Filipino Youth

The youth of this blood are not heard as much as we think unless they sing and dance for entertainment  or play piano by parents' demands. From the beginning, we were taught to respect our elders and in the name of obedience the youth are obliged to follow. This is one aspect of the Filipino family value I have kept for as long as I can until learning the lessons from experiences I've had with various "elders" both Filipinos and of other nationalities alike that people must earn that respect by example.

Growing up, I noticed how elders themselves create conflicts. They teach one positive value but they themselves break it. They promise, and its not because they cannot keep it - they simply don't keep it. They lie to protect, so they say, but they take actions out of fear and find themselves defeated in the end. Don't they realize that you cannot fight fear? You can only overcome it. They throw their dirt and trash (literally and metaphorically) and fail to realize it until  'flood' and 'landslide' comes. Don't they realize that the decisions they make now, the actions they take to earn power by money, glory by ego and the lack of proper action and care affects their own wrinkly future? including the future of their very own children. Don't they realize that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons has its way of backfiring? It's a never-ending cycle and only a few has the energy, courage and small voice who still has the drive to break it. 

Its such a relief to discover hints of hope. I stumbled across a non-profit website which serves as an online voter’s guide for the upcoming election on May 14. The site contains candidate profiles and platforms, political commentary, updated election-related news items, primers on national issues, and other relevant information, which aims to encourage healthier voting habits.

                          http://www.ivote.ph

It's a site run and maintained by a group of 18 to 25 year olds to promote educated voting. “Most of the time, we rely on general impressions of our candidate, formed from sound bytes, catchy slogans and jingles in deciding who to vote for,” - Gino, 22, iVote.ph team “Since an election is a mechanism to ensure the continuance of our democracy, the youth has a responsibility to ensure its protection and maintenance,” - Jerwin, 21, iVote.ph team

What was initially a simple idea between concerned friends slowly germinated into a massive effort to promote educated voting among Filipinos. I find this amazing and their drive has definitely earned my respect. Kudos to the iVote.ph team!

Va Tech

I want to focus on nothing more than what this father wishes the world to remember:
 Virginia Tech grieving parent, Peter Read said,

I want to issue a direct personal plea, to all the major media. For the love of God and our children, stop broadcasting those images and those words. Choose to focus on life and the love and the light that our children brought into the world and not on the darkness and the madness and the death

 There is always another way to failure.
Bloodshed is not one of them.

'Mental health professionals complain their hands are tied in two ways when they try to help people like Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui — a lack of funding for mental health services in general, and laws that makes it tough to treat people against their will'.

'If you support any moderate gun control policy you're an enemy of freedom. That just dumbs down what really needs to be a serious and thoughtful debate' –Ladd Everitt, director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group. You hear Bush talk about school violence but you will not hear him mention 'guns'.

Tough scenarios asking for a noisy debate.

mary karen read, waleed mohammed shaalan, partahi mamora halomoan lumbantoruan, erin peterson, liviu librescu, leslie sherman, reema joseph samaha, ryan christopher 'stack' clark, caitlin millar hammaren, ross abdallah alameddine, christopher james bishop, brian roy bluhm, austin michelle cloyd, jocelyne couture-nowak, daniel alejandro perez cueva, kevin granata, matthew gregory gwaltney, jeremy michael herbstritt, rachael elizabeth hill, emily jane hilscher, jarrett lee lane, matthew joseph la porte, henry j. lee, g.v. loganathan, lauren ashley mccain, daniel patrick o'neil, juan ramon ortiz, minal hiralal panchal, michael steven pohle jr., julia kathleen pryde, leslie geraldine sherman, maxine shelly turner, nicole regina white