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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Manila: The Queen City of the Pacific, 1938

Please watch this video of pre-war Manila. It's well made and highly educational. I think this is the same video Ed asked us to watch. Unfortunately, there must have been something wrong with the link he posted.

Just click the Link with the same title on the right side of this page.

I'm still very busy, I couldn't do other posts today.

Congratulations Manny Pacquiao, who won over David Diaz. Manny now holds the record as the first Asian to hold four world crowns in four weight divisions. Congratulations Manny! You made your countrymen proud again today!

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

HAPPY TOWN FIESTA TO DAETENOS

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BOY RIOS!


The People of Daet have a good reason to be thankful because they were spared from the wrath of Typhoon Frank. But it's difficult to be happy when tragedy struck other places. Most unfortunate is the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars in Romblon, just less than a kilometer from the shore. This is already the fourth for Sulpicio Lines.

Today is also Araw ng Maynila but I think there's no declaration of a holiday, except for the schools. It's also the fiesta of the City of San Juan, and Calamba. In Bicol, there are also several towns celebrating their fiesta today - Sipocot, and another town in Albay.

Today is also the Birthday of Boy Rios. I was able to send him the CD of the pictures of the February 2008 Reunion, as well as birthday greetings by SMS. Tomorrow is Sister Terry's birthday, the last celebrant for the star-studded month of June. We don't have any birthday celebrant next month, unless Rudy DV's birthday falls in July.

There are many things to post here in our blog, but I'm still loaded with work. I still have to catch up with the man-days lost when my hard disk crashed.

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Take Time To

Read books that you enjoy...

Play with simple things...


Do whatever you want whenever you want...



Look for affection when you need it...



Get serious once in a while...


Forget about diets...



Show some affection

Get angry once in a while...


Change your look...


Be happy, above all, regardless what your challenges may be.

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.





"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet
is fighting some kind of battle."




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The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

Hello all,

Sharing this very inspiring speech by one of the richest woman in the
world..... Lots of huggggssssss....

Ed Canela

___________________________________________

JK Rowling's Harvard Commencement Address
June 5, 2008

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers
her Commencement Address, "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the
Importance of Imagination," at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni
Association.

------------------------------------------

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of
Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all,
graduates..

The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought
until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker
that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock.
Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke,I've
still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first
step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation,and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered
together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.

What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience.

Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well- educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.

An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.

Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement.

Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination,
because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends.

I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child.

I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and
suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly
fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other
people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. I wish you all very good lives.

Thank you very much.


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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TESS!

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Monday, June 16, 2008

GOD Always Answers Prayers

Hello all,

This was just passed on to me. Very nice prayer. Lots of huggggssssss….

Ed Canela

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

Hilot/Massage

Keep Walking.....


The Organs of your body have their sensory touches at the bottom of your foot, if you massage these points you will find relief from aches and pains as you can see the heart is on the left foot.


Typically they are shown as points and arrows to show which organ it connects to.

It is indeed correct since the nerves connected to these organs terminate here.

This is covered in great details in Acupressure studies or textbooks.

God created our body so well that he thought of even this. He made us walk so that we will always be pressing these pressure points and thus keeping these organs activated at all times.
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But if you're really too tired to walk, and you want to have a good massage, at least it's still not as expensive to have one here in the Philippines.

And one of the benefits of having children (or nephews, nieces, and apos), pwede kang magpahilot!

What about the palm?



If you want to do it yourself, here's a guide.

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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Pre-Departure Area

Speech of Rev. James Reuter, S.J. on his 92nd Birthday

This is a poignant speech…. I remember my grandma who will be 100 by July 13. Incredible. Lots of huggggssssss….

Ed Canela

AT 3 A.M. By James B. Reuter
Saturday, May 31, 2008

After my beautiful birthday on May 21, many good old friends asked me: How does it feel to be 92?. . . . The only honest answer that I could give was: Very good! Like the good wine at Cana , the best days in the life of every man come at the very end.

You see the beauty of Gods world all around you, more clearly than you ever saw it before. . . . . above all, as you grow older, you realize that the most precious possession that anyone has is. . . . a friend!

And I have so many good friends! My ancient, medieval original Ateneo Glee Club has been singing with me since 1952 56 years! And, so help me, they are singing better now than they did 50 years ago. . . .

Now, the songs that they love come from their minds and hearts, grown rich and mellow through the long years. I feel that their harmony comes from their deep friendship for each other. Their very souls blend together.

And those who have acted with me in their youth remember their adventures on stage as one of the happiest periods in their lives. We toured around the world twice, playing off Broadway in New York , in Her Majesty's Theater in London , in the great audience hall of the Holy Father in Rome .

Travelling through Europe, we slept in the bus at night, and spent the days in beautiful historical cities Florence , Venice , Vienna , Prague .

Trips like that bound us together then, and the bonds have remained to this day.

The athletes that I have coached in basketball, when they were students, call me when they are sick. I have visited so many of them in the hospital, heard their last confessions, anointed them, and then said Mass for them, when they had gone home to God.

And the retreats! I receive such touching letters! I am humiliated by these letters, because the one who makes the impact on their lives is never the priest it is Christ Our Lord.

But it is consoling to the priest to feel that God has used him as an instrument as a channel through whom his grace flows down to his children. The priest is only a faucet sometimes an old and rusty faucet the living water is the grace of God.

Whenever I hear confessions, I know that the one who is confessing is reaching out to God. The priest is only the bridge. . . . But it is consoling to know that you can be a bridge between a soul and God . . . . . Every day I pray to be worthy of the good people whom God sends to me.

People sometimes ask: What are your dreams, your hopes, your ambition? What do you want to achieve before God calls you home?

Actually, I have no plans to achieve anything. . . . . But I have a gut feeling that God is preparing me for something big something I do not expect but something tremendous. And I am sure that God will not call me home until that big day breaks over me. . . . I wake up smiling, waiting for something that I do not know.

Of course I am in the pre-departure area. . . . Of course my flight will be called soon. . . . But soon for God could be five years ten years twelve. My good friend Jimmy Martin, S.J., who coached the Ateneo team long ago, and prepared them for the Berlin Olympics, lived to be 104. . . . I really expect that I will be around for years to come.

Death may come at any moment. . . . I know that. . . .but when it comes it will be the greatest of all adventures a journey into the unknown.

I have been blessed by my studies as a religious, as a Jesuit. I have been constantly exposed to the Gospel. . . . The word of God leads you to the fullness of life. . . . to peace of soul, to the joy of living, to happiness, to love, to everything that is beautiful and good.

Even if there were no heaven or hell, no last judgment I would never regret having tried to live by the word of God. . . . . If I had my life to live all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

I have made a thousand mistakes . . . . . But with the grace of God I hope to make it to Purgatory. . . .Because, then I know that someday I will be safe with God, forever.

And I believe that: Eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard nor hath it entered into the mind of man to conceive the joy that God has prepared for those who love him.

What does it feel like to be 92? You feel that you are standing on the threshold of a great, beautiful adventure. . . . .Life will begin when God calls you home.

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Happy Birthday Alot

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Monday, June 9, 2008

What's New Today

Today is a holiday in the Philippines in lieu of June 12, which is Independence Day. This is part of Gloria’s holiday economics. (Buti ‘yong Pasko hindi na niya pinakialaman, e kung pumatak na alanganing araw baka i-move ng 23 o kaya naman 27.)


I was thinking of a subject for blog posts which you would find interesting. Pictures and accounts of our social gatherings are certainly awaited as they provide opportunity to see how our classmates look like, or what’s new (or what hasn’t changed!). But social events are not a weekly fare, while the blogsite need to be updated more often. So what topics should we put on this site? Politics doesn’t seem to excite many of us. For a while, food recipes became a hot topic as Ed and Felino shared the recipes of various pili nut delicacies, and my own favorite kare-kare. Filipino achievements such as those of Gian Karlo Dapul, Charice and Ramiele, and including those of our own kin such as Deng and Myrene hopefully caught the interest of many of us. Many of the posts contributed by members were inspirational or humorous. Others were about healthy foods (malunggay and camote tops), medications and health advice, which are becoming increasingly interesting and useful for most of us. It’s probably natural that as we grow older, we become more conscious about our health. So even during social gatherings, questions crop up about sugar level, results of check-up and maintenance medicines. So, health topics would be good subject for blog posts. I found this article from my email which I’d like to share with you. It’s about cancer, a disease which has claimed the lives of some of our classmates. This is not meant to strike fear but to provide us better understanding about the disease.

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Cancer Cells

Here are some information about Cancer.

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show
up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When
doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their
bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the
cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's
lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be
destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple
nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental,
food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and
including supplements will strengthen the immune system.


6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and
also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow,
gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver,
kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and
damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce
tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not
result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and
radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed,
hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and
complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and
become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer
cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding
it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important
food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal,
Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural
substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts.
Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the
gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk
and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is
acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef
or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones
and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains,
seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline
environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans.
Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed
and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance
growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy
cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean
sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are
destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine.
Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties.
Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and
heavy metal s in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

f. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes.
Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads
to more toxic buildup.

g. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining
from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein
walls of cancer cells and al lows the body's killer cells to destroy the
cancer cells.

h. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac,
anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own
killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E
are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's
normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

i. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and
positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger,
unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic
environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to
relax and enjoy life.

j. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment.
Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen
down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means
employed to destroy cancer cells.

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Saturday, June 7, 2008

Short Management Lessons

I'm sure many of you have come across these management lessons. Funny, hilarious but true. So here, they are again.

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A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel." After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.

When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, "Who was that?" "It was Bob the next door neighbor," she replies. "Great!" the husband says, "did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?"

Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

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A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her habit to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg. The nun said,"Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest apologized "Sorry sister but the flesh is weak." Arriving at the convent, the nun went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

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A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, "I'll give each of you just one wish." Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Puff! She's gone.

"Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Puff! He's gone.

"OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."

Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say.

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An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?" The eagle answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story : To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

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A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy." Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull.

They're packed with nutrients."The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story : Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

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A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.

Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Moral of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend
(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

This ends the 3-minute management course.

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Friday, June 6, 2008

June Celebrants

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Awesome Translations Part III



I give my life and my company, but they just keep demanding more....



New in this section, "bowling with Bilbo".

I'll keep a look out....



Press it because you want to.



Damn, these fireworks reek.



Operators standing by.



Stylist Ben Dover at your service.



Yeah, cheated out of breathing.


The pool man is gonna freak.


No crack?

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Monday, June 2, 2008

A Plug for Storyline

If you’re already at home on Fridays at 6 pm, please watch “Storyline”. It’s a new TV show at the ANC (ABS News Channel) written and produced by Patricia Evangelista, the first Filipino to win the public speaking contest at UK (the same contest recently won by Gian Karlo Dapul) and directed by Paolo Villaluna, an indie film maker. I can assure you, you’re time will not be wasted.

I watched the replay of the premier telecast last Sunday, 3:30 pm and I’d like to congratulate Patricia and Paolo for the very inspiring narratives. I liked all three stories/narratives which all tackled dedication and commitment to one’s job (the fireman), and commitment to serve others without asking for anything in return but the satisfaction that you have helped other people (the fire volunteers and the hopia king). These are stories of truly being a “Man for Others”. Parang Atenista, di ba Bert? I’m raring to see the next episode. Please do watch it.

You can view the short video clip above from the You Tube.

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Senators as Product Endorsers: Early campaign strategy?




Last May 12, I posted in our blog, the issue of our senators acting as product endorsers. I wrote about it because I saw Loren Legarda’s face occupying a whole page on that Sunday’s issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. She was endorsing Lucida DS, a food supplement-cum whitening (tablet or pill, I’m not sure). I then recalled that there were other senators appearing in commercials – Chiz Escudero for Circulan 41 – nasa dugo lang iyan!; Ping Lacson for Facial care for men (before this, he endorsed a brandy); Pia Cayetano for Downey, fabri-care; Mar Roxas for Tide; and Manny Villar for his “advocacy campaign” to protect the OFWs. I failed to mention Richard Gordon appearing on Safeguard’s laban sa limang banta commercial; and Kiko Pangilinan for Lucky Me pancit canton with Ate Shawie.

Now, this has become a big issue. We saw Miriam lambasting her colleagues in her colorful English-Ilonggo accent. She also wrote Comelec Chairman Jose Melo asking him to stop these senators and other presidential wannabes from appearing in commercials as this constitutes electioneering even if the 2010 polls is still a good 24 months away. Once in a while I agree with Brenda’s position, although her tantrums are also suspect. (Pwede rin naman sya sa commercial, iyong tipong mga before and after).

Legarda has several huge, huge billboards along EDSA, obstructing our view of the skyline. I saw one near Guadalupe bridge and another near Quezon Blvd MRT Station. As a senator, she should be in the forefront of a campaign to dismantle oversized billboards right along the busiest highway in Metro Manila because of the dangers they pose to motorists and pedistrians. She should not wait for another accident to happen. And why endorse a whitening (tablet/pill?). What kind of values is she promoting? Why can’t she instead, help put some sense on the pinays (and some pinoys, as well) to accept the color of their skin? Ang pagpapaputi ba ang dapat pagkagastusan ngayon? Ano ba ang masama sa kulay ng pinoy? Now that Korina Sanchez has reported that tests made on the product she’s endorsing revealed that the amount of whitening content claimed is not true, what does this make of her? If true, Loren becomes a party to the deceit. Her other commercial is on her advocacy for the environment. Ilang kahoy ba ang pinutol para sa one full page ng dyaryo para sa mukha nya?

My bias shows. I don’t really like Loren. I had a short-lived admiration for her during the Erap impeachment when she appeared to be doing her homework. But when she jumped to the other side just so she can run as Vice President, that was the end of it. Recently, she was shown doing a beso-beso with GMA. She said it was a natural act of courtesy. It’s called “Ethica”, according to her. Is that the right term?

As to the others, they know that it’s part of the campaign strategy and their getting paid for it (except for Manny Villar). Unlike Prospero Pichay who spent a fortune for political ads but still lost. Dapat nag-endorse na lang siya ng Ligo. Masarap ang sardinas na may pichay!

(Note: the three pictures above were taken from other blogsites, whose names I failed to get. Nevertheless, I would like to thank them.)

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Sunday, June 1, 2008

Happy Birthday Felino

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Here are the Pictures!









Here are the pictures of El Kapitan Rudy’s birthday celebration held on Saturday, May 31 at the Hard Rock CafĂ© in Glorietta 3, Level 3. El Kapitan marked his t-eighth birthday, not exactly 48th as he initially claimed. But as Ed described him and as seconded by Men, he has aged “elegantly” whatever that means…. (aram naman nindo si Ed, marhay na mambo…. Ay dai palan, marhay na mag-English. Aren’t they Ed? Joke-joke-joke.)


Among the party people (RAK-RAKAN na!) were of course, Ineng, La Kapitana herself, Alot, Lina (na pan-tulong bisitang nag-abot! Talagang pinapanindugan na niya na bako na siyang si The Late Lina!), Marynat, Tess and her unica anak, and Dr. Ebu (Ibu, Ebot, Ebo….. basta si Manuel Lukban, na regular na sa mga sosyalan kan klase). Absent were Ed, nag-e-study group meeting para sa iyang Ph D (magiging apat na an Dr. sa tuya), Rori na na-enot ng ipa-schedule an pagpabolnot nin ngipon (marhay ako ta uban sana an pinabolnot ) and Baby na may lakaw daa (pero sigurado ako malunad man ito). Na-miss mi ulit sina Bert and Marie (maski pa yaon sa Pinas sina Danny and Marie Osmonds). They must still be in the process of settling down in the US kaya mayo pang paramdam si Bert sa email. Okay lang Bert, we understand. Dai mo lang pa-aboton an ..Ber months na dai man lang mag-contact ta very another ka na kaiyan.

I’m not a very good story teller kaya dai ko maikwento gabos, basta enjoy na enjoy kami kan lunch time na ito. Siyempre reminiscing ulit kan high school days, mula sa panliligaw ni Rudy kan Grade Four kan enot siyang mabasted, sumunod kan third year kan mabasted siya kay Susan Po (bako man si Susan Roces Poe), and finally kan fourth year…. Yes, Success! pero secret na maray, mala ta mayong naka-aram apwera kay Rey Rafer and Beth Perez.

After 42 years, nasabi na ni Lina na suyado palan siya kay Marynat ta dai siya pinakopya sa exam. Sarung item lang ang hinahapot niya, hiniling lang daa siya ni Ate Marynat tapos tinakpan lalo si papel! Siyempre man, pinaghidapan mag-adal, tapos kokopyahan lang! Ngonyan, friends na sinda. Kun kaidto sabi ngani ni Felino, seryoso, dai nagngingirit saka suplada si Ate Marynat, ngonyan kalog na. Saka mahilig maglaag-lipistik maski nasa lamesa. May crush palan kan high school si Ate marynat, an POGI!

Rudy and Ineng are leaving today. Mapulot-gata sinda sa Bohol. Magayon duman….. chocolate hills, loboc river, panglao….. Marhay na lang ta nagpa-family planning si mag-agom, kaya dai na madadagdagan si tulong aki ninda.

I’m posting only eight pictures in addition to last night’s four. The full set of 29 pictures can be found at the Photo Gallery, linked to this blogsite. Just look for it on the right hand side of this blog, and click. Mapagal man baga Ate Marynat na mag-post pa-saro-saro, samantalang kung mabisita ka sa blogsite, madali mong mahihiling si gabos. Kaya dai ka na paghugakan. Patukdo sa aki na ilaag sa favorites kan browser mo ang URL kan blogsite para sarong click ka lang.

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Sor Victorina de la Providencia, Mother Superior of Daet Parochial School

HS Solo Graduation Pictures

DPS Class67 HS Graduates, 40 Years After

This Day in History

Today's Birthday