thoughts in life

INFLUENCES OF RIZAL’S TEACHINGS

2009-07-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

Whenever I heard the name Jose Rizal, I can’t help but be fascinated by this small and frail genius. As a child, I can already associate him with the help of the matchsticks in the house and the one-peso coin where the framework of his upper body is stuck into.

My father used to stroll me in the town plaza where his monument stands still there. I am already aware of his greatness since my father used to tell me anecdotes about Rizal. One day, I asked him, “Tay, uman cge man magdaya si Rizal nan libro?” Amazed by this innocent question he replied, “Si Rizal gusto magpahinumdom sa ato na importante karajaw an kahibayo. It is through books that he learned many things. (Wow, murag English to, nose-bleed ata ko.) Anyway, I didn’t actually comprehend what my father mean during that time, but as my level of education goes higher, piece by piece I understood what he meant. But before my father could spit out the last sentence of his profound explanation to my innocent question, another query came into my mind, “Na, pero tay uman di man lagi nija ukbon ija libro?” This time my father smiled and insisted that we will go to the nearest snack house because he knew that my questions will go endlessly.

As I grow up, I have encountered Rizal in totally different ways. During high school years, reading his novels Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo seems to be a humdrum task and an additional burden. Little did I know that his teachings and ideals in these books will leave an imprint on my mind, both as a Filipino and as a student. Allow me to cite two teachings of Rizal which greatly inspires me.

"This people do not complain because it has no voice, it does not move because it is lethargic, and you say that it does not suffer because you haven't seen how its heart bleeds.” (Pilosopong Tasio speaking to Ibarra, Noli me Tangere, Chapter 25)

This was the reply of Pilosopong Tasio to Ibarra's "Oh, that's asking too much! Let us content ourselves with observing that our people do not complain or suffer as do the people of other countries, thanks to Religion and the benignity of the governing powers."

To a large extent, this description still applies to millions of us in our own homeland who do not have a voice. As a student, my voice seems unheard otherwise; it is too faint to be heard in the wilderness of shameless greed and corruption in government. Generally as a Filipino who is gentle and is used to suffering, I have the tendency of going through life with the attitude of "Puwede pa, puwede na". This strong line of Pilosopo Tasyo reminds me to remove my habit of procrastination despite our worsening social and eco-political conditions.

2010 election is fast approaching Gladly, I can already vote since I have already registered to the local COMELEC in our hometown. But this presents a great dilemma to me, whether to follow the traditional give-and-take “tili-tili” system of our dear TRAPOS (traditional politicians) or to vote according to who is dictated by my conscience. But one thing is for sure; my right of suffrage must be exercised so that my voice will be heard throughout the nation. This simple little voice in the “midst of wilderness” shouting that there is really a need for the change of our election system must be heard!

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Consider well what kind of religion they are teaching you. See whether it is the will of God or according to the teachings of Christ that the poor be succored and those who suffer alleviated. (A Letter to the Young Women of Malolos)

My parents who were both devout Catholic teach me the ways of Catholicism. Every Sunday, the whole family shall be attending the 6 AM mass in our hometown. Even before, I am already aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church since both of my parents were my first Catechists.

As a student of Catholic schools from Nursery all the way to the tertiary level (except Elementary years), I am used to the Catholic schools traditions which are non-observable in public schools (e.g., Wednesday and First Friday Mass, BEC and faith-sharing sessions, retreats, recollections and many others).

As a Filipino student, I am also aware of the scandals in the Church that our own dear priests are involved. Personally, I understand their situation since I perfectly know that they are still human, capable of sin and committing error. They are far from being perfect. However, I am scandalized by some priests whose lifestyle and livelihood is contrary to their teachings. Priests that are living in luxurious lives seem to be a common sight. They are living in luxury while their parishioners are living in misery! Where is now the VOW OF POVERTY?

In one of the seminars I attended last 2001 in Cagayan, it was facilitated by the different bishops and priests assigned here in Mindanao. During the last day of that seminar, it was ended by a concelebrated Closing Mass. What caught my sight there are the flashy and expensive cars owned by the no other than those bishops and priests who concelebrated the mass. Wow, the place looks like an awards night of the Oscars Academy! Upon looking at that fabulous sight, I remembered what St. Bernard told to the Bishops during the medieval era, “Your luxury devours our lives…your vanity steals our necessities!”

During the time of Rizal when he wrote the Letter to the Young Women of Malolos, the friars were as if they were starving when in fact their minds and souls are full of greed. They sell scapularies, rosaries, belts, and other things which are nothing but schemes for making money and a detriment to the soul; because even if all the rags on earth were converted into scapularies and all the trees in the forests into rosaries, and if the skins of all the beasts were made into belts, and if all the priests of the earth mumbled prayers over all this and sprinkled oceans of holy water over it, this would not purify a rogue or condone sin where there is no repentance. Thus, also, through cupidity and love of money, they will, for a price, revoke the numerous prohibitions, such as those against eating meat, marrying close relatives, etc. You can do almost anything if you but grease their palms. Why that? Can God be bribed and bought off, and blinded by money, nothing more nor less than a friar? The brigand who has obtained a bull of compromise can live calmly on the proceeds of his robbery, because he will be forgiven. God, then, will sit at a table where theft provides the viands? Has the Omnipotent become a pauper that He must assume the role of the excise man or gendarme? If that is the God whom the friar adores, then I turn my back upon that God...

This teaching of Rizal serves as my reminder that as a Filipino Catholic, I have the right to scrutinize every teachings of the Church whether they are in contrast or in line with the teachings of Christ. This is what a devout and true Catholic must do!

References:

http://www.geocities.com/grevling_46/noli.html

http://manybooks.net/scripts/send.php

http://pages.prodigy.net/manila_girl/rizal/malolos.htm

http://tunog-pinoy.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html

I hate plagiarism that is why I cited the references here.

An Innocent's Lament

2009-03-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

This poem was written by, uhm, let's say, one of the few special persons in my life. Hmm, she's a great friend though...name's Vanessa Jane. I really, really like this poem 'cause somehow, it captivates the attention of a very lonely heart.

An Innocent’s Lament

By: my heart and soul

Bitter are the hours I stared at a pellucid paper

You bid me now to move the pen

But a heart that is penetrated by anger

He who permeated only can heal;

I held my pen so taut,

In trepidation that my words will left unsaid

No more tears fell, my tumid eyes I soothe

And realized even my heart and soul you writhe

So in melancholic room pent,

I can’t find way out in this lament.

All these throe my heart owns

With haste I throw it beneath the sunny skies

Never thwart the plea of my tortured soul

To burn the feeling and make me whole from lies;

Angel, I’m not but I want to fledge

Like a fleeting wind fly up high

Abode in the highest realm of the ethereal space

At last, ‘could taste the penurious happiness

Blind and deaf to the pejoration of thine

Yes, I cried and it’s only you who could stop my repine.

A flower I am that blooms,

Was lashed by your pretentious hands,

An innocent beauty, I indulged

Never think candle’s flame on me waits

Poltroon you are for remaining silent

You crushed my petals and torn my stem

But I created fragrance; I stand still.

Poignantly touching as it may seem,

Remembering you – I call before my own

The thoughts and pain that with me yet will stay,

Will forever linger in my pen, left unspoken. . . .

Note: [written out of despair after knowing the reality dated August 8, 2008

(Span of time =1:30 – 4:00 am)]

No Title Yet

2009-01-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

I forgot na if anus-a nako ni gisulat...anyway, this poem is dedicated to Pauling.

(WA PAY TITLE)

Thy sweetest smile, I can't forget
Thy red, red lips I always remember
Thy voluptuous figure, towering in my mind
Oh, what a lovely lady!

Now, I feel lonely
'Coz you're not around
But always remember this
My love for you will never diminish.

If I would be on a most beautiful place in the world...
I want it to spend with you
With you alone...YOU and ME!

I want to spend the happiest moment of my life
With you and loving you!

2009-01-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

SET THEORY – A HISTORICAL VIGNETTE
(Trails, Trials and Hopes of Georg Cantor)
by: alna_lou

“The time will come when these
things which are now hidden from you will be
brought into the light.”
--1 Corinthians 4:5

Set theory is a very interesting branch of Mathematics. The creation of this field is somewhat controversial. Early references of the concept of infinity can be traced back as early as 400 BC. However, its modern understanding only arrived during early 19th century. This historical vignette is more focused on the trails, trials and hopes that Cantor faced on his creation of set theory.
Around 450 BC, Zeno of Elea posed paradoxes which have have puzzled, challenged, influenced, inspired, infuriated, and amused philosophers, mathematicians, physicists and school children for over two millennia. Some of the paradoxes he posed are trivial and has connection with the concept of infinity. Since then, mathematicians are struggling with the concept of it.
Now, let’s fast forward to 19th century.
The first notable work on the concept of infinity is by Bernard (Bernhard) Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano, a Bohemian mathematician, theologian, philosopher, logician and antimilitarist of German mother tongue. His posthumously published work Paradoxien des Unendlichen (The Paradoxes of the Infinite) was greatly admired by many of the eminent logicians who came after him, including Charles Peirce, Georg Cantor, and Richard Dedekind. However, the modern understanding on infinity began with the publication of Cantor’s work: “On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers."
Cantor claimed that there are sets having cardinality greater than the (already infinite) cardinality of the set of whole numbers {1,2,3,...}. Thus, there exists an infinite set (which he identifies with the set of real numbers), which has a larger number of elements, or as he puts it, has a greater 'power' , than the infinite set of finite whole numbers {1, 2, 3, ...}.
Although this work has found near-universal acceptance in the mathematics community, it has been criticized in several areas by mathematicians and philosophers.
Poincare condemned Cantor’s theory as a “disease” from which he was certain mathematics would someday be cured, because of its counter-intuitive nature. Leopold Kronecker one of Cantor's teachers and among the most prominent members of the German mathematics establishment, even attacked Cantor personally, calling him a “scientific charlatan,” a “renegade” and a “corrupter of youth.” Kronecker also claimed: "I don't know what predominates in Cantor's theory - philosophy or theology, but I am sure that there is no mathematics there." Many mathematicians agreed with Kronecker that the completed infinite may be part of philosophy or theology, but that it has no proper place in mathematics.
The bad feelings between Cantor and Kronecker revolved in large part around the two men’s differing conceptions of the infinite. Kronecker had a finitist Pythagorean view of Mathematics and pronounced, “God made the integers and all the rest is the work of man.” Cantor, on the other hand, dealt with all sorts of transcendental collections and constructions. Kronecker’s assault on the brilliant but hypersensitive Cantor may have been a factor in the latter’s breakdown and ultimate commitment to a mental institution.
The illness may, in fact, have supported his belief that the transfinite numbers had been communicated to him from God. In fact, as he noted in the third motto to his last publication, the Beitrage of 1895: The time will come when these things which are now hidden from you will be brought into the light. This is a familiar passage from the Bible, first Corinthians, and reflects Cantor's belief that he was an intermediary serving as the means of revelation. It also may have served to reflect Cantor's faith that despite any prevailing resistance to his work, it would one day enjoy recognition and praise from mathematicians everywhere.
Cantor may have been right after all since his concepts such as one-to-one correspondence among sets, his proof that there are more real numbers than integers, and the "infinity of infinities" ("Cantor's paradise") the power set operation gives rise to, eventually led to the widespread acceptance of Cantorian set theory.
Around 1900, Rusell and Zermelo independently found paradox on Cantorian definition of set. However, it has been reported that Cantor had already come upon his own version of the paradoxes of set theory in the form of contradictions he associated with the idea of a largest ordinal or cardinal number. This was all explained in letters first to Hilbert in 1897, and then to Dedekind in 1899.
This suggests that Cantor may well have been aware of the paradoxes of set theory much earlier, perhaps as early as the 1880's, when his difficulties with Kronecker were weighing on his mind and he was just beginning to experience his first serious technical problems with set theory.
In 1908, two ways of avoiding the paradox were proposed, Russell's type theory and Ernst Zermelo's axiomatic set theory, the first consciously constructed axiomatic set theory. Zermelo's axioms went well beyond Frege's axioms of extensionality and unlimited set abstraction, and evolved into the now-canonical Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZFC).
Elsewhere, Cantor actually described his conviction about the truth of his theory explicitly in quasi-religious terms: My theory stands as firm as a rock; every arrow directed against it will return quickly to its archer. How do I know this? Because I have studied it from all sides for many years; because I have examined it from all sides for many years; because I have examined all objections that have ever been made against the infinite numbers, and above all because I have followed its roots, so to speak, to the first infallible cause of all created things.
Later generations might dismiss the philosophy, look askance at his abundant references to St. Thomas or to the Church Fathers, overlook the metaphysical pronouncements and miss entirely the deeply religious roots of Cantor's later faith in the absolute truth of his theory. But all these commitments contributed to Cantor's resolve not to abandon the transfinite numbers. Opposition seems to have strengthened his determination. His forbearance, as much as anything else he might have contributed, ensured that set theory would survive the early years of doubt and denunciation to flourish eventually as a vigorous, revolutionary force in 20th-century mathematics.

(This is my first write-up in LOGIC and SET THEORY - it's an interesting subject folks.)

References and Suggested Readings:

Paulos, John A. Beyond Numeracy, Ruminations of a Numbers Man. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1991.
GEORG CANTOR AND THE BATTLE FOR TRANSFINITE SET THEORY retrieved from http://www.acmsonline.org/Dauben-Cantor.pdf.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/6083/Set-Theory.html

Barangay development_unispired article

2009-01-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

Development is a long-way process. From the moment we are born we are constantly developing. But the question is, “Are we improving?”
There are two aspects that should be considered if we want to improve ourselves for the sake of barangay development. One, we must strive to have a marked difference. Friends, the question arises here. How are we going to make a marked difference in ourselves?
Allow me to share to you a beautiful story from the internet.
A grade one teacher told her class that she is an atheist. She asked the class to raise their hand if they wanted to be an atheist too. Now, knowing that their teacher is an authoritarian therefore everybody raised their hand except little Lucy who is seated at the far end of the room. The furious teacher approached Lucy and asked, “Why you didn’t raise your hand?” “Because, my mother is a Christian and my father is a Christian, therefore, I’m a Christian too,” little Lucy replied. The teacher furiously asked “So, if your mother is stupid and your father is stupid, then what are you?” “An atheist,” Lucy replied.
Friends, certainly, Little Lucy already know how to make a difference even at her young age. She did not immediately follow what their teacher wants even knowing the fact that the teacher is the highest authority in the classroom. Indeed, she did make a marked difference. This kind of difference is what we need for barangay development.
As we continue in our career, we may meet several instances wherein our “big boss” wants us to do a certain thing which we already know is very wrong. We must be objective enough to differentiate right from wrong by using our subjective conscience. If we are able to do this, then, we can proudly say that we already attain that high level of self-improvement. Making a marked difference is not easy. We may meet several struggles within and without, from our families and friends up to our enemies and critics, but we have to do what is right for the sake of universal development.
Another aspect that we have to consider in achieving barangay development is change. This is not simply change, but, change for the better. Let me share again my experience during my elementary days.
Our math teacher is very strict in his class. He is also a sharp shooter – that is in terms of throwing an eraser to us. The eraser seems to be a caliber 45 bullet that perfectly hit its target. One day, he called our bully classmate in the front to answer the question on the board – that is, 20 divided by 5.
Due to tension and to the fact that the teacher is terror, my classmate just froze there in the front. Our teacher immediately lost his patience and bangs his head on the board. Afterwards he asked my classmate, “Did you count how many times I hit your empty head on the board?” My classmate replied, “Four times sir.” “Well, that’s the answer to that damn question!” our teacher exclaimed.
Fortunately, after our teacher was reported to the authority for his misconduct of behavior, he slowly changes – from being harsh to the most nice math teacher I’ve encountered. From then on, he was calm and patience in introducing his lessons which also greatly benefited us. Indeed, because of that change for the better that our teacher attained, our mathematical ability and his teaching skill developed.
So, this change in ourselves that I’m talking about has many good effects. From “bitter” we became better persons. We may affect the society that we live in through our actions. Because we are morally good, then our light will shine upon all men. There will be unity – thus there is an inevitable development.
We must remember that our country is composed of barangays. This just simply means that if our barangays are all developed, we therefore have a prosperous country, a very harmonious country that we live in. But as what I have said, we cannot achieve this development if we will not strive to attain change for the better among ourselves. Development therefore starts from each of us.
But, why is it very hard for us to change for the better?
Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Gaudium et Spes wrote “The dichotomy affecting the modem world is, in fact, a symptom of the deeper dichotomy that is rooted in humanity itself. It is the meeting point of many conflicting forces. As created beings, people are subject to many limitations…”
We therefore are subject to different opposing forces everyday. We are in constant temptation. Though we are created basically good, but we have an inclination to sin. There is no other cure for this “inclination to sin” aside of course from asking guidance from God. It is very hard for us to change our self if there is no God to guide us.
Lastly, we can’t do anything without God. There is no self-improvement and development if God is not there. Many times, we just take Him for granted that’s why development seems to be vague.
Friends, my challenge is this, we have to live our life according to the light of Christian values for us to make a marked difference and change for the better for the sake of self-development which will lead to barangay development. We have to be Christ-like and live according to his teachings.
Thank you and once again good evening!

(This one was used by my “friend” sa ila oration contest their at Bacuag. The theme there is “self-improvement for barangay development.” Duh, I’m not an expert in this field…Huh…I’m not inspired in making this article…duh, for the sake of compliance ra ni.)