I have always wondered if there is any meaningful difference between December 31 (last day of the "old" year and January 1 (first day of the "new" year), the two days that straddle New Year's Eve. The New Year period, of course, includes the last week of December and the first week of January.
When I was a little boy, my mother, uncles, aunts, lolos, and lolas. and older siblings always reminded me that New Year's Day is the first day that I should practice what I have resolved to do for the next year as per my new year's resolution. Of course, when one is young and a bit restless, the meaning of the new year's resolution is largely incoherent in spite of good intentions.
When I was a bit older, school, church, and family always combined their forces to remind us, youngsters, that the New Year symbolized the beginning of a new life that we all had to cultivate so that we would live in prosperity the next year; and life the year after would be governed by another set of new year's resolutions. That didn't work well either. We always slid back to normal life right on New Year's Day. As it turned out, our New Year's Resolution was simply a dream at the dawn of New Year's Day.
When I became a young adult, New Year's Day became less important and less meaningful. We forgot largely what it was all about. But we did learn about social issues and social evils. We even began questioning a lot of contemporary norms. We learned a lot of these but we were short of the real solutions to real social problems. As young adults, apparently our job was to identify what we would call social issues and complain about them even as we didn't offer appropriate solutions.
As professionals, we added experience to our stock knowledge and tried to solve social problems. Strangely. in spite of applying what we learned from school, from being government workers, from being members of the NGO community, from being elected local and national officials, from being high level government officials, from being followers of our respective religions, from having been members of the international bureaucracy, and in spite of international aid, we have failed big time in solving our problems.
We sure have learned a lot. We have learned to be global thinkers, and we have identified all the social issues besetting our only country. And we have failed spectacularly.
###
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Five on my Bucket List for 2017
Many would refer to this exercise as writing
a New Year’s Resolution, but I’d simply call it listing of the possibilities
for me. I wish to call them my bucket
list for 2017. Not all of them are
completely within my own power to undertake and complete, but let’s just say they
are my expectations that I will try to work hard to achieve.
One. Stay alive and healthy. I hope to have a healthier life in 2017. On this matter, I’d like to quote Woody
Allen. He once said, “I’m not afraid of
death. I just don’t want to be there
when it happens.”
Bottom line is, I wish that I would not only be alive but must be able to function as I did, say, a couple of
decades ago. I sure hope that would be
enough for me to do the things I still feel I need to do.
Two. I hope to be able to continue doing the
things that I did in 2016 that provided me with some resources to continue
living my life. It is important to me to
be able to provide for my needs as an ageing man, including that for my partner
in life. It is absolutely very important
to me that I know and feel I'm still useful to myself and to those I love.
Three. I hope that more friends will have access to
my forthcoming book titled, Agcom-Devcom Crossover, A
Participant-Observer’s Journey. I certainly would enjoy being invited
to various HEIs to talk about the book and about the Devcom academic program at
UPOU.
Four. It is definitely my hope to be able to put
into writing other things that I have not been able to do these past few
years. It certainly would be useful to
be able to write about my experience as Chancellor of UPOU. Up until now, I haven’t been able to write my
memoirs. Is this worth pursuing? I wonder. But I guess I would need a URA for this.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Christmas 2016
Published by Lex and
Jegs Librero
Why This Newsletter?
More than a
decade ago, a family newsletter titled similarly ceased publication. It was a case of “we just dropped it because
the editor (which was Lex) started having too many things to attend to.” Since then, there have been major changes in
the family, like Lex had become widower and got married again after some years,
and King himself got his own family.
Over the years, friends have been asking where that “Newsletter”
is. Besides, we have not been able to
share with friends what had been happening in our lives. Hence, we are reviving the “newsletter.”
The basic
difference with this “newsletter” is that it shall now focus on the major
activities of Lex and Jegs, although we would mention special things about the
Libreros and the Garcias (Jegs’ family side) every now and then.
We don’t have to
elaborate on this. Just take a peep into
our lives up to the point we can permit you to do so.
###
Lex
Slowed Down on Activities
For 2016, Lex reports having completed
the manuscript of his latest book titled Agcom-Devcom Crossover, A
Participant-Observer’s Journey,
an account of his professional growth and development in the field of
agricultural communications and development communication. The book has just been submitted to the UPOU
as an output of his project as Professor Emeritus. He
hopes that this book would be useful to students of development communication not only at UPOU and UPLB,
but in other universities and higher education institutions as well. Of course in previous years, he had various publications
and research projects.
This year, he
has slowed down having retired some 8 years ago (he’s now 73).
He continued to
serve as President of the UP Open University Foundation, Inc., a position he
was elected to under two years ago due to
the requirement that the Chancellor could not legally serve such
position concurrently with the Chancellorship.
He took over from then UPOU Chancellor Gigi Alfonso. Lex
was awarded in 2008 by UP the honorific title of Professor Emeritus, a lifetime
title from the University of the Philippines System.
Beginning this
year, Lex has been appointed Chief Editor of the International Journal on Open
e-Learning (IJODeL), the official online academic publication of the UPOU.
Of course, as
Professor Emeritus, Lex continues to serve as adviser or member of the academic
advisory committees of graduate students at UPOU, on top of teaching one
doctorate course per semester.
Lex is also
serving as volunteer writer for BUHAY,
the revived newsletter (online and printed) of the UPLB Alumni Association.
###
Multiple
Achievements for Jegs
One, in June,
Jegs received officially her PhD degree in environmental science from the
UPLB. This newsletter is proud of such
achievement. Her dissertation was on
ecotourism in Batanes, which she visited four times from 2012 to 2015.
Two, one of her
photographs (of a bug) was used in a book titled The Class Lady Bug, A Polka Dot Winner. This book, authored by Luz Enriquez-Lombos, was
published in the USA during this year.
Three, in
November, Jegs published a book of photographs about Panyesanan, the farm of
our late Kuya Flor in Bgy. Rizal, Lipa City.
It’s a beautiful coffee-book type publication, which, incidentally, has
caught the attention of some friends and have actually started inquiring if
they could buy the book. Jegs is doing
it step-by-step. She did not do it for
commercial purposes initially, but that could be included as one of the
objectives now.
Four, in the
previous year (2015), Jegs presented a paper in the First National Conference
on Integrated Natural Resources Management, held at UPLB. The title of her paper was Biodiversity in Key Ecotourism Sites as
Potential Priority Conservation Target in Small Island Settings. This was later accepted for publication in
the JESAM Journal, published by the School of Environmental Science and
Management (JESAM), titled as From
Baseline Data to Improved Biodiversity Knowledge and Conservation: the
Ecotourism Trail Experience in Batan Island.
Five, the year
before last, she passed the professional Board Exam for Environmental
Planners. That made her a licensed
environmental planner in the Philippines.
###
Updates
on the Extended Family
Jegs assisted
Marjo Duritan, our niece, in organizing a get-together of members of the
Librero Clan on October 16th, the 82nd birthday of our
late Kuya Flor, who died on September 24, at 11:16 p.m.
***
Al attended
various conferences in Europe and Asia during the year.
Vani (Librero)
presented a paper in an international conference on breast-feeding in Vietnam
in December.
As a family,
they have travelled to Europe and Asia during the year. It’s a good thing that the Apo, Aidan, is
experiencing international travel early.
***
Both Jay and
Blanche (Garcia) have found work in Pampanga.
Jay, however, is trying to seek a new work in Laguna. Basti, their son,
is growing up well.
***
Danyelle
(Garcia) is doing very well at school, Xavier Nuvali, where she has a
scholarship grant. She’s now a young
lady, and is growing up an independent teener.
It’s nice that every now and then she consults with her Tita Jegs on
school matters. Binay is doing well in
guiding her daughter grow up.
***
For now, Nonie (Garcia)
is very busy with his two pet cats. Of
course, he knows that taking care of cats can be expensive and time consuming. He’s obviously enjoying them, though.
***
Sis Nita
(Juanillas) and her children have been doing well. Ja, the eldest, is back to school. She’s pursuing her MS at UPLB. Jon, a licensed chemist, is enjoying his work at San Miguel,
and has been travelling quite frequently.
Kin, a civil engineer, has transferred to the private sector from
UPLB. Fatima is working in Kuala Lumpur
where she undertook her OJT. Nita, who
just retired, is still working part-time with the LSPU, enjoying the perks of
being member of the Accrediting Committee of PASUC.
###
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY
NEW YEAR TO ALL
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
One
I’m starting a series in this blog, each
post being identified simply numerically.
Hence, this first article is titled ONE.
The next one shall be TWO, and so on.
Why am I doing this? Well, I
shall be writing about a particular topic but most likely it shall not appear
in this blog regularly. I shall continue
to write about the usual stuff that I have been writing about previously, which
is, really nothing specific. But for
this series I wish to talk about my random thoughts on my personal views about
passing through this dimension. I must
confess that much of what I’ll probably blabber about is pseudo-philosophical,
and might not even make any sense to many readers.
At the outset, I’d like to clarify where
I’m coming from. Many talk about passing
through, or simply dying, as a philosophical orientation. As many would say that they’re ready to die
anytime, anywhere, any way; that they’re not afraid to die. Well, I’m not that committed to the
philosophy. Perhaps you’ll find out
later what my own thoughts are about the whole thing.
To the question, are you ready to die?, I’m neither scared nor embarrassed to admit
I’m not ready to die. I don’t know when
I’ll be ready. May be I will never be. I know I will die anytime, but ready? Heck, I’m scared of the darn thing.
To me, if one says one’s ready to die,
that’s up to the fellow … but I consider that as a philosophical
orientation. But really ready? That’s not my personal feeling; not my
orientation at all. I am scared to die,
may be for various reasons that I am not prepared to talk about now. So, don’t push it. Just wait as it unfolds, possibly in future
articles in this series.
This is where I’m coming from. I’m scared to die, and may be I’ll stop being
scared to die when I’m dead.
Monday, October 17, 2016
Bonding Time for the Librero Clan
October 16, 2016 was my Kuya’s (Dr. Flor
Librero’s) 82nd birthday, but he could no longer be physically
present. He set for a new journey at
11:16 p.m., September 24, 2016. However,
to honor him on his 82nd birthday, Jegs helped our nieces and
nephews conceptualize, plan, and implement a clan bonding where said nieces and
nephews shared with one another their experiences with Kuya Flor when he was
still in this world. What I tried to do
was simply relate stories about Kuya’s younger years that his nieces and
nephews didn’t know about, as well as provide stories that served to piece
together the otherwise incoherent and unrelated stories. Essentially, therefore, we're talking here of the Shepherd of Panyesanan.
This clan bonding was neither a
celebration nor mourning, just coming together to talk about brief encounters
with the honoree. There were two aspects
of this: first, each had a letter that she/he burned after which the ashes were
placed in zip lock bag attached to two big balloons that were released into the
sky; and second, each had a chance to relate his/her story about his/her
experience with Kuya when he was still alive.
Kuya Flor never talked about himself in
public, only in very private conversations with specific individuals. Consequently, each individual knew only an
aspect of Kuya’s private life, that which may be relevant to the individual and
nothing much more. I had the honor of
providing the vignettes that served to tie all these experiences together that
ultimately resulted in a complete story.
Obviously, we can’t provide that story
here and now, but it has been conceptualized as a volume of narratives about
brief encounters with Ka Tinong Librero.
To be sure, most of the stories related by the nieces and nephews were
of recent vintage, stories they have experienced while visiting Panyesanan in
Lipa City. My wife, Jegs, sister Nita,
and I provided the “missing” links from the past and even in contemporary times
focusing on many philosophical aspects of Kuya’s beliefs and private life from
our perspectives.
What happened in this clan bonding
activity was well beyond Jegs’ and my expectations. We realized that the visits of his nieces and
nephews were not only of the “tourist” type.
Such visits were more anchored on highly meaningful experiences such as
knowing more about Kuya’s philosophy of life, and pieces of advise which may
not have meant much then but which have turned out to be extremely meaningful
and prophetic. Kuya, myself, and our sister, Nita, may have stuck to our
traditional clan value system of a strict hierarchical relationship, but
whatever love, concern, happiness, sadness, consideration for others, etc. there may be we all share
internally. Only when one passes away
that we realize the depth of the emotional ties that have bound us together.
The activities for this clan bonding
included burning of letters to Kuya. The
ashes were placed in zip lock bag, attached to big balloons, then released into
the sky. The second major part of the
clan bonding activity was the sharing of experiences with Kuya Tinong by his nieces
and nephews.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Word of Thanks From the Family
To express our heartfelt gratitude to all of
you who have condoled with us in the
passing away of a loved one, we find no word or phrase deep and meaningful
enough. Suffice it to say that, indeed,
we are all grateful for your expressions of grief and sympathies with us in
this time of extremely difficult and sad moments.
In the context of our traditional clan value
system in Itbayat, we call our brothers older than we are as kaka. Hence, I used to call Kuya Flor as Kaka
Tinong, but had to upgrade that to Kuya Flor given the circumstances of
improved social conditions in Los Baños when I joined him
there in 1963. Having known Kuya Flor
from my earliest years in Itbayat to times until today, I can say with very
high confidence that he was of a different kind. He was, indeed, acknowledged by our clan as
one of a different kind of human, clearly different in terms of intellectual
capacity compared to other members of our clan.
His philosophy of life was, “others first before myself.” But he never spoke of it, he just did it
without fanfare, not even a slight mention of it at any time. He always said, “people will know you by your
deeds, not by what you talk of.”
I was holding his hands and stroking his
forehead in his final gasps and with a slight grip he asked me to tell those he
had encounters before, “I did all my best as an individual but I was never perfect. Whatever my shortcomings, please forgive me
as I have forgiven those who happen to owe me something.” I’m now relaying that message to all. Kindly respond positively to such message so
he can rest in peace.
I repeat, Kuya Flor was a good man, but he was
not perfect. When the plusses and the
minusses cancel out I am certain that there would still be more than enough
plusses left to remind all of us that sometime in the past we have connected
with this man so highly generous, so intellectually active, and who was
actually ahead of his time.
I think one of his traits that many of us shall
find difficult to forget is his willingness, belief, and wish to resolve
problems of others because he didn’t like others to have any problem that he
could have helped resolve. “I don’t like
to leave behind problems,” he did say in his last couple of weeks in this
world.
On behalf of his wife, Ate Aida, who is herself
having a battle with health problems at the moment, and both the Librero and
Recto families, I wish to express our very deep gratitude to all of you who
have condoled with us and who are saying prayers for the repose of Kuya’s soul. I am not able to mention the names of
everyone, but Kuya loved all the brothers and sisters of Ate Aida and their children
and grand children as much as he did his own siblings and their children and
grand children.
To all of you who are here now, and those who
could not be here and yet have expressed their condolences, thank you from the
bottom of our hearts for condoling with us.
I wish we were gathered here now for a much happier moment, but then
again this is part of our life’s journey in this world.
Kuya is now on his next journey, but I know he
is still around us here and has seen everything. So, Kuya we are all happy to feel that you
are now proceeding with your journey.
Don’t worry about us, you already have solved our problems, and we will
be all right.
Kuya, now you will see only a pair of foot
prints behind you. Those are the foot
prints of the one carrying you.
Kuya, I
know I will see you again. Good bye.
Funeraria Paz, Lipa City
27 September 2016
Friday, August 19, 2016
Have You Experienced Saying Good Bye to Your Pet?
Here’s a very
short story I wrote on 31 May 2012. I came
across this when I was trying to check on some old flash drives earlier today.
I should have
written this piece last Friday (29 May 2012) evening, but at that time I wasn’t
ready to write about how Buddy (our pet Labrador) and I parted. He passed away at about 2:00 pm and I had to
bury him about 4:00 pm last Friday.
King, my son and Buddy’s rightful master, wasn’t around – he’s in Europe
for his honeymoon and will be back on June 9th yet. Buddy’s been sick the past few months but
this has been on and off. We’ve always
attributed it to his age. For a
Labrador, 14 dog years is quite long life since most large breeds like
Labradors last usually from 12-15 years.
He’s been suffering from arthritis and has had difficulty walking and
moving around but always made sure he would be greeting us every morning (upon
waking up and tending the small garden at the backyard) and afternoon (when we
come home from work) with a wagging tail and happy facial expression. He was always cheerful and playful.
King’s prognosis
might be right. It probably didn’t help
Buddy psychologically that suddenly there were no people at home and he might
have felt alone and lonely. Jegs and I
started moving out of the house on May 5th, and King and Vanie left
for Europe on May 24th.
During that time, his health deteriorated quickly. On Friday, May 25th, a day after
King and Vanie left, Buddy visibly became a little lonely but was always alert,
always wagging his tail when he saw Jegs and me. Everyday, Jegs was in the house fixing the
things we needed to fix before King and Vanie would be back. Jegs observed that on May 27th,
Buddy suddenly had no interest in food.
In fact, for two days (28th and 29th) he didn’t
eat, but took some water when Jegs kind of “force-fed” him with water. Jegs and Buddy had become very close friends,
not as pet and master.
On May 28th,
Jegs, on my suggestion, contacted her high school classmate who is now a veterinarian (faculty member of the UPLB
College of Veterinary Medicine). Dr.
Andrew Bernardo visited Buddy on the 29th. The moment he saw Buddy, Dr. Bernardo’s face
became sad. He told us that Buddy was
very sick, and he diagnosed him to also have some parasites from which he might
not be able to recover because apparently the parasitic condition has so
quickly advanced and in consideration of his age he was just waiting to
go. I asked Dr. Bernardo if it was still
possible to treat Buddy and he said that his prognosis was that Buddy would be
lucky if he lasted two more weeks.
I didn’t like to
see Buddy suffer the way he did. I
talked to him (Buddy) and he looked at me like he never did before, as if
pleading for help. He looked so
helpless. I’ll never forget the way he looked
at me straight in the eyes. It was then
that I asked Dr. Bernardo who was beside me, “Doc, is there a way to end his
suffering quickly?” Then I mentioned the
term “euthanasia” to which the Vet said, “at this point that’s the most humane
thing to do.” But I immediately said, “I
can’t make that decision just yet. I
need to consult my son.” He said, he’d be
prepared to do it any day. During the
day, I emailed King and told him about the situation. I got his response the following day 30 May
2012. He said, given all considerations,
he agreed that euthanasia was the best option Buddy could be given. So on May 30th I asked Jegs to
contact his veterinarian-friend again and tell him that we’d be ready on May 31st. I didn’t like the idea of putting Buddy to
permanent sleep on the 30th, which was my birthday. We agreed on the 31st. Dr. Bernardo said he would be there at 1:30
pm, and he was.
While the Vet
was preparing the injections, I was talking to Buddy. I told him, “Buddy, I’m very sorry but you’ll
have to go into a long sleep. May be
we’ll not see each other again. Al and
Vanie are not here right now but Al knows everything that’s going on. I’m sorry that you’ll not see them before you
sleep. But this is the best to relieve
you of whatever suffering you’re having.
Bye, Buddy.” Then I stroked his
head. He responded with a weakly-wagging
tail and a lonely look in the face. I
knew, however, that he understood he was going to sleep permanently.
First, the Vet
injected Buddy with a sedative to put him to temporary sleep. When Buddy was asleep, Dr. Bernardo tried to
locate Buddy’s veins for the next injection but couldn’t find any because
Buddy’s legs had swollen. He hasn’t
changed position in the last 48 hours.
The Vet couldn’t find Buddy’s veins on the hind legs and the front
legs. Ultimately, the Vet asked me, “I
need your permission to go straight to the heart” and I said “go ahead.” In a couple of seconds, Buddy had his last
two gasps of air. Slowly his head turned upwards and then he was gone. Slowly, the Vet pushed his head
downwards. His tongue was very pale, but
he looked serene.
###
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