The ActiveTalker

For this week, I my class watched a film to aide our discussion on faith. The movie was Leap of Faith.

The movie is about a con artist (Jonas Nightengale) who was forced to stop over a small town because of an engine problem. It was a poor town deprived of a good life, jobs for the people and the rain needed for their crops (corn). Nightengale was able to tell what the problems of some of the attendees and “heal” them. He did it with the help of his cohorts who were able to overhear the complaints of the attendees and radio it to him. The “fellowship” was quite a show. His group was able to put on a show with lots of light, music, “miracles” and left hope in the hearts of the people that wasn’t there when Nightengale’s group came.

But his scamming almost came to an end when sheriff Will Braverman found out about his being a criminal. Nightengale was able to save his “reputation” when he claimed that:

“Who can lead you off that crooked road? You need a real sinner!”

His activities continued until Boyd, a local boy who witnessed his parents died in an accident that left him crippled, believed that Nightengale can make him walk again. How can he (a fake faith healer) make a crippled boy walk again? Because of the boy’s strong faith, he was able to walk again. It was an event that triggered Nightengale to change, to stop being a con artist. He packed his things, and hitched a ride from a passing truck.

While he was talking to the driver, it suddenly rained after a long time of drought. The people rejoiced because of the two miracles that happened that night, the crippled boy being able to walk again and the rain. When they looked for Nightengale, they found out that he already left his motel room.

The movie tells us what faith should be all about. Here was a man who became criminal at a young age of 15, became a fake healer who cashed in on the hopelessness people feel by giving them a good show with lots of light and music. He manipulated people by using their faith to convince them to make “donations” for them to be saved. Until the impossible happened. What made the boy walk was faith, pure faith. Faith is more than knowledge. It’s also more than belief. It is about trust. It’s all about entrusting everything to the Lord.

Ticketamerica.com has event stle tickets for the New York Philharmonic and also Okkervil River and Owl City wither their funky sound.

new york philharmonic tickets

okkervil river tickets

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I got an offer from PayPerPost last Wednesday. It was to post something about the “bulls blazers mavs”. But alas, I was only able to open my email today (Saturday), and the offer’s validity was for three days only. The offer expired before I can even respond to it.

The offer was for one dollar. It probably requires me to post a link where people can get to buy tickets to see the game. Oh well, one dollar is still one dollar.

I should regularly check my email for me not to miss opportunities like this.

A group (taopo.org) will be launching an ad campaign this coming Friday (January 13, 2012), telling that 5 million people support the fight against mining in Palawan. The campaign currently has 4,271,221 signature (as of this writing).

To help the campaign, log on to no2mininginpalawan.com‘s petition page and fill up the form (only netizens 15 years old and above can sign the petition. After you have signed the petition, you can also share the link on you Facebook wall to let others become aware of the campaign that will continue Doc Gerry’s dream.

By participating in the campaign, you can help preserve Palawan’s beautiful landscape. Do your part, signup and share. NO TO MINING IN PALAWAN!

Image source: http://www.southeastasia.org/

Today is one of the most awaited day of the year for me, the day we go to my parent’s home in Zambales. We only get a chance to go there once a year and today marks that once-in-a-year event. Yay!

We first rode the LRT (Light Rail Transit) from Roosevelt (Muñoz) to Monumento (Caloocan) terminal to get to the Victory Liner terminal. Upon boarding our bus, I found out that some of their aircon buses now has Wi-Fi™. And to my luck, our bus had one.

The internet connection is not that bad. Considering that it’s free. 🙂

Anyway, our home coming this holidays is like hitting two birds with one stone. Our batch will also have a reunion themed “Givin98ack” as we will be having a small gift-giving program.

The Philippines, being a tropical country, is susceptible to rare diseases. According to Microsoft Student, tropical diseases, or diseases found in tropical countries are almost exclusive and most of the time, rare. The spread of these diseases are mostly attributed to climate, poverty, and primitive sanitation conditions.

Malaria is one of the diseases common in tropical countries. It is a single-celled parasite transmitted by anopheles mosquitoes from one person to another in their bites. The disease causes chills and high fever and can lead to death if left untreated. Millions of die each year because of malaria.

However, there are some cases wherein rare diseases affect people from tropical countries. These health conditions result from genetic defects affect around 1 in every 20,000 individuals in the population. Some rare diseases that affect tropical countries like the Philippines are Phenylketonuria, Gaucher Disease, Hunter-Hurler Syndrome and other enzyme-based fat and sugar metabolism diseases.

Phenylketonuria or PKU is a hereditary disease in newborns wherein there is an accumulation of phenylalanine in an affected child’s blood shortly after birth. It can result to mental retardation if not treated early. In the Philippines, a newborn screening is given to diagnose if the infants have this disorder. Affected children can develop normally once detected early, with the help of a strict diet that limits phenylalanine. Another rare disease is progeria. It makes children develop rapidly with symptoms of old age and usually die because of coronary disease by their early teens.

Senator Edgardo J. Angara filed Senate Bill No. 3087 or Rare Diseases Act of the Philippines. The long title of this bill is

An act to help persons afflicted with rare diseases by creating an office of rare diseases in the Department of Health,encouraging the conduct of research and development activities on rare diseases, and providing for fiscal and regulatory incentives for the manufacture or importation of healthcare products for use by such persons.

The bill seeks to help patients, particularly children with rare diseases (sometimes called “orphan disorder“) by providing them better access to medical/health care, information campaign, and medicines needed to treat their condition. I don’t know if this is a part of the priority bills of the Aquino administration, but I think it’s not. The bill was filed on February 23, 2009 and has been pending ever since. 🙁

Please help support the Rare Diseases Act of the Philippines by visiting website of the Philippine Society for Orphan Disorders and sign the petition.

I commute daily going to work (my wife drives me to work when I’m running late). I noticed (well, it’s an OBVIOUS thing) that some of jeepneys plying Cavite’s roads are colorum. These are illegally operating public utility vehicles, either out of line or a vehicle registered in the Land Transportation Office for PRIVATE use (some even has a “NOT FOR HIRE” sticker on the sides of the jeepney.

What are the benefits of riding in a duly registered public utility jeep (PUJ)? First, your trip will be an uninterrupted one if in case there are operations apprehending colorum jeeps.
Just the other day, I was with my co-faculty when the driver returned our fare and asked us to transfer to another jeepney and because there was a checkpoint for colorum vehicles manned by police and LTO officers.
And second, in case of a mishap you will be covered by the insurance for passengers. The LTFRB requires all operators to have their PUJs to have this. Examples are Philippine Accident Managers Inc. or PAMI and UniTrans.

There was an operation against colorum jeepneys in Cavite I saw, but it was way back in May 2006. I hope the local authorities (and National Government) do something about this. I feel pity for the operators who pays all the requirement to operate their PUJ legally while the illegal ones ply the streets freely. Another thing I noticed is that on “good” days, only 4 out of 10 PUJs I see are colorum, but on “bad” days, it’s around 6 out of 10. Most of the jeepneys in Tagaytay/Mendez-Indang terminal in front of the Indang Police Station and the Trece/Dasma-Indang terminal in front of the Indang Municipal are mostly colorum (according my observation and from a driver I talked to).

This is an example of a “legit” PUJ:

Let us help support the operators and drivers of legal PUJs by not riding the illegal ones.

Earlier this morning, I was late along with my co-faculty. But even before we were able to reach our class, the checker confirmed we are already absent for the said period. Why? Because of the slow moving traffic at the Manggahan Junction in General Trias, Cavite.

Crossing the said junction will only take you less than a minute (at night). But it took us around 15 minutes to cross the intersection. Because there where traffic enforcers manning the traffic flow at the intersection. It has been a problem for the longest time. The General Trias municipal government is paying 3 or 4 traffic enforcers to make the traffic flow worse. What a WASTE OF MONEY.

Why not the municipal government put up a stop light to control the traffic flow in the intersection?

Usually, it takes a minute or so before the red light turns green. And it is more efficient (as long as it is working properly) than traffic enforcers.

Installing a traffic light on a busy intersection may be more efficient than having enforcers doing the job.

The result of the Pacquiao-Marquez III fight:

You can alternately check the links listed below for the live streaming on the fight night:

LINK 1 | Alternate Link 1 | Alternate Link 2 | Alternate Link 3 | Alternate Link 4 | Alternate Link 5

If you’re irritated by the ad pop-ups, just switch to fullscreen. If the video stream lags/stop, just hit F5 to refresh your browser.

It was a Saturday again and I was able to influence my lunchmates (classmates) from my graduate program to eat where I like to eat. I was able to lure them this time to an eatery I just discovered the last week. It looks just like a normal sari-sari store in Valencia St. at first glance, but if you’ll look closely, it has an eatery inside. The name of the place is Pampanguena’s Eatery (the name suggests that the food they serve is inspired by Pampanga’s cuisine.

I ordered, as the title suggests, a kare-kare or a pork stew in peanut sauce.

It was good. What made it more special is the shrimp paste that came with it. It was prepared with chunks of meat in it. Although it can stand on its own as a meal, it made the kare-kare taste better.

Overall, it was good. Although the kare-kare had only a few pieces of vegetable on it, I still enjoyed my lunch.