My Favorite Sunsets of Western Marinduque

Taken from the Balcony of the Beach House

The following are some of the sunset photos I have in my collections taken in Western Marinduque. Most of the photos were taken very close to the Chateau Du Mer Beach House in Amoingon in Boac.





















Do you have a favorite photo? I really love sunsets! Sunset time is my favorite time of the day in Marinduque.

Another Case of a Battered Husband in the Philippines

In my last posting about battered husbands, I cited two cases that had come to my attention last year. One case was here in the US( a coworker) and the other case was in the Philippines(a relative) The article dated 11/12/12 can be found at www.squidoo.com/abused-against-men-the-battered-husband.htm

This week I learned of another battered husband case in the Philippines. The battered husband is a close kin of my wife. For the purpose of this article, let me call the husband Benjamin and his wife Lola. Relatives and friends of Benjamin oftentimes just call him Benjie while Lola has another name Bu-angit( crazy in Ilonggo).

Benjie's family are rich landowners in Mindoro. When Benjie's parents died, the property were divided into the 7 siblings. But Bu-angit was later able to claim and usurp portions of land supposed to be inherited by one of the sisters of Benjie. The story of Benjie and Lola is a classic tale of greed, indifference, envy and marital discord of a well to do Filipino family.

I have met Benjie and Lola and have interactions with them several times during their married life. Lola has a temper, so I was sure that Benjamin was a victim of verbal abuses. Lola several years ago came to visit relatives here in US. On her way home to the Philippines, she had a temper tantrum in the airport. It took a while for her to calm down.

Today, I was surprised to learn that Benjamin was also a victim of physical abuse. Benjamin and Lola have four adults children and several young grandchildren. Both hailed from Mindoro(neighboring island of Marinduque), but decided to reside in Quezon City after their college graduations. Benjamin was an engineer and a business executive before his retirement. Lola was a full time housekeeper and occasionally teaches piano. We know of several friends of the couple and heard of incidents of Lola's temper tantrums. Lola is also known for her erratic behavior during full moon. We did not however have much contact with Benjamin and Lola for the last 5 years, not until last week when Benjamin died of heart attack at the age of 71. We were also informed that a week before Benjie died he was scheduled for heart by-pass surgery. For unknown reasons, the surgery was cancelled. It is rumored that Lola convinced Benjie not to have surgery, because of the costs of the surgery. I feel this is not really the reason, since the couple are very wealthy. They owned lands and two houses in Mindoro as well as beach houses in Batangas and Marinduque and has a good business in Quezon City.

Benjamin had several relatives residing in the US. Last week, a relative( Gilda) flew to the Philippines just to attend for his funeral and cremation services. It was at this time that she learned of Benjie's suffering as a victim of Lola's verbal and physical abuse. The story was relayed to Gilda by the personal caretaker of Benjamin.

The story of Benjie's abuse was relayed by Gilda to my wife and I am writing this story. This is a true story. But to protect the family and privacy of both the late Benjamin and Lola, the names and places in this article are fictitious but the story of Benjamin as a battered husband is true and not a product of my wild and vivid imagination.

Again, as I wrote in my first article on this subject, battered husband cases are not as common as the battered wife cases. But this story confirms that there are battered husbands all around the world, but are too ashamed to seek help when they are still alive. In the case of Benjamin, his case was only known after his death last week. May Benjamin's soul rest in Peace, Amen.

My Favorite Quotes on Death and Dying

Two deaths of a kin and an acquaintance this week, reminds me that all of us will eventually die. The time of dying is oftentimes unexpected . Some of us are ready to die but others are not. So my dear readers are you ready to die? The following are 10 quotes that I can identify based on my life experiences.

1. “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.”
― Isaac Asimov

2. “Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.”
― Christopher Pike, The Last Vampire

3. “Be calm. God awaits you at the door.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

4. “I don't want my life to be defined by what is etched on a tombstone. I want it to be defined in what is etched in the lives and hearts of those I've touched.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

5. “We are so afraid of the idea of having to die… that we always try to find excuses for the dead, as if we were asking beforehand to be excused when it is our turn…”
― José Saramago, Blindness

6. “The old man smiled. 'I shall not die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived.”
― Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

7. “This was how the world ended. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”
― Andrea Speed, Bloodlines

8. “We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing.”
― George Orwell, 1984

9. “Memories are of the ethereal, and not the material world, that is how I know I am forever.”
― Michael Poeltl

10. “Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.”
― Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Hegemon

My Love and Hate of American Football

Having been born and raised in the Philippines until I was 23 years old, the game called American Football was not in my vocabulary when I was a teenager. It was only in 1960 when I attended graduate school at the University of Illinois that I learned what the game is all about. To me it is a very complicated game, compared to basketball or baseball the sports that I am familiar with. However, it was not after I finished my graduate studies, that I learned to enjoy this game. At first it was the college football, followed by the professional football( NFL) and later on the high school football games that I followed. I started following high school games when my youngest son started to play in the Pee Wee league (Grades 7 to 8) and then later on the Junior Varsity team( Grades 9 to 10). After the kids went to college, my wife and I lost interest in both the high school and college games. The only exception was the annual rivalry between the UC Berkeley Team( The Bears) versus Standford, known as the Big Game. This was due to the fact that our youngest daughter was a cheer leader for UC Berkeley. It was only in the 1980 to 1990 when we move to the San Francisco Bay Area that my wife and I became avid fans of the SF 49's team. The names Joe Montana and Steve Young are names of SF quarterbacks that will always linger in our memories.

Joe Montana was the SF quarterback that made me love the game of American Football. Montana started his NFL career in 1979 with San Francisco, where he played for the next 14 seasons. Traded before the 1993 season, he spent his final two years in the league with Kansas City. While a member of the 49ers, Montana started in four Super Bowl games and won all of them. Montana was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000, his first year of eligibility.

In 1989, and again in 1990, the Associated Press named Montana the NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP), and Sports Illustrated magazine named Montana the 1990 "Sportsman of the Year". Four years earlier, in 1986, Montana won the AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award. Montana was elected to eight Pro Bowls, as well as being voted 1st team All-Pro by the AP in 1987, 1989, and 1990. Montana had the highest passer rating in the National Football Conference (NFC) five times (1981, 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1989); and, in both 1987 and 1989, Montana had the highest passer rating in the entire NFL.

Noted for his ability to remain calm under pressure, Montana helped his teams to 31 fourth quarter come-from-behind wins. In the closing moments of the 1981 NFC Championship Game and Super Bowl XXIII, Montana threw game-winning touchdown passes. The touchdown at the end of the championship game was so memorable that sports journalists, fans, and many others, refer to the play simply as "The Catch". The touchdown in the closing moments of Super Bowl XXIII came at the end of a 92-yard drive.

The 49ers retired the number 16, the jersey number Montana wore while with the team. In 1993, Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs and led the franchise to its first AFC Championship Game in January 1994. In 1994, Montana earned a spot on the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team; he is also a member of the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team. In 1999, editors at The Sporting News ranked Montana third on their list of Football's 100 Greatest Players. Also in 1999, ESPN named Montana the 25th greatest athlete of the 20th century. In 2006, Sports Illustrated rated him the number one clutch quarterback of all-time. Montana was replaced by Steve Young.

From 1990 to 2002 we resided in the Washington DC area. Thus we rooted for the Washington Red Skins, but occasionally we still watch a 49'ers game. My wife and I lost interest in professional football games from 2003 to 2011 due to our other activities ( medical mission work in Marinduque, Philippines).

This year we are again rooting for the Niners and its new quarterback Colin Kaepernick from Turlock. For those of you who are not American citizens and have no idea what American football is, here a short information from Wikipedia.

American football, known in the United States simply as football, is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone by running with it or throwing it to a teammate. Points can be scored by carrying the ball over the opponent's goal line or catching a pass thrown over that goal line (6 points), kicking the ball through the opponent's goal posts (3 points), or tackling an opposing ball carrier (2 points) in his own end zone.

In the United States, the major forms are high school football, college football and professional football( NFL). Each of these are played under slightly different rules. High school football is governed by the National Federation of State High School Associations and college football by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The highest level league for professional football is the National Football League.

American football is closely related to Canadian football but with some differences in rules and the field. Both sports can be traced to early versions of association and rugby football. It is also a contact sports, but totally different than soccer football popular all over the world. Here's a video, a typical reaction of a soccer football enthusiast from the other parts of the world ( Europe or South America).

Do you Practice Feng Shui?

Meditation Feng Shui

In my younger days, I used to be an enthusiast of the practice of Feng shui. I have read several books on the subject. The practice is very interesting and to me it is all common sense. So what is Feng Shui?

Feng shui is an ancient art and science developed over 3,000 years ago in China. It is a complex body of knowledge that reveals how to balance the energies of any given space to assure health and good fortune for people inhabiting it.

Feng means wind and shui means water. In Chinese culture wind and water are associated with good health, thus good feng shui came to mean good fortune, while bad feng shui means bad luck, or misfortune.

Historically, feng shui was widely used to orient buildings—often spiritually significant structures such as tombs, but also dwellings and other structures—in an auspicious manner. Depending on the particular style of feng shui being used, an auspicious site could be determined by reference to local features such as bodies of water, stars, or a compass. Feng shui was suppressed in China during the cultural revolution in the 1960s, but since then has increased in popularity.

Modern reactions to feng shui are mixed. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience states that some principles of feng shui are "quite rational", while noting that "folk remedies and superstitions, that have been incorporated into feng shui's eclectic mix" borders to a pseudo science.

I have applied the principle of Feng shui in the arrangement of furniture in our house, color scheme in the room decor of our retirement home, the location of the front door of buildings in the Philippines and also the landscaping and orientation of trees and plants in my garden. I have not become a very rich person due to my practice of feng shui, but I do enjoy practicing the art of feng shui in all facets of my life.

Try Feng shui and you will feel better, happy and who knows you might win in the lottery and become very rich in the near future. As New Year approaches, this is a good time to start new and fresh and have fun in your Feng shui practices.

Here's a short video on the basics of Feng shui!