To Right A Wrong

Every wrong doing is a barrier separating us from God. To move closer to Him, the barrier must be removed. Restitution (described in the dictionary as “any act of restoring . . . of giving an equivalent for loss or damage”) is one way of accomplishing this. It is not easy, but if you work at it, you’ll find the rewards are great.

First, read the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19) and not how he decided that before he could become a follower of Jesus he had to make restitution for his past dishonesty: “And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.” Then review the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). Make your prayer something like this: “Lord, I have done many wrong things in my life. Hel me to see now which ones I can rectify. Show me how to go about this so that in a small way it will ease the hurt of mankind and glorify You.”

Second, make a list of the wrongs you want to right and submit it prayerfully to God. Remember this is a private matter between you and God. Do not let anyone else see this list. Overzealousness in confessing sins is wrong if it involves someone else and hurts is or her reputation.

Third, write down after each wrong the action you feel guided to take. A letter of apology; or, if there seems no way to pay a person back, send an equivalent sum to a church or charity. Restoring a bad relationship is thorny; one way is to seek the other person out and personally admit your mistake. Go further and accept responsibility for things that happened which you feel were not your fault. If your effort is rejected, don’t feel hurt. You tried. Te wounds may take time to heal. Try again later.

Restitution is a good way to deal wit an overgrown ego. It also strengthen one’s faith and makes it harder to beackslide. The worker who returned the equipment he had sneaked out of his company found his will to resist temptations stronger. The more so because he acknowledged his guilt to is boss and fellow workers. Restitution always const something—money, pride, position—but the alternative is worse, and inner discontent.

Righting a wrong smooths your way to God agan! - L.E.L

Source: “ Daily Guidepost ”

Heroes (3)

Indeed, great sacrifices were required of these heroes. Hardship and deprivation, fear and anxiety, were all unavoidable circumstances in their lofty aspirations to fight for what is right. Threats of execution were living realities for them, and which fructified in the cases of Rizal, Bonifacio, Aquino and many more. But these images of heroism were accompanied by an enduring spirit even in the face of death.

To embody courage under the most gruesome circumstance, and many of them were tortured, they had to repress their fears of pain and death. To embody toughness, they had to repress their feelings of vulnerability and sacrifice their time with, and emotions for, their families. To embody toughness, they had to repress their sensitivities. To fight the demons of the times, they had to repress compassion for their adversaries.

But the greed and megalomania of tyrants, whom these heroes have confronted, will keep on re-emerging as evil has a tenacious conduct that cannot be banished from the world. Even laws will not suffice to prohibit such conduct as even lawmakers become privy to the evil, the greed, and the contempt for the suffering masses of our people.

But the lessons of history are clear and the lives of our heroes are sufficiently tactile in making us aware of ourselves in the shaping of our destiny. Awareness reduces the chances of being manipulated by plunderers. When we finally take action on our awareness, it is when the hero within ourselves blossoms. And when collective action takes place, it is when the demons of greed, plunder, and corruption, start quaking in their steps. ericfmallonga@yahoo.com

Heroes (2)

There are three other heroes, whom I know through some affiliation with their children.

Noynoy Aquino, now senator, was a classmate at the Ateneo de Manila University. He once invited me to join him on a weekend visit to his father. With awe, I had been able to watch on TV the only man with the temerity to insult the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in his confrontational speeches. Unfortunately for me, when I gathered the courage to want to personally visit this hero, he already had a heart attack and his whole family left for the United States for his cardiac operation. When he came back, Ninoy Aquino was executed on the airport tarmac.

There was also another classmate at UP College of Law, Chel Diokno, who once related to me his visits to his father, the great Pepe Diokno. Pepe Diokno and Ninoy Aquino were the only political detainees incarcerated in solitary confinement at Nueva Ecija. Chel told me that Pepe Diokno had grown so thin in detention that he kept on holding the back of his pants so that it would not fall. Pepe Diokno was my mother’s lawyer and I had heard him speak so eloquently at lectures delivered in UP.

Another classmate, Atty. Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana, related to me her family life as she visited her father, who was detained four times during the Marcos dictatorship. Those were difficult years for the Pimentel family. Today, through Gwen, I have done some consultancies on her father’s bills on children’s rights. I have been privileged with these surrogate and actual brushes with national heroes, who have sacrificed so much for our nation. – Eric Mallonga; ericfmallonga@yahoo.com

Heros (1)

Good morning friends. Tooday is the big celebration of our Independence day. It is the time for our freedom. Freedom of our country.

INDEPENDENCE Day celebration filled me with past images of heroes struggling for the independence of this nation so that our people could be free. Clear images of heroism crystallize when their lives become tactile in the memories of people and families who continue their struggles today. History lessons are not just obscure pages from unread books that gather dust in school libraries. They are actual lessons from the lives of flesh-and-blood persons who made the ultimate sacrifice to unfetter the shackles of our people’s ignorance, apathy, and cowardice.

I remember accompanying my mother, Consolacion Florentino Mallonga, in visiting her homeland. She passed by the monument of her great grand-aunt Leona Florentino in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. As she reflected before the statue of the aged, noble lady who wrote award-winning poems of liberation against the Spaniards at a time of turmoil and national enslavement by Spain, I stumbled across the Florentino mansion just beside my ancestor’s monumental statue with a plaque that read: “Leona Florentino . . . distant aunt of Jose Rizal.”

Looking back with much perplexity at that precise moment of my mother’s visit to our ancestral homeland, I realized then that my mother wanted to share the simple message to elevate me from my normally seditious character—that our heroes were actually real people, who struggled in the time of their own lives when they walked the surface of this planet and that rebellion had its own causes and reasons for being. That woman straddled atop the monumental pedestal, the name of the man in the plaque at her mansion, and the woman reflecting before her monument—those people are my real-life heroes after whom I have patterned my life in a desire to emulate the values they have ingrained in their descendants. – Eric Mallonga

June 14 is World Blood Donor Day 2009 (2)

The PNRC also upgraded its set blood collection equipment through the acquisition of additional apheresis machines, refrigerated centrifuges, refrigerators, plasma freezers, ultra low plasma freezers, chest-top platelet agitators, table-top platelet agitators, electric tube sealers and blood mixers. These were distributed to different PNRC blood centers nationwide.

It takes all blood types to save lives. It takes all types of people to give blood - plasma, platelets, Type O, A, B, and AB. The PNRC, as a premiere humanitarian organization, is committed in attaining TOTAL VOLUNTARY BLOOD DONATION through Red Cross 143 Program. In every barangay, Red Cross has a pool of 25 to 43 strong social engagement and sense of belonging can be the foundation of a pool of voluntary donors.

As the National Blood Program moves towards the goal of total voluntary donation by 2010, there is an increasing appreciation of these donors and their pivotal role in ensuring adequacy of safe blood. It is important that their contribution be recognized and valued by the community. To our dear blood donors, we thank you for your unselfish gesture and support to the cause of the organization in saving lives.

I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to every Filipino to be one with us in working together, by being mutually cooperative and supportive of each other, for the betterment of the National Blood Program.

Also, we are encouraging every Filipino to donate their blood voluntary to save lives. For information on how to donate blood, you may call PNRC National Blood Center at 3019968 or visit our website LINK “http://www.redcross.org.ph” www.redcross.org.ph.

Aside from blood donation, the PNRC, through its “Blood Samaritan” Project, raises funds to subside the cost of blood processing and testing. This program is a fund drive that will not only ensure the availability of safe and quality blood to everyone but most especially to indigent patients as need arises. We are appealing to the generous and altruistic hearts of the “Good Samaritans” to help PNRC sustain the operation of its blood services through their monetary donations.

Again, we urge you to join the global community in making World Blood Donor Day 2009 an event to remember. Thank you. - Gwendolyn T. Pang , Philippine national red cross SECRETARY-GENERAL

June 14 is World Blood Donor Day 2009 (1)

Good morning friends. Sharing something means a lot to everyone. Not everybody can have what they want. Those who are in the high class people and middle class people they have financially share what they have. Those who are in a low class people even if they want to share something, they can’t do that because they are also in need. There will be a World Donor Day 2008 on June 14. With that, I can say there is no high class, middle class, and low class people. Everybody will be equal here. Everyone can donate blood as long as they want. We are not talking about the status of a person this time. We are talking for something which everyone can donate no matter you are included in a low class people. Let’s donate blood. A small amount of each and everyone’s blood is a huge help to someone who need it.

Held every 14th of June throughout the world, World Blood Donor Day provides a unique opportunity to thank millions of people who give their blood voluntarily. Evidence from around the world demonstrates that voluntary, unpaid donors are the foundation of a safe blood supply because they are least likely to transmit potentially life-threatening infections such as HIV and hepatitis through their blood. They are also more likely to give blood regularly, enabling safe blood to be made available to all patients requiring transfusion. It is to these unsung heroes that the World Blood Donor Day is dedicated.

World Blood Donor Day creates a wider awareness of the need for safe blood for transfusion and the importance of voluntary blood donation. The theme for 2009 “Toward 100% Voluntary, Non-remunerated Blood Donation” captures this and can be brought to life with the slogan, “One Nation.One Blood.SHARE!”

As the leading voluntary non-remunerated blood donor recruiter in the country, the Philippine National Red Cross’ (PNRC) unrelenting advocacy has augmented the Department of Health’s efforts to secure the Supreme Court ruling against blood donation for money and for business. In September 2006, the Supreme Court handed down the decision to close commercial blood banks in conformity with Republic Act 7719 or the National Blood Services Act of 1994 with finality. Now, we already have 69 blood services facilities and will add 27 more so that every Filipino in need of safe blood will have access to it immediately whenever and wherever needed. - Gwendolyn T. Pang , Philippine national red cross SECRETARY-GENERAL

True measure of success

Good morning friends. Success? That’s all what we want in our lives. We want to achieve the goals we planned for our future and for the future of our love ones. I have read one article written by R. Valencia and S. Bismark. It’s a good article and I want to share it with you.

Eighteen years ago, a baby girl was born with hydrocephalus. She was operated on and survived, but never lived a normal life. She could not speak, walk properly, or play. Nevertheless, her mother made sure that her baby had a good life by providing for her material and spiritual needs.

The mother had her daughter learn the basics of spirituality: She first established the daily routine of worshipping the Supreme Being. Together, they offered flowers and fruits to the Lord. The mother lovingly sang and chanted His names as often as she could and played tapes of purifying transcendental sounds.

Prayers

Even if it took longer than normal, the young girl eventually learned to play the tambourine. She would clap her hands to show her heartfelt participation in the offerings. She couldn’t say her prayers or sing, but humming was her way of glorifying the Supreme Person. Limited as her faculties were, her offerings were perfectly understood and accepted by the Supreme.

Names

A week ago, she left her disabled mortal frame. Her heart and lungs were pushed by her deformed spine, leading to pneumonia and sepsis. When she expired, she was surrounded by her mother and siblings, who were praying and singing to her ears the wonderful names of the Supreme.

She had a good life, and it was made fuller by her relationship to and awareness of the merciful Supreme. She may have been physically retarded, but her progress in the spiritual realm was nothing to scoff at—and that was the true measure of her success.