Communicating with ourselves towards a healthy life

Today, I realized I have been listening well to my body. After several nerves and muscles  in my body, from  right hand carpal nerve,  TMG nerves, and now my left tendon nerves sent me pain, I practised body talk access , which meant tapping  my cortices daily  for nine months, going through  reciprocals and insuring body hydration. My carpal nerve pain left without a fuss and I can now use my right hand, my TMG allows me to chew my food and use my new teeth enamels and my left heel allows me to walk ,though slowly. What does this mean to non practitioners? That pain is the alarm clock of our body but to attend to this pain needs a mindfulness that we need to develop.

Our body is not  a mere physical matter which our minds  inhabit. We are a living energy mass and we can learn so much from how our body system operates. Each part of our body is wonderfully organized into several systems and the various systems operate like a metropolis, there are cities inside us and we have to learn how they all work together to provide us the animating force :  life energy.

When we were babies, we learned everything by being curious, using our senses to a degree unparalleled by any machine made by human hands. In my experience, I started practicing bodytalk  on three  six month old babies, baby girls  who could not talk yet . Now, after six months of practice, they tap their heads when they see me and one of them said “Tap” with her hand trying to reach her crown. But what is amazing is that they know something positive is happening when I tap their heads and hearts. This tapping accesses their innate intelligence and allows them to see many things as positive. For older children, three to six year old children, it is different because they can already talk and so I always ask permission and explain why I am doing it.

As we grow older, our systems get to learn about the culture where we are born into. As we grow into a more challenging environment, eg. growing up in Manila, our systems developed various kinds of operating systems. In the case of mindful living, we begin to see the various facets of life and we start organizing categories in our mind. For those who are into wellness, we begin with a diet and exercise that we think is healthy. We live equate health with the absence of illness and suffering. For people who are into  wholistic living, they weave the  physical, the biological and psychological , the social-economic and  the political life into one integrative life. Our minds create all kinds of categories and we develop several languages to express these . In the study of medicine, there are many schools that promote  preventive health and in such schools, the promotion of a longer lifespan free of illness  is dominant.

Now why do so many people fall ill ? Last week when I went to my doctor, she said “Next year,2010, cancer will the number one cause of death in our country.” That made me think and be mindful. Yesterday, Nov.2, I counted all the people who matter to me who died of cancer, from my relatives to friends in the activist circles. Yes, the number indicate a rise in cancer as the main cause of death.

Having prayed for these loved ones who crossed over, my thoughts go to the cycle of birthing and dying. What arts and sciences have contributed to a mindfullness of  living and dying?Is spirituality a better  field of learning so that we may be free of fear and doubts as to what life is all about?

Ed spent his whole day yesterday listening to the online  talks on the charter of compassion. I have never seen Ed so immersed in a program and I asked ” Why are you glued to the laptap?” “because I think this project of  a charter of compassion is a good one and I wish to develop it further.” “Give me a handle what it says.” The Buddha way is one.”Ed answered.” I plowed on ” I read the fourteen precepts of the buddhist community in France, is it similar?” “Ed “It suggests of thinking of the mother in everyone, even in your enemies.” “Even in the most criminal  persons?” ‘Yes.”

That is another bodytalk, the way of the buddha, which means the awaken. But I am far behind in this discourse. I have studied few texts on Buddhist principles and practices. As of this conjuncture, I cannot say more about being enlightened. What I can say is that we need to practice mindfullness and bodytalk. We can learn so much in the innate wisdom of every system inside us. That is why being reflective, meditative, even just being  quiet, is healthy.

Communicating For and From the Dying

Last night, my dentist texted me about the state of her mother who had been diagnosed by her doctor to be in a state of dying, which my father describes as ” the final boarding phase.” She needed my help to know what her mother wanted which we call bilin since her mother could no longer talk.  It was already late  evening and I could not go to her place.  I replied yes and  gave her instructions on how I can help her communicate from a distance. In all the years that I have been helping family and friends with preparations for  final departures, I have found  several principles and approaches useful. First, I request that permission is given by the “departee”. My name is whispered to the person and if she gives a  positive sign  like a nod, a smile, a hand or finger movement, then the next step is to pray with the family requesting  for divine guidance. I  prefer to wait and pray afar from the requesting family so that I can focus my energies on the request. Last night, when my friend texted she saw her mother smile and open her mouth after she gave my name, I started praying. The bilins came into my mind and I began sending them as sms. I  asked  her mother mentally several times and would send her response both  in the form of questions and tasks. After an hour of texting, I asked my friend to act on what I had communicated and promised her I would see her mother the next day.

The next morning, I did my  bodytalk and then prayed. I went about my work for ELF and even  spent  sometime to enjoy the plants in Manila Seedlings. I was waiting for the proper moment to see my friend and her mother. I also had a good massage to tone my senses and build confidence. I am most mindful when all my senses are relaxed. Around 4 pm, I was ready to see my friend and her mother.

The service I did that afternoon ranged from sensing if her mother  is still in a communicating mode.   When I sensed she wanted to communicate, I did the tapping of her cortices and started  interpreting what chores she wants   completed , naming  family members to call and whose presence she wants, and whether there are family members who have departed but are already present . I did the rite of  pagpapahesus, a form of  praying which I learned from my mother who learned it from my grandmother. I assured my friend that her mother still had time and  that she would wait till everyone she loves have arrived. After the pagpapahesus in her mother’s bedroom, I asked my friend to go to church with me. There we prayed for her mother and I told her what other messages I got that afternoon for  her and the family, in terms of what they  will be doing until the final departure.

Once the bilins had been communicated, I withdrew from the scene and hugged my friend.  Then I brought her home but I did not close the channel because I  keep an open heart for any other message from the departee. In my experience, the departee  has many  moments of soul talk  and these moments are occasions for profound learning and for receiving grace.

Living on a Green Budget

There are five green things I do for making our  future  greener and  healthier.

After three weeks of cleaning the house and retrieving our  wet documents and books, Ed and I realized that we had accumulated so many books and papers. I counted the books that Ed had bought in the last 20 years since we came home. One fourth  has  been read and used for lectures, one half has been read but  gathering dust and molds, and the rest, has been unread and unused. Then I made a note which books I can still keep in the house and which ones  we will have to donate to libraries and resource centers. But it is difficult to let go, mind and heart since Ed and I love books. Half of our surplus money is spent on books.  So the  green act  is to choose  a book, a file, a document  one feels valuable but  is  growing  moldy, take it and  feed to the worms. Educate the vermi.

Second green move, go to the pantry or kitchen  and make a note of what you  eat. Usually we spend about P6000 a month on groceries and food  but we now buy what we need for three days. We planted  some vegies and herbs in the vacant lot beside our house and would pick leaves for tea, salads and soups. After Ondoy and Pepeng, we noticed that our garden was full of  balanoy, mint, chives, serpentina, talinum, tarragon, sambong and alugbati. I was so happy to note that  the floods didnt drown them so in gratitude, I started  giving edible bouquets to friends such as Gilda Cordero Fernando for her opening  art exhibit, to the young feminists in JAZZ and exchange saplings for cakes with Pi. Everyday that we prune the herb and vegetable vines and bushes, they keep growing  abundantly.  My  friends, make edible gardens now.

Third green item was to use vinegar for most of the cleaning of the drawers and cabinets that became moldy with the floods. One spoon for every liter of water in a  spray bottle and sprayed them inside drawers and cabinets. The I put them out to dry under the sun. Wow, they all looked clean and gone was the foul smell. next week, I will dry pandan leaves and put them in the cabinets to rid them of cockroaches.

Fourth green act is to take all the fake wood furniture  ( those desks and chairs  that got warped from the flood) and give them to others who can use them for firewood. We found our house cleaner and bigger after giving away four damaged desks. We are thinking of bamboo papags when we can get them cheaper in the provinces.

Fifth green resolution is to re design our clothes. Since we dont really follow fashion trends, we can pare down our clothes to the season’s challenge -  water repellant, climate change suitable  and shrink free clothes. Ayen is telling me to go shop at 168 for new clothes but until I know they sell the most comfortable, the lightest rain-thunder-lightning pants and shirts, I will stick to my old attire and paint it with slogans

“  I will make my Yearning greener than my past”.

or “Make your questions greener than your answers.” Amen

resilience and renewal of spirituality

ed and i had a full week this week, flying to london and oxford in a week,then back to quezon city. after a nap, i decided to blog what remains of my insights during the flood and what filipinos do in the face of crises, to be grateful for filipinos’ resilience and a sense of renewed spirituality.

while the flood was raging, all our attention was on what we could save inside our home. when the waters claimed most of our documents,books and desks with laptaps,we felt some loss but were not overwhelmed. we were grateful all were safe and that we could rebuild what was destroyed. as we got our television working again, we saw how much havoc ondong did but what got me was the news of many people saving and helping each other. ayen was saying she would go to relief work and ed and i told her to be home before dark. all our household members were eager to help and we divided work among ourselves to help others while trying to make life bearable at home.

 i organized our tasks so that we could have some space and energy for inner reflection. we all felt that life would never be the same. while on flight to london, many of the passengers were filipinos who were also talking of the floods.it seemed that many were affected,either directly or  indirectly by relatives who lost their homes to the flood.

when we saw friends in london, they were all happy to see ed and i have not changed after 20 years, perhaps a little older but still what they remember us when we lived there in the late 80s. we saw jamie  tapales oakes first and walked around leicester square together to reminisce the good old days. ‘jamie, do you remember all the filipinos whom you fed and housed in the 80s?  sheila coronel, marites vitug, boy morales, sr. mary john mananzan? ” . jamie added a long list of names ,eg. odette alcantara, mc canlas, arnel de guzman, pepe alcantara, beth protacio (now de castro) etc.  as we ate dimsum in chinatown. we told jamie of odette’s passing and she felt very sad about it.

jamie had survived her cancer and many crises with the filipino community. she told us that the filipinos and british who volunteered in the philippine resource center in kilburn have  been successful  in their chosen careers. jamie did  many pro bono work for the charities and filipino ngos in the philippines but she remained under the radar and lived a simple life. when i asked her” how are you able to live in london? it is so expensive now and ed and i wonder how we could afford it then.” jamie replied ” hardly,very tough.” this succinct state of affairs made me think of the filipinos in marikina, tanay,cainta and quezon city which will never become normal after the floods. yes, everywhere, even in london, i met friends who are resilient and have become more mindful of life’s challenges.

when ed gave his talk that night on the role of faith communities in conflict and poverty eradication in the tonyblair faith foundation, everyone was listening. i was seated between  jane linden and paul valentin, both were impressed with ed’s presentation and i could sense that many in the audience were taken by his insights and questions. i did expect that response  since i know ed prepared well for his talk but didnt quite anticipate the warmer response by the young staff of tonyblair faith foundation. ed was ushered to a smaller room after his talk and there were many young people who wanted to shake his hand and talk to him. it took some effort to get ed to join us in another venue for dinner.

“what did you find interesting in ed’s talk?” i asked jane linden. ” ed gave me something to think about, the lines about making one’s future bigger than one’s past.” jane and ian linden were our hosts in the late 80s, when ed was  not able to go home during the series of coups in the philippines. ‘Yes, do you ever think you could look at  making your future in a  bigger frame at this stage of your life? ” i queried. this question brought us to a long discussion of the work she and ian did with the ANC, the african solidarity movement. ‘After looking at what Mugabe of  Zimbabwe is  doing now, am not sure Ian and i could do something bigger than what we did in the past.” this got me talking to her and the young staff of what ed and went through during the martial law years and how it led us to nurture a strong sense of resilience and spirituality.

on my part, i do think there is no other path,  after the long road to freedom, after the crises of democracy, and now after the floods, for us to build a bigger future than our past. am banking on people’s resilience and spirituality to get us there.

women who succeed in scotland

today i am thinking of j.k. rowling, winifred, sue and women whom i met succeeded in life. first, success is defined in various levels but at the core is a woman’s confidence and respect for oneself. j.k. rowling used to write in a cafe where she could only afford one coffee. she had a baby  and was jobless. edinburgh is a beautiful place but has its share of homeless and jobless citizens. i didnt know  how she started until ed and i was told by deborah, our host ,where she wrote harry potter. so we requested deborah for bragging rights, to show us the elephant house and we went there on our last day in edinburgh. in front, the signage in elephant house said ” harry potter was born here ” and as you enter the  cafe, it is a lovely and friendly place, you queue up for your food and drinks, pay the cashier and then sit where you have a view of  the edinburgh castle and a part of  its gardens. ed and i orderd a squash soup with stromboli dish and tap water which a filipino waiter brought. then we imagined jk rowling giving birth to the first harry potter adventure  “harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone.”

many children started to read harry potter when it came out and success reared its lovely head, so to speak. rowling was no longer poor and she could now afford to write in balmoral hotel, the poshiest place in edinburgh where ed and i imagined we could afford to dine but didnt since we figured our pockets were not full.

but back to the main theme, jk rowling  not only encouraged children to read but also adults who were learning-challenged . a new friend, winifred from birmingham told us ” i learned to read when i was 36 years old.” I asked why did it take so long?” Because i discovered myself and what i could do.  i  was not able to read since childhood . it was difficult and i didnt know it was not my fault then. now,it has a name, dyslexia.” winifred narrates ” I had to find a way to get a job and earn a living . ” How did you manage the application forms?” i queried. ” I asked my sister to fill it up and i memorized what she wrote.” when i got a job as a waitress, people would ask about the menu and what i recommend,” she continued,” i had my script ready and would tell them what to order. ” “there were many occasions I tried very hard to read but could only guess which words i could use in a whole paragraph. I couldnt see the lines in p or in b or in capital A. ” “How did you do it ? ” “I went to school when I found out they could correct what I dont see, and a whole horizon opened up. That is the gift of adult learning. I could now read as many books I want and be confident I learn.”   Winifred is one of the learning partners in Scotland’s Learning Partnership and she is active in  consulting with learners and providers to make adult learning a  succesfull program in communities all over UK.

when ed and i were invited  by fiona boucher of scotland’s learning partnership for the adult learning week, i imagined there would be booths where learners would demonstrate what they learned from life, for life. i didnt know it would be a grand dinner party in a five star hotel in glasgow and then a series of learning events all over scotland and UK. i was inspired by the learners and what crises they overcame as adults. there were the dyslexic senior citizens who first read when they were in their golden and diamond years, and returned to their homes literate in the fine sense of the word. i couldnt imagine being unread , as in homeless, for fifty and more years, in a nation so rich with literature, where people are famous for their poetry and prose like  robert burns and walter scott. but there is the paradox, you have both the literate and the illiterate.

so who were the women who succeeded because adult learning is part of governance? many women, from women who have been abused to women who were born with dyslexia and down syndrome. i particularly was touched by one woman who had various challenges , she had down syndrome, a lazy eye and had difficulty speaking but she went to college and stood before us with her self confidence blossoming. i remember families whose children were kept away from school because they had down syndrome, called “mongoloid” children. if only we had what scotland has –  a  policy of providing learning services for adults in the working and lower classes. i told fiona ,deborah ,tracy and her  program partners – julie simmons, john gates, cris, sue and winifred  that we should organize learning journeys with them all over the world. their success is one testimony to what  happens with empowering women and men by adult learning .

i know  now why harry potter was born in scotland. because women can raise  the bar for meeting life’ challenges in scotland. thanks to  the scottish for giving birth to many opportunities to children and adults to read across the world. thanks to fiona, sue, deborah and winifred for devoting time and passion  to adult education . the world is better when women learn to succeed in their journeys.

life is about  learning all throughout life. adult learning is discovering a world full of worthy people who grow inside and around us. these are the poets, artists, writers,essayists,scientists, the knowledge bearers from all walks of life.

Dining in Edinburgh

When one gets hungry in Edinburgh, one has  a festival of food to choose from. i discovered a daily  feast  on the first morning ed and i arrived. bed and breakfast, i think, started in england ,but when you ask for a full english breakfast in edinburgh, the chefs will gently correct you that a full scottish breakfast is what they offer. there are all sorts of meat dishes, from haggis to sausages, bacon and ham. i saw proscuitto but i was told they are a scottish ham.  then there are all the cereals and fruits for the morning fix. one can smell a variety of fresh bread, from rye , oats , croissants and scones on the table. even when you walk the street ,the aroma of coffee,tea and chocolate  embrace you early in the morning. i told Ed “Ayen will love the breakfast buffet here,its like what we had in Lo Skole in Elsinore,Denmark.” to eat or not to eat five times a day, that should be Hamlet’s plea if he were here in Edinburgh. my own delicious dilemna was ” to drink and not to drink” so there are so many whisky, wine and beer. in the Rosslyn Chapel, we read on what pillar the words  ” Forte est vinu, Fortior est rex . Fortiores  sunt mulieres: sup om vincit verita meaning “Wine is strong. The king is stronger. Women are stronger still: but truth conquers all.”  These were the words during the trial of wisdom of the three bodyguards of King Darius – I think this story is part of  the search for the holy grail and will blog in another sequel, my version of the medieval adventures of the knights of templar .

Ed has been sipping  wine well, even gurgling wine, if the phrase is correct and getting stronger, even when we are lacking in sleep.

so for people who love food, come and dine in Edinburgh. the dining places have its own attractive personalities, enticing you with a wide range of cuisine , from the french to the asian fusion. i read that  Gordon Ramsay, the incendiary famous chef on tv, is from scotland and he is going to hold a 5000 pound per table dinner celebration in october. that dinner will really be at the top of the festival agenda in october.  imagine all the flavors of game, the sea and the highlands. imagine biting into all the fresh catch of the day  or slicing juicy,crispy  game. the eyes are fed even by the scottish designs of the places, bringing the textures and colours of the dining place to an artistic experience. the floors and ceilings  are asymmetrical  like those of the mustard seed place in invernes, which was a former chapel by the river but now a posh place for dining.

oh to be born a rich scot and eat like you never have. mind you, am saying “Rich” not royal because after visiting the Holyroodhouse palace, the residence of the royal queens, from Mary of Scots to Elizabeth, i dont want their karma of wars and murders staining my dining table. the story of the stewarts, from their rise to their demise will be for another storyblog.

for now, i am happy with dining in the various restaurants our hosts have organized for Ed and I.

The Modern Code of Scottish Start-ups

an early nudge got me to rise up at a time when most people would be in dreamtime. i looked at the window and edinburgh was deep in sleep. i looked down royal street,got our book gift and opened the pages of the rough guide to scotland. let me walk you through the street where we are now. ed is still in deep slumber and so will do distance walking.

here in the womb of edinburgh, i feel most alive. so many crossings with stories. there is a palette of reds,burgundy,old rose,maroons – the colours of the tartan and scottish wishkeys as contrasted to whisky. why wish keys? because when you are here, you want to explore and experience everything!

scotland is famous for its whisky but i have declared to all that my drinking days are over, except for the sparkling water of Scotland. you can drink tap water and feel alive, i have refrained from drinking whisky, wine and the spirits. ed drinks his wine like water even in midday meals.

oogling men for my friends, the gels june r,susan t, deng t,marivic, princess,mercy f,aida s,liddy,niva, lets imagine having the higlanders and kilt wearing pals for breakfast. i know i missed our chats but this week, i offer you the sexy, knicker- ripping humour of the scottish men who wear kilts and nothing else. i read that in the medieval time, highlanders would run naked waist high. guess what they had inside those kilts?

the code for 21st century. for minette and yeyi, and all the twins’ fans, inverness has a warehouse of knowledge where start-ups are created and crated for deliveries. ed and i were surprised that people get their babies ready to read by four months. we were brought by julie simmons to her library and we were shown all the reading packs for babies, one year olds, three year olds and so we asked to be given a whole chest of books for kids’ start ups.  the woman in charge, elisabeth,kindly repared a whole reading pack for us. Why did we not hear about this program? asked Ed. “We started in the early 90s and these reading start-ups grew until we could afford to help all the babies and toddlers read early.”  What do you do if a family has more than one child? or many children? Elisabeth replied ” We give each child a reading pack.” Imagine if all our Filipino babies can be enticed to read at four months old? 

Julie Simmons told us ” Rowling deserves every penny she got from writing Harry Potter because she got young children all over Scotland, UK and even in the world to love reading.”

Wouldn’t we all want to be Rowling and earn the love of children ? plus the sound of laughter on the way to the banks? So for my clans ( clan is a scottish word for children), do read up and get all the children opening books and spending their playtime imagining future adventures. to the villariba clans, rey,ceres,lisa,melo ,maebel, mina,atoy, deeda,jason,heidi,jojie,yoyong, corcor,obi,sonny,lynette, mara and all, scotland is worth every sterling if you come here to learn. we hope laraine and her cousins can study and experience harry potter and all his joys in this splendid land. 

i can hear ed waking up and walking in our bedroom. yes we have a suite in the heart of the city called high street, near the edinburgh castle.

Reunions and rites are good for our hearts and minds

 July and August have become  sacred months of rites of renewal for me and Ed .  These rites are  hopefests :  many birthdays, one wedding, several reunions, many wakes, one 40th  Lumens celebration, one grand  SVD centennial , are a big  bouquet of  blessings and grace for our heart.

Family reunions are the robust source of grace. My sister Deeda and Jason, with Jillian and Julia  flew from New Jersey to be with Tatay and Nanay.  We also had cousin  Jenny  Remigio Hansen from New York .We held a series of   combo bienvenida and birthday parties, from Nadine’s debut, Zoey’s birthday, Lynnet’s birthday lunch  to a despedida this Saturday August 15 to be together in Lucena.  All the young  Villariba children, from toddlers to teenagers danced and sang in all the  gatherings .  I have never seen our clan so  happy with so many weekly rites of loving.

Ed had his centennial reunion with SVD and XVDs this  weekend. We saw many friends and hugged Fr. Tony Pernia, the 9th Superior General of the SVDs and the first Filipino ever to be elected twice as Superior General. Ed was very happy greeting old friends and we even saw his professor in theology. When we greeted him, I felt like going to a time when Ed was a seminarian and he was  a budding theologian.

 Even the women’s organizations such as WOMB and GABRIELA , born during martial law and after  Ninoy’s martyrdom, held several reunions. I was in Lucena for the  family reunions and couldn’t personally meet friends like Gilda Cordero Fernando  and Irene Donato.

Attendance in  wakes and funerals became frequent.  Ed and I bid goodbye to Julius Fortuna, Susan Fernandez and Arnel de Guzman . We saw many friends and listened to many tributes. I told them” In the 90’s, we used to go to the wakes of  friends’ parents. Now it is our friends’ wakes that we are going and has become more frequent.” Today, I am going to Tita Letty Aranilla’s wake and hopefully catch the GSP tribute rites.

During the wake of Cory and  the funeral, we had a reunion with people power.  Never has a Filipino president’s funeral  meant so much to so many people all over the globe.

While people power was gathering steam in the streets, the  rural electrification program held its 40th anniversary in SMX. As Ed and  I met many representatives of the 119 electric cooperatives, we realized the link to our development  work and what our new work with them means.

With cyberspace, we greeted  family  and friends whose birthdays were  due these two months.We couldnt  go to all the dinner parties, in august, we had daily invitations  but  we couldnt travel in all, so we went digital. Thank good ness for FB and Multiply, we celebrated many birthdays in virtual style .

We also got many notices for fundraising for friends who needed funds for treatment and these friends deserved all the help since they served our country with all their hearts. Those whom I could tap and do bodywork access personally, I did and even taught the children to tap themselves. It was good that the children learned instantly to tap their body wisdom. I also was surprised everytime a child heals within an hour after tapping them.

Today, I sum up all the events, from birthdays to final  tributes that Ed and I had  as sacred rites of renewal and hope.  It’s almost like  a wedding anniversary for me. When I go to these rites with Ed, I feel that our lives and love as a couple  has grown in many ways .It’s amazing that  family, friends, community, school  and church reunions could all happen in a short period . I feel my heart is so full. It feels like wrapping the present in a big ribbon for the future . With all these blessings , I commit myself to  more enlivening  and enlightening rites.

People’s grief and power in a new way

 ”Cory’s magic is back,” the PDI headline stated. I told Lynett that the august 2 sunday cover made a beautiful imprint. That’s how I want to remember Cory and Lynett said ” It took us five hours to settle for that look on the front page. We wanted the legacy look and so had to go through hundreds of  pictures and events. ” Oh, I love the legacy look.” I responded. With that thought, I went back in time to reminisce when I first met Cory. I had seen her during the wake of Ninoy but she was still deep in grief and I had no reason to approach her. Who was I, an activist and what could I possibly say that would catch her attention ? All these thoughts were put aside when  my friends gathered to discuss what we could do after Ninoy had been buried. Ninoy”s burial march unleashed a million expression of anger and protest. Women were very agitated and we decided that a march of women should be organized. I was assigned to see Cory and request her to lead the women’s march. Since we lived in Times Street then, I went to her house and introduced myself. Cory was very easy to talk  with and she readily agreed to lead the march. There was no hesitation when I showed her the draft manifesto for the women’s march.  When we finally got the march ready, Cory walked with many of our mothers, including Inay, and the various representatives of organizations. That march gave birth to Gabriela and many more new women’s protests. I didnt see Cory when she was finally inaugurated as the revolutionary President. Cory chose some of the women who marched with her as part of her cabinet. I was still in the organizing committee of many protest actions but when ed  was released from detention after EDSA, I chose to focus on solid work for women’s development as a quiet organizer here and overseas.

The next time I saw Cory was during a memorial lecture for Jose Diokno in La Salle.  She told the people she was citizen Cory .Ed and I brought Laraine to the lecture and we greeted Cory as a family. Cory paid Laraine a compliment ” Hello, pretty girl.” Laraine beamed from ear to ear. We appreciated her graciousness and  her simple gesture of  being positive, which is sometimes called ’small talk” but with Cory, it  was  a lovely gift.

When Ed held his first exhibit last year in GSIS, we invited Noynoy to cut the ribbon with National Artist Napoleon Abueva and Governor Grace Padaca. Noynoy accepted and when he saw the paintings, he promised to bring Cory when she would be well enough. We had hope Cory would come but then we knew she was already having cancer treatments.

When Cory’s health situation deteriorated, I told Ed she would  go within the period Ninoy died. I imagined her being fetched by Ninoy and all those who were precious to her. When she died this Saturday, I was  unprepared . I searched  for signs and saw the web full of prayers. I wanted to go to greenhills and queue the way I did during Ninoy’s wake. But Ed and I had to attend to ECAP events  from morning to late evening. So I prayed and offered what I was doing to God so that Cory would have a crossing she had always prayed for. I felt Cory would have wanted to give the ordinary people more hope, rather than grief.  When I saw all the beautiful and wealthy women and men paying their respects to Cory  in greenhills and in the manila cathedral, I felt like Ed,  out in the fringe, mourning secretly. I felt I did not belong to those who can get car passes and invitations to sit with the family.

But something stirred me this morning. I wanted to say thank you to Cory in person. I remembered all the times she joined protest actions as a citizen and I wanted to show that those actions mattered to me. So I told Ed to hurry up with the meetings in MOA and go to EDSA to see the funeral march. I also texted my brother and sisters to check where they were. Finally Ed and I got to  Magallanes and joined the people. We saw my brother Phey and sister Iris. Everyone had been waiting for hours and no one complained of the long wait. Most of the people wore yellow and were carrying confetti. I wore black and carried my red shawl. Ed wore red and carried a red umbrella. When Cory’s open carriage came, I raised my clenched fist and said my thanks. I saw many waving and chanting  Cory! Cory!  I felt a whole shiver and my eyes were moist . The people marching with the carriage swelled and swept us, almost dragging us , and in that same moment, we were whipped with a heavy downpour, like  a phenomenon similar to the Nazareno rites.

When we finally got to our van, Ed , I and our driver Elmer were all wet but at peace. It was if  Cory’s passing had  taken another meaning, that we would go on with our lives with renewed vigor.  Cory’s death gave us the people power we missed but in a new way. I prayed that all the unity we prayed for would manifest with Cory’s magic, now that she has a larger role in heaven.

A Journey in Time

I have been  travelling back in time in search of evidence  that  electricity helped women  get education. Today I went back to visit the women of  Malolos, the twenty women who brought a letter requesting a night school for women. I texted  CorCor Santos whose  great grandmother  was one of the leaders of the Malolos women , Alberta Santos Uitangcoy. I wanted to find out if the appliances in their ancestral house had electricity but she was busy in their family hospital and asked for more time to help in my research. I read some pages of  Nick Tiongson’s  Women of Malolos. His narratives did not explicitly touched on electricity and its impact on women’s education . But  I was more convinced that  the  Malolos women who lived up to the 1930s had witnessed the coming of electricity. They became more active and organized Cruz Roja or Red Cross , joined the Asociacion Feminista de Filipinas (AFF) and became suffragettes. Corcor’s great grandlola lived up to 1953 and was a very articulate woman.

In the process of re-reading many articles in the web, I also found what La Gota de Leche did for women in 1906. It was  not just a place for providing milk for the poor . It was a hospital and promoted breastfeeding to help reduce infant mortality. Many poor women had tuberculosis and they did not want to breastfeed their babies. La Gota de Leche  founder, Dr. Fernando Calderon, taught women what to do with their breast milk and how to insure safe  cow’s milk. Many of the suffragettes  did not just ask for the right to vote but was keen on educating women on nutrition.

As I traced the involvement of the Malolos women, from  1865 to the 1950s, I saw that they prepared the road to women’s empowerment. I even found that Alberta’s  house  was  in a street called Electricidad street, in Malolos’ Pariancillo.

I googled all the websites that would lead me to several articles  where I could find women and electricity.  One book I found was Florence Kimball Russel 1900 ” A Woman’s Journey through the Philippines.”  She wrote in her journal all her impressions of the Philippines as she rode the cableship Burnside, a ship on a cable laying expedition from the US to the Philippines. Her stories were colourful and gave me  visually arresting pictures of  Manila, Dumaguete and Sulu. She found the women in Dumaguete more interested in Parisian clothes than the electric attraction of the ship : electric lights, fans, piano, cold storage and hot water in the bathrooms.  I wanted to read all her accounts but I had access only to reviewer’s pages .

As I went further to study how undersea cables could be powered in the 19th century, I saw that telegraphs were already in the Philippines by 1899. If the women of Malolos and the Asociacion Feminista de Filipinas (AFF) were from  families with resources, they must have access to the telegraph. From 1905 to 1937, the suffragettes must have been busy using  telegraphs and telephones  to get 447,725 women to register and vote because   women from all over the islands campaigned for suffrage. In 1937 when local elections were held, 24 women were elected and Carmen Planas became the first woman councilor of Manila.

There are so many things I am discovering about women and electricity. As of this juncture, I am electrified and will  continue to blog about women, not just as consumers but as  electric prosumers – blurring the lines between production and consumption.