You can lighten up your heart by the love you give and receive during Christmas. Another really, really good way to lighten up is to let go of emotional baggage. And to let go of the obsessions that pretend to be more important than who and what you really love.

Christmas decorating used to be an obsession of mine. And after watching holiday season commercialism reach a new frenzied high with hundreds of Holiday season spam email in addition to the TV and radio ads, I want to again renew the meaning of Christmas for myself yet again. The word Christmas comes from the words "Christ" and "mass." Christian mass is an old ritual celebration of Christ’s teachings and his Life and Death. Christmas day is the special holiday or holy day celebrating the birth of Christ, designated by long-ago heads of Church to be close to the solar calendar winter solstice(this day was one that ancient northern people noted was the shortest day of the year. Winter Solstice is a pagan holiday celebrated as the end of the seasonal year and as the start of the days growing longer again, the Sun coming closer to the Earth again.)

Now a question we might ask of ourselves and try to answer is How could a holy day, a day designated for celebrating Christ’s Spirit, become the 8-ball-in-the-corner-pocket for U.S. commercialism today? A few years ago I began to dread Christmas. It was the furious rush of the shopping and the decorating exactness that threw me off my center. The irony of my dread is that the commercialism of Christmas had turned me off years ago. Who invented the phenomenon of the Christmas rush anyway? I did, in my case! Somehow, I got seduced into believing that I too must march to the agitated beat of commercial media portraying Christmas!

Well this year, I plan to again be an “anti-media-Christmas” person. I will continue to simplify how I get ready for Christmas. I started a few years ago, when I stopped being the perfectionist when it comes to holiday decorations, holiday dinner and gifts.

I will share with you that old dirty secret of mine — Christmas decor obsession. One of my petty but hard fixations was creating a dreamy confection of a decorated tree with symmetrically placed, coordinating taffeta ribbons and frosty glass balls. After a couple of years of these “perfect trees” that moi, moi, moi made, I realized I had moments of being uptight and unhappy when a child rearranged or added a handmade decor of theirs. How did I break out of this awful spell? I witnessed Scrouge (or his twin brother) at the grocery store on Christmas Eve. The line was so long and slow that he exclaimed very nastily and huffed out of the store. I wondered what his problem was. Could he be obsessing over his perfectly planned, perfectly-timed Christmas dinner, like me? I realized then that I had to relax and let go of my martha-stewart-christmas-perfectionism. Or I would morph into another clone of Scrouge-a-sneering-and-a-grumbling during Christmas.

Now, the perfect Christmas tree for me is the one my children have fun decorating with me, with my husband and their Lola. Sometimes even one of their friends might be over for decorating. The more the merrier. Handmade, lop-sided cut-out paper trees, snowmen and gingerbread men are included on our "perfect tree". It is the glow of happiness and pride in my kids’ eyes while we decorate that warm me up for Christmas. Days after we are done, we all love gazing at the twinkle of lights. I know that the delight in our hearts doesn’t just come from the sparkle and dazzle of the decor, but mostly comes from having done the tree up together, together, together.

And so this I know for sure, when I am relaxed, Christmas good will and cheer comes much easier when obsessions are out ofthe way.

So, let us each foster a relaxed attitude while preparing for Christmas Day. Let us rediscover again the celebration of Christ-mas in our hearts. Let’s all take time for slowing down, for quiet and for nurturing our inner spirits, alone or together with loved ones or with those we should love. For Spirit is where Christmas really comes from.

More Links for this Christmas Holiday
Advent of Christmas

A link to an article by Ronald Klug at www.Belief.net. A short read on contemplating the Christ spirit as Christmas day approaches Click here to article at Belief.net.

Pondo ng Pinoy

Please consider being a partner of Archbishop Rosales and his project called "Pondo ng Pinoy" to help the poorest of the poor in Metro Manila under the aegis of the Archdiocese of Manila..For the twenty-eight days before Christmas why not contribute $1.00 a day or a total of $28.00 to the Pondo ng Pinoy You can of course give more if you wish. In the Philippines, he is only asking for P0.25 centavos a day. Yes, twenty-five centavos so that even the poor themselves can participate. In the US, this is a simple way of teaching our children and grandchildren to remember the poor in the Philippines.

The funds can be sent directly to Ayala Foundation USA in San Francisco to help them with the logistics of collecting and remitting the funds for Pondo ng Pinoy.

Giving IS Receiving

• In the Philippine Islands, work with your church, school or organization to organize gift-giving, parties and food for your local children and their families who aren’t as fortunate.

• In the U.S., find your local community United Way, YMCA, or town organization and ask about their Santa Fund or gift giving program to brighten the Christmas spirit to the homes of less fortunate children.

I have friends and made friends with those who have published and/or used both types of sites above. So this is a matter-of-fact examination with no judgment and I invite you readers to comment.

Websites about Filipinas  

These days, and for many years, a site merely about Filipinas is usually produced to put a Filipina in the best light in order to make her desirable and marketable. There are currently two types of sites about Filipinas online: Type 1-matchmaking(penpal, mail order bride, friendship) and Type 2-porn.

The benefits for Filipinas from sites that market them are then two types.

For those based mostly in the Philippines who add themselves to matchmaking sites, Filipinas may benefit through the following things: sincere online friendship and companionship, delivered gifts from their new friends abroad, and even marriage to someone abroad and outside of the Philippines. If you think/know that there are more benefits, please add your comments below.

From porn sites (including mild sexy photo galleries of Filipinas), Filipinas who get self or material value from their external looks may revel in the recognition of their faces and bodies as sexual and beautiful, they may get photos for their portfolio, and they may even get paid well. Again, if you think/know that there are more benefits, please add your comments below.

A site for and by Filipinas has content written and produced by Filipinas, and the audience is targeted to mostly Filipinas from a broad range of educational and economic backgrounds, regardless of their geographical location… These sites usually are intended to be empowering to Filipinas so that they benefit from inspiration, sharing, inner growth and how much more effective they can be in relationships, families, workplace and society. 

The most important difference is that a site for and by Filipinas is about a Filipina being a woman unto her own self and is not about marketing the Filipina to men in anyway, form or matter. Any other comments or things to add to the empowerment of sites for and by Filipinas, please comment below.

“A woman unto her own self”—what does that mean? It simply means that as a woman her self-worth comes from inner and real value, her relationships with her Self and with her loved ones, and not from being valued for her domestic services, her looks, her flesh.

In defiance of Filipina cybertyping within www.filipina.com and in search engines taking place between 1996-1997, I bought the domain of “newfilipina.com“ in January 1998.

I decided to name the site Bagong Pinay as it was the Filipino translation of “new Filipina.” That is when I got an epiphany: that “newfilipina.com” would not only be a “new” web representation of Filipinas it would also mean the evolving identity of Filipinas.

I designed a draft of the BagongPinay homepage starting with a photograph of a young morena woman wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and red-sneakers. In the background I layered an antique photograph of one of my great-grandmothers wearing traditional formal dress. Both women were smiling. I wanted the collage to honor my ancestors and the modern attitudes of Filipinas today because I wanted BagongPinay to stand for the best Filipina traditions and values, old and new, that today’s Filipinas integrate within themselves. The layout also included clickable buttons that represented links to wished-for site sections.

I uploaded this draft in February 1998 and then sent out an email to over 200 Filipinos, as many that I could find in a short time. I announced the brainstorming of BagongPinay and briefly explained the state of Filipina representation online. I gave the link of the draft page and asked for any forms of help, especially in writing content. Also, I requested that people forward the announcement to any other Filipinos online. Two key Manila netizens sent encouraging, eye-opening responses:

Jesse Liwag, Editor of i-Site, wrote in with farsightedness:

> If for Pinays only, the image or identity cannot be left to be determined by those selling sex tours in the Philippines or mail-order brides. The Filipino woman is much, much more than that - - - but she has to know this, believe in this, and fight for this. The Net is one great place to do it. You can have a hundred online magazines and websites in no time. You can create a worldwide network to support this. And in the end, when someone would search for “pinay” or “Filipina” in Yahoo! then these sites would top the list. 

And Mila D. Aguilar, a Philippine video documentary producer who was working at the Manila Standard and the Institute for Filipino Cinema emailed me with:

> … computers and the Internet are some of the tools that will finally liberate both women and Asians from bondage. You see, women in general, and Asians as a set of countries and races, could never have come to the fore in the Industrial Age of Steel and big machines. These were meant for the big men of brawn.
> … the tools of production shifted from iron and steel machines to electronics, computers and the Internet, which are small, handy, fine, cheap, and require more mind than brawn to operate. Due to these qualities … big men of brawn are not what are needed to run today’s industries anymore. What are more necessary now are fine hands and minds, both of which are amply available among women and Asians.

Mila’s insight set me afire with urgency.

In 2004, Philippine based sites for women, Filipinas, were still not topping Yahoo! or search engines because they don’t use the word “Filipina” in their site. They only use the word “women” or “females” at their site. Realizing this, I Iaunched the Fabulous Filipinas campaign and emailed as many web publishers for Philippine women and men the information on how to optimize their site to try to counter Filipina cybertyping. 

In the meantime, I had a directory at NewFilipina.com for great sites for and by Filipinas since 1998, and then between  between 2002 and 2007 I began to use www.pinay.com to reroute visitors to other sites by listing links of sites with great content for and by Filipinas such as Herword.com, Candymag.com and Femalenetwork.com.

Today, only a handful of sites for and by Filipinas such as newfilipina.com, FilipinaImages, the NCRFW, Filipino Women’s Network, FilipinaMoms , HerWord, CandyMag, FemaleNetwork, Gabriela, and Damayan,  seem to be doing this as they come up in search engine results. Major Philippine community sites for women are still not appearing in search engine results for the keyword “Filipina.”

Readers, please email your favorite Philippine women’s site and ask them to use “Filipina” in their metatags and in the content of their pages.

This will help evolve Filipina identity onine and Filipina web presence. 

And if you publish your own site or blog about being Filipino or your life, please make sure you add “filipina” in your html metatags and in your content, too. 

Many search engines key words in the content and some also use the metatag keywords. So it is important to identify your content this way in order to help shape Filipina identity online.

Here are links that can help you with content, keywords and metatags: 

• http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931
• http://www.newfilipina.com/fabfilipinamessage.html
• http://filipinaimages.com/filipinaimagescom-is-an-seo-campaign/
• http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2007/12/05/is-the-keywords-meta-tag-really-necessary/

For many years, during mealtimes or family get-togethers, my husband would witness my mom remind me to make a plate of food for him. He had begun to believe that my mom was ordering me to show my subservience to him as a man. And that I was being the good daughter and following her tutelage. Ken is pretty much a modern guy, and very much into equal rights between us as life partners, so it sort of bothered him. He never really said anything about it until recently when his view on this tradition was finally brought to a new level.

A few weeks ago, we went to a birthday party of Ryan, my son’s playmate, and Iole’s son. Iole is a Filipina and married to an American. They are just like me and Ken. This was our first time to go to their home as a family. There at the party, all of their friends were also women who were Filipinas whose husbands were Americans, ranging from young couples to elderly couples. Some of these Filipinas had known each other for a long time. Some of them were very new in town. Michelle, a young women, had only been in Austin for just a few months. I met her because her husband was once my co-worker. He had shown me pictures of her when she was still in the Philippines. At the time, he was excited to bring her over to the States. Finally here and just married, her father had sadly passed away almost immediately after she had left the Philippines. She was still mourning and still adjusting to her new life in the States. A while back, I had connected Michelle and Iole together during a lunch date. Iole in turn connected Michelle to all her Filipina friends. Their group embraced her immediately.

At the party, there were the usual introductions all around. Children playing outside and inside. The men folk upstairs watching a football game or playing pool. The women folk downstairs in the open space of the adjoined kitchen, dining and living rooms. Some parents outside watching the kids enjoying themselves like water bugs in the pool.

Ken and our kind host, Iole’s husband, stood close by the kitchen talking and getting to know each other, as we women prepared the pot luck food. We were discussing the recipes and ingredients. Many of the men were health conscious so most of the Filipino dishes were prepared by these Filipinas with the best and leanest cuts of meat, the least fatty and freshest ingredients, and with little variations here and there to please their American husbands and their own Filipino palates at the same time. There was a glow in the kitchen coming from the pride of the women as they talked about their dishes, complimented one another on the goodness, and enjoyment of cooking, eating and sharing it all.

Oh, the food was all so delicious. And I think that this was Ken’s first time, to stand by the kitchen and witness meal preparation where so many Filipinas were gathered at the same time.

I made two servings of plates for Ken and he ate them all up—dinuguan, ginataan na langka, pancit, afritada, lumpia shanghai and all. Of course, my mom, out of habit, again reminded me to be sure “to make a plate for Ken” even as I was spooning rice for his first serving.

Later, there was one mahjong table, karaoke and dessert. Michelle joined us in the living room, and one of the grandmothers, wrapped an arm around Michelle, all the while, as if she was comforting her or as if she herself were gaining comfort by the gesture.

The next morning, I and Ken were sitting at our back porch, taking in the fresh crisp air and growing sunshine. We talked about how nice the party was, how lovely the home and the new pool were, how laid-back and down to earth the people were… and lastly, how these Filipinas, even if they just met someone or are not even related to each other by blood, embrace each other and show each other support. As per his witnessing the acceptance of Michelle. I could tell that that really touched Ken. Then what Kenny said next surprised me even more and touched me with its insight.

He said that he now realized that “making the plate” was not a mere act of womanly domesticity. He used to think of it as a way that my mom was trying to say that a man should be served and the woman should be subservient.

He now realized that the food, lovingly prepared with the bounty from the earth, was being gathered on to a plate and brought to the man as an act of love, gratitude and a celebration of life. And this was the tradition that I and my mom, the other Filipinas at the party, and my aunts and cousins at our family gatherings were continuing and living with each of our husbands, children and family men-folk, whether Filipino, American or otherwise.

Ken really deserved a big hug for realization just how life already Is. I gave him an affectionate hug for some long, quiet minutes as we sat sipping our hot tea and coffee, with the birds singing and the sun gently shining in on us.

Recap: The main character is shouting at the character of the Filipina housemaid, already twisting and wriggling, to dance more and more provocatively for the third character, a neighbor sitting on a chair in his front lawn. The main character shouts at the maid to mount the man in the chair and then gruffly orders her to give the guy a better view of her rear end. She complies and bends over, gyrating all the while. The main character is ordering the Filipina house maid to behave like a nudie bar dancer. He orders rudely and she obeys quickly—the supposed silliness of it all is that the man is pimping his maid to his neighbor, but the neighbor, a “northerner,” is too daft to pay heed to the sexual wares being displayed to him. Disappointed with his neighbors lack of response, he disgustedly orders her to return home, exclaiming and clapping at her like she’s a dog he’s shooing away. She quickly scampers off to obey him. Then his buddy runs after her—seemingly interested in getting out of her what the neighbor did not respond to.

Maybe you’re like me. I found this offensive.

There are thousands of domestic workers out in Britain who are striving to live with dignity and earn a living abroad, away from their families, including possibly their children. This show just plops a another little ugly stereotype into the laps of narrow-minded, mean spirited people who might want to toss it around and use it against Filipinas to degrade them, pre-judge them, exert privilege over them. In jest or not, this is exploitation of exploitation— using the story of exploiting and demeaning domestic workers, Filipinas at that, for laughs. Ugly indeed.

It’s also another smutty piece of trash to feed “the beast” of objectifying Filipinas, in other words, classifying Filipinas as sex objects—women who are paid for, imported, subservient, desperate enough for money and will do anything you tell them to do even if it means degradation and humiliation.

On hearsay, the irreverent British show makes fun of everybody, even the British Queen—nothing is sacred and all people are fair game to make fun of and metaphorically kick around. So the whole blasted, bloody show is a glitzy, televised, mass medium about having respect for noone. 

All in all, here is another man-told story about a Filipina that adds to a monstrosity of ugliness in many forms (websites, catalogues, sex tours porn, trafficking, prostitution, exploitation) told about Filipinas, that many Filipinas have been living with or been fighting against for a long time(depending on their lot in life).

Every Filipino person in this world has a right to their dignity. Many Filipinos who are at the poverty levels or who are in danger of getting to the poverty level, struggle to not only keep their dignity but also to survive, to feed themselves and their children. Many of these people become domestic workers to stave of their poverty— and some thousands of Filipinas have become housemaids to foreigners or expatriates abroad. Filipina domestic workers don’t need an idiotic, ignorant and insensitive TV show to push them down and degrade them further.

Yes, the above clip is supposed to be comedy. It’s at least some people’s comedy. Is it comedy because Harry and Paul are so idiotic and ridiculous and they need to ridicule the rest of the world? Or is it just plain idiotic comedy that encourages the rest of the world to ridicule each other? 

Let us continue the battle against the degradation of Filipino women. Let us not sit back in our couches watching tacky tv shows, playing video games, remaining complacent, too lazy to do anything—just saying its all okay or what’s the big f-ing deal.

“ Loline Lualhati Reed, who heads the Overseas Women’s Club, and Michael Duque, who heads the Philippine Nurses Association in UK, are campaigning to get the BBC to issue a public apology.” —Inquirer.Net.

You too can speak up against it by joining this petition at: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/dignity-and-respect-for-the-filipino-worker.html. I’m going there right now and signing. I hope many of you choose to do it too.

A Tribute to Filipino Women and the PWU: Builders of the Pillars of Sustainable Development

Filipino women help greatly in building the pillars of sustainable development, which covers the individual, social, environmental, and economic dimensions. But their total financial contribution to the national economy through their jobs in the Philippines is low because many of them are underpaid. Thus, more women than men leave the country for better income opportunities abroad. More than 70% of Global Filipinos who work overseas in recent years are women. But many of them, even with college degrees, hold jobs that do not provide adequate benefits.

Providing Filipino women higher education is, thus, not enough. It must be supported with legislative, networking, and similar types of programs. The Philippine Women’s University (PWU), the first university for women in Asia, has been doing that. It supports its education programs with national and international initiatives that help women take active roles, and lead, in sustainable development, especially in environmental protection. Most recently, it organized the international symposium on Women, Water and Waste (WWW).

Kalikasan, Kaunlaran! (KK!) congratulates PWU for all its achievements, including the latest, its receipt of Autonomous Status from the Commission on Higher Education, KK! also wishes its hard-working President, TOWNS Awardee for Education Dr. Amelou Benitez-Reyes, a happy birthday and more success as she continues to lead PWU towards its 90th year.

Tune in or watch KK! on Sept. 17, 2008, Wed., 7:30-8:30 PM, as KK! Director/Host Dr. Cora Claudio, President, EARTH Institute Asia, conducts a talakayan with Dr. Benitez-Reyes. Joining the discussion is Lilia Casanova, Trustee, EARTH Institute Asia; Director, Environmental Management Program, PWU; & Program Chair, International Symposium on WWW.

Join also the contests, campaigns and projects of EARTH/KK! To join all, register as a KK!listener by texting 2299: earthREG < name, age, sex, address, email address, and name of person who invited you to tune in, type of disability if you are a Person with Disability (PWD)>. The latter is for the database on PWDs that KK! is helping authorities to improve.

KK! is co-produced by EARTH Inst. Asia and DZRH, with the cooperation of the MAP, GREEN Army, PFST, TOWNS, PBE, AIJC, PEIA, DENR, MabuhayRadio, SanibLakas, various egroups,and others. It is aired by DZRH-AM radio at 666 kHz in Metro Manila and at other kHzs in other areas nationwide. It is also shown on Cable TV, Channel 9 in Metro Manila and other channels nationwide. It is globally accessible, with audio and video, throughhttp://dzrh.tripod.com.

Join also KK!’s roster of partners-sponsors, such as, Unilever, Unilab, and Toby’s Sports.Providing in-kind support this month are Delbros Supply Chain Solutions, MAP, Brahma Kumaris, and Loreal Philippines.

Inquiries: 671-3266, 0917- 829-1718 or email earthinstitute@gmail.com. Please forward this announcement to others. Thank you!

Here in America, with the elections coming up I feel the division between cultures, classes and parties getting wider and wider. It’s heart wrenching and sickening.

I’ve been reading a few things and I wanted to share them. Dare allow yourself to be challenged?

First, I couldn’t believe who wrote this about Palin:

Look at what she stands for:
–Small town values — a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
–Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
–Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be heeded.
–Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
–Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
–”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.

Click here to see who wrote this. I agree with him, though.

And I agree with most things Friedman shared here:
Making America Stupid, by Thomas Friedman. September 13, 2008

Are the Powers-That-Be watching all of this and playing us common people off of each other? Who really wins if McCain-Palin wins? What changes will take place if Obama-Biden wins?

Why, when people cry “peace” others call them “traitors”? Why do parties spit out “liberal” or “conservative” at each other like they’re saying dirty words? Why are we lashing out at each other, even within same households?

For the first time in 2 elections, why does my family finally agree on the same presidential candidate?

What is nationalism? What is goodness? Does it have to be the same brand as yours?

Today, most of us women take it for granted that nobody harasses us when we go to the polls. We take it for granted that we can vote at all. Many women citizens still don’t vote!

It wasn’t until 1920 that women in the U.S. were granted the right to vote. Women in the U.S. literally had to FIGHT for the right to vote. To witness the story in the HBO movie ”Iron Jawed Angels” you can see that the powers that be (patriarchy at its worst… or maybe its best and most controlling) wage a battle of intimidation and even torture against these strong-willed, brave women to suppress their desire to vote and stifle their demands.

Incidentally, when I was a young woman and found out through a history class that the suffragist movement was a socialist movement less then a hundred years ago, I learned to never again prejudice sectors of society that I did not identify with or had knowledge about.

Anyway, back to the movie. In it President Woodrow Wilson and his cronies ask a psychiatrist to declare, officially insane, Alice Paul our heroine suffragist. The president and his men want her to be permanently institutionalized!! Amazingly enough, the doctor, a man, refuses. Instead, he calls it as he sees it, that Alice Paul was strong and brave and that certainly didn’t make her crazy. This doctor spoke from his inner goodness, his inner authority, that which was not dictated to by politics, prejudice, social pressures nor the egos of men.

The brave and honest doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’ 

Amen, to that!

So here are links for you to check out.. and don’t forget to google and search on your own for more fact finding:

• Women Suffrage Prisoners in America
• Iron Jawed Angels, HBO Movie
• History of American Suffragist Movement
• League of Women Voters

I never want anyone to just take my word for it, or just trust anything they find on the web for that matter.

And don’t forget to vote, ladies. 

Women Suffragists of the U.S. gained the right to vote in 1920. Filipinas gained the right to vote in the Philippines in 1937.

Related articles in this blog:

Filipina Speaks of freedom to U.S. Women (1902)

I am inviting you to join a logo design competition. The winning logo design will be used in the up and coming web portal of www.pinay.com, a website for and by Filipinas. This site will be about uplifting and empowering Filipina identity online and in the world. It will have useful services and fun features in addition to relevant content. This site will help to counter Filipina cybertyping that exists online. 

You can submit up to 3 entries. The winner must be able to receive the prize money at a remittance center in the Philippines or by direct wire transfer to his/her bank in the Philippines.   

Attached is a PDF of the contest guidelines, but please check the website for the latest version that might get updated at the site. So if you’re interested in the contest, be sure to visit www.pinay.com. 

And please spread the word and forward this email to as many of your design friends as possible. 

The contest is open as of September 2, 2008. The deadline is October 5, 2008. 

Hope you can join and good luck!!

peace—Perla

“A new way of seeing. A new way of being.”   

www.newfilipina.com
www.babaylan.net
www.pakikipagkapwa.net
www.pinay.com

i know i sound harsh. but i’m mad. and i’ve been mad for a long time. and here’s why I am mad for now:

$427 million. That’s what the oil and coal industries spent during the first half of 2008 on lobbying and advertising. They’re protecting their interests – and hurting ours.

This ad is running on TV right now, but we need millions more to see it. The special interests will outspend us, but we can compete head-to-head with them when we find ways to share these messages for free.
We want 50,000 people to watch this ad in the next 72 hours. Will you help? You can. Click here>>