hate can never be doused by hate, nor it can be dissipated by tolerance. love. only love can.  When Jesus was asked what the two greatest commandments are, he replied. (1) Love the lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. (2) Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt. 22:37-39)

11 years ago, I had the courage to ask Marchesa to marry me. For those who know her, days like this would have been so cliché. I remember thinking about when the right time to propose would be. I had two requirements in mind. First, I would ask her parents first and second, it needs to be a surprise. I was already shopping for a ring a couple months before with the help of Rogie. I finally had the courage to buy the ring and scheduled a time to talk to her parents. I decided on Valentine’s because I knew that she knew that I knew that she would never have expected a proposal on a day so common. Guess what, it worked. The surprise in her reaction was priceless. Fast forward 11 years. We now have 3 kids and yet we still have that love. When you have three kids and you are doing what you can to pay the bills, love all of a sudden is manifested in other ways. It may seem that it’s taken for granted because it’s not like how it was when we were young. It’s difficult to find quality time without disruptions. Personal […]

Last saturday was my Tatay’s birthday. He turned 72 this year. I remember the stories my Lola had when she gave birth to him. He was their eldest. Born right in the middle of World War II. They had to move around a lot because they didn’t want to be at the same place where the Japanese soldiers were. I can only imagine what it’s like to have a baby that young being moved around the province so they won’t get caught. There were stories of these Japanese soldiers throwing babies up in the air and catching them with their bayonets. That must have been a very difficult time to live in. He grew up, went to school, joined the army, taught physics at a local university, got married and had 5 kids, retired a full professor with a Ph.D. to boot. Got ordained as a minister of a non-denominational Christian organization and is currently working as an education consultant. Far and between that one fateful time in our history where you just don’t know if you’ll still be alive the next day. He did all right. Despite all circumstances. He lived, and lived a full life. During his tenure […]

Imagine a job where you always feel unappreciated, people around you are selfish, very ungrateful and you are always on call — 23×7. When something goes wrong, you get blamed, you are also expected to know everything. A lot of times, when you you feel like you don’t have anything left to give, you get asked to do more. Before I forget, this is all charity work, free, no pay. At the risk of not oversimplifying this seemingly very unrewarding position, this job is called “Motherhood”. This is the 10th year that I’ll be married to Marchesa and each year has brought us new, complicated and even resurgent challenges. 10 years later, we now have three kids. We might even be entering into that “golden age” of parenthood which is referred to when your oldest kid is just young enough NOT to be in their teenage years and the youngest is potty trained. If you need proof of how amazing of a wife and mother she is, just look at our kids (you can also look at how clean and how wonderfully designed the interior of our house is). You can also look at where I am now in my […]

Elle Turns 1 photos> This year we tried something new and tried harnessing the power of social media (twitter and instagram) to broadcast the images of what was going on during the party as the event progressed. I would like to thank those that participated. We were able to achieve this using a service from a startup called sharypic, you can visit them at http://www.sharypic.com/. You can also access the pictures directly from this link: http://www.sharypic.com/elleturns1