Live for Your Why’s

The world’s troubles can drown us, but our why’s can keep us afloat.

What is your “Why”? Are you living according to purpose? Are you living for something? Or, you’re just living because you don’t have any choice?

There are two significant days in a human life – the day you were born and the day you find out why. – Mark Twain

I’m so excited to share with you my “Passion x Purpose” Project coming out in 12 days, as I also celebrate my 28th birthday! Living for my Why’s!

Hey, Monday!

“Hey, Monday!” is part of my PassionxPurpose Project, coming out in 20 days!

I cannot get more excited for this brainchild of mine! 😊

Your Worth, Your Rights, Your Price

What can you buy with one thousand pesos in the Philippines (20usd)?

A thousand peso is just half of my weekly school allowance, even less than my monthly coffee expenses, only a third of my monthly mobile plan bill, and a single fee I pay for a bodyhair cold wax service. My list of personal expenses worth a thousand pesos can go on, but my point is – I cannot live with just a thousand pesos for a month. So, what more a government institution designed to protect and preserve the rights and liberty of humans?

Yesterday (September 13, 2017), the Philippines House of Representatives approved a monthly budget of one thousand pesos only for our Commission on Human Rights (CHR). This was shocking, devastating, and heart-piercing.

How could they do that? What were they thinking? Were they on a sound mind or are they up to something?

I cannot see a good rationalization with this national concern. More so, when someone said, “since the CHR only defends the criminals, then they should have asked their budget from the criminals as well.”

Criminals? Aren’t they humans too? Unless, I wasn’t informed that they are now plants and animals.

I am just one of the few Filipinos who are upset about this. I’m upset because I don’t know what’s going on in the minds of our lawmakers. I’m upset because my friends in nationbuilding are ranting (instead of collaborating) here and there and some blame it on one person alone, whom they beleived is the brain behind all these. If only one brain is behind all these things, then this makes our lawmakers brainless. It sounds like people power, impeachment cases, and coups are around the corner again.

But, let me go back to the word “few” because that is what bothers and affects me the most. There are millions of Filipinos, but only a number cringed with the CHR budget passed by our congressmen. Aren’t we all humans? Shouldn’t we fear the fact that our rights can be threatened or is already threatened by this?

What is upsetting me more is that no one among my students (both Senior High and College students) seem to care. I welcome all the rants my nationbuilder friends poured out on social media. I really do. I read every word of it; they are entitled to their own opinions and emotions.

But, my students!!! Not a single one cried foul. 😭 Don’t they even know their rights? their worth? their value as a human being? Do they watch the news and read the papers? If they are more concerned with the class suspensions and the latest Korean Oppa, then what kind of future our country will have?

It makes me question my profession as a Public School Teacher and a Nurse. Who do we blame for the youth’s innocence, vulnerability, and lack of empathy? I took the blame to myself. I have a part on shaping the future, and I am sorry I failed somehow. 😭😓 I’ll give my best to work on this, to make the youth the best hope for our nation’s next generations.

To the Filipino youth reading this, I hope that you will be secured that your worth and rights are far higher than a thousand pesos. Not because the institution that is meant to preserve and protect our integrity as humans is not given enough worth, we already become worthless humans with an affordable price for our rights.

Know your worth and your rights. Above all, know that you are priceless!

Our lives are priceless, and our rights – to exist, to live, to voice out and be heard, to be given a name, to be educated, cared for, and valued, are ours to claim and defend for.

Do not be silent. Let your voice be heard because that is your RIGHT, most especially now that it is being threatened and priced below its real worth. It is not just your future we are talking about here but the future of our country.

Kabataan, ikaw pa din ang pag-asa ng bayan. Gumising ka at mamulat, bago pa mahuli ang lahat. Karapatan mo ay ipaglaban at pahalagahan.

Images are grabbed from Google