Since our news still does not seem to get over it..

I might just as well share these thoughts I've written in my incognito blog/diary.  


One month has passed since the Manila hostage crisis.  Yes, that incident.  It was shameful as it was but it does not make everyone in my country less as they are.  

Anyway I have written these in the height of the blame game that quickly brewed up right after the tragic ending. I guess, it was so necessary.  It was painful enough so each one needed someone, anyone to blame.  So here I went:

To whom it may concern:


And now everybody is playing the blame game.

Let’s blame the hostage taker.  He’s totally out of his mind to have used people’s lives to get what he wanted.  There was just no justification to his wrongdoing.  Nothing.

Let’s blame the SWAT or those uniformed men we saw right there.  We are just stating the obvious here.  Let’s not beat around the bush and say that it was handled rather how it was supposed to be.  I am a saying this, claiming no knowledge whatsoever of what and what could not have been done.  But let’s face it, it was their job, their task to handle such a situation.  It would be absurd to say that they had nothing to do with the terrible ending of the crisis, or that they did their best when we all saw that there was so much better judgment and action on their part wanting.  Let’s just put it this way, we have teachers to teach, housemaids to help in our households and doctors to help the sick.  It was their job to take on such a situation and they failed.  They failed so badly.

Let’s blame the media.   They were so lost in the big scoop unfolding in front of them, they forgot to take some cautious effort or better judgment.  They forgot that that the blow by blow account of what was happening might be seen by the hostage taker and it might just blow it.  And it did.

Let’s blame the onlookers.   But at a latter thought, no, they had to be there. They just could not miss a thing.  What if the police might need some assistance?  Like an errand to get a high chair so that SWAT could climb up the windows, or, get an extra maso since it seemed that the officers  would always lose hold of them. Probably it was too heavy to handle, so an errand could get a lighter one.  They were just indispensable and I gather, the police thought so too, because they were allowed to be there the whole time. 

Let’s blame the commanders, those people who were supposed to do the brainwork, those who could see the situation with their special skills, those armed with studies on hostage stuff, those who could better see it at a perspective and those who knew at what time and how soon the problem should end.  We didn’t have a totally deranged man.  We saw it.  He tried to negotiate.  But no, the brainwork people, I thought, knew better.  So it had to take 12 distressing hours.  And it had to end tragically.

Let’s blame the Ombudsman.  I do not know much about our laws.  Neither do I have a complete grasp of how an erring government official should be penalized or not.  But how could one give such a negative letter to someone desperate and  disturbed enough to hold people’s lives in exchange of a letter with a happy note.  Oh, I forgot we have rules to follow and everything has to go through a process.  So he should wait. Right!

Let’s blame the president.  He was in a closed-door meeting.  And the door was so tight-locked and the meeting was so important that the lives waiting to be taken at any time, and the international relations on the verge of a slit-throat had to wait.

But everyone now seem to claim that they have played their cards right. 

So do we blame now the HK tourists? Let’s see.

They should have not ridden that bus and roamed around our country, for who knows a policeman who has sentiments against the government might hostage them. 

Or the driver?  He could not have driven that bus and took the job of touring the HK nationals.  He shouldn’t have been a driver in the first place! 

Or the airport? It could not have allowed these people to enter the country for who knows there might be a police officer who might kidnap and take them as hostages. 

Or, the Quirino Grandstand should not have been constructed!

Obviously this is a sarcasm-stricken post.  You see, there is just no point for a blame game.  Everything is done now.  What it takes is somebody, some people, standing up and saying, there was something wrong in there and that has to be corrected. But that shouldn’t end there.  We CANNOT just choose to do or not to do or even neglect to do something which is called upon us and say that no one wanted it to happen, especially after loss of lives regardless of nationality or race.  Somebody, some people have to take responsibility. -JDMO

So there.  Now things are getting pretty well or maybe not.  But surely people may start standing up and recognize their shortcomings.  The President has started doing that.  And I guess, it's just fair that we give everyone a chance.  In the first place, I believe, deep inside my Filipino heart, that NO ONE wanted it to end that way.

When you think I don't notice at all

Coffee

“Arrgh, do you put sugar at all?,” me with puckered brow, smirked. 

He grinned back. 

“That’s my coffee,” he said. 

He makes his coffee dark, almost no sugar at all. My coffee would be in the neutral side, not light, not dark, little sugar. 

Next morning, 
"Hmm,  nice. Ain’t this sweet for you?” me, quizzical, looked at him. His coffee which isn’t bitter, in my hand.


“I know. But didn’t you say you would share my coffee earlier?,” he answered.


Oh.. Yes, I did.






Ripe Banana Fritters


“What will we have for merienda?” “Hmm, okay sinapot this time.” Me and him talking.


Moments later, Nay Loling came with the sinapot or banana fritters from the mini market buransan. 

“Hmm, she bought the right kind,” me, in between nibbles said, satisfied with the fried ripe bananas dipped in flour. 

“Yes, because I told her to buy exactly what kind. Ripe ones” he said. 

I beamed, “Thank you.”

I don’t prefer *manibalang for sinapot. I know he eats whichever, ripe or manibalang. 

*Manibalang refers to the ripeness of a fruit. It means not so ripe.



Umbrella

After a year, I decided to change hairdo. 

“All right let’s do it, and be done with it.,” he insisted, at the salon in the mall, after I was having second thoughts. 

“An hour,” the lady at the counter replied, when he asked how long it’d take. 

“I’ll stroll around while waiting.” He left. 

Hair cut, hair treatment hocus pocus.. It was definitely more than an hour already. 

I checked on him at the couch. He was reading magazines, with few items on his hand. One, bought from a bookstore, the other one from ACE hardware. 

The lady who’s doing my hair was so into impressing me. But it was taking extra long, she was beginning to do the opposite. Finally, it was done. He was impressed. I was impressed. Worth the wait.

At home, while I was wondering where he’d been to wilst I was enjoying the hair pampering, he handed me an umbrella. I just remembered, we were supposed to buy one. 

It was for my use. He bought it at ACE Hardware. 

He wrote my name on it.

The joy in surprises

I was indeed surprised! Why, I won these sweet, lovely pair from Felicia's!

Ain't these very timely for the fast approaching we-need-to-be-warm weather? I am absolutely doing a happy dance! :)

Girls of Riyadh

Originally released in Arabic in 2005, Girls of Riyadh was immediately banned in Saudi Arabia due to controversial and inflammatory content. Black-market copies of the novel circulated and Girls of Riyadh has been a bestseller across much of the Middle East. As of January 2008, English copies of Girls of Riyadh are openly available at major bookstores in Saudi Arabia. The book, published by Penguin Books, is available in the English translation, but has some changes due to difficulties of re-creating the effect of using different dialects of Arabic.

Plot:

The novel describes the relationship between men and women in the conservative Saudi-Arabian Islamic culture. Girls of Riyadh tells the story of four college-age high class friends in Saudi Arabia, girls looking for love but stymied by a system that allows them only limited freedoms and has very specific expectations and demands. There's little contact between men and women -- especially single teens and adults -- but modern technology has changed that a bit (leading to young men trying everything to get women to take down their cellphone numbers). The Internet is also a new medium that can't contain women and their thoughts like the old system could, and the anonymous narrator of the novel takes advantage of that: she presents her stories in the form of e-mails that she sends out weekly to any Saudi address she can find. Sex is described in this novel, and how men ignore women if they give themselves up before marriage.

Source: Wikipedia

I couldn't leave Dubai then without this book.  Apparently, the copies were sold out in the city bookstores or...  So when hub and I found a copy at the airport's Duty Free, I had one for myself like an excited little girl.  And when it comes to reading a book I knew I wanted, there's just no time to waste. 

You're invited to my party and please pick up your awards

It is my birthday today. Balloons fly up the sky, firecrackers pop, confetti falls from the sky.

Although not exactly in my list but this shiny, squeaky, crisp lappy certainly made my birthday.  I'm letting the shoes go in the meantime. It's so timely to rescue the ailing old one I use. Thanks to my brother.  He is the best and  I love him so much.  So if there's a wish I have today on my birthday, it's that he may find strength and still, love.  His long-time gf and him aren't okay.. Loong story..

Anyway, it's my birthday, so this post will be all colorful and happy vibes.  And I thought this is the best time to give out awards too. So if you are reading this now, grab one or two, or all!:)  You deserve by being here at my party.

My thank yous go first to the blog friends who gave me these awards.  This set is special because they all came after I've been absent for sometime, and I am honoring these memes this way.

Thanks Tasha at random musings

And Felicia at Living Just Like Grandma

Thanks The Daring Domesticate

Thanks Tasha at random musings

Thanks Mitch at Upside Down!

Ooops! The links to their blogs are shiny blue.  Feel free to visit any, or all of them.

Happy day!