was a low turnout, so unlike the vibrant atmosphere i had seen in manila.

nevertheless, the event was worth attending because the few i met were promising and accomodating. i was the only female there aside from aileen and the only one below 25; most of them were businessmen in their 30s and 40s who didn't know optimizing but were interested in the industry. two of them even stayed with me after everyone had left to convince me to go into entrepreneurship. 

we started discussing internet marketing and then moved on to businesses to paradigms and to social structures. we stood outside a coffee shop for two hours, but i was not the least bit bored. if anything, i hung on to their every word. i love talking to people way older than me because they know so much, and i learn a lot from them.  

i went home late that night but very happy. i am starting to get busy again, and i love it. :)

somebody asked me that last week. it's an absurd question, coming from a journalist.

why are there activists? why be active? and why in UP?

i don't know how to answer that, perhaps because it is so much a part of my world, and i don't think much of it anymore, the same way that i don't question why i eat, why i breathe, and why i brush my teeth.

how do i say that being active is but natural, because things don't always work the way they should, and when that happens, it is natural for anyone to stand up and try to make things right?

i only said that, no, not all UP students storm the streets and wave banners, that it is only a stereotype that comes to people's minds when they first meet someone from UP. what is truly a characteristic of UP, i told him, is that we have a culture of criticism, of questioning, of asking why to everything, of pushing limits, of squirming out of confined spaces, and of treading where the others hadn't.  

rebel may be the more appropriate word to describe us all, because in a way, even the most politically apathetic of UP students is a rebel in his or her chosen field--whether it be in the arts, in the sciences, in business, or in the social sciences. we may not be the best and the brightest--i know a lot of better students from other schools--but i can claim that we are the most rebellious and most questioning of the lot. that is our mark, and i am proud to have that.

i spent the weekend watching cine europa. yes, it is a week late here, but just as good. the movies were a welcome break from hollywood (i'd watched cake the weekend before last and it was a waste of money), and mainstream pinoy films.

call me unpatriotic, but we're talking about hard-earned money here. i won't  spend it on love triangles starring the hottest faces in philippine television who mock my intelligence and threaten my sanity.

but i digress. i love european movies for their good stories and their liberal feel. if americans showcase violence in ther movies, europeans do the same with their sexuality. they respect no barriers, and i like that.

which is why i think european films are far superior than their counterparts in hollywood. i think it just makes sense, for didn't most film movements start in europe?

of the six movies that i watched, my favorite was one-way ticket to mombasa. it's the story of a teenage boy who dreamed of joining a professional band, but found out before he could do that that he had lymphatic cancer. he was confined to a hospital where he met another boy who couldn't stop talking about mombasa. together they escaped, had adventures on the road, and found mombasa along the way.

i loved the part in the end when the boy, who eventually got to play in a band, sang for his fallen friend. i think the best part about being an artist is being in touch with humanity, and being able to express it through one's art. i think that's what artists are for.

i'd almost forgotten that. 

RP is No. 6 in world gender equality survey

the news said we rank sixth in gender equality in the world, quoting from a report on gender gap indices that came out last tuesday. the report was based on women involvement in economy and politics, educational attainment, and health and survival.

well, i'm glad to hear that. i know of several others who would be very happy to hear that, too. but i also know from experience that there is still so much to be done. i am not a feminist, i don't call myself anything. i am just a plain supporter who had her eyes forced open by recent events. 

i wish all those wonderful women i've met good luck. i'll continue to help in whatever way i can.

i got bitten by a stray dog last month, on my way home from work. i wasn't far from our office when i heard a dog bark madly from behind me. the next thing i knew, it was attacking me.

i don't know why it was so furious at me. i didn't do anything to it, i didn't even see it coming. i tried to drive it away several times, gently at first, but it wouldn't stop.

seconds into our tussle, i heard a man from behind me who tried to shoo the dog away. i was relieved, but it still wouldn't budge, even when the man was already throwing stones at it. it kept coming back to me, not to him. good thing i wore thick jeans that day. i only got two wounds, one above my right ankle, and another at the back of my left knee.

at first i didn't know what to do. i've heard of rabies before, but it always happened to other people, not to anyone i know, so i didn't bother finding out more about it. i contemplated whether i should go home straightaway and sleep the matter off, the man said it was okay, that i just had to treat the bites with ginger, or go back to the office and ask for help.

in the end, i went back to the office, and i am glad i did. on my way back, i met three of my teammates on their way to dinner. they knew what to do. they brought me upstairs, helped me wash my wounds, and brought me to the nearest hospital in another teammate's car.

it was there that i learned that dog bites could be fatal, and very expensive to treat.  we weren't sure if the dog was rabid, but its behavior suggested it could be. we didn't know where the dog came from, and it didn't occur to me during the incident to go after the dog so we could observe it later. all i wanted was to get away from it.

so, my best option was to play safe, even if it cost an arm and a leg, and even if it meant being dead broke. i have since had seven shots, the last one i got last sunday, and i still have one more in december. i've spent 21k for the shots alone. such a high price for such an ugly dog, eh?

now, i pray to god everytime i go home that he keep me away from dogs, because they seem to be everywhere. i am not afraid of dogs, only the dirty ones, the ones we see peeing on the streets and drinking from puddles of rainwater. i wish their owners would be more considerate. if they can't take care of their pets, then they should give these up to those who can.

the odd thing was that i was in the middle of a business park when i was bitten. i pass by that area everyday, but not one of us has ever seen dogs there before, not even the security guards of the establishments that line the park. oh well. maybe it was just my bad luck.