society

An ant colony has a single queen, plenty of workers, and some alates or male ants. The queen, of course, does nothing but lie down and have kids. The workers maintain the underground chambers, collect the food, groom the queen, and feed the larvae. The drones fertilize the queen, and as far as I can tell, do nothing else afterwards but die.

The ant colony lives underground in a series of interconnected chambers and tunnels. Each chamber is dedicated to a certain function, such as food storage or nurseries. Ants from different colonies are aggressive towards each other.

Each ant has his own role. Perhaps there are ants who are assigned to guard the colony from attacks by other ants. Perhaps there are troublemaker ants who bite others without provocation. Perhaps there are lazy worker ants who sleep when they think no one is looking.

So it is with human society, whether they live in tribes or in cities. Humans co-exist to fulfill their needs within the group. Each member has his own role, and each one contributes for the continued existence of the group.

When I am asked to describe Philippine society, what comes to mind is the Lifestyle section of the broadsheets. Perhaps it does not give an accurate picture of everything that our society is, but it gives one a slice of what makes us what we are.

A society is largely dependent on its particular culture. One good thing about Philippine society is that due to the many cultural influences from the time of Spanish colonization to American and Japanese occupation, we have become like a sponge. We soak up and absorb influences from other nations and cultures, and make it part of our own. Back to the Lifestyle section: you see raving reviews of Japanese restaurants, where to buy the latest French fashion trends, and a dissection of Swiss watches or German cars. We embrace Korean telenovelas and the American Idol with equal passion. But we are not confused about who we really are. Look at us when Manny Pacquiao has a fight. We even have ceasefires in war-torn Mindanao so both sides could watch on tv.

You could watch documentaries until you're blue in the face and you will get a list of all that ails Philippine society. Crooked politicians, drug traffickers, child labor, people who kill cats just for kicks, prostitution… it goes on. What is sad is that Filipinos have this amazing capacity to grin and bear it. Ok, so we had a dictator. Took us two decades to throw that one out. So the President cheated in the elections? She apologized and the people let it go. The ZTE Broadband deal is just so much big words in the back issues of newspapers.

I ride "kolorum" vans to work. You ask, why don't they apply for a franchise? Because it's so tough to process the application. Why is it so tough? Because you have to go through so many people and get so many signatures, and by the time you finally ask for approval, it has been over a year, you have already spent a hundred thousand pesos, and then the officials get re-shuffled. What happens to the papers? Well, you have to start all over again, because now there are different signatories. And in the meantime, the kolorum vans play patintero with the traffic enforcers every day. They pay these officers a certain fee every month so that they will not be apprehended. The protection money goes all the way up to the bosses, so as long as the papers are not approved, these officers have a steady source of income. You hear all these, and you are indignant. But the drivers who make a living will say, "Talagang ganyan ang buhay." The officers who receive the money (and the occasional lechon or bottle of Johnny Walker) will say, "Talagang ganyan." The passengers shrug and say, "Talagang ganyan."

That's what's wrong. It's not "bahala na." It's the cheerful, almost careless acceptance that it is the way of life, and we take it because it is too much trouble to buck the tide.

the nature of man

I have three premises about the nature of man.

First, man is a creation of choice. Everything that happens to man is governed by choices. You were late for work this morning? It's not because traffic was bad; it was because you chose to leave the house late. You have a happy married life? You chose the person you married. You have a ton of paperwork; you can choose to get upset about it or you can just attack your desk and get it done. You have a choice, down to the attitude you wish to to take every day. Given that, to me it means that man is ultimately responsible for his life's purpose and direction.

Second, man is the fulfillment of life. If man was created in God's image, then man carries with him all the potential. Every person naturally wants to become all that he can be; the desire to live more is inherent in each one of us. Man will always seek to learn more, do more, and be more, because it is the truest expression of all that he can be, all that he is given. Everything that he will need is already inside. In life, the possibilities are endless. These possibilities exist so that man may affirm life.

Third, man is essentially good. Everyone is capable of kindness, love, and compassion. I think this capacity for goodness is hard-wired into each person. Yes, there are evil people, but even the most hardened criminal carries with him a little goodness. You help an old lady cross the street; you give directions to a lost person inside the Mall of Asia; you smile at babies in buses. Why? You don't get headlines for sharing an umbrella in the rain. Most of the time, the simplest acts of goodness are driven by the simplest pleasures. You feel good about yourself.

Given these three, I now come to the reason for man's being. I believe that man, given his free will and the power of choice, should become all that he can be, to achieve good things not only for himself but for all humanity.

Profound? Not really. Over a glass of wine or over the course of my 31 years on earth, I choose to believe that the purpose of my life is the realization of all that I can be. It is only when I become more, when my life is rich and full, can I do more for myself and others. It is not a goal you work for, like finishing MBA, but a thing you do every waking hour. You make a difference when you give your best in everything that you do.

[This is a reflection essay for my Ethics class. I wrote; I liked; I posted.]

my cafeteria lunches

I wanted an orange belt today. Not just your traffic-light orange; I wanted an exact shade of metallic burnt orange. So on my lunch break I set off for St. Francis Square to find one.

I came back with two mini-shorts, two blouses and a mermaid ref magnet, but I did not find any orange belts. Then, with 10 minutes to spare on my lunch hour, I went to the cafeteria to find food.

For some reason I've had this craving for salad these past two weeks. The salad counter in the cafeteria is nice: you have a selection of ingredients, you toss it all in a bowl, you add some dressing (olive oil, vinaigrette, thousand island, and a couple more I cannot pronounce), then the food attendant weighs it in a scale and prints the price of the salad. I have learned that a P60-peso bowl is enough to keep me full until 5pm.

My usual salad is this: some lettuce leaves, crisp and fresh; two spoonfuls of cheese cubes; some cucumber cubes; 3 or 4 pieces of whole olives (I've taken a liking to these little devils); shredded carrots; some pineapple chunks (fresh, not canned); steamed broccoli; some macaroni; lots of crushed bacon; and just a little thousand island dressing. There are weirder things in the counter: spinach and red beets and onions. Perhaps in a year I'll try them.

I also like Vietnamese food in the cafeteria. On Thursdays I eat cha gio, which is fried spring rolls, fresh noodles, crushed peanuts, and fresh beansprouts in a special sweet-sour broth. Sometimes I get pad thai noodles, when it's Thai food day. And everyday there's Japanese food: California maki is always nice; I pair it with a coffee bun that tastes just like Roti Mum's, only cheaper.

There's also the Meal-of-the-Day, which is usually Filipino fare. They serve ginataang tilapia, chicken afritada, boiled okra with bagoong, dinuguan... and it comes with rice, soup, a side serving of vegs, and dessert.

Then desserts galore! Leche flan, fresh fruits, buco pandan, and cake slices. I love blueberry cheesecake.

There's also a lot of drinks to choose from, but in my 2 years here I have taken softdrinks only a couple of times. They have fresh fruit shakes, see.

After lunch? Coffee. We have Figaro, Starbucks, and San Francisco Coffee concessionaires. Or brewed coffee for 10 pesos, and there's fresh milk if you like.

I have eaten P350-peso lunches at Italianni's and P170-peso-per-slice pizza at Sbarro, and I love good food. I ate at Megamall the whole time I was pregnant; I made the rounds of Italian restaurants there. But really, I don't have to leave the office at all to eat well. Often my lunch here does not exceed a hundred pesos (well, if I get blueberry cheesecake that's a different story).

Salad for lunch. My daughter would look at me like I'm eating soil. And I actually like it.

que sera, sera...

There was a provincial 13-year old girl who was small, skinny, and very shy. Her grandmother told her that she was quite intelligent but she was not beautiful, both of which she believed. She loved reading stories from her textbooks. She had few friends and she did not do well in sports. In fact, she hated Physical Education. She wanted to sing, but her grandmother frowned upon singing (perhaps because she herself could not sing), and had her learn to dance swing and cha-cha instead. She drew little comic strips and made paper dolls, and she wanted to be a fashion designer.

This girl believed she was in love with a local heartthrob. She would carry this infatuation for most of her high school and college years, and she did not have a single boyfriend because she thought she was not beautiful enough. She cried easily and she hated confrontations.

There was this woman in her thirties who knew she was not really beautiful, but she was very attractive. She also knew she was smart; she will write books, and after a masters' degree in business administration, she will study Law. She had just a couple of close friends, but she was popular and well-liked. She did videoke sessions on weekends and will try belly-dancing... or perhaps pole-dancing. She dabbled in photography, did drawings in pointilism, and wrote blogs in her free time, while keeping old-fashioned diaries in the bottom of her closet.

This woman was married to a kind, good-looking man who understood that women have wings, and sometimes needed to fly on their own. She looked at love with a critical eye and believed that life needed to be lived fully. She preferred to fight quiet battles, but she was a formidable opponent of discourteous service crews and rude credit card agents, and she itched to sue crooked subdivision developers who sold substandard townhouses.

The 13-year-old girl would have been pretty amazed if you had told her that she will grow up to be the tough woman. In fact, she probably would not have believed it. But the little girl was tough, and even then, perhaps a part of her knew that one did not have to wait for the good things to come. One had to go for it and claim those good things for her own.

Because if one believed hard enough, nothing is impossible. Ask the woman.

my reading list

I bought a hardbound Nightmares and Dreamscapes yesterday, one of Stephen King's collection of short stories. It is an understatement to say that I thoroughly enjoy all of his books, and my daughter looks mystified when her father tells her that her mother loves horror novels. I tell her, "Someday, you'll read all of them. Then you can tell me which one is a good read and which one is not."

I can only wish that Stephen King writes a book every month, so I will never run out of things to read. But then it's probably a good thing; otherwise I would never have been acquainted with John Grisham, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, and all authors great and small in between.

My reading list now includes the following:

(1) Wallace D. Wattles' The Science of Getting Rich

(2) L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future, Book XX

(3) Louis de Berniere's Corelli's Mandolin (for perhaps the 20th time; I love the writing style)

(4) Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (browsing half-heartedly)

(5) The International Herald Tribune (daily, from my boss' subscription) along with the Philippine Star (headlines only)

(6) Managerial Accounting textbook (groan... groan... for my MBA subject)

And yes, I do pick up two different books at different times of day and enjoy them both. The new Stephen King will be for my lunch breaks, so I will keep it in the office.

The next books on my list?

John Grisham's The Appeal and The Associate. I keep resisting the temptation to buy them at the same time, because I will probably finish both in a single weekend, and declare myself hungry for more.

the man in the bus

Though sometimes inconvenient when commuting to the office, I like riding buses. I like observing people (not to mention that I'm on the sharp lookout for pickpockets and bad men), so I don't really mind being caught in traffic.

I rode a bus to work yesterday morning because I missed the shuttle again (woke up early but took my time dressing up). I sat beside a man who probably thought he was a hunk. He was wearing muscle tee and jeans, and he had his cap fastened to the backpack strap. Must be some fashion statement, as I usually see caps on heads. He must be in his mid-thirties, and he sports an extremely short haircut.

At some point I noticed that he was holding a piece of paper. What was curious was that he did not seem to be reading it, he just seemed to scan it over and over. And he must have been farsighted, because he was holding it almost at arm's length, enough for me to see 'Philippine National Police' on the top line, and 'Payee's Name' on the left side, then all these numbers with peso signs. After a while he put it back in his wallet, then he took it out again. After doing this three times, he then proceeded to inspect his wallet's content, taking out various cards and putting them back again, then... ah! He extracted one card with care. It was an official ID card, similar to a driver's license, and it had 'Philippine National Police' on top. He did his routine again, smoothing the ID (perhaps to remove specks of dirt), turning it this way and that (perhaps to see if it reflects light), and holding it closer to me than to his face (perhaps to determined if he was cross-eyed).

From the corner of my eye I could see him taking quick glances at me. I pretended to doze off, but by that time I was thoroughly amused. I waited to see what he would bring out for exhibit next.

He did not disappoint. Next he took out his mobile phone, a shiny thin Samsung. It must have been a source of infinite wonder for him, because he started to check all the features of the phone. The top part slides up, and it had a camera, and he even decided to see if the FM radio works! Oh, golly, it did!

But since I, the audience, did not have any remarkable reaction to this display of credentials, the man pocketed the phone and... took out the police ID again.

Thank heavens the bus was already in Megamall. Five more minutes and I would have burst laughing.

I then asked the driver if he would stop at Building A or at MRT Ortigas Station. He said no, sorry, but I would have to get off at the Mega bus stop or at Robinsons Galleria. Whereupon this ID-laden, shiny-cellphone-carrying male specimen decided it's time to strike a conversation to show his mastery of bus routes.

"Naku, sa Ortigas ka na nyan... dun ka na lang bumaba," he said with a rueful shake of his head.

"Malayo na yun sa Mega, dun ka na lang. San ka ba papunta nyan?" he added in a tone that suggested I was helpless and lost and needed guidance on navigating the Ortigas Center.

At that point I really did begin to wonder if he was desperately seeking attention. Well, I also wondered if I looked like someone who would bat my eyelashes at the sight of a police trainee's ID.