Category Archives: issues

YES, THEY DID – Obama’s Victory Speech

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I am Filipino but I am invested in the US Elections. Do I believe that the U.S.A. is greatly divided? Yes. Do they have a hard road ahead? Yes. Is the U.S.A. a little less great than it used to be? Maybe yes.

But the U.S.A. continues to be a leader in many things and that is where I will support Obama from my far-flung country. He’s a leader who believes in an open America, one that is open to same sex marriages and loving partnerships  of the same sex becoming actual partnerships with the same rights invested in heterosexual rights. He supports hardworking and deserving migrant workers and immigrants’ children so they can live up to their potential in a country that continues to have more opportunities open to them than other countries. And women are really equal, with the rights of choice and the potential to go very higher.

These positions re-echo around the world. And in a country like mine, which argues against women having a RH bill, where divorce is not an option, where same-sex marriages will probably never occur in my lifetime? Then I can support a President who isn’t mine.

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Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward. (Cheers, applause.)

It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family, and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people. (Cheers, applause.)

Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come.

(Cheers, applause.) I want to thank every American who participated in this election. (Cheers, applause.) Whether you voted for the very first time — (cheers) — or waited in line for a very long time — (cheers) — by the way, we have to fix that. (Cheers, applause.) Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone — (cheers, applause) — whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference. (Cheers, applause.)

I just spoke with Governor Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign. (Cheers, applause.) We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service. And that is a legacy that we honor and applaud tonight. (Cheers, applause.) In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward. (Cheers, applause.)

I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden. (Cheers, applause.)

And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. (Cheers, applause.) Let me say this publicly. Michelle, I have never loved you more. (Cheers, applause.) I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you too as our nation’s first lady. (Cheers, applause.)

Sasha and Malia — (cheers, applause) — before our very eyes, you’re growing up to become two strong, smart, beautiful young women, just like your mom. (Cheers, applause.) And I am so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now, one dog’s probably enough. (Laughter.)

To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics — (cheers, applause) — the best — the best ever — (cheers, applause) — some of you were new this time around, and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning. (Cheers, applause.)

But all of you are family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together. (Cheers, applause.) And you will have the lifelong appreciation of a grateful president. Thank you for believing all the way — (cheers, applause) — to every hill, to every valley. (Cheers, applause.) You lifted me up the whole day, and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done and all the incredible work that you’ve put in. (Cheers, applause.)

I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics who tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos or the domain of special interests. But if you ever get the chance to talk to folks who turned out at our rallies and crowded along a rope line in a high school gym or — or saw folks working late at a campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you’ll discover something else.

You’ll hear the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who’s working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity. (Cheers, applause.) You’ll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer who’s going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift. (Cheers, applause.)

You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse who’s working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job or a roof over their head when they come home. (Cheers, applause.)

That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small, it’s big. It’s important. Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy. That won’t change after tonight. And it shouldn’t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty, and we can never forget that as we speak, people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter — (cheers, applause) — the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.

But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future.

We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers — (cheers, applause) — a country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation — (scattered cheers, applause) — with all of the good jobs and new businesses that follow.

We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened up by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet. (Cheers, applause.)

We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this — this world has ever known — (cheers, applause) — but also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being.

We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag — (cheers, applause) — to the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner — (cheers, applause) — to the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president.

That’s the — (cheers, applause) — that’s the future we hope for.

(Cheers, applause.) That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go — forward. (Cheers, applause.) That’s where we need to go. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path. By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock, resolve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward.

But that common bond is where we must begin. Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. (Cheers, applause.) A long campaign is now over. (Cheers, applause.) And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you. I have learned from you. And you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead. (Cheers, applause.)

Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. (Cheers, applause.) You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours.

And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together — reducing our deficit, reforming out tax code, fixing our immigration system, freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do. (Cheers, applause.)

But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizens in our democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us; it’s about what can be done by us together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self- government. (Cheers, applause.) That’s the principle we were founded on.

This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores. What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on Earth, the belief that our destiny is shared — (cheers, applause) — that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, so that the freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights, and among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great. (Cheers, applause.)

I am hopeful tonight because I have seen this spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job. I’ve seen it in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back. (Cheers, applause.) I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm. (Cheers, applause.)

And I saw it just the other day in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care. (Cheers, applause.) I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd, listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes because we knew that little girl could be our own.

And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That’s who we are. That’s the country I’m so proud to lead as your president. (Cheers, applause.)

And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future. (Cheers, applause.) I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope.

I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. (Cheers, applause.)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. (Sustained cheers, applause.)

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunities and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founding, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love (ph). It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, abled, disabled, gay or straight. (Cheers, applause.) You can make it here in America if you’re willing to try. (Cheers, applause.)

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.)

And together, with your help and God’s grace, we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on earth. (Cheers, applause.) Thank you, America. (Cheers, applause.) God bless you. God bless these United States. (Cheers, applause.)

Grown-up Revelations

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I don’t know if it’s because I turned 25 this year but there are so many things hitting me like a brick about growing up. I think this is the year that it’s finally sinking in that I am an adult. It’s a bit odd that it’s happening so late… I mean, let’s get real, I’m 25 and never felt like an adult until now? In other countries, maybe growing up happens much faster because at 18, you’re out the house and on your own, but here it takes forever before you really move on out of your house.

Let’s start with the small things. Like, why I suddenly love vegetables. I do. I look for them at every meal. But before? I would cut vegetables up until tiny little pieces and move them strategically around my plate, pretending that those were just the last bits that didn’t make it into my mouth. I detested them. But now that I’m older, I crave them. I love salads and anything healthy. I’m not grown-up enough to become a vegetarian (I’ll be 90 and loving my steak even if I can’t digest it properly) or a vegan (for that I say”are you crazy???”) but I do love them vegetables. It’s like I grew into my tastebuds. Who knew?

And also, beer. In college, I hated beer. Hated the bitterness and the grossness and that warm piss taste when it’s warm (obviously). But now, I can appreciate beer. I can appreciate imported beer and the importance of San Mig Light (to stop the excess calories. Really? Like that will REALLY help) and draft and all that. I even, occasionally, appreciate flavored beer. But it wasn’t until I grew up that I realized that on a day packed with stress, you just want that cold bitter taste in your mouth and that smooth feeling after. Like it takes your troubles away. No, it’s not quite “Attention! Alcoholic in the house!” but it’s great on a really stressful day.

(on a sidenote, it’s extremely helpful to love when your boyfriend’s family has a college basketball game tradition of celebrating wins with a ton of beer. A ton. of beer. A ton.)

And some heavier stuff. It’s no joke when you grow up and you gradually realize that your parents are always the pinnacle of solid that we have grown to thinking them to be. You grow up and you realize that your parents  have flaws, faults and off bad days. And unless we accept that they’re human, you end up dealing with resentment and anger because you have such high high expectations of them as your parents that you forget that parent also means human being.

I’ve known this pretty early on. I wasn’t a very chatty kid so there was a part of me looking like a fragile little girl (I have those pictures. I wonder why I look so abused!) with big eyes and ears, observing. And I guess there were parts of me that grew up so much faster.

But this year, it was like finding out the nonnegotiable truths you always felt about your parents aren’t necessarily… nonnegotiable. Sometimes, you have to look back and think… wait a minute, maybe this isn’t the basic truth about them.

Is that vague? As always, I don’t want to give too much away but I still want to talk about this. So here goes a try. Sometimes, I think children are the last people who know who their parents are. We know them as the ones who give us soup when we’re sick, read us bedtime stories, pick us up from school, pay our bills. But we’re probably the last people to know them as people. We know who they are but we’re not like friends that we know who THEY ARE. I didn’t know until I was so much older that my mother had a ton of guys crushing on her or that my dad loves classic rock with a passion. We know the generals, like your mother is a very strong person and your dad is very mild-mannered. But that’s where friends can one-up children. When I become a parent, my children will never ever know some of the craziest things I did and the reasons why I chose to do certain things. My friends would.

And so growing up, with the 25 years of observing and maturing and not maturing under my belt, I am seeing the cracks in “Parent” and seeing the person. And I’m learning who my parents are really.

And sometimes it makes me angry that I have to get to know them like this. I’ll be 40 and still their kid. A part of me feels entitled to being a sullen, snotty brat while they’re around. But I can’t unsee what I see. I can’t unlearn or put pause on the things I observe. It streams through and my brain just clicks and adds it to my file on Mom and Dad.

And so as I get older and I fill in that role of Adult more cleanly, I’m going to see more of the flaws of who my parents are. And as I grow up and grow into that role of All-Awesome Pillar of the Universe of my own children, I’ll have to shoulder a bigger role for my parents. As they grow older and I perhaps grow wiser, I will have to learn how to be the pillar for them too, so they can let go of the cover of perfect and solid that they’ve been for my childhood and just be them.

I guess as I become that adult, I will learn to be comfortable with being the shoulder. But for now, forgive me for the fits and starts of anger or resentment that we can’t go back to the roles I’ve know for 24 years of my life.

I guess this really is goodbye, Childhood.

 

change

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Years ago, I heard somewhere that every seven years, we change who we are almost completely. I felt like this was so incredibly true. Usually, I’ll believe something only if there’s proof. Like scientific proof or empirical evidence or something that my eyes couldn’t possibly refute. But this strange concept of changing who you are, which sounds like something from the movies or from a book, I believed so well.

How else could I explain that before I was 7, I wanted to be a pilot or an architect. Then at the age of 7, I was so certain I wanted to be a lawyer. Specifically a corporate lawyer. Then at 14, I wanted to be a human rights lawyer. Then as I was nearing 21, the time when my life was shaken to its very core (to be dramatic), I had to make some big decisions and reconcile myself with the fact that I didn’t want to be a lawyer. That I couldn’t continue being in law school when my gut feel was that I would stop respecting myself if I became a lawyer. And so I made the huge expensive decision to leave law school and at 21, entered into humanitarian work.

And now I’m 25 and I feel like I have never really looked back. Like this path that I’m on is going to keep carrying me forward. Strangely enough, this is the career path that I have the least preparation for. Unlike law school, with the prescribed number of years, followed by the bar, followed by your career, I have no designated path. I tried to stick to a plan in my first couple of years as a humanitarian worker but realized that all the expectations and planning is not going to end up in a master’s this early into my career. That I had to ride out my job until I could feel where I was going to end up in.

So now I have general plans. I know that generally, in a few years, I’ll be studying. And I’m sure that I’m going to have to work my butt off for a scholarship. I know that for all the tired in the world and for all that I feel it’s stealing a bit of my youth with how much of me I pour into my job, I still love it. And for all the times I bitch and moan (and usually to my guy), I feel incredibly lucky to be in this field of work and with the organization I’m in.

But it’s insane that it’s this period of my life that with all the planning and preparation I did beforehand to lead me up to becoming a lawyer, it’s this period that made me just chuck my plans and forge ahead. I’ve changed job titles three times, had my contract extended so many times I can’t even count, been promoted once, and everything is just going with the flow. I’m soaking things in, forgetting more than I can remember and remembering more than I can forget and somehow I’m still okay. It’s like I’ve unclenched and am amazed that things are still okay.

And it’s not just my career that I’ve stopped preparing for. It’s my friends, my love, my preparations for myself. Somewhere somehow, I quit worrying which friends I’d keep and which would fall by the wayside and somehow ended up with the perfect group of friends for myself. I’ve stopped worrying about being the youngest at work (and avoiding making a fool of myself) and somehow just ended up loving this group of people who are 15-20 years older than me. And I gave myself a timeline of buying whatever crap I wanted until I was 25, then buckling down and getting myself set-up with a place of my own. And for all the pressure I put myself through trying to get a place, having one deal collapse led to me setting myself up with a place I would have never thought of but was a million times more amazing than I thought it would be.

And my love. Well sometimes that’s the least surprising and the most surprising at the same time. Because he is exactly the guy I always liked but felt I could never find. He is smart, funny, comical, clever, caring, and he rubs my feet when I’m tired. And he drags himself along to things I ask him to go to. And he gets along with my friends and with my family. And my brother seems to look up to him like he finally gets a kuya of his own. He is handsome and gorgeous and I’m nutty bananas about him. And sometimes, it feels like the biggest surprise I ended up here.

For all the worry and planning I put into my life, the biggest change was somehow, I learned to let go. Things will ride the way they were meant to and right now, they’re meant to be here. And somehow I just can’t complain.

My first newspaper article!

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Got quoted in an article that showed up on the frontpage of one of the Big 3 newspapers today!

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UN: Involve women in disaster efforts 
By Alexis Romero (The Philippine Star)

MANILA, Philippines – Women should be allowed to participate in the crafting of policies designed to mitigate the effects of disasters, the United Nations said yesterday.

In a statement issued on the International Day for Disaster Reduction, Pratibha Mehta, UN resident coordinator in Vietnam, said the strength of women in reducing disaster risks should be recognized.

“Too often, women and girls are portrayed as just passive victims of disasters. Yet women and girls have unique skills and expertise which must be used and reflected in national policies and actions,” Mehta said.

“It is essential to make full use of the experience and knowledge women and girls have when addressing disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation,” she added.

Oct. 13 marks the UN International Day for Disaster Reduction and the ASEAN Day for Disaster Management. The theme for this year is “Women and Girls, the (in)Visible Force of Resilience.”

Jerry Velasquez, senior regional coordinator of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction for Asia and the Pacific, said more women than men die as direct and indirect results of disasters.

“This effect is strongest in countries with very low social and economic rights for women,” he said.

Velasquez cited the case of cyclone “Nargis” in Myanmar, where about 61 percent of the fatalities were women. He said the women fatalities during the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh were four times greater than those among men.

Velasquez said disasters and climate change-related events have different effects on women and men.

“This is due to the different roles they occupy, the different responsibilities given to them in life, and the differences in their capacities, needs and vulnerabilities,” Velasquez said.

“In the aftermath of disasters, women’s workload often increases as they become the sole breadwinners for their families when men die, are injured or migrate,” he added.

Velasquez noted that women in the Philippines have occupied key policy-making roles.

Of the 284 members of the House of Representatives, 65 or almost 23 percent are women. Three women also made it to the 23-person Philippine Senate.

“In other countries, women are often missing from the decision-making processes related to disaster risk management, such as post disaster assessments, recovery programming, and disaster reduction,” he said.

Women, Velasquez said, are still seen as victims only, not as active agents of change.

“Thus, women’s contributions to community-led responses and recovery activities and their specific skills and knowledge are not yet sufficiently recognized and utilized across the region,” he said.

Last year, the Philippines ranked third among 173 countries in terms of vulnerability to disaster risks and natural hazards in the World Risk Index released by the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security.

The study said the Philippines is “heavily affected by extreme natural events” due to its exposed position in the Pacific Ocean.

The Philippines is only lower in rank than Vanuatu, the country with the highest risk, and Tonga, which ranked second.

Online campaign

A social media campaign aimed at encouraging the public to help in reducing the risks posed by disasters was launched the other day by local and international groups.

The iCOMMIT campaign seeks to raise awareness and encourage action through sharing of views on how people can build safer communities.

It was launched a day before the UN International Day for Disaster Reduction and the ASEAN Day for Disaster Management.

Humanitarian groups Oxfam, Action Against Hunger, CARE Nederland, Plan International, Christian Aid, Handicap International, Coalition of Services of the Elderly and the European Commission director general for humanitarian aid and civil protection led the launch.

Gabriela Luz, humanitarian program officer of Oxfam, said they opted to conduct an online campaign due to the popularity of social networking sites in the country.

There are about 30 million Facebook users and six million Twitter users in the Philippines.

“It (online campaign) is an easy way to create awareness about disasters and to get people to post DRR (disaster risk reduction) commitments,” Luz said.

“Time and again, Internet-based social media platforms have proven to be a powerful platform to mobilize collective action on important issues,” she added.

Internet users can support the campaign by stating what they intend to do to reduce disaster risks and promote awareness in vulnerable communities.

Through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr, people can make a commitment by writing: “I commit to…” and then their short pledge.

Social networking sites users should use the hash tag #icommittodrr to join the advocacy. They are also requested to link their commitment to the #icommittodrr Facebook page wall.

Internet users are also encouraged to “like” the #icommittodrr page and to share posts on the page.

#icommittodrr

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Sorry I haven’t been posting as much! Been crazy busy with work and launching a social media campaign entitled #icommittodrr in time for International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.

If you’re interested in finding out how you can help to reduce risks in disasters, check out the Facebook page at here! It’s not just for the Philippines but Disaster Risk Reduction needs to be accomplished worldwide.

 

Through the hashtag #icommittodrr and beginning with “I Commit…”, the #icommittodrr campaign invites people, groups and organizations to show their support for Disaster Risk Reduction by publicizing personal commitments in Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogs, Instagram, Tumblr and other social media outlets.