Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts

Literary (Submission): What Mountains?



Isn’t it amazing how anyone can write a poem or sing a song but with love and patience, one can touch your heart? Or how one can have and raise children but with love and patience, one gets a family?

One of the greatest battles in history came to life because of someone’s love for a special person. But also because of love for the country and its freedom, one of the most tragic times in Philippine history came to an end as the people marched as one to reclaim the throne from the dictator.

One can have enough patience to wait for the right timing, even if it comes in 10 years, and still have love to view this world as a blessing because one person keeps life worth living.

That is how I know patience and love can do anything.

Love encompasses everything. Love gives you the will to do the things you want to do and even the things you think are impossible to do. It challenges people and it makes you go out to the unknown, knowing that eventually, with patience, you can reach your goal.

Love blinds you from the mountains. You are aware that they’re there but you’re willing to continue because something out there is so much more important than saving yourself from fear. And without knowing, little by little, you start moving mountains because you keep going.

My mother has enough love for us to work everyday and enough patience to continue doing it even if sometimes what we give in return isn’t ideal. My father has enough love for us to bring and pick us up no matter how far from home we get because our safety is of utmost important to him. He has enough patience to continue doing it even if he gets less sleep or we wake him up at 12 AM for it.

I have enough love for myself to wake up everyday and take care of things. Enough love for my inspiration to make sure he never runs out of love and spark in his eyes; enough love for my friends to care for them and spend time with them. And I have enough patience to never choose to stop doing these things.

If you think about it, it’s not about the phenomenal things that love can do, but the little things—the ones that happen everyday, ones that without love and patience, wouldn’t be the same.

Imagine the world without those two. There wouldn’t even be a world if it wasn’t for love. We wouldn’t be forgiven if God didn’t have love for us. But He did. So much of it that He sacrificed His own son for us.

Whatever kind of love you have, whether love for someone, something, someplace, or anything, don’t you think it’s what makes you want to do everything so that your love for it would be justified? So that everyone would understand and could somehow feel or share what you’re feeling?

But the problem is no love can ever be the same love twice. The one you’re feeling right now is a different kind of love from what everyone else is also feeling. You can never share exactly the same feeling for only you get to experience that. What we can share, however, is our expression—our way of showing what’s inside. And that is what makes us go beyond the limit.

‘I love you’ means I have patience and all the things that come with love. And I am willing to push through, over or under all mountains in life to prove it.

Literary: Simula ng Pagbabago


Nagmumula ang lahat sa simula. Ang pagsisimula ng bagong buhay, ng bagong pag-ibig, ng bagong paniniwala, ay pagsisimula ng isang pagbabago. Lahat ng tao’y may kakahayang magbago. Lahat tayo’y binibigyan ng pagkakataong magbago. At ang lahat ng ito’y naaayon sa ating kagustuhang baguhin ang sarili sa ikabubuti natin at ng iba.

Kung gugustuhin nating maging mabuting tao, bakit hindi? Wala tayong dapat ikahiya, sapagkat tayo’y hindi naging pabigat sa ating lipunan. Kung nais nating magbigay-saya sa kapwa natin, bakit hindi? Kung ito ang kailangan ng bayang nalulugmok sa kalungkutan.

Kung gugustuhin nating maging mabuting ehemplo sa ating kapwa bilang instrumento ng pagbabago, bakit hindi? Walang mawawala sa atin at sa halip, tayo’y nakapag-ambag sa kagalingan ng iba. Ang masayang buhay ay yaong buhay na nagsimula sa kasiyahang pansarili, nagbabahagi ng kaligayahan sa iba, hanggang sa makapagpasimula ng isang pagbabago. Kaya naman hanggat maaga pa, simulan na natin ang mga pagbabagong nais natin sa ating sarili, kapwa, at lipunan.

Ang pagbabago ay isang hamon, isang pakikipaglaban sa sarili. Mahirap baguhin ang isang bagay na nakasanayan na. Mahirap baguhin ang isang sistemang komportable ka na. Kaya naman isa itong panawagan sa lahat ng kapwa ko kabataan. Ang laban natin ay hindi laban kontra sa pananalapi. Ang laban natin ngayon ay tungo sa isang malaking pagbabago.

Magkaisa tayo, hubugin natin ang bagong tayo, ang bagong kabataang Pilipino!

Literary (Submission): The Abridged History of Love and Rejection

I gazed out the window and my mind wandered as my supposed Math teacher droned on about polynomials and quadratic equations. I don't hate Math. It's just the fact that I had taken it already that makes it so boring. After all, I'm not even supposed to be here anymore. I'm here on a mission.

Last night, a potential Heartbreaker was reported to be roaming the halls of this measly high school. It wasn't the best one out there, let me tell you. But my job makes sure that every school, even the really dubious ones, is free of these wretched creatures.

Let me give you a little insight on what these Heartbreakers are. These vile forms of life are tiny little disturbances trapped into seemingly normal human beings (adolescents, mostly) as if they were a reincarnation of Pandora's box, just waiting for someone to feed on who will open them up. They usually have the characteristics of a mediocre human being but will bite when prompted to. Someone may or may not intentionally be a Heartbreaker, but one thing is for sure: their bite is the deadliest of all. It leaves others, men and women alike, barren, broken, and in need of someone to take care of them. These suckers are what we call the Heartbroken.

There is only one antidote to disentangle a Heartbroken from the spells of a Heartbreaker: Love. It is found in the distant and caliginous corners of other human beings' souls. It is usually provoked by the urge of one to help a Heartbroken. Usually, a Heartbroken is bitten a few more times before he or she finds Love, but there are extremely rare cases when one hasn't even been bitten but has found Love. Those who find Love are given a wonderful ceremony which we call a Wedding.

Then there are people like me. I am what you call a Friend. It is my duty to stop Heartbreakers from making more Heartbroken. I myself have been bitten a multitude of times but I don't take it to heart. I joined the Secret Service of Love to help others from becoming heartbroken.

The problem with youngsters nowadays is that they try to find Love in the wrong people. You see, when Love is prematurely evoked, it transforms one into a Heartbreaker or a Heartbroken. Love becomes the venom of the bite called Infatuation. Some stupidly mistake Infatuation as Love and are happy though it starts eating away at them. And the final bite is scientifically called Painus in the Anus or what we commonly call Rejection. This is when a normal person starts to transform into a Heartbreaker or a Heartbroken. If you took the bite, you are the Heartbroken. If you induced the bite, you are the Heartbreaker. Ultimately, the Heartbroken is left, well, broken, and the Heartbreaker is left satisfied but not for long. We roam the halls of high schools not only to stop Heartbreakers to make Heartbroken but to stop Heartbroken from becoming Heartbreakers.

In truth, Heartbreakers may have been Heartbroken once but are trying to find Love again. Rejection has turned them into blind and villainous Heartbreakers and only Love can free them of this mild curse. It's weird that "curse" is sometimes mistaken as "cures", the way Infatuation is mistaken as Love.

How do they find Love, you ask? It's a very complicated process, let me tell you that. It's as hard as trying to distinguish who the Heartbreaker and who the Heartbroken is before the Rejection happens. Sometimes, Heartbreakers even find love in each other. It's the same thing for the Heartbroken. It's very rare that a former Heartbroken and a former Heartbreaker find actual Love in each other, but when that happens, it gives us Friends hope that miracles can happen. Like they say, two broken pieces make a whole.

Well, my time here is soon coming to and end. I have found my Heartbreaker and my Heartbroken. I hope I don't see you becoming either of these, but we never really know, do we? / by Heartbreaker #1

Literary (Submission): All That Matters

She. She gives me my happiness. She takes it away, too. Her smile. Her smile is the cool breeze during a hot day. It's refreshing. Her laugh. Damn it. Her laugh makes me go crazy even just thinking about it.

Her antics are my favorite, though. You'd think she was just that quiet girl who kept to herself. In some ways, she is, but mostly she's that girl whom everyone loves. Her bubbly, innocent character makes guys go crazy. She can wrap anyone around her pinky just by being her cute self. She already has me wrapped around her finger, if you think about it.

The problem is exactly that. She can wrap any guy around her pinky and she already has. Many of them. We're all fighting a battle, one to a hundred (not really but that's what it feels like). It's darn frustrating to think that I will never be the only guy after her.

She seems to be unfazed by all the attention she receives. I guess that's what's so awesome about her. She doesn't take advantage of the fact that she can make us fall at her feet. She's almost perfect. Like, 99.9%

She is like the sunrise. Something I wish I could always see, but I miss it by a few hours. Minutes. Seconds. The way she makes my day with simple gestures is incredible. She is my drug. She is my elation. And I know that somehow, I am something to her and I won't let her be the one that got away, the one that I let go.

I don't want to be her cure because a cure isn't what she needs. All she really needs is a pain reliever to take away the heartbreak she didn't deserve. I want to give her the love she deserves, not the love she thinks she deserves. I want her love, too. To be frank, I need it.

She doesn't seem to notice what she does to me even though everyone else does. It pains me. Yet at the same time I sport a smile so wide I look like the Joker. (I don't know why I'm so serious [about her], but I am.) She makes my knees go weak, as if the flesh and bones had been replaced by jelly.

Ah, jelly. Another thing she makes me feel. It makes me burn with jealousy when I see her spending time with other guys, but it's not as if I can keep her from them. I made a big mistake by getting out of the line and came back to see that people have skipped in line. It leaves me waiting at the back all over again.

And honestly, I'm fine with that. As long as she's happy, I think I can be happy, too.

They say that when you fall in love, the feelings should be mutual. If the person does not like you back, you should stop liking them. But I can't seem to do that with her.

Because, in the end, all I really know is that I love her. And that's all that matters. / by Franz Candido

Opinion (Submission): Defying Colonization

by Karmela Gabriel of 8-Butterfly 2014 


We cannot deny that a large part of our lifestyle has been influenced by our post-colonizers. The Spaniards, Americans, and Japanese all have contributed a large part on our society, history, and way of thinking. So much on this foreign impact that most of the time we are unclear to what is truly ours. And when asked, "What really is originally Filipino?" our answer is vague and hazy instead of clear and concrete.

After hundreds and hundreds of years of foreign occupation in our land, it is inevitable for colonizers to leave behind a trace of their culture. And it is up to the Filipinos to either adapt or adopt the new ideas they are exposed to. With the help of our ever-growing colonial mentality, these influences are more often than not taken to heart by us Filipinos. Therefore, our own culture and beliefs are overshadowed.

But there is still hope for the worrying spirits of our ancestral Filipinos. Although they are taken for granted--or just not remembered--there are still values and traditions that have stayed even after our struggle and conflict with the colonizers. These values and traits are things to be proud of, and we Filipinos should be thankful that they survived throughout the hundreds and hundreds of years that people from far-off lands conquered the country.

One of these traits is the ability to be cheerful, whatever the situation is. Be it either fire or whatever disaster, you can see the bystanders behind the TV reporter of the calamity waving and smiling at the camera, grateful for the chance to be on TV. No doubt that Filipinos are considered to be one of the happiest people in the world. Another Filipino trait is hospitality. If you ever attempt to interrupt a family while eating, you can expect that they will happily invite you to dine with them. And in a Filipino household , you can never have too many guests Respect towards elders is another Filipino characteristic. The saying of "po" and "opo" as a sign of respect is still practiced until now, by many of the Filipino youth.

These traits come to us as something natural and effortless, although a little do we know that these are remnants of our pre-colonization way of thinking. And to keep them alive, we need to practice and teach them to future generations, for they make a large part of our national identity, the distinctive feature that differentiates us from other nations.
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