I am Pro-Condom but Anti-Abortion

Riding my way from Tandang Sora to UP Diliman makes it more apparent to my eyes how much people there are now in our country. There are just a lot of us. A lot that the Government is not able to fully support. In fact, I believe that the number of Filipinos impairs the government system that we have, in so many ways. Our government always lacks funds to support the growing population! And this is why I believe that we should control the population. Otherwise, our people will continue to suffer.

It’s easy to say why I’m pro-condom. As what I just said, I want our population be controlled. But why am I anti-abortion? Easy: I am pro-life also.

How do we reconcile these two conflicting ideals? I believe that life begins when the sperm meets the egg. It is at this point in time that the genes mix and the result will be another entity. Al though I may not be a doctor or any person in the medical field, I believe I can support my stand on this population issue.

I am against abortion as the same is tantamount to killing a person. To me, as what I’ve said, a person is being created not at birth but at fertilization or at the moment the sperm meets the egg because this is when the genes mix which result to another entity.

On the other hand, if couples use condom, there would not be a resulting mix in genes, and therefore there would not be a creation of another person.

Although people would not agree with me because as they say, the creation of a person is a process that begins from fertilization and ends with birth, I stand on my point by saying that after fertilization, there’s almost a hundred percent likelihood that the fertilized egg would result to a baby. Only extreme circumstances will prevent this from happening such as accident or illness. Otherwise, if the mother is healthy and normal circumstances occurred, the fertilized egg, which to me is a new mixture of genes and therefore another entity, would have a very high likelihood of being born.

To PCSO: Please Spend More For Charity, Not On Sweepstakes Prizes

Those lines in Lotto booths may be long but it may be worth the try. We all want to win that huge amount of prize we can get. By doing nothing but choosing some couple of numbers, we could win millions. And the prizes at stake recently reached its historic peak lately. People got giddy. Those lines got longer more easily.

But while the PCSO may be spending more and more for rewarding people who are doing nothing, the same office is recently diminishing its funds for its main purpose: charity.

After watching Krusada on ABS-CBN last week where they featured the little kids of Child Haus, I prayed fervently to the Lord and asked for guidance and light on what I could do for these little kids.

Staying on a charitable institution (Child Haus) is the only thing these children can do to satisfy their need for shelter with the little money they have while paying huge medical bills that are difficult to cover. They are temporarily staying in this shelter while being healed from the sicknesses they have.

Yet Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) has given them a 2-month notice to leave the building and to look for another one as it preterminates its contract with Philippine Tuberculosis Society, Inc. (PTSI). PCSO, as provided for by a republic act, is mandated to fund charitable institutions such as Child Haus. But recently, PCSO has been decreasing its funds for charity purposes.

But what is really weird, which is something that I don’t understand, is the recent amounts of money being declared by PCSO as sweepstakes prizes over the recent weeks and months. Ginormous – one word to describe the sweepstakes prizes.

A media woman once asked the Malacanan spokesperson in a Press Conference on NBN if the winning amount in Lotto is too high, the spokesperson just said wittily, “Ayaw mo n’yan, mataas ang mapapanalunan mo...”

While the PCSO slowly diminishes its funds for charitable institutions, it speedily increases its sweepstakes prizes, and preterminates a contract with PTSI to the prejudice of the little children of Child Haus. I am wondering where they are really heading now...

The lives of these children are at stake. With poverty and sickness, it is easy to cry for them and feel their remorse.

The ginormous amount of the winning prize may only help one person amongst the 90 million Filipinos but in my humble opinion, it is way too high a prize for the PCSO to pay. Not only will a material amount of Gov’t money be spent elsewhere (probably like imported products, tours outside the country, etc. by any winning person), the same amount of money could have been used for social welfare that is much needed by the lowly people, such as those who are being served by charitable institutions.

It would have been acceptable on my part if the recent increases in prizes at stake are moved by the purpose of funding charitable institutions but the recent acts by PCSO such as decreasing funds for charity seem to utter otherwise.

Those little kids in Child Haus, whose families have meagre money to pay medical bills, let alone consultation fees made me cry so hard for their sufferings. A child with brain cancer while his father is in prison and a child with hydrocephalus are some of the kids currently living in Child Haus. Yet in the minds of us Filipinos, these kids are no longer uncommon. There are plenty of them, who very much need the financial support of PCSO, which is now ironically spending a lot for prizes at stake while diminishing funds for charity.

Will the PCSO continue its recent acts? I hope not. These kids deserve much more. Please, PCSO, spend more for charity. After all, it is your namesake...

Bravery and Persistence (repost from my previous blog, dated Oct 14, 2009)

Reading my blog again, I learned how passionate and cutthroat I was eight months ago. Now I’m beginning to remember what I really wanted to become in life.

I became a slacker (until now), lying way lower than my competitiveness level that I had a year ago. I wish I still have the same vision: to become an excellent lawyer. But as months rolled by, that vision was effaced for reasons I don’t know.

Deep in my heart, I just want to be somebody happy. That’s the goal that I wrote in one of my classmates’ autograph way back in 2000, which eventually pissed my classmate who owned it.

I realized, then, that no matter how I will become successful, it would be inutile if I’m not happy with what I’ve become.

Question is: what kind of person would I really want to become to be happy?

This one question has an answer that seems to change from time to time. It’s like happiness which many people consider as fleeting.

My ambition in life is as volatile as risky ventures such that if somebody asks me what my ambition is, I honestly don’t know the answer. For one moment, I want to be this and the next, I suddenly want to be that.

Now that I’m a law student in University of the Philippines, it seems that I have no option but to become a lawyer.

But the road to get there is not easy. It is extremely difficult.

Stories of students dropping out of class are not uncommon. Many cannot face the immensity of the challenges law studies pose. One must not only have the passion to study, he must also be brave enough to continue what he had started.

I was one of those victims that the river of doubt carried away. I literally went home at the end of July 2009 with the thoughts of never coming back. That very day that I came home was the day of PGMA’s SONA so I wasn’t able to process my papers for dropping out because there were no classes. I then planned to just come back weeks later to make my quitting ‘official.’

I was thinking that if I quit from law school, I’d finally liberate myself and end up a happy person, the kind of person I wrote on my classmate’s autograph almost a decade ago.

For three weeks, I was a bum while everyone in class was busy studying. Have I become the person I longed to be?

I was freed from all the pressures law school gives. My head is shouting “I am free!” But then I learned that freedom doesn’t always equate to happiness.

Yes, I was free. But I wasn’t equally happy.

One Saturday as I was using Facebook (again), one of my classmates advised me to just drop some subjects and come back to school. I was convinced that that was a good idea. I then told my parents that I want to come back to school. Three days later, I rode an airplane which brought me back to Manila, thus ending my 3-week stay in the province.

Some upperclassmen like Anj Balacano came up to me and counseled me. A lot of other people shared the same feelings they had when they were still freshmen.

The feeling of quitting in law school is not a joke. It exists. If you are not brave enough, its current will carry you into the sea of non-lawyerish world. Day-by-day humiliation and voluminous readings scare students from continuing that mere ambition is never enough. One has to drink the potions of bravery and persistence in order to survive.

Prayers help too.

This is Ojo de la Plata, signing in.

It's been awhile since I last blogged. And I blame vox.com's limited readership. Vox has cool designs and a short, lovely name. But just a few use it so it finally closed last September. I should've chosen this site (blogspot) when I was about to create a blog way back October 2008. But sorry Ojo, you got tempted by the much cool-looking vox.com. Lol.