Marking God's Love

Joey Velasco and I knew the same child saint statue back in high school. It was there when he bullied someone back in his time, while my friends and I ate our lunch there.

I just heard earlier that he has passed away.

Two years ago, we followed him for weeks for a theo class project...

we went to his house for an interview and a tour of his studio...

The paintings that were not being exhibited were there.

After he told us about his bullying childhood phase, law school dreams and the sacrifices that his father made, he narrated how he began to paint - because he got really sick and depressed.

He has wonderful kids and a very lovely wife. His maids even gave us halo halo during the interview.

Joey Velasco left a dedication in my book: Marking God's love with a fellow Bosconian (since we both went to Don Bosco.)

He may be gone but he what he left us is something really inspiring. His painting made Jesus more relevant and more felt by us Filipinos.

And personally, he was the one that inspired me to paint. May he rest in peace.

Jump

We went to this baptism of my nephew at Christ the King earlier. There was this part in the ceremony when we are supposed to repeat our vows: Do you reject Satan? etc... I'm in a phase where I loath religion right now so I was perspiring while saying "I Do" with the crowd, anyway...

After the reception, we went to my cousin's condo in Pasig for the reception, and after eating, my brother and I were kinda bored so we did some Chictopia shots to update our accounts.

It has actually been a long time since we've catered to our vanity. I miss doing photo shoots (of ourselves), although this was just an in prompt to shoot.

New item on my before-college-graduation bucket list: take a (creative) photo of myself in every landmark in my school.

Tomorrow's a big day: from 8am to 2pm, I'll be criticizing three documentaries about the environment, then I'll rush to a meeting in an engineering college, then at 4:30 to 7:30, I'll have cocktails with Rajo Laurel and Amina Aranaz. Wish me luck!:D

Cold Stormy Mornings

Cold mornings make you appreciate the warmth more - the touch of your blanket in the morning, the smell and taste of coffee, the embrace of a friend. Sometimes, yawning and stretching feels better, answering your homework is less tedious, and there seems to be more time to do something.

Cold mornings bring back a lot of memories. It reminds me of that night during our leadership camp in Bo's Coffee Bacolod - we were stuck there since there was a typhoon and looking at it from now, everything seemed to be in slow motion - the laughing and chatting. Dim lights, sounds of the wind and rain tapping the glass wall, and the smell of coffee in the air. We were a bit wet when we got back to the hotel, but it was a night to remember.

I remember an outing with my friends back in Lian, Batangas. We were swimming in the middle of the sea (super low tide), it was sunset when typhoon clouds and lightnings chased us back to the house. Some got gashes because of the corals, but it was all good.

This is me (in red) playing in the beach with my friends.

Some people remembered their cold stormy nights above their roof with dead bodies floating because of the flood. How can anyone forget Ondoy? It gave them a personal experience of the wrath of nature. And it has stained my memory of cold stormy mornings. It ain't something that we all look forward to - it always has that tendency to get worse.

I pray that this Ondoy experience won't happen again. I'm hoping against hope, on cold stormy mornings.

Art Room

People don't believe me when I say to them that I paint. Who would think that an Economics student minoring in International Business and would soon be taking Law (crossing my fingers) can paint? In a world that highly values specialization, is it a sin to be multidisciplinary?

(bottom left: Baliko - still unfinished, inspired by the victory of Noynoy and the way he chose his cabinet members; center: Untitled - still unfinished, i dreamed last year of my mom and me, i was still a kid and she was teaching me to walk at dawn while it's drizzling and we're under an umbrella)

Even though I write, sometimes words aren't enough to contain the emotion/energy that is welling up from within so instead of cussing or sulking in one corner of the room, blaming the universe and its servant - time - i just paint.

And it's a good exercise of discipline and creativity. We always want to rush everything and in painting, you just cannot do that. Beauty can never be rushed - that's what I always say to people.

Top to bottom, left to right: Trinity, Kislap, Untitled, Genesis Man, Untitled, Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Teenage Nostradamus, Cinquenta (gift to my mom.)

This one below was a gift. My dad really wants this painting since it looks like her mom - my lola that I never knew.

Krista's Soul - behind the color and fashion is an angst that eats her soul

Manny Pacquiao - boxing champion but with a brain of a caveman.

Abortion

The Rape of Mother Earth (unfinished)

I still have a lot of stuff in mind to paint but we are all at the mercy of time.

I was not doing anything yesterday because of the brownout so I played with the new SLR, and instead of having a photoshoot of me and my brother, I shot some of the paintings in our art room - where paintings (water color, acrylic and poster), wire and plaster of Paris sculptures, mixed media works and magic are made

It's Not the Environment That Will Kill Us by 2012

An Indian guy named Soumyajit emailed me last night asking some information and help in organizing a youth centered environmental organization in India. Their country is leaning towards the consumerist lifestyle so it's more difficult to find people that will join his advocacy.

I don't know what to reply since a) I have a calf-skinned jacket in my closet and I love consumerism, and 2) the same trend outside the universities are happening - people (including the government) get less environmentally involved because there are more immediate concerns that need to be addressed.

If we are to dissect these immediate concerns, one thing we can point out is the lack of land areas for some highly industrialized and service centered countries like Singapore, Japan and Korea.

It's not the environment that will kill us by 2012. It takes a faster and more sinister agent to eradicate a thriving civilization. Ironically, we, through political frictions backed up by weapons of mass destruction, will cancel humanity before we know it.

If we fail to come up with solutions that will prevent further damage to our climate, marine and forest ecosystems, there will be lack of resources - food, water, land...

This will in turn cause international chaos since governments would want to protect their citizen's interests and if worst comes to worst, North Korea (considering it's an island with low sea level) will invade a country which is more elevated and has not been swallowed (yet) by the sea.

In case apocalyptic floods won't take place (since God mentioned he will not destroy the Earth through water), it's the famine and scarcity for potable water that will lead to wars. We will see major power plays between China and the USA (as predicted by Time magazine.)

Humanity always has a way of exponentially speeding everything - making hamburgers and human destruction more efficient.

I guess I can squeeze in traveling India and meeting Soumyajit before my senior year in college ends since we might never know how extreme political reactions may be. Let's not give Kim Jong Il any idea to bomb any country with his "nuclear weapons." He might one day get upset because his daily dose of shisha might not be delivered and the next thing we know, India is reduced to the size of Mumbai.

Theological Multiculturalism

I believe in the Biblical God as much as I believe in Zeus, Isis, Thor and a thousands of other (dead according to Nietzsche) gods. This might sound like an eyebrow raising statement, especially those who know me since high school, but six years of trying to reconcile different cultures and religions have prompted me with this statement.


I think it's safe to say that I was the prodigy of the religion department back in high school. I spend hours drinking coffee with my religion teacher trying to solve morality (and you can even say) philosophical cases. Can God be seen in abortion or prostitution? Will Christianity or Islam fade like the myths of the Greeks and Egyptians? We answered these questions very liberally relative to being in a Catholic school. It was a good exercise, but I did not realize that questions were starting to pile up unconsciously and force me to go beyond religion and culture, trying to asses what this whole faith means to us.


Richard Rorty said that truth only exists in so far as where there are sentences - meaning we create these truths, these mutually accepted delusions. Truth is not something out there that humanity has to find because more often than not (and you can base these from your own experiences) these truths are dehumanizing - hindi makatao. These delusions aren't bad at all because they help us cope with our day to day activities, which I think is more important. It can go as broad as religion's ability to organize people to as mundane as people calling that hot ball of gas SUN.

Having mentioned that, the reason I believe in all the practices of faith (together with their head deities) is that they prove useful to each individual or group in a particular period of time. I think exercises of religion is relative on each one of us since truth cannot be out there - we create the truths, these mutually accepted delusions. We are formed by different historicity and experiences therefore no one interpretation of the "pagpapakita ng meron" is enough.

My mom and I always have debates every Sunday because I don't want to go to church. She took up a lot of philosophy courses and is a very devout Catholic, so it's always a good debate but she tends to lose sometimes when I use the argument of multiculturalism. And it's quite ironic that the more she tries to convince me to go to church, the more that I realize the relativeness of this whole religion thing.

Amidst all of my pietious abstinence, I have to admit that I am left longing for the presence of God. And it's this personal experience of theological hunger that allows me to conclude that yes, there is a God, but he/she is beyond organized religion or any form of human practice. But we need religion, because we humans are weak. Religion is a celebration of life, of being in a community; therefore is a human necessity.

(Sorry for leaving the thought hanging but the totality of the topic cannot even be captured in a thick volumed book. I just had to write this down while waiting for my sundo in school to organize my thoughts.)

Something that I'm Really Proud Of

As I was going home from a meeting with some of Ateneo's student government officers/personel for my proposed project, I realized something: I started as a freshman in college without an org and without a plan to join in one.

But here I am, in my senior year, a vice president in a Harvard affiliated org, a representative of the Philippines to an international youth organization where we amend regional policies (allocation of funds, appointment of new leaders...) with other reps from other countries, and by the end of this year, hopefully, I'll be able to organize a nation wide conference where student leaders (most of them in Luzon) will be invited for a gathering to talk about issues that matter - specifically the environment.

And I'm still a one man team. (hopefully by the end of July, I'll have the people that I need.)

I cannot attribute these much to hard work, but with luck, initiative and the availability of opportunities. I was at the right place, at the right time and know the right people with connections. To not say that I'm proud of myself would be a sign of false humility.

To top that off, I still paint and give contributions to an Art portfolio magazine, and I'm still planning to finalize the structure of my novel by the end of the school year.

The number one priority of most of my batch mates right now is to get a good job. I'm satisfied to say that that's the last thing on my mind:)

An Act of Random Kindness

These previous weeks have been stressful (starting with Fashion Week down to the First Week of Classes.) To top that off, I'm going to have "life changing" meetings this week so I had to reserve a day to have my face repaired - this afternoon was the first time that I didn't cry in the butchering room, so I gave the biggest tip to that lucky lady who's about to retire 2 days from now.

The tip is worth 250.

I didn't give it in cold cash, but a gift certificate from White Hat (thank you to my sponsors!). To remind you guys, I'm lactose intolerant so using that GC would do me more harm than good.

"Hi miss! Since this was the first time for the last five years that I didn't cry because your hands are so smooth and light, I'm giving you this gift certificate. (wink and smile) Keep up the good work! Ano pala pangalan mo?" I wanted her to always attend to me whenever I needed to have my face repaired, but she said that she'll be done by June 23.

How sad:(

She was a bit confused first because I was so perky earlier, but when I gave her the GC, her face lit up! Maybe a lot of people are not kind and generous these days. Deep inside I also felt very happy because 1) I got my face repaired and 2) I made someone happy.

And that happiness cannot be replaced by buying a pair of red leather shoes (i always feel magical whenever i wear them) or tickets for a theater production.

So if you're depressed or stressed, doing daily acts of random kindness will be that caffeine or that tequila shot to give anyone a boost for the day:D Trust me! It can be anything: paying for a car at the toll booth next to you, giving a tired photo copy lady extra tip, or just giving a smile to someone who makes an extra effort to dress up.

I was in Glorietta when this kid was having difficulty using the automatic faucet. I showed him how to do it. An hour passed by and we met again at Power Books and he introduced me to his mom! Haha! He even tried to give me a hi five but I avoided his hands :P Mahiyain kasi ako! Haha!