AKO.

ako. io. I. yo.

When i was a kid, i told everybody that my dream was to become a social worker. I always dreamt of going to places in the Philippines, in India, in Africa, wherever - every place that saw a tear in a hungry child's face, every corner of the world where a hug meant more than a dollar, a helping hand more than new shoes.

I remember even writing this poem (which luckily I have in my archives) entitled "LUHA", which means tears or lacrime.

...he smiled,
the little boy whose feet were hard as rocks,
whose stomach growled a vicious monster,
whose face wore ages of pain and regret

i wondered how regret could be pasted onto a face
which should house innocence and joy,

he smiled,
the little boy who looked at me like i was his long-lost brother

he smiled,
because i smiled too.

part of "LUHA"
cris. jan.15, 1991.


I wonder what happened to that dream. I can still feel that desire. To seek a way to help, to find a chance - to feel more ---I dont know, human. All the homeless people. All the orphans. All the young and dying, the old and aging. Their pains should be OUR pains, too. Shouldn't it?

Aren't they US? Aren't we THEM?


Let me share this most beautiful song called PARAISO. Which is strange, in a way. Because like the title of the song, which i think , can be understood in all languages, so should the very words BEING HUMAN.






The video features some photos from the Philippines. For more on the country, check out these two other videos:









And i end this blog with a part taken from Carlos P. Romulo's "I am a Filipino" essay:

I sprung from a hardy race — child of many generations removed of ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries, the memory comes rushing back to me: of brown-skinned men, putting out to sea in ships that were as frail as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne upon the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the mighty swell of hope — hope in the free abundance of new land that was to be their home and their children’s forever.

This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore that their eyes first set upon, every hill and mountain that beckoned to them with a green and purple invitation, every mile of rolling plain that their view encompassed, every river and lake that promised a plentiful living and the fruitfulness of commerce, is a hollowed spot to me.

By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of law, human and divine, this land and all the appurtenances thereof — the black and fertile soil, the seas and lakes and rivers teeming with fish, the forests with their inexhaustible wealth in wild life and timber, the mountains with their bowels swollen with minerals — the whole of this rich and happy land has been, for centuries without number, the land of my fathers. This land I received in trust from them, and in trust will pass it to my children, and so on until the world no more.


agosto. 07