#RememberingRobinWilliams: Patch Adams

"Treating a person is about improving the quality of his life, not just delaying death,"

I remembered how my mentor Ms. Josephine Bonsol always told me about the Hindu chant "May I be an instrument of love and peace, may I be well." This is the same principle that the real Patch Adams shared along with his other six mantras: love, happiness, care, cooperation, fun, creativity and thoughtfulness. 

Sixteen year ago the great Robin Williams brought to life his revolutionary work and people still miss him for being Patch Adams. I myself have always remembered the name of Robin Williams as Patch Adams because that was the first movie where I watched him. Both are like twins--they continuously bring joy and happiness not just to the world but to the world of suffering, pain, and chaos. It is hard enough as it is to spread the love and be an instrument of peace but both Patch Adams and Robin Williams have done with such finesse and ease that they have turned the world upside down and contributed to making the world a better place worth living in. 

The story first zooms in to a suicidal man who narrates his worth in life and the worth of the world he's living in. He self-admits to a mental hospital and found in this most unlikely place his place in the world--he met his roommate Rudy who is schizophrenic and always sees squirrels crawling all over him, a Nobel Prize winner doctor who always laughs at people who say four to the four fingers he shows and his psychiatrist who "sucks at his job" and won't even look his patients in their eyes. After having a game with Rudy to make him go to the bathroom, and learning from the genius doctor that four fingers means looking at the problem too hard, he finally realizes he wants to help people and become a doctor.

But then helping people is easier said than done. Patch enrolls in a medical school and makes a few friends who are still in doubt about his philosophies in improving the quality of life of the patients instead of just treating the disease. In the hospital, he makes all kinds of clown tricks to cheer up the patients which all became very effective. He befriended the nurses and was even able to tame the wildest patient who would never let anyone near him because of his terrible disease.

An epiphany hits him: a free hospital with no insurance policies and other formalities, where there are only free medicines, care, and a bonus of laughter from the balloons and cap guns and bubble machines. A conflict arises because of the low supply of the medical kits because of the absence of insurance. Another major conflict hits Patch where his girlfriend Carin (Monica Potter) was killed by a psychopath. These are all overcome by Patch and the work goes on.

A final conflict surfaces because the medical school principal does not want him to graduate because of "excessive happiness". However he was able to defend himself in court thanks to the help of all the patients he helped in the hospital.

I do believe in my mentor's Hindu chant "May I be an instrument of love and peace. May I be well." I realized that most of the time it's hard to do because I myself  have a lot of things going in my head that I don't manage to look at other people's problems. What I didn't realize was that I could really learn about other people's lives and equally learn more about my life when I talk to them. 

We will always remember you, Robin Willliams a.k.a Patch Adams.

Miracle in Cell No. 7: The Sailor Moon bag

My beloved Linguistics adviser Mr. Louward Zubiri, who is an expert in negation, would always say, "If there is no negation in language, all means of communication will crash." Sometimes saying no leads you to the truth, and sometimes saying yes leads you to save your daughter.

My stomachache didn't stop me from watching the movie Miracle in Cell No. 7, which was recommended by my good friend Mark Borris Aldonza. At first I didn't know whether I was crying from my stomachache or from the movie itself. I couldn't laugh at the funny parts because my innards contract but I managed to finish the movie wiping tears from my eyes.

The movie revolves around an intellectually challenged father Yong-gu (Ryu Seung-Ryong) and his young daughter Yesung (So Won Kal). It was at first like the movie I am Sam where the father behaves in a childish manner and a daughter who simply loves his father for who he is. The conflict first began when Yesung's favorite Sailor Moon bag was already sold out in an exclusive store, where the last one was bought by the daughter of a powerful policeman in their place. The next day, the daughter of the policeman looked for Yesung's father and told him she found another store that sells the bag. However things took a turn for the worst when the child suddenly slipped through thin ice and a brick fell on her head, cracking her skull and ultimately killing her. Yesung's father, who at  the time was trying to resuscitate the dead child by conducting CPA, was found by an old woman and she had mistaken it for rape and murder. The police crowded and exaggerated the scene--they abused the intellectually challenged father and fooled him into confessing that he did rape and murder the child of the powerful policeman. 

He was given a lifetime sentence to jail, where he met a number of inmates who first alienated him for his fabricated crime case. He was able to gain their trust when one day the leader of the pack and gangster was attempted to be killed by another inmate and Yong-gu, dubbed 5438 (his prisoner number) saved his life. As the leader of his gang before he was jailed, Sin Bong-sik paid his thanks by doing whatever Yong-gu wants; that is, to see his daughter Yesung. Doing the impossible, the group was able to sneak out Yong-gu's daughter using the daily ration of bread in the prison cells. However they were not able to return his daughter, who was already living in an orphanage on time and she was able to stay and hide with them in Cell No. 7. They were found out by the police two days after and Yong-gu was sentenced to the isolation room as punishment.

Yesung, after the incident, did not eat and became pale and sickly in the orphanage. The head police chief visited her and realized that the child just wanted to be with his father. And so after taking a vacation leave, he presented another box of bread for Cell No. 7, only this time, Yesung was in place of the breads. The police chief and the guards allowed Yesung to stay with her father in the prison as long as she liked. The police chief, who was also saved by Yong-gu once when an inmate set fire in the prison, started to get curious with his case and re-investigated it. During Yesung's stay in the prison, the other inmates also questioned what really happened that afternoon when the daughter of the powerful policeman got killed. They were able to deduce that indeed it was not Yong-gu who killed the child, but the thin ice and the brick that cracked her skull. Yong-gu's trial was looming, and all of his friend-inmates started their work on prepping Yong-gu before he is presented in front of the judge. They did this with dedication until it was time for the trial. However, another conflict surfaced when the powerful policeman threatened Yong-gu that the same accident would happen to Yesung if he tells the judge that it was not his fault.

"Did you rape and kill the child using a brick?"

Silence. The prosecutor repeated the same question for the nth time.

"Did you rape and kill the child using a brick?"

"Yes I did. I did kill the child."

Everyone was shocked and Yesung cried beside her teacher and the chief policeman. Yong-gu was sentenced to death on December 23, and the inmates, the chief policeman and Yesung made the best of their time which already had a deadline. Yong-gu's friends could not accept the result of the trial and tried to escape Yong-gu by building a large hot air balloon during Christmas just before his death sentence, but failed when the rope that was attached to the balloon got stuck in the barbed wires of the prison.

Yesung, who was already under the care of the chief policeman, said her last goodbye to his father on December 23, and before both of them knew it, they could not accept what had happened, that Yong-gu would take the electric chair and that Yesung would grow up without his real father. 

Years later, Yesung, who was now a lawyer, re-investigated the case of his father and was able to successfully win the case even though his beloved father was already sentenced to death many years ago. 

I cried over how Yesung and Yong-gu changed the world of Yong-gu's fellow inmates--the leader-gangster was able to face his fear and took the courage to learn how to read and write. I also cried over how Yesung was able to borrow a phone from his friend and lent it to one of the inmates who just got his wife a baby girl. I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry when they were searching for a signal in Cell No. 7 and finally found it near the toilet.

 The first scene of the yellow balloon that got stuck in the barbed wire that the lawyer Yesung first saw and the last scene where the yellow balloon became the hot air balloon where Yong-gu and the young Yesung finally waved her goodbye was the most dramatic and spine-chilling images I've ever seen in movies so far. In the end, Yesung was able to forgive her father and bade her last goodbye.

The home of writing: Journalism Workshop

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling "Eat, Pray, Love" gave us a hint on where our home is: that something you love more than you love yourself. Just like Elizabeth, writing has always been my home, and I am more than willing to share my writing to anyone who's willing to learn. I have been requested to conduct a five-day workshop on Journalism writing to both teachers and students in my alma mater Mercedarian School, which started last Friday. I was honored to give something back to my elementary school and was more than willing to teach the teachers and students there.

I was informed that the writing skills of both the teachers and students should be honed better for them to develop critical thinking and apt writing and comprehension skills, and so I started with the basics of writing and composition and paragraph writing. It was good enough that the teachers were very inquisitive and proved that they want to improve their writing skills by volunteering their answers every time I gave them an activity on writing. The school's guidance counselor, Mr. Ted asked very good questions that went beyond critical thinking. Other teachers raised questions and gave good answers whenever I asked them to prove their answers to my questions. 

The third leg of the workshop will be on letter writing which is very essential for the students for they shall write request letters, business letters and the like all through out high school and college. Finally for the Journalism club, the fourth and fifth lectures will be on Article writing which includes news, features, sports and editorial writing, and lay-outing and designing of a mini newspaper or newsletter.

I would not have shared this knowledge to my alma mater and to the teachers and students if not for my good foundation and training under Ms. Josephine Bonsol, school paper adviser of LHS Courier in Lagro High School who also graduated at UP Diliman and continues to write in her blog www.jobonsol.net. She has been my mentor since second year high school and I keep coming back to sit in her classes in Journalism every now and then.

Revisiting Sonnets by Brine Ayun

A box of origami roses, a notepad, and a sonnet. I told my best friend Brine that we should marry and he laughed it off by saying "Baka magunaw muna mundo."

No need for a Definition
Brine Austin Ayun

A lot of people would ask
The question "What is love?"
Answering they tell is a task
Others tell, a gift from above

The dictionary would say affection
Either right or an errand
For there is no concrete definition
Something that reason cannot understand

But I tell you, whoever you may be 
I do not offer what I have in mind
Also I cannot define It properly
But to share something would be very kind

To place your happiness to other people
Sacrifice I think is the word
One would think it is very simple
But one cannot easily afford

It is still up to you to define
This wonderful clandestine.

People who smack you in the head

My high school friends Gema and Kat

In total remorse for the last five months. I knew something was wrong with me because I didn't want to see any of my friends or professors. I just denied it. I didnt want to see their faces, talk to them nor text them when they asked me how I was doing. I was in paranoia, depression and early stage psychosis probably, and I felt so ashamed of my condition I didn't want to go outside our house. I just wanted to stay in the comforts of my bedroom, watch Eat Bulaga with my dad and eat and eat and eat.

The best friend: Gema

The can't-wait'togo-to-Japan friend: Kat

My teacher best friend: Brine

By the end of July something dawned on me: I have tons of friends, professors who never stopped supporting me and I felt no remorse when I hated them all. But they never left.

My elementary friends: Brine and Myvi

After I've decided that I will apply for a residency for the first semester, no one asked the "why" question. They simply hugged me tight and smacked me where the hell was I five months ago. I told them I needed to elevate my state of love life and so I went looking for a boyfriend. They laughed. We ate. We shared stories. They understood my condition. We gobbled our friend's molasses cookies. It was like a year of heaven for me.

College Friends: Amy, Mikee, Lakan, Lisette, Shaula, Mylene

I reunited with my elementary and high school friends. We ate the same food. I gave them letters and loom bands. They kissed and hugged me tight and fully supported my decision to take the residency. My friend Gema didn't stop talking and kept on asking for directions at UP. It was like nothing happened at all.

Sometimes it's all in our minds. We can never move on until we give ourselves a chance, unless we forgive ourselves. Never mind what the people will say. Friends will smack you in the head because you disappeared without their permission. They will slap you because you already have a love life while they don't. They will hug you until you can't breathe because they've missed you. They will kiss you because they've missed you, just as you missed them after all.

Dugong Buhay: The art of forgiveness

"Love, hate and forgiveness--these elements define someone who can live his life to the fullest. Iyan ang dugong buhay." -Carlo J. Caparas

How do you live when your life is full of lies, full of hatred and vengeance? This spells Kapamilya Gold's newest afternoon series Dugong Buhay, revived from the 1983 movie creation of komiks scriptwriter-director-producer Carlo J. Caparas. Directed by Toto Natividad and Mikey del Rosario, Dugong Buhay is another must-see work of art that is especially dedicated to the present-day farmers and workers who are abused by their landlords, painstakingly crafted and remolded using modern film technology and infused with contemporary themes. ABS-CBN launched Dugong Buhay and featured its ensemble of veteran and brilliant young artists with media and bloggers last April 3 and shared the concept behind the action-drama series and the artists' impressions about the project.

"Reviving Dugong Buhay is  truly a timely project that should restore the Filipino people's interest in the art of komiks and inform them of the rich and long tradition of such works of art," Direk Carlo Caparas shared.

He added that although many people and critics do not consider komiks as a legitimate work of literature, it has become an intricate part of the Filipino culture that should be promoted and celebrated.

Direk Toto Natividad and Direk Mikey Del Rosario

Starring Ejay Falcon, Arjo Atayde, Nonie Buencamino, Anna Capri, Pen Medina, Christian Vasquez, Jed Montero, Ketchup Eusebio, Sunshine Cruz, Lito Pimentel, Yam Concepcion and Ronnie Quizon, Dugong Buhay also offers the Filipino audience not just the typical love story but also the long-gone action and heavy drama themes weaved by a complicated but timely and realistic plot design.

"I am very honored to take the leading role of this famous work crafted by our very own Carlo Caparas. I and Arjo may not be really considered "professionals" in such type of field, but we are always motivated to do our best, believing in the skill and the competence of our creative and technical staff that primarily define the 'masterpiece' in this series," Ejay Falcon shared.

Following the success of Caparas' other TV-adapted creations Pieta, Elias Paniki and Panday, Dugong Buhay revolves around the ill-fated life of Victor (Falcon), carved and molded by anger, revenge and lies. Raised by rebel worker Simon (Buencamino), Victor is honed to fight for the abused farmers and against the landlords, the De Lara family, who, as he discovers in time, is his true family. A warrior armed with vengeance, he will face the battle that was never his to fight--a battle that will eventually lead to a war between him and his true identity.

Direk Toto Natividad

With special participation of Carlo Aquino, Ahron Villena, Valerie Concepcion, Maliksi Morales, Jamilla Obispo and Yen Santos, Dugong Buhay premieres on April 8 at 3:30pm in the Kapamilya Gold afternoon drama series. 

How do you give love on Christmas Day?

How do you give love on Christmas day? A old sweet man passed by our house one day to play a Christmas song that I've loved since elementary, with nothing but an old violin.

The Devil's Advocate: Of "egos the size of cathedrals"

Timeless. Epidemic. Deadly.

"Vanity...always my favorite sin." I remember this quote shared by my mentor Ms. Josephine Bonsol back in my high school days, back at a place where the social environment is polluted with this trash and most people are loaded with this disease. It was truly something to reflect on given this modern age where everyone itches for power and entitlement. An insightful yet horror movie, I still get the chills whenever I remember Al Pacino said it with a devilish smile at the ending of the movie The Devil's Advocate (1997, directed by Taylor Hackford).

It's tempting. It's intoxicating. It's overwhelming--the power, the recognition, the stage.  Finally I was able to understand more about the life-changing implications of vanity as I witnessed Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves), a young, hotshot lawyer cross over the dangerous road to hell paved with win-win opportunities and irresistible temptations that would inevitably lead him to eternal glory--or so he thought. 

After winning a case that meant saving a scumbag math teacher accused of molesting a young girl, Kevin was approached by a New York law firm representative and offered him a job at the Big Apple--his dream come true. The contract included saving big time and unbelievably rich clients accused of triple murder cases, and working for the Devil himself--John Milton (perfectly and remarkably portrayed by Al Pacino). Amidst his seemingly intoxicating and successful career, Kevin eventually faces serious problems with his wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron), thinking she was crazy when she began to talk about devilish voices and apparitions consuming her. Soon he found out it was all a test that justified his vanity after choosing entitlement over his wife.

Based on the book by Andrew Neiderman, The Devil's Advocate not only gave me a lot of goosebumps but also taught me the nature of vanity and how it defines and reflects one's lifestyle. Observing from my own backyard, I could say a lot of people, even me, continue to seek entitlement and recognition to the point that competitions become political arenas, honor students become students without honor and love and peace become mere empty words that people kept nodding about in church but completely forget when they go out and gossip about other people. 

I still have a hard time to push away the Narcissus attitude and the vanity that is so prevalent in the community. It may be hard for all of us. But then again, one should not blame his society for what he is because choice still exists.

In the end, as what my Ms. Josephine Bonsol keeps telling me, we all have to do everything in the direction of truth and love, and be inspired by this Hindu chant: "May I be an instrument of love and peace. May I be well."

Share the love with Angel's Heart-shaped Pizza!

Angel's Heart-shaped Pizza

"Happiness is only real when shared."

I remember this quote from the movie Into the Wild shared to me by Ms. Josephine Bonsol as I celebrated the season of love with friends and my twin sister at Angel's Pizza Pasta Combo with their new Heart-shaped pizza.

As we indulged ourselves both in non-stop laughter and in Angel's cheesy burger double decker pizza (P647), a mouthwatering journey to 7th heaven of oozing mozarella cheese, beef, bacon and culinary cream between the two thin crusts we reminisced and laughed at our high school days and it has been one of my most memorable days thinking even though our college life is slowly changing us, we, especially my friends Gemma and Kim, have stayed the same--makulit, humble, funny and bubbly.

We also mused at each other's love life with Angel's innovative creation of heart-shaped pizza perfect for this season of love.

Chicken Parmigiana

We also ordered Angel's Breaded Chicken Bowls: Chicken Parmigiana (P95 with iced tea), perfectly baked chicken with oozing cheese and  pizza sauce and Chicken with Creamy Sauce (P95 with iced tea), chicken in rich cream and corn and carrots.

Chicken with Creamy Sauce

Chicken Aloha

My dad got a little envious as my old man is also crazy about pizza and so I availed their Family Chicken Aloha pizza (P470/12")--equally a bundle of joy of bbq chicken chunks, bacon, pineapple, green pepper, bbq sauce and mozzarella cheese--with Angel's VIP card, where you can avail any of the following upon placing your order: 

1. 20% discount on all pizza purchase;

2. FREE Family pizza for every Big Family pizza purchase; or

3. FREE Medium pizza for every Family pizza purchase

You can still avail Angel's Heart-shaped pizza (for Big Family Thin Crust Pizza only) until February 29 with friends and family that will truly make your Valentine's season complete.

Visit their website at www.angelspizza.com.ph and like their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/angelspizzapastacombo.