Doing the extraordinary.

Yours, Always

Baler Movie Review

The movie started out with 15-year old Daniel (Played by Philip Salvador) experiencing horrible and traumatic experiences through Spanish soldiers. These soldiers hurt him and abused his sister in front of him. These occurrences triggered him to despise and fight against the Spaniards in the later years of his life. He also married and had children; one of them was the beautiful lass, Feliza (Anne Curtis). Daniel was not able to prevent Feliza from Celso (Jericho Rosales) because they hid each other’s feelings from him. Celso and Feliza’s love for each other quickly developed despite all the conflicts and hardships they had faced. One of theses conflicts was the war at Baler, which lasted for 377 days. The Filipinos were able to fight back against the Spaniards and trap them in a church. The Filipinos soon became confident and they did not let their enemies get out and outsmart them. Lope, Celso’s friend, also had a Filipina lover outside who were friends with Feliza. There was an instance where the two young men would sneak out the church to meet the love of their lives and get a bit food and hurriedly go back to their camp, the church.

Feliza sent a letter to Celso secretly informing him that she was pregnant, and he was the father. The sad part is that Celso wasn’t able to be there for Feliza during her labor.

After several months, the Spaniards raised the white flag and surrendered because they came to a point that there was no more hope for them if they continued to make pride the center of their decisions. The Spaniards set out their camp and stood still in front of the Filipinos. Feliza approached them and looked for Celso. She entered the church. She was shocked to what here eyes saw, the love of her life tied and left bleeding. It was too late; he passed away because his comrades executed him due to his action of trying to finally escape.

The battle at Baler finally ended in victory for the Filipinos. The movie ended by showing Feliza holding here child. She named the boy Celso.

Their love for each other remained true and faithful despite being apart for a long time.

This was posted 1 month ago.

The Wind of Change

Change is one of the most constant things that happen in our everyday lives. It may be good, or not. But everything happens for a reason. Events in the past make up what we are today. Strife and conflict we have experienced are truly hard and stressful, but there will always be that memory or person that makes you go on with life, endure its trials and difficulties, and have a smile at the end of the day. We just have to look hard enough.

Some of the major events in Philippine history are the Spanish, American, Japanese Colonization, and World War II. These events became inspirations for Filipino Feminist writers to get out of the box, live without gender racism, and write stories of empowered female characters.

In today’s modern life, the Philippine population consists of around 50% of females. Women nowadays can work and live as equals with men. In fact, the jobs like attorneys, doctors, and politicians are now also open to women. Women also have sparked change in the development of their country. Gabriela Silang, Gregoria de Jesus, Lualhati Bautista, and Cory Aquino from the Philippines are good examples of empowered women.

Besides the rise of strong women, technology has also advanced. In the past, mode of transportation and method of communication had long lead-time and was not as comfortable as what we have now. Mobile phones, portable computers, cars, and improved public transportation are some of those drastic changes through people’s developing intelligence and through the course of time. Technology is good for man, but what makes it bad is how some abuse its capabilities. I would like to borrow a line from the movie Spiderman 2 that was launched 8 years ago. “Intelligence is a gift to be used for the good of mankind.” This is short but delivers a lot of meaning. The gifts we receive should be used for good purposes for us to achieve development beyond boundaries.

This was posted 2 months ago.

The Diverse Worlds of Individualism and Collectivism

Individualism is “the opposite of collectivism; together they form on of the dimensions of national cultures. Individualism stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only.” People from individualistic cultures tend to think only of themselves as individuals and as “I” distinctive from other people.

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Collectivism “stands for a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.”  Collectivistic cultures have a great emphasize on groups and think more in terms of “we”. Harmony and loyalty within a company is very important and should always be maintained and confrontation should be avoided.

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Stated above are the definitions of Individualism and Collectivism. These two terms are of opposite worlds. Individualism gives the sense of being less dependent on other people in the society, while collectivism emphasizes on the aspect of belongingness to a certain group or organization. People from collectivist cultures enjoy the feeling of fitting in and sharing the same interests.

The shift of collectivism from the first three Philippine literature works “My Father Goes to Court,” “How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife” and “The Mats” to the latter works of individualism of the stories “Divide by Two” and “The Bread of Salt” is drastic. The first three dealt with the emphasis on strong group and relationship bonds especially in family ties, while the last two portrayed self-pleasure. An example of this would be when the teenage boy from The Bread of Salt when he would imagine the beauty of Aida, the girl he likes. At times the teenage boy thought it was his duty to stay in the house in the service of the young maiden. He even dreamed that she likewise keeps an intense emotion for him, which she will only dare manifest in the right time. This line from the blog of The Bibliophilic Night Owl shows a sort of individualistic approach of the boy having fantasies of him and Aida having a romantic affair.

Filipinos are more of the collectivist type. It can be seen everyday in the Philippine society. An example would be in a Philippine school setting. A typical Pinoy would rather hangout, study, and eat together. There is an impression in the Philippines where if there is a person is always on his/her own, he/she is labeled as a loner and is kind of treated less important in groups due to exclusion of that individual. Filipinos would rather work in groups to build cooperation and team building, and the statement “It’s WE, not ME.” can be applied.

Sources:

http://www.via-web.de/individualism-versus-collectivism/

http://llamalima.xanga.com/730743454/individualism-being-alternative-for-the-sake-of-it/

http://fvdb.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/the-orwellian-deception-of-the-collectivists/

This was posted 3 months ago.

Close Family Ties

Common Filipino citizens highly value their families. There is no surprise to find grandparents living in their children’s homes because that is a common trait of a Filipino family, then and now. I’ve personally experienced having a family composed of my parents, younger sibling and my grandparents. It is a common sight here in the Philippines because each member of the family develops a strong connection with the other members, and this leads to children not leaving their parents’ home at least before marriage. Children are often taught by their parents to say “po” and “opo” when answering to elder people especially to their grandparents. 

In a traditional Filipino family, the father is considered the head and the provider of the family while the mother takes responsibility of the emotional growth and values formation of the children. They both perform different tasks that contribute to the welfare of their family. The offspring see their mother as serene and serves as the light of the family or in other Filipino sayings “ilaw ng tahanan”, while the father is regarded as the strongest and supports each member financially. But nowadays, both parents have jobs and a career to further support the family because of the unstable economy today. There are also some uncommon instances where the mother earns more.

Even after earning a degree and finishing college, some Filipino children take their parents to their homes and continue to take care of them. This is because of the strong connection formed when they were younger. My parents told me before that what you do to your parents today is what your future children will do to you.

Here’s a video I found on YouTube weeks ago and I want to share it with you guys. It’s not that relevant to what I said above but in this video, Lolo Mario shows the happiness he felt when he saw his newborn grandchild. This line was my favorite, “Napakabilis ng panahon. Hanapin mo ang magpapasaya sa’yo, Huwag mong sasayangin sa mga walang makabuluhang bagay.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVJ3VONNKxI

This was posted 4 months ago.

Hello VANGIE, The Pinoy Siri

I’ll be using my tumblr account to submit blog entries for my LITFILI class. LITFILI is one of my subjects that I’m currently taking up for this term. Feel free to check them out because it tackles the field of literature and common topics in the Philippines.

For my first post, I’ll be sharing a video that went viral last month. The video’s title found on Youtube is VANGIE Video 1 - “The Pinoy Siri: Introducing VANGIE!”  Siri is a virtual application installed in the famous iPhone 4S. It’s function is to listen and obey a person’s voice. An example would be asking Siri for directions. Vangie is a fictional software formulated by Filipinos to show something the same in a new way. VANGIE is an example of how creative Filipinos can get. Filipinos are fond of imitating something then fusing it with hilarious stuff! A common example would be an impersonator with an intention for entertainment. Many Filipino comedians imitate popular icons like the former president Gloria Arroyo and international boxer Manny Pacquiao. Their aim is to imitate a person’s looks or actions and add funny statements. Going back to VANGIE, it is a good example of a typical Filipino who combines humor and entertainment to bring laughter to other fellow citizens and if lucky, worldwide. Like a viral video.

Here’s the link to VANGIE’s first viral video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7rizCzkeNI

This was posted 4 months ago.