The Jojo Binay saga is getting more interesting every day

 

 

Your mantra for the week: “The presence of God within me is my Savior.”

 

Why has it become so fashionable to wear God on one’s sleeves—like announcing one’s goodness and godliness?

 

One can’t help suspecting that there are things that person is hiding underneath this veneer of holiness.

 

Many people speak of how they go to Mass every day, read the scriptures in church; and yet they turn around and assassinate the characters of those around them.

 

Some even claim “they have found Jesus.” I wonder whether these people know that the word “Jesus” literally means Savior, very much like Batungbakal means a stone as hard as iron. So, what the billboard sign “Jesus alone saves” literally says is, “Savior alone saves.”

 

But I do not mean to demean Jesus of Nazareth, who became the Christ, meaning Jesus the Anointed. To be “anointed,” one had to use oil—the very oil that was used to light lamps in ancient times.

 

Symbolically, when you are anointed, it means you are enlightened, like how Siddhartha Gautama became Buddha, the Enlightened One.

 

So, Buddha and Jesus were given the respective titles, the Enlightened One and the Anointed One. Both, to me, were Way Showers and never claimed they were God. Jesus said, “If you follow me, greater works than I you will do,” meaning whatever works he had achieved, his followers could do even more.

 

I sincerely believe that one’s savior is within every human being. It is the “I am” of the Old Testament because no one outside of you, whether it be Confucius, Buddha or Jesus, can save you, except the I am within you.

 

It’s what Christianity refers to as the Father; and this Father, in my opinion, says yes to all our desires—whether consciously, positive or negative. As the scriptures say, “Choose ye today God or Mammon.”

 

For consciousness is, indeed, like a computer, absorbing every thought, emotion and the words we speak silently like our inner dialogue, or those expressed explicitly.

 

The three persons referred to in religion, when metaphysically interpreted, means the three persons as in English grammar: “I am”; “you are”; and “he/she/it is” or “they are.”

 

When thinking, feeling and speaking that your neighbor is stupid is equivalent to saying I am stupid, it is then registered in your consciousness—very much like uploading the idea in a computer.

 

However, in a computer, we can delete what we uploaded. In consciousness, nothing can be deleted and is ultimately manifested in our outer lives, depending on how consistently we have dwelt on certain ideas and feelings.

 

Furthermore, a computer can be turned off and will cease to work, unlike consciousness—it goes on and on and on, producing things in your life until you reprogram it.

 

One can only reprogram through mantras, affirmations, visualization and seeing the good or God in everything.

 

One of the most wonderful results in seeing the good in everything is that we cause it to happen even when it looks totally un-good.

 

Old beliefs

 

All of these sound so simple because they are simple, but not easy to implement. The majority of people get stuck in their old beliefs—in the vernacular, nakagisnan, nakasanayan and difficult to eradicate. Yes, it is not easy to get over old beliefs, but get over them we must, if we desire to change our lives for the better.

 

In doing so, you will find a new sense of freedom because you will definitely find the truth that will set you free. This truth, to me, is the law of sowing and reaping which does not only cover our deeds, but also begins with our thoughts and feelings about ourselves and others.

 

Hermès’ balls, anyone?

 

Wow, now we even have a cocktail ball… to promote Hermès silk scarves, no less. Why should a cocktail party be called a ball?

 

I asked Mario Katigbak and he explained that France simply wants to call it a ball; and its dance feature was a silk-it-up line dance and other side shows—like posing with Hermès scarves, wearing fabulous colored masks and feathered headdresses, and even henna tattoos in different parts of the anatomy.

 

Now I’m beginning to see the light about why, in the Philippines, we are ball-crazy. Apparently, even in France, people would attend anything that is described as a ball.

 

I always thought a ball was a formal occasion with a traditional rigodon, or some group dance like a baroque or Basque dance, or even a cotillion.

 

This is a rude awakening for me; I must have been caught in a time warp, for now a ball can be anything from a cocktail party, an awards night, a club anniversary, a fundraiser and whatever anyone can think of, for as long as one can invite lots of people.

 

This has given me an idea for my next celebration. It will be truly unique because it will be called a strictly formal Breakfast Ball; and to awaken everyone, it shall feature the Irish jig.

 

The last time I wrote about balls and said I preferred Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s kind of balls, I apparently ruffled the feathers of some parties who felt I intended to turn their “carriages” back into pumpkins. What can I say, except thank God it is almost Halloween.

 

‘Jao Tiu?’

 

The Jejomar Binay saga is getting more interesting every day. It looks like rich Chinese are the ones allegedly fronting for the Vice President. There is a Tiu, there is a Jao, which leads me to ask, “Jao Tiu” are all these allegations?

 

Lately, Binay’s political spokesperson Jonvic Remulla has been saying, “It really goes to show that it’s hard to put a good man down.” But surely, Remulla forgets, you can “up” a bad one.

 

Good chance

 

Congratulations to Valerie Weigmann and to the board of judges who picked the Miss World Philippines 2014 candidates I had in mind, except that my choice for first princess would have been Nelda Ibe, and this is not to discredit the winning of Lorraine Kendrickson.

 

My two choices of candidates No. 19, Valerie, and No. 20, Nelda, are based not only on their beauty and personality, but also on their life cycles computed for the international pageant in London on Dec. 15.

 

On that date, Valerie would be in her first cycle of the sun which gives her a really good chance to become Miss World 2014. If Nelda had won Miss World Philippines, she too, could have been a prospective Miss World titleholder because she would have entered her fifth cycle of Jupiter.

 

More on Manuel Roxas

 

I have always wondered why my father never talked about his own father, Pedro Maria Sison. So little did I know about him until Wikipedia came along; it says that my grandpa Pedro Maria Sison was a senator of the Philippines, judge of the Court of First Instance, a statesman and philanthropist.

 

He was a delegate to the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1935; and the municipality of Sison in Pangasinan is named after him.

 

In 1896, at age 11, he joined his father in fighting the Spaniards during the Philippine revolution.

 

During the American occupation, he helped his father restore peace and order in Binalonan and Urdaneta towns. That explains why I’ve always had an activist’s heart.

 

And speaking of activism, I just got a message from the Netherlands from Jose Maria Sison whom I fondly call pinsan even if he comes from a different region, and I certainly do not believe in the cause he represents.

 

I once teased Joma that there were only two Sisons in the Philippines—he and myself, from two opposite poles, a communist and a burgis (bourgeois). And to think he and I graduated from the University of the Philippines at the same time. He was an excellent poet and I was the philosopher in a hurry, having finished my AB course in three years.

 

Here’s my pinsan’s message: “A major love of Manuel Roxas was a woman surnamed McIlvain whom he kept mainly in Baguio. She was the mother of Manuel M. Roxas Jr., classmate of my brother Ramon at the Ateneo de Manila. At one time, the wife of Manuel Roxas stormed the Ateneo to demand that the Jesuits stop the junior from using the name of his father. Have you come across this, George?”

 

Oh Lourd, please take over!