Reinvigoration of the Public Sector

I do not mean re-engineering or even re-structuring. Maybe all we need is merely to invigorate the government system in order for it to achieve the maximum efficiency that is expected of it.

We have tried such modes of re-invention as re-engineering and re-structuring, at great cost in time and money, and yet improvements have not been substantial or palpable. The public continues to languish in long queues every time a license or a passport is needed. Bribes are ever pernicious, and even more open today, like it is not anymore a secret that should be tucked inside the pocket or a key thrown into the deepest ocean.

Sadly today, the public continues to encounter lazy faces of public servants seemingly tired of their day job and daydreaming of life in beaches almost all day long. At the slightest error, the public who is merely seeking public service get squirmed at by those who are especially employed by the government in order to serve the public, and in order that the common person have the convenience that the government owes them.

What is the aim of the public sector now? This is one vital question that should be addressed before everything can be settled. Is the public servant merely holding position just in order to make a living? He or she should rather be selling vegetables or meat in the market, at least thereat, there would be wider potentiality for the improvement of wealth. Nobody could really get rich in the government service, even serving for a long time.

Is the public servant merely holding position for social status and pride? He or she would rather be joining pageants and spectacles on television, for he or she would be known better there.

The public office is a public trust. This dogma had even been institutionalized in our most fundamental set of laws – our Constitution – and this is most encompassing of all, where no one should be allowed to forget the essence of public service, which is in order to serve thepeople, and not merely for self aggrandizement.

In view of the foregoing issues, therefore it is but time to realigned our views about the public sector, starting from the people within it. That for every employee of the government, whether national or local, every time he or she sees an individual, riding a Mercedes Benz or wearing no shoes and in tattered clothes, it should not matter, because that person, whether rich or poor, famous or unknown, is the very public sector he or she is aimed to serve.

In this manner, improvement of government service and the government system could be initiated, entering its nascent stages.

Despite the improvements in work environment, like air-conditioned areas, new buildings, expensive vehicles and increase in pay and bonuses, government service remains the same old horse, who is lackluster in movement, lacks dynamism and most of all, deficient towards its main aim of serving the public dutifully and with vigor. The government remains a system that is prone to stagnation and inefficiency, misappropriation, abuse of authority and lack of direction.

We have tried re-engineering the government system in the past and yet even the best re-engineers couldn’t tame the wild river that is the Philippine government system. Maybe we need a rocket scientist for this. We have tried re-structuring but even if our re-structurers could build a pyramid or an Eiffel Tower out of a molehill, the government system remains an ancient nipa hut.

Maybe it’s time that we should try re-invigoration.

It’s not as complicated to do as re-structuring does or as expensive as a re-engineering would demand. It only takes will, political will and cooperation from the people in the system. There are a number of factors that would be put in focus in this aim of putting the government service in the right track, one is leadership, two is awareness, three is competition, four incentive, and five public choice.

In LEADERSHIP, I mean to say political leadership. When we all almost agree that politics and the bureaucracy could not really be separated and is intertwined almost all the time, leadership becomes a most important factor in putting vigor and integrity back into the government service. In choosing our political leaders, especially in the next election activities in the coming years, the people should now aim for leaders who have proven capacity to lead and carry an entire workforce towards the improvement of service. It starts with the people then. If the electorate fails in the first place to change our leadership from the highest level, towards the root level, then re-invigorization ofthe government system would remain an illusion.

AWARENESS is two-pronged, first there should be awareness or a high level of consciousness among our public servants that their holding of their respective positions is not meant for self-aggrandizement alone, as a form of livelihood above all, but in order to serve the public well, and this should become a passionate and patriotic mission in every individual that would be integrated into the government service. Secondly, there should be similar level of awareness as to the PUBLIC being the CLIENT that the government is aimed to served, (the private sector prefer to call them CUSTOMERS) and the government system is aimed at primarily serving the needs of the CLIENT, that when the client is dissatisfied, public service becomes irrelevant and inefficient in every sensible sense possible. The CLIENT becomes the reason for existence, without it, there is no public service in the first place. This way, every client that enters the halls of a government office should be served well, for the moment that no one would anymore enter the halls of government offices, is just about the time that public service should eradicated.

COMPETITION could be injected into the public sector so that improvement of service could pertain. If the public could be given a choice as to the locus of a better service that they are necessitating, then every public servant would aim to proffer the better form or kind of service. This would entail privatization or semi-privatization of some government agencies or giving the public more stake in the government system, where there is increased community involvement in public service. Competition would entail the heightened accountability and responsibility factor, where the government service would become directly accountable towards the community, that there is really not one that is indispensable, that the public would always have a better place to go when someone in the public sector doesn’t want to serve the people anymore, but only wants to receive salaries and bonuses. This is where PUBLIC CHOICE comes in. This element of re-invigorization is the most complicated of all, but it could be done through medium term action plan, like say five years in the process, incrementally achieved by phases. And of course, this would entail a more detailed document and methodology.

Competition also would bring forth to the adjustment of tenures in public service where at present, there is that seemingly extreme bias in favor of security of tenure, so extreme that even if a public servant would go to his or her work in drag and sleep all day, the government system could not take him or her away, resulting to mass demoralization and low-level performances. Public service should straightened out its merit system that only a good performance could lead to promotions and increase in compensation, that not one indispensable that for whenever a publicservant does not want to serve the public anymore, as expected of him or her, then other more competent or more able individuals from the workforce should be recruited in his or her stead.

INCENTIVES of course remains a very important element, just like in re-structuring or re-engineering, that for every PUBLIC CHOICE of a government service, the better service would gain performance incentives, such as quota bonuses for a certain level unit of work, like for example if this government cashier had served 100 clients in a day, then performance credits and bonuses would inure or if this inspector had visited more areas or locations in a month than all the rest, he or she receives a hefty amount. It could be done in a larger scale that for example if this government agency branch had performed well in a particular year, more than the others in the same field, the whole workforce of that branch would get bonuses and be lauded with publicacclaim. They do that in private sector, that’s why the private sectorhad been able to build the grand Makati skyline over the years, and is establishing another in Fort Bonifacio and in Ortigas, aside from the busting urban scene in Cebu and Davao, and they do not receive any subsidy from taxpayers, unlike the government service system.

The private sector had not been fraught with issues of grand corruption because employees in the private sector do not attain such level of indispensability like that in the public service, where those who performed well are credited well and remain in the service for long, while those who are lackluster and lack integrity in work is taken out of the system. And besides, if one reaches a managerial or administrative level in the private sector, one is assured of hefty compensation that is why, in recent years, managers and executives of private companies have been able to increased sales in dramatic proportions. There are a lot of things that the government service could learn from the private sector in terms of methodologies, form of work structure, incentive system, recruitment and promotion system, tenures of employees, work ethics and level of competency and most of all in their treatment of the CLIENT, which they often call as the CUSTOMER.

In public service, the CLIENT may not always be right, but for certain they are the reason for being. A population that is served better by thegovernment, in terms of public service—- like education, licenses, security of food, public order and safety, health and welfare, livelihood opportunities, housing, job placements, communication and technology, etc.—- is a population that can make a better government and thereon, a more vibrant State.

(from one of the paper I submitted for my MPA degree in 2011)

Jose Rizal : An Icon Management Test

More than a hundred years ago, in Bagumbayan, shots rang out in the western sky and a man fell down without being able to face his assassins. He stumbled to the ground without being able to turn a complete three hundred sixty twist that he had labored to create when the word “Fuego!!!” rattled and hummed into the wind. 

What courage does a man has to be able to muster enough resolve in order to face the unthinkable in the very instance of death. I have not known any man other than Jose Rizal, who could retain such composure, writing even what could be the greatest farewell ever written when he inscribed within the dim stonewalls put on him, a paean to this Motherland, a last goodbye. ….Adios patria adorada….Goodbye, my dear Motherland…. 

Jose Rizal is the man we see as an icon test, the standards we seek in order to size up our character. He has the courage that every Filipino needs in these times of the greatest trial to our nation’s character to rise above these seemingly unending bouts against poverty and corruption, that led the eventual fall of a once great and rich nation. We are still great now, but we have been much more in the past. 

In his words, “the youth is the nation’s tomorrow”, and no patriotic words could ever be truer than this. The young amongst us are the rising stars that shall take us surging again towards the sky like a phoenix from the flame. They will be our last great hope to bend this stranglehold of misfortune and desperation that holds us down down like a monkey wrench. We, the Filipino people seem to have the perchance of pulling each other down that for every one man that escapes these desperation, a hundred lies naked and homeless in the streets and our daughters become whores that cater to fat-bellied thieves in the government and our sons are pushed to take up the hands of mischief and become hardened in crime and violence. 

It is the moment for us to rebel and seek to put an end to this vicious cycle where generation after generation, we grow into a people lacking in extraordinary vigor and persistence. Our youth must survive this test and we must see our hero, the great Jose Rizal as a test of character for all of us, to emulate his discipline as a young shy creative student until the day he became the courageous young man that he had been, without thought to the benefit of the self but always to the benefit of the greater all, even in the very seconds that those murderous shots rang out in the wind-swept shores of Manila. 

Every day we are bombarded with false icons and false gods. Movie starlets abound that goes gyrating in half-naked garments and they only instill the more animal instincts of our youth. What becomes then of our young but sex-crazed individuals who only seek the pleasure for the material self and puts away the passion and patriotism to contribute to the greater well-being of our country. 

In politics, and in government service, we honor and put on a pedestal those that had fattened themselves with public money. They become our honorees with honoris causa here and honoris causa there. They become godfathers and godmothers to every betrothal there is in town and every loving child that are newly born. They become the toast of the town. The few ones that labor in honesty, like the man who rides a bicycle to congress, do not ever become a godfather to any weddings or a special guest in the openings of some fancy restaurants---at least not in the grandest scheme. We honor those that put us down. They are the cancers of our society. 

Rich men within us just go walking past the hungered in the streets. They have lost their hearts towards their downtrodden brothers and sisters. The Lord Jesus Christ had once said: “Whomsoever said he loves God then hates his brother is a liar for how could he love God whom he could not see and yet hates his brother whom he could see”. We see them parading their charities when disasters come. They become listed in some foundations as the donor of this and the donor of that. That makes us wish that every day there is a disaster for it seems that there has to be some news-rich disaster that they come out from their mansions and castles in order to be part of some much talked about disaster.

Everyday, there is a disaster my brothers and sisters. Everyday, we see men and women who sleep in the streets and carry their young in their hungry arms even when it rains outside. We see infant crying in the night for they seek the milk of their mothers that are not there when they need them. They have no roof, no food, no water and no medicines to cure them. Yet, we pass by them like we do not see a daily disaster. 

Everyday there is a disaster. Our laborers work for pittance and at times they earned lesser than that what is paid a mule. Yet, we do not see this as an everyday disaster. We see the earnings of these companies skyrocketing to the roof and yet the pay we earn moves like turtle. Net income increase for the year here, net income increase for the year there. Targets overlapped here, target overlapped there. 

Yet our icons becomes them, those who seek not the hands of their brothers and sisters but labor and strive only so that they could build another mansion when they already have two, and looks forward to buy another car when they have already seven in their garages. 

Our youth must see another form of icons. Of courage and discipline in order that we as a nation must rise from this quagmire of poverty and desecration of spirit. We must find new heroes to lead us forward, to move against the wind, to strive further even if the hill is so steep and the enemies are ever formidable. 

Our youth today must become brave and patient. They must be industrious and resilient. Serious in their studies, and they must stop at nothing to gain more and more knowledge. At times we stopped when we see the difficulties are tremendous. We do not stop until we can build airplanes that will fly into the air or even rockets that shall roam and orbit the spaces above us. 

We must promise not to recreate the mistakes of generations past. We must learn and rise from the ashes. Even when our young are just children now playing in the fields, we must invoke on them to please prepare themselves to become the people of the future, the builders of a rising nation, and then we shall rise up again like a phoenix from the flame.

And to start this uprising, we must all be prayerful to the Lord God for everything begins and ends from Him.

THE MIDDLE CLASS: THE KEY TO OUR NATION’S PROGRESS

There were many talks about the middle class before---who are they and where are they found? In the Philippine settings, identifying this sector of our society is never an easy task for this idiom, which has found its root in western economic theories, does not easily apply to our own principalities.

Who are the members of our middle class? Where are they? How can we identify them?

Generally, the determining factor in ascertaining the middle level of our society is primarily the earning capacity of a certain group of people and secondarily their social mindset. In a society like us, where for many centuries we were in virtual serfdom, we are mainly a nation of the rich on one side and the rest of the poor in the other. There is nothing much in between. We had at many times in the past a classless society.

We must only remember that even as we speak and while we kept again and again to break away from this stranglehold of unfair distribution of wealth in our nation, we have not effectively evolved from the virtual serfdom society that we have inherited from our Spanish colonizers of many centuries ago and if there were changes, they came in stifling trickles. We tried our best to escape this ugly past by adopting two versions of comprehensive land reform programs, one during the Marcs years and one in the freedom government of President Corazon Aquino, yet we are still presently hounded by the sad state of gregarious amount of land in the hands of a meager few.

I remember too well the lasting images that I have seen in the not too distant movie “Far and Away” which featured Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as protagonists and chronicles in a fictitious manner the onset of emigrants in a time of the birth of a nation, the land of milk and honey, America. Irish settlers and some other nationalities, were lined up in a multitude by the authorities with their horses and cavalcades readying themselves in a mad rush towards a wide open plains to which each family unit was given a white flag to identify the territory they have gotten for themselves. As they rush along towards more favorable plains, the very site that they could plunge their flags to the soft ground would immediately be theirs and theirs alone for eternity as long as they hold on to it and nobody, not even the State could take it away from them. The actors who took part in the rushing multitude of men, women and children perhaps captured so well the elation and joy of many American settlers who became part of such exercise, when as each flag was trusted to the ground, tears would roll down from their eyes and relief was all too apparent on their faces. The movie made me appreciate all the more the power of land and its role as the sustainer of life. What I saw in the movie was perhaps the most singular reason to the astounding progress that America has attained even up to the present, especially in the 20th century.

The government in America of past centuries had made sure that each men and women of their society became able to produce by themselves and become contributors to their young nation’s productivity. In short, the ordinary man was empowered with an economic capacity that was best brought for by the ownership of land. Thereon, everyone was capacitated to etched their own living and with money in their pockets, they had become voracious buyers that for every garment and T-Model Ford vehicles manufactured in Industrial Age America, a horde of middle class have the money to consume them. When there are many potential buyers who waits in the by side, bloating with consumer power, any product or material put on sale will surely find their own buyers and thereon, more and more factories would rise from the ground to produce more and more products with waiting consumers ready to pounce and more and more hands are hired to man these rising industries. The end effect of this would be more and more money in the hands of a growing middle class, consuming perniciously the produce of the nation’s productivity and thereon sustaining the economic cycle.

In the 1990’s, the economic world were parading the term “consumer power” and it is consumer power of the population that becomes one of the primary motivations for any foreign investor that aims to put money in any developing nation. We have seen the rise of new tiger economies and the most recent among them are Malaysia and Thailand. One of the veritable characteristic of their economies was a better than fair consumer appetite. It is mainly an illusion or perhaps a passing exception to think that multinational companies are putting shop in our shores just because they just want to manufacture products aimed at other markets. They come thinking partly that whatever they produce, the local market is mature enough to help consume them. This is the main reason for China’s economic juggernaut. American companies started trooping to the star of the orient as early as the late 80’s initially because they were staring at one billion possible drinkers of softdrinks and one billion eaters of burgers and one billion possible drivers of Chevrolets. Cheap and skilled labor in that territory of course remains a great come-on for companies who aims to save on overhead costs. A bludgeoning local consumer made it easier for many multinationals to decide on locating their businesses in China.

How we always go back to that most basic economic law of supply and demand even in a world of gargantuan complications. As the demand grows, supply rises in collateral amount and still remains that when supply overlaps demand, prices would certainly go down. Increase in the unit of supply certainly generates the expectation that more economic activity is done and when economic activity is humming with enough fervor, more labor is needed and employment statistics improved greatly. Aside from this, resources are much more sought after, especially raw materials one gets from low-end sectors like farmers and sea traders and therefore the GDP ticks at a higher scale.

We must now see more closely at the “demand factor”, for in my view, demand is the key to the upswings in the supply and demand curve. We must create demand if need be and every economic manager should be looking at this x-factor in the equation of things. I have no professional training in economics except for a couple of economics subjects that I was forced-fed in college. My only wish is that creating demand is unlike creating a bridge when there is no river or lake. (I remember that joke about a politician who had promised his constituents in an election campaign that he would build a bridge in their locality while addressing a crowd. When someone in the crowd blurted out that there was no river in their place, the politician then declared rather pompously that in that case, he will build a river.) What I mean is that, does it take a genius to find out the way to finding demand blissfulness?

My view on the matter of supply and demand is more of that of a layman’s and yet I believe that the ordinary eye can at certain point see some complicated perspectives with a clearer vista.

This is where my soliloquy on the middle class comes in. We must keep on building and rebuilding our middle class which should compose every man and woman who puts his or her hand in labor, as apart from the excessively rich who doesn’t need to sweat anymore to make their life uplifted and from the extremely poor who at most times do not toil anymore for lack of capital or capacity to make a living. This is the Philippine middle class and almost every one of us belongs to this class—the farmer and the fishermen, the lawyer and doctors, the middle politicians, the tricycle drivers, teachers and government workers, the sellers of food in the market and of everyday gadgets in city sidewalks, the restaurateurs and those who are paid to act as clowns in many children’s’ parties, the cotton candy maker, the cigarette peddlers, the media men in some local news station, the cook and the chef, the athlete who are paid a measly allowance by the state, the radio announcer, the factory workers, the planters of camotes and cassavas, the harvesters of coconuts and the struggling artist. You name it and we got it.

We need to find a way on how to harness the potential power of the middle class. Like water rushing from a cliff, the hidden energy is just there to be discovered.

The most practical mode of developing the consumer power of the middle class is by encouraging some growth in their income and benefits. This may make our capitalists and our economic planners squirm even while they sleep yet there is no better alternative to this. It is one of those challenges that connote some sacrifices and many hardships especially in the initial stages. Our economic managers would look at this view with great disfavor since raising minimum wage so sharply would make us less competitive with our other Asian neighbors in attracting foreign investments. As a countermeasure to this apprehension, I suggest that the key towards higher take home pays of the labor sector is not by legislating a wage increase all too often (which would scare away foreign capital) but by enacting or initiating a selective and pro-active compensation scheme for the private sector where the increases would come by way of bonuses and supplemental benefits like for example such items as productivity pay and performance bonuses. The government could offer tax rebates and credits to companies who adhere to the payments of particular supplemental wages and afford them major discounts in importing duties and such other similar rewards. In this manner, the minimum wage is not disturb by sharp increases and only companies whose net incomes are in the upswing are more inclined to raise the level of income of their workers. So in lieu of a legislated wage increase, the state could enact a pro-active scheme where the pay of the workers is supplemented not by direct wage increases but by an assortment of benefits. Like for example, a company with substantial financial success could offer their workers benefits like monthly supply of a sack of rice or scholarships for the workers’ dependents. This manner of compensation, although not in terms of wage increases, would certainly alleviate the plight of our workers and increases their buying capacity.

The business world needs buyers and we can develop many more aggressive buyers through our laborers, the soul of the middle class. This is the ideal cycle of a healthy economy and not a cycle where the fruits of a nation’s economic upswing are stagnated in the hands of the few who stashes profits into some Swiss bank account. As a result, the profits gained do not redound to more resources poured into the economy by way of generated investments and higher benefits for labor. Earnings should be rolled over by putting them back into the capital market and one of the capital expenses are labor expenses.

In corporate and financial laws, companies are prohibited from retaining more than enough earnings in order to evade the circumstances where companies hide their true earning numbers by secluding a great portion of their income as retained earnings for research or development. Retaining too much earnings is considered in fraud of stockholders as well as of creditors. In the same breath, although not as prohibited, if many capitalists retain their private earnings by not distributing them back into the economy and instead hide them away in some foreign bank accounts, this is tantamount to economic sabotage where they could be acting as if they are leeches just out there to fattened themselves and run away when they have siphoned already more than enough blood. This is like a hit-and run in broad daylight.

When any growth in economy does not redound to a more uplifted living standard for our laborers, it becomes meaningless in the general scheme of things but is merely appreciated by the few who have capital in their hands.

Another mode of harnessing the consuming potential of the middle class is by a government-led widespread capacitating program by penetrating the root bases of our society—the rural dwellers and the urban poor—and instructing them on various livelihood activities. This is actually being done by the state even as we speak through the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) and through many other agencies, at many times in coordination with NGOs and international organizations like the World Bank and JAICA. This particular effort by the state should need to be more energized and spread out.

In any sense, we must invoke a fairer social justice in the distribution of our nation’s wealth in order that we reach the next level of industrialization. An economy without a powerful middle class would lack the instigating factors that could generate more and more business activity and growth is slow if not in a stand still. Our capitalists should begin to trust our economy and not keep on testing the water where they only shell out their money when they have ultimate certainty of return.

The cycle that we see the most fair is as simple as this: when the laborers and many other members of our middle class begin to have more than sufficient income, they begin to buy more cigarettes and beer and electronic appliances and toys and fancy garments and would begin to eat more in fastfood centers So we ask, isn’t it the capitalists themselves who will reap the fruits of a middle class with a vast consumer power?

The answer is of course a resounding yes.
(An article from 2011)

Caveman Revisited

By tomorrow or a day after, as I am estimating in my mind, I might be packing my bags and bundle some important things as I would be heading for some place else, somewhere that I have been to before but somewhere not many have seen yet or have been to previously.

I have decided to leave the city for good. This plan had been in my mind for sometime now and I must assure you that this very drastic move on my part is far from being hasty—-in fact it is to be done with very deep contemplation and scheming that I have etched in my mind for so long now.

I have learned before how to drive nails effectively into wood and I reckon now that I have learned such task fairly well. My grandfather used to do some carpentry work and I used to have observed him so closely doing woodwork when I was so little, putting in mind every phase of the activity, from handling so tightly the wood to be nailed and towards the part when finally the nail is about to be hammered with reasonable precision, or else the hands would be greatly harmed.

Some of my uncles are pretty good too at this kind of work that I would have no doubt that I could do it by myself, hammering nails into wood. By that, I can safely assume that I’d be able to put up a small wooden shelter all by my lonesome when I get to the place that I am planning to go as of this moment. I’ll have thatches as roofs because many have opined how it would help ensure a cooler indoor environement, especially in rural environment. Having thatches as roofs is also one situation that I have been in before, right about the time while I was so young and our family could not then afford a better place to live in, as my father then was just earning his take as a humble mailman. My mother used to tell us stories how my father—-who is a native of the far away Province of Tawi-Tawi—-couldn’t articulate so effectively the local chavacano (a broken Spanish) dialect being spoken here that in some days, while he was still learning the tricks of delivering somebody else’s letter to somebody else’s house, my mother would come along with him for she was far more proficient in the tongue spoken here and therefore could communicate more easily with the mail recipients and also was more familiar with streets names and baranggay locations here.

Now let us go back to this plan I am presently having in my mind—-no reminiscing for now. I really do have a particular place in my mind, one that is far from the honky-tonky noise of the city streets. It is a place near or at the heel of a very prominent mountain known here as the Pulongbato, a stony mountain whose façade is so majestic that it could be seen from any point in the city, from east coast and west coast, from south side and perhaps in some part of north side. It is so strong and mighty like an honorable beast that have decided to sleep for a thousand years and still sleeping as I write now.

Below this mountain is a gushing river and a forest so lush that when years ago I was trekking this area with a number of friends from college, I have almost stepped over a striped multi-colored snake, climbed two small waterfalls, fell from a low cave wall and fell into cool river water, trotted into knee deep gushing water to reach a giant stone in the middle of the river and smoked to my heart’s delight as twilight had enveloped the forest, while the trees slept humming like old warriors, and had even eaten eels we caught from a calmer area of the river. Nature is so varied there, and so abundant too.

I have reckoned that while I am there, I would ensconce myself in the warm embrace of Nature as Nature would show me a beauty that I have seen before but still looking for since then. I won’t go thirst there for the river that runs through it is so crystalline like diamonds in our hands. And I won’t go hungry either for even sweet bananas—-as I remember all too well now—-grow so wildly and I bet the rich river-ways contains fishes that becomes so scrumptious as roasted on a brimming campfire, and the smell coming from it would just be gorgeously sublime. Out there, there’d be no time to keep up and catch up with. Industrial fumes are of no issue and the crazy sound of rushing vehicles won’t bother me no more. Could this plan of mind work? What do you think?

I had wondered deeply if ever my family would follow me there even if things wouldn't be as easy in a sense that there’d be no school there, no fast food to drive-by and order hamburgers and fried chickens. There’d be no education to attain there, and then no occupation to profess. And there’d be no roads to where we could drive our humble car. So perhaps, that small car would have to stay undriven for so long, or for eternity most possibly.

Could I say to them that we could have our own education there? That we can be teachers and students by ourselves? Nature is by itself an education and I can sense that it’d be an education that is similarly worthwhile, if not more propound. But I don’t think I could explain this to them efficiently and sell them the wisdom hidden beneath this idea.

And the air, yes the air there is so fresh that once I had thought of putting them in a bottle and sell it as pure purified mountain air, just like what they do to water nowadays. I have read once or had seen in a television show how in some part of Japan, air or the purified version of it had been contained by some enterprising souls there and had raked in some money for it.

The noise there could be so minimal that often, the chirping of birds and the momentary shrieks of monkeys coming from tall shrubberies far beyond becomes calming to the senses and it is certainly the best anti-dote for stress and worry that most urban dwellers suffer and that for sure, it is a situation so ideal for those who long for peace of mind so desperately and to those who seek ultimate freedom from anxiety. Long walks in the mountain side would be a luxuriant activity and sipping hot coffee beside a cool rushing water, while the sun is just about to set into the horizon, is not a far-off idea anymore.

Ooops, I just heard City Hall’s siren wailing and it’s about time for me to go and bring my third son Yuri to school. And by the way, I was just daydreaming a while ago and none of the plans narrated here is to be carried out any time soon.(A story from 2007)

TWO NEW POEMS : Come My Love and Live With Me

ETERNITY’S EMBRACE
[Poem No. 1]

Come to me my dearest one,
Into a garden of love and inspiration,
Where flowers bloom in mighty stead
And rivers aglow in sumptuous bed.

I prepare to thee a gown made of gold
That every Queens and princesses are wont to hold
Lined with beads of diamonds and porcelain
And walk among those wondrous lovers’ lane.

There is the elegant swan that dances in beauteous parlance
Unequaled in every move and chalance,
Upon lakes blistering with silver beads
And amongst flying horses in mighty steads.

Come and live with me my love
To the greatest delight and merriment
To thy my heart belongs and thence
To live with thee, and be my love.

LOVE’S SEASON UNENDING
[Poem No. 2]

We will embraced the young and faithful love,
In the truthful spoken word by the kind Shepherd,
As we delight in the pleasures of endearment,
To be with you and in forever’s embrace.

Let the rocks tremble and the river surge,
While flowers wither at times, even the green fields,
With soft whisper of a loving heart,
Every longing will be beyond our spheres.

Wear the gown with the silver beads,
And thence dance in the wind with golden gloves,
When rightful moment steadily appears,
Youthful heart and love’s sincere.

Ti’s the ages of endless bliss and wandering,
To many delights that our mind’s desiring,
For these joys will be ours to keep,
And then to live with thee and be my love.

THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA c.1999

We are like the sea that stood against time,
In order to bear the wailing sirens of those marching storms
Bending and moving forward,
Backward and forward again.

Into the depth of midnight,
The cries we cradle with a crackling lullaby
Steadfastly in silence, in fear,
To harbor the promise of a glorious dawn,
A glorious morning.

We are like the sea that carries the remains of a thousand rivers,
Orphaned and without direction as they surged upon the boulders
And navigating the tumultuous pathways
That leads towards salvation.

We succumb at times to the flames
Like spirits rising towards the mighty heavens
To overwhelm the skies into a gentle dimness
That will give birth to a surging rainstorm
That fills the hunger of the earth below.

We are like the sea that lies unbending,
Unmoved and unchanged,
A hundred rains after and
A hundred storms past.

A poem from year 1999. From my collection of poems "The Wandering Soul".

OUR SINS ARE LIKE UPON A QUICKSAND

In the scorched ground of the desert, one must walk not only having in mind the harshness of the blistering sun or the ever threatening sand storms that always brings havoc in the cold night. To journey upon the desert, one needs an extraordinary care for something that is often unseen yet the most fatal. It is not the danger of the scorpions or the treacherous snakes that I am speaking of but the lethal trap of a quicksand.

The man walking through the desert must watch out carefully for any hint of soft sand along the way. There is just no other way to foresee danger brought about by the quicksand except by the keenest of foresight. When one is caught in it, the fastest to any hard ground must be sought otherwise the sand would soon eat up towards the level of the knees. When the sand goes up to the length of the knees, others must throw a sturdy rope to the sinking man so that the sand may not reach the level of the waistline. If the waistline is already sunk into the perilous sand, a mule must be had in order to pull the man out of his quagmire. If the neck is already threatened even the might of a camel might not be able to save the sinking man.

Our sinful ways is oftentimes like upon a quicksand that the more we get sunk into it the harder we are able to pull ourselves from certain perdition. Like the man sinking slowly into the sand pit, the sinner must free himself at the earliest possible time for any wasted moment could mean the end of life.

This is the nature of our sins, they often start as trivial matters and ends up us grievous infractions. They are propagators of habit that the more we wallow into the irresponsible pleasures they afford us, the harder we could stay away from them. There are even those among us who thrives on sin that without sinning they become restless and impatient. It is most wise and ultimately the most prudent to anticipate every sin even when they are still farthest from us, that long before we meet could them along the way, we must change our courses immediately and evade them. It is of wisdom to be farthest from sinful ways even from the beginning.

When something wicked comes along the way, we turn the other way lest wickedness may abuse our weaknesses and we become wicked ourselves. If our eyes are threatened by indecency, we must cover our eyes for a little while until lewdness has already passed us by. We see no evil if we turn farthest from it. In the days of old, Jesus had once said that if one would look upon another person with one left eye and lusted upon that person, he or she has already committed adultery that it is better for one to pluck out the guilty eye rather than all the members of the body be thrown into the fire.

If men along the way shall speak something harsh, it is better to cover the ears for a little while until wicked tongue have already pass us by. We hear no evil if we refuse to hear or heed the words spoken by evil men.

If along the way, we at times feel the desire to speak evil things against a fellow man, it is better for us to close our mouth for a little while until the indiscretions of our emotions have already passed away and then we evade the inanity of gossips.

There are times that we become the child who drools upon a candy after gulping down a bagful, and our elders would reprimand us for our excesses. Thereafter, we would speak like our words become engraved into stones and promise not to take another candy. And yet, the stone cracks easily when no one is already watching and we break our promise as we go right back again into the forbidden ways.

At times, the sinful ways is like the huge ball of rock that Sisyphus had earnestly push towards the top of the hill over and over again only to fall back flat towards the ground every time he nears the peak of the hill.

For at times our sins starts like a ball of snow falling innocently from a steep Himalayan mountain until the kindly looking ball of snow gains more and more mass and weight and grows into a deadly avalanche.

There are grievous things that we do that started merely as daily errors. As we repeat them they grow into an avalanche. We often hear about the man of many small sins who one day finally committed the most heinous of all transgressions.

The thief would surely feel the heaviest of remorse the very first time he commits such grievous sin of taking away another man’s possession. The second time he commits the same wrongful act, the remorse may still be there but it becomes less and less in weight. When he repeats the act over and over again, remorsefulness would finally become a stranger to him that his conscience had already become stunted. Until the day that he takes the largest of all sum and feels no remorse whatsoever. He is the thief that is caught in the quicksand of his soul.

And so is with the grave murderer. The first time he commits the act of taking away another man’s life, he would turn in his bed until dawn comes and sleep would not visit him for a great number of nights. And yet, the second time he commits the same transgression the heart would feel a little less of remorse. And when the act becomes repeated over and over again, the remorse would fade away and become absent and his heart slowly becomes not that of a man but that closer to a wild beast.

And so is with fornicators and those who are adulterous in their passions, lavishing themselves in the irresponsible pleasures of the flesh. The man would wallow in lust for the first time and he would be like a child wounded in the heart and his eyes would be a little bit teary eyed for remorse would remind him heavily of his misdeed. But when the call of lust comes harking again, the man forgets his previous remorse and goes right back into the irresponsible pleasures of lust. When he becomes lustful at all times and always fail to heed the call of his conscience, remorse would become absent completely that committing these lustful sins become merely commonplace for him. He is already trapped in the quicksand of his bestial instincts.

For sin is a like a deceitful serpent that approaches us from the back, under the cover of darkness, while the wind is very silent in the stillness of the night and we are deeply lulled into sleep. When we become caught in the promise of a sudden but temporary onset of pleasure, the kind that our sins could provide, we become like upon a moth caught in the spider web or a journeyman who is caught in the certain peril of a quicksand. If we do not become heedful and vigilant, the sand may go towards our neck and we may not be able to get ourselves back into harder grounds and our souls would meet its certain perdition and lose the promise of Eternal Life. We must repent while the sins are lighter still, for the heavier the sin the harder would be the road towards a fruitful repentance.

From my work: "The Voyage"

THE PARABLE OF GOLD AND WATER

“The angel pointed to his arms (brothers in arms) and then signaled another message by carrying a load on its back (to carry our brothers and sisters).”

There is the man who trekked the hinterlands, through the empty desserts and barren hills, to sought a high rocky mountain of gold. Day and night he labored like a mule until one day he had mined enough gold, more than the weight he could carry.

He was blissful of the promise of things that he was laughing inside as he walked down from the high rocky mountain. And yet he had to pass the empty dessert and the barren hills when his parcel of food and water was starting to run out of him. As he walked the miles, he became weary and exhausted and his bag of water finally became empty. He died before he reached any water well.

And then there was the man who had nothing and yet he had found a water-well. He put up a tent nearby and guarded the place with his own life. Long after, he made use of the well in many ways and cultivated plants and vegetables to nourish him until he had a farm. Soon after, animals roamed his lot and he became a wealthy man in several years, although not in a day. He died of old age and lived a good life. He did not have gold but he did not perish.

A man may have all the gold that he could carry and yet without water he would soon perish.

What is more important then, water or gold?

For certain many of us chose to labor upon gold and yet we do not realize that the most important things in life are there for us in bountiful quantity. Before we seek gold, we must seek water.

And then you might ask: why would I look for water when I have enough of them? I looked for what I do not have.

For certain, we do not indeed look for what is already at hand and yet we could not deny that in the wholeness of things, we truly disregard the things that give us life and at many times kill ourselves for the things we could not have, we even risk our souls through mischief and evil ways in order that we may have the things we do not have and we do not need.

There is a pyramid of wants and desires that continue to blind us to this day--a pyramid of needs that has blinded us away from the true meaning of life. In this scheme of wants, we put primordial the things that we do not need and we put at the least the things that really give us life.

We turn in our beds and scream invectives into the night when we could not have the riches of the world when all we need to live are always at hand. We disregard the many gifts that the Great Divine had provided us, even to the extent that we forget the omnipotence and providence of the Lord.

Many seek the treasures of the world and yet they lose the water of life. They mined the high rocky mountains for gold endlessly even up to their last breath and yet they do not soon realize that the moment they are called to return to the Lord, their water has run out, that their souls have lose their salvation, and that their rewards in Heaven nil. They would even meet the flames of the Unending Fire in Hell.

We always see the gold while we are blind to the water. We find fault for all things that we do not gain instead of being grateful to the things that we have. We deny the Lord and all the good things He had given us.

There are those amongst us who are restless and impatient that once they do not gain these earthly treasures, they turn to evil ways. They kill and kidnap, they rob and cheat, they steal and deceit. They harm the peace of others in their endless pursuit of happiness. They are not merely impatient but they are also ungrateful to the Lord. They have their souls slaved upon silver and gold and they have sold them to the devil and hence they shall be the Companions of the Fire in the Hereafter and their suffering shall be without end.

They defy and ignore the commandments of the Lord. They set aside the words of the prophets and the messengers. They bark their protestations for all the things they lavish upon, upon the pleasures and temptations of wealth and of strange flesh.

Shall we ask the Lord for reasons why we are born wanting in many things? We shall not be blind for all the things we need is given us by His Providence.

If we are born without water, then it would be the moment for us to question the Lord: My Lord, why was I born and yet there is no water to be found?

If we are born without air, then it would be the time for us to protest to Him and ask: My Lord, why should I live here and yet there is no air for me to breath?

If plants and fruit trees does not grow from the ground nor animals could gain offspring then we might even ask Him: Oh Lord, why did you allow me to be born in this world and yet I could not grow food from the soil?

But shall we ask him: My Lord, why do I have no gold and pearls?

Shall we ask Him: My Lord, why should I be born and yet I could not lavish myself in lustful pleasures?

We shall be fools and defiant if we ask Him these questions.

Without air and water we shall persist but shall we perish if we do not have gold?

For the righteous man, life here in this mortal world may be a continual existence of toil and strife and yet he does not bark protestations and yet he is the one who has no heaviness in the heart, and he shall be always be ready to face every sunrise and to bade to every sunset, and he shall be the one to face the Lord with the lightest of soul.

He shall be the one to reap the rewards of the Lord-an Eternal Life in the Hereafter.

And yet, those who seek all the treasures in this world even through violence and deceit shall lose their salvation and shall gain the flames of the Unending Fire.

For it has been said before that those that are first here on earth shall be the last in Heaven and those that are last here in Earth shall be the first in the Kingdom of the Father.

The Boy With The Swirling Ship

*(A repost from 2005)

What do you know; I’ve got another vivid dream last night*. No angels though yet I feel it’s worth elucidating if only for reason that it is such a lucid chunk of visions in my head while I slept so deeply and it may evoke some meanings for me or for the lives we all live.

The dream started on a steep hill; in a place that I have never been before in my entire life—but it felt like it was in Antipolo, as the rolling hills reminded me of the place called Cherry Hill, the site of a famous landslide disaster some years back and which I was able to have a glimpse of on television and newspapers. I asked in my mind what was going on since there were a lot of people outdoors watching some neighborhood event, out in the open field while the sun was shining so brightly and the wind was warm, such as the summer breeze.


Some bystanders answered my query: “A boy from Japan was showing some flying ship.”

I stretched my neck out and see for myself what the whole fuzz was all about. As I heard the whirling sound that went “whrrrrrrrrrrrr….whrrrrrrrrrrr…….whrrrrrrrrrrr……….”, like that of a motorized toy, I saw then what was to my eye was a colorful contraption the size of a small-sized passenger car, say a Kia Pride, lunging directly towards the sky like a rocketship although it didn’t look like a rocketship at all, at least not the specific way it had looked to me. The flying contraption look like a very small version of the Columbus---the Nasa space shuttle.

I observed carefully the flying motion of the “thing” and the viewer could actually see the boy inside it, probably doing some navigation through some control dashboard. But with the manner it moves from one side to another, up and down, in steep trajectory and then changing directions so sharply, you wouldn’t think that it is being driven by someone, it moves more like a remote-controlled toy helicopter, so unstable and without a clear direction. I felt a lot of concern for the safety of the boy.

Yet, despite the queerness of the flying contraption, it actually earned my amazement and glorification. When the boy alighted from it, I was among the throng of men and women who trooped to him like he was a hero or someone famous. I said to him in a loud voice: “ What you got there is a landmark invention!” The boy probably did not hear my declarations that he turned towards another direction without a hint that he noticed me.

I was slighted by the boy’s disregard but I really felt that the thing was such an important discovery and it may be the prototype of a transport that would change the way we travel forever. In fact, the way it was designed earned my fancy for it looked like a very huge toy that every boy or every man with a child’s heart would like to have from the downtown toy store. The color was also my favorite---blue, yellow and red.

I will describe to you how the thing probably works. The flying contraption would lunge towards the heights by a turbo on its below, just like any rocketship, and when it is up in the air, it’s outer core would swirl so fast in circular movement that you could hear its sort of annoying, but mild whirling sound. This motion of its outer core probably was the main mechanism that keeps the thing above ground, and it has a couple of protruding wings that are also attached to smaller turbo engines. These wings probably control the direction of the thing aside from helping it stay afloat. The flying contraption moves in a speed that I have never seen before and that made me a little doubtful of the thing’s design credibility, for the safety of the passenger may not be secured.

Yet again, despite its flawed functionality, I truly believed that the invention by the Japanese boy could be build up further if only he meets the right persons that could help him find some technology companies willing to put money for its development. If the thing could work, we may finally welcome age of flying cars and finally say goodbye to the monumental cruelty of traffic jams in our streets and highways.

The boy went to see some persons in a nearby building that looked like the station of the Armstrongs in the old anime series “Voltes V”, in short it was a science building with an ultra-modern look and hi-tech facilities with a very high-ceiling. Buildings in the anime world seems all have extraordinarily high ceilings. I followed him of course and went into the building myself which I found to be completely empty although the mainframes and other electronic equipment were running since the lights on them were blinking and some sounds are whirling, a sign that some automated machines were on. I reckoned that the boy was inside some highly secured rooms busy discussing with some important personalities in the tech world. So I went upstairs but I still find the place empty as a dune. I took the elevator and went down to the ground floor and as I headed towards the main exit door, I saw the Japanese boy coming out of a room that I was not able to notice before. His face was full of distraught and I could see that he was disappointed. I knew then that the talks did not go well.

I watched him tiptoed through the tiled floor and could hear the sound of his footsteps reverberating throughout the building, the heaviness of his emotions were easily felt. I approached him thinking that I might desire to shake thehands of someone who invented what perhaps may be the future of transportation. He shook my hands so briefly and went on with his heavy walk without even looking at my face. I followed this boy who was so young and yet so arrogant and said in a loud voice, “You should bring it to the attention of NASA.” At this, he turned back and I could see that he wanted to cry. He said, “I will try.” And he went on walking, now in a hurried manner, as if he wanted to get rid of me. I just reckoned that a genius boy like him could afford some bad manners so I did not took it so badly that he doesn’t respond well to my engagements towards him. I just wanted to help him.

That same afternoon, as the day approached twilight, the boy was in the field again with the onlookers still on hand. I went to see the show again. He was with his mother this time around and they were in stiff argument as to how the thing should be launched into the air. This was in stark contrast to the smooth and confident launching he had earlier in the day. After some words, both mother and son agreed on the manner the flying contraption should be placed on the ground, and the boy step into the thing and soon the machine hummed again in a whirling sound.

The flying contraption indeed went steeply into the air that my heart leaped a bit as I see what a wondrous thing it was that such a small machine could actually fly into the air---like seeing a flying car for the first time. Yet, after a while, the thing kept on lunging downward and it was a little painful to see it struggling to keep itself afloat. The boy might be horrendously dizzy by then as the flying contraption went up and down in the air. I myself became a little bit dizzy just watching the thing fly in the strangest of manner.

Soon, the boy alighted from the flying contraption and he was sweating all over. I wanted to ask him if the ship had some appropriate ventilations but I decided against it. I approach the boy again without any inhibition that he might utterly disregard me again. He did not. I meant that he finally talked to me more graciously than before.

“It was hard,” the boy said.

“Yeah. I could see that” I said meaning to console him.

I asked the boy “Why did the thing fly so bad the second time around?”

“ I was flying on a manual mode this time.” The boy said in a sad tone. It turned out that the boy run out of hydrogen fuel and it was too costly for him to source them in a huge volume, in order to keep the thing flying for a longer period.

As we walked together towards a more shadowy area, I could feel the sadness in his breath. He confided to me that that the scientists he was negotiating earlier wasn’t sold out about his invention mainly because they said that the thing could not retain enough fuel in order for it to reach enough distance. The scientists instead advised him to find out the solution for this major flaw of his invention.

I suggested to him to use nuclear fusion instead because this kind of fuel is light and with a small amount aboard, the thing could go far. I also advised him to go to America because in the Philippines, even our own inventors do not get much support from the Government. He just nodded to my suggestions and we shook hands as we bade goodbye.

At this point, I woke up to a cloudy morning where rain was threatening. The weather made me a bit heavy inside as I remember the predicament of the boy with the swirling rocketship in my dream. I hope he would listen to all my advices and go to America where everything is possible it seems. I hope his dreams would all come true. I laugh a little inside thinking how could I wish well someone who doesn’t exist at all but only a creature of my dreams. But I remember the boy well, and if there is some sort of a police line-up, I could point to him always.

After I took my breakfast, while sipping hot chocolate, I pondered what the dream meant to me. There were no angels in it but I felt that the dream wanted to impart something to me. As I analyze the visions I had that night in my sleep, I now believe that sometimes we all have some idea that could really fly but could not fly so high at first due to some major flaws and yet, if only we try a little harder and knowing where to go and what to find and whom to approach, that idea could go a long, long way and may even change the way we live forever. Amen.

The Meaning of Life

(A re-post from 2004)

I was walking the downtown streets some days ago, feeling a little bit restless for reasons unknown to me specifically, at least to the one or those that I could not pinpoint to with reasonable certainty. Perhaps this is one sort of a malady that I have read about once before in some old decrepit medical book stacked in my mother-in-laws deteriorating wooden cabinets, those that were partly eaten by termites, looking so fragile that a simple disturbance on it would let spew a handful of mashed-up and grounded wooden particles—which I find to be so repulsive knowing that they were the end results of some crawlers’ eating frenzy.

This malady is sometimes called depression or anxiety problems (they go by many names depending on the author of the medical book I read) and once in a while I retreat into this state and like water, I just have to let  go of it for I could not rein it in my hands—no matter what.

I passed by the new barbershop just in front of the old Ever theater—one that had seen better days—and I thought I might get my hair done. I stared at a glass partition from a nearby store and had an inkling that my hair wasn’t as disheveled as I thought it was. I even saw it to be fitting to me despite the general rugged look and I had thought then that moviestars have lengthy hairs even if they were males, having that blown away look. I was a little worried that if one sports a blown away and rugged crown of hair and at the same time not being a moviestar, one might be easily taken for a madman walking the streets at high noon. But that sidewalk mirror was good to me and I felt that my uncut hair would be fit for a star. Some mirrors are good to me ; mostly they are not—especially those in my bedroom.

So I passed with having a quick haircut that day and hoped that the blown away look would be fitting enough for me for quite a number of days more. I then strolled farther down the city sidewalks and came towards a crevice full of DVD stalls and I felt a little blown away after seeing so many titles available and on a dirt cheap prices at that, considering that for 80 bucks, one can get a DVD disc that contains 8 to 12 movies in it, and most of them were blockbusters and of very recent release. Some of them were not even shown yet here in local theaters. That’s how tempting it was for movie aficionados like me. I could not say now that I haven’t had scored myself some pirated items before (I had been smoking a brand of cigarette smuggled from Hongkong when I was in college) and of course, it would be unthinkable for me to not have seen a pirated movie before. I had of course.

But while I was glancing on stacks and stacks of DVD disks, my mind was swinging between the forthrightness of not buying a pirated item and having a devilish pleasure on filling my hunger for movies at throwaway prices. I could always remember that video clip that goes with every movie I rent from video stores and the loud, thundering reminder that says: “You Don’t Steal A Car! You Don’t Steal A House! You Don’t Steal A Movie!”, and somehow my inner conscience is disturbed by such that whenever that clip goes in every movie I rent, I wanted to shout at whoever that guy behind the thundering voice and belch, “Stop It! I Heard You. You Don’t Have To Remind Me That All The Time. You’re Not My Mother!”

My inner conscience had gotten the better of me that time so I just slowly walk away from stacks and stacks of salacious movies and guilty pleasures. I then remember that a new Video City branch had opened just a block away and I headed immediately towards it. The moment I had gazed through the available movie titles, I felt an immediate surge of gleefulness inside me since I hadn’t expected that the new video store could offer such voluminous number of titles, especially of recent ones. The video store where I usually get my dose of movies is so miserably lacking in inventory that I guess I won’t be visiting it from now on, except perhaps in some momentary lapse of reason in the future.

I felt like a child lost in a sea of movie titles and I almost picked up every disk that had caught my eye, until I reached the “Drama” section and there in front of me was a copy of Wong Kar Wai’s “2046” and I was excited to high heavens. It had been much talked about in the net world about how good it was and for a long time, I was trying to get my hand on a copy of it, and for a while there I thought I wouldn’t be able to see it for it would be unthinkable that it’d be exhibited in local theaters considering that it was released about three years ago. And I haven’t had seen any trace of it in every video rental store I went before.

I had anticipated this movie ever since I have grown a special fondness for oriental art films, especially those of the legendary filmmaker Zhang Zimou, whose film “Farewell To My Concubine” was so wonderfully entertaining and had primarily introduced me to other notable movies from China or Hongkong. Before that, ever since I was in high school, I had been delighted by the magic of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpieces like “Ran” and “Dreams”.

And so “2046” was about a writer who had become so engrossed about his own written piece that he saw himself being dragged into it, and feeling the pains and longings of the characters he had made himself. “2046” was a work about a train that once in a while travels towards the year “2046” and no one who goes there ever came back, except for one, the male protagonists. It is said that those who journey towards this strange destination are those who are longing for love, perhaps a kind that could not be found here at present, for how come they have to travel towards a point of no return just looking for it? What love is there out there that some have risk even their own mortal existence just to gain it? It was written by the writer that nobody actually knows how long for one to get to “2046”, for some it would be faster, but sometimes, to those unlucky travelers, it might take so long that they would start to lose their senses and sanity while inside the rain, having nothing to do except sit down and wait for the arrival time, one that is not definite and without any sign of coming. The main male protagonist in the novel had such kind of journey, one that was so lenthgy and seemingly unending that he fell in love with an android, an artificial human being stewarding the train.

The writer had his own life in the movie “2046”, a life lived sometime in the 1960’s where according to him “he just found himself to be in”. He earn his meals by writing columns and kung-fu stories for local dailies and billeted himself in a room with a door number that states “2046”. That was where he had sourced the title for his novel, a number which in his own mind had taken his fancy and unusual interest.

Along the way, he met a wife of another man named Bai Ling, who had runned away from her husband for having another woman and had rented a room just across his own. They slowly fell for each other and started a torrid affair filled with nights of passion and unhindered bliss. Until one day the woman asked him if ever he wanted to stick it out with him. But the writer wouldn’t agree to be exclusive to one single woman and stressed that he was seeing other women while he was having an affair with her. Bai Ling was furious and ended their relationship with tears flooding from her eyes and agitation painted all over her face.

They both started seeing other people and whenever they passed each other in public gatherings, they both pretend not to know each other and according to the writer, it was difficult to pretend and not notice her. It was clear that it was more difficult for Bai Ling to pretend and it showed so much in the utter sadness that found harbor in her teary eyes.

Six years later, the writer was in a relationship with a woman that had a similar name to a woman he had an affair so many years ago. It wasn’t Bai Ling, but another one who had resembled Bai Ling’s general appearance, a circumstance that had led me to ponder whether or not Bai Ling and Su Lizhen was one and the same person. The new woman eventually left the writer for some undeclared reason for she said, “she just have to go away”.

And inside a car—drunken and weary—the writer finally realized that he is starting to lose ‘the meaning of life’. He was thinking to himself and thought that six years ago, he had a chance to find the meaning of life when the beautiful Bai Ling offered herself to be his long time partner. But he had other ideas and now regretted it.

He met Bai Ling for one more time but the feeling was never the same again and it had seemed that in the end, he had entirely lose grasp on what in his mind was “the meaning of life”.

The movie “2046” eventually ignited in me the question about life and its meaning. I try to see myself in the writer’s own predicaments and evaluate if I had what he call as “the meaning of life”. Have I lost it? Or I am living it? Or perhaps, the meaning is just not clear at all.

One way or another, we all are trapped within the world we now dwell, sometimes embroiled in raucous routine everyday conducts, sometimes just swaying to where the wind blows, and often forgetting that at the end of the day, we might not be able to entirely grasp the so-called “meaning of life”. What’s in store for me when I grow old? Where am I heading? Am I happy or am I miserable?

Am I that sort of individual who would jump into a train and head to “2046”?

These are just questions and I hope that this momentary bout with depression would vanish like thin air. And then I’ll have in my full grasp the so-called “meaning of life” by then. Whatever that means.