Makati Bomb Scare

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At 7am this morning, a powerful explosive device was found between the Allied Bank and PLDT buildings on Ayala Ave. The area was evacuated, traffic cordoned off from the area, and a police squad was able to successfully defuse the bomb. (NEWS REPORT)

This was less than a block from my office; practically across the road. Some reports claim that if it had detonated, several buildings in the area would have been damaged. Our building was not within the immediate danger zone, but this incident nonetheless highlights the threatening shadow under which we all live here in the Philippines; faceless terrorism hitting close to our work and our homes.

Well, this is my last day in the office before Christmas. I’d better get down to cleaning up my stuff and removing sensitive data from my hard disk.

Closing Shop

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Well, it’s official. As I expected, the bosses came in yesterday to tell us that, due to a combination of unprofitability and the Current Situation, the company is closing shop. Effective 1 Jan 2002, I will re-enter a state of employable mobility.

It’s okay; the Lord provides in times of need. I’m getting interviewed tomorrow for a multimedia opening here, and I’d also like to see if there are openings here and here, though those are pretty tenuous thus far. Other possibilities are open, and I have enough saved on the side to survive while I explore.

Prayers and pointers to Help Wanted ads would be appreciated. Those of you reading, anyone want to hire me? If you need a graphic artist, web designer, or digital video author/editor, take a look at my resumé and portfolio, then drop me a line. Legazpi/Salcedo Village areas in Makati preferred.

(Actually, what I really want is to work in the new RCBC Plaza Towers, because (1) it’s near my girlfriend’s office, and (2) the Food Court there makes me feel like I’m in EPCOT Center, and (3) it’s a certified IT Zone, which means the buildings cater to the kind of company I want to work for.)

Given a couple of months’ notice and adequate initial provision for living, I’m also relocatable to almost anywhere in the United States. Again, Baltimore is preferred, though Denver is nice too.

Well, I need to get bustling. My Christmas calendar is too full to let me blog over the holiday season. I need to spend tonight and tomorrow morning wrapping up gifts, then I need to get to work to tie up the loose ends and have commiserating Christmas lunch with our boss, then go for that interview. I’ll be out all day Saturday to relax with Tiff in the mall (and maybe catch LOTR if it’s showing), then I might join the folks to go scuba diving on Sunday. After Christmas, the family is going down to Bohol for more scuba diving, right up till New Year.

As you can see, I’ll be rather occupied, so expect only sporadic updates. Go out and gain those holiday pounds, and I’ll give you all the monumental life-changing updates after the fireworks have died down.

Merry Christmas, all of you, and remember: He whose birth we celebrate is He who saved us by His death and resurrection, and in Him alone are we Redeemed for all eternity. May that same God bless you this season.

Apostasy

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I’ve read Heb 6:5-6 in context and wondered how that could possibly be reconciled with our eternal security in Christ? Then I realized something: the Bible is not saying that God withdraws his love and salvation from one who falls away. Rather, that verse in Hebrews states that the man who falls away — who outright and deliberately rejects the salvation of which he was a part and turns away from God — is exactly the kind of man who can never be convinced to come back to Christ….

To put this apostasy concept another way, if I have repented of my past sins and accepted Christ as Lord and Savior in faith, then I am saved. If, after this, I read a porno magazine or shoplift a pencil, I am still saved, and I should come back in repentance to be forgiven by our Gracious Advocate, Christ.

If, however, I suddenly say that Christianity is a lie and Jesus was a sham, and stamp my foot three times and walk out of the church in a sudden agnostic huff…. if I commited such a rejection, I could not be saved because I am the kind of person who will not come back. It’s not because God has turned his back on me — never! Our God is too kind and lovng for that! — but because I have irrevocably turned my back on God, and the Epistle to the Hebrews confirms that as an observation, not as a pronouncement.

I’m just a layman, of course, so in no way do I put my view forward as authoritative. How do the eminent Christian scholars around me respond?

un-Christian Erap

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Atty. Raymond Fortun, lawyer of ousted leader Joseph Estrada, says it is un-Christian of the courts not to let him go on a Christmas furlough to visit home for the holidays.

WHAT?!? First off, ex-president Estrada is under incarceration because he is charged with the non-bailable offense of economic plunder. He is by law supposed to be confined until his trial. The government is already going out on a limb letting him stay in that luxurious hospital annex suite. (Well, we give you an inch, you ask for a mile…) Even having once been President of the Republic does not grant him special holiday privileges to just waltz home for Christmas as though he had not spent millions of dollars in public funds to fund his and his mistresses’ ostentatious lifestyles.

Finish Erap’s trial and let him prove his innocence — or, more likely, guilt — and then we can talk about letting him go. The man wants parole before he has even begun serving his sentence! (Let’s see what he thinks about that in his online secret diary.)

Second point: since when have the Republic’s judicial courts been subject to “Christianity?” This is a predominantly Roman Catholic country, but it is not a theocracy. Church and state are separated, and the rule of law is in no way obligated to submit to what Erap’s lawyers think is “Christian” behavior. Funny that this should come from the same sector of loyalists who once lambasted Cardinal Sin (yes, the local archbishop is named Jaime Sin) for meddling in the political struggles of last year’s impeachment and resignation movements. Now they suddenly expect “Christian” action from a judicial body which is founded on a constitution and not a church.

The impeachment trial is delayed further and further by the incorrigibilities of Filipino politics, showing just how poorly the law is implemented and enforced in the Philippines.

Behold! the farcical comedy of native political foibles, and witness how this country goes nowhere with haste!

Guidon reunion

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I’m back from TheGUIDON reunion! (For those of you who don’t know, TheGUIDON is Ateneo’s student newspaper, and is an especially fertile training ground for journalism, graphic design, business and logistics management, and other related fields. I was once Graphic Design and Photo editor, and I owe much of my initial professional experience to long hard days working in TheGUIDON.)

Kudos to the current editorial board — and their aspiring successors — for putting together an excellent weblaunch party and alumni reunion. Our batch couldn’t have done better. The org is in impressive shape, and I feel proud. (I also feel OLD. All those unfamiliar young faces…) More on that at Black Weekend. :)

After the party, I went out with the editors of my batch to make tsika over Struan and Tang tea and scones. Gossip and wit aplenty, clear into the wee hours.

Regarding my upcoming renewal of career market potentiality (I do so love that euphemism), I remember saying not to worry, and I was right; even more possibilities have presented themselves. Truly, surrendering your problems to the Lord, and seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness, will produce great results. What a mighty Savior we have in Jesus, who sees not only to our afterlife, but to our regular daily life as well. :)

Man, it’s almost 4am. I never stay up this late. I’m off to bed.

Looming unemployment

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Next month, I will be unemployed.

Let me assure any of you who might be concerned: I’m not worried.

“So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

The question to be asked first in these situations is not, “Where shall I apply?” or “How much pay should I settle for?” but rather, “How can this be used for the glory of God?” It all starts with Christ, and from there He will work for the good of those who love Him.

To ADMU and back

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Jeep down Sucat Road to South Superhighway, ride bus to EDSA, get off at Ayala, eat breakfast at MRT-Ayala McDonald’s, give out tracts and ten pesos to poor beggar child, take MRT to Aurora-Cubao, catch jeep down Aurora, get off at Katipunan and waaaaalk (whew!) to Ateneo, order transcripts at registrar’s window, pay at cashier, drop by JVP office to chat with Angie, drop by Guidon room hoping to meet Cla (not there), waaaalk back out to Katipunan (whew!), make sabit on jeep down Aurora back to Cubao, ride MRT to Ayala, buy lunch, go to office, blog.

I’m tired.

Sights set on MICA

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I’ve set my sights on Maryland Institute College of Art. They offer the most attractive fast-track package with a two-semester Digital Arts grad program. Application deadline is March 1.

I’m still at a loss as to how I’m going to be able to afford this (unless I qualify for financial aid). That one schoolyear can cost as much as thirty thousand dollars — tuition, housing, and living expenses included — and even if I could leave for Baltimore today, and land a good job that could last me till October, I seriously doubt I could hoard up that much cash (not honestly, anyway). In all this, I must lean on the Lord for provision, and if He does not provide a way, then I must trust that He is opening a door for me to some other pursuit.

Now I’m headed for my alma mater to order my transcripts. See y’all!

Columbine reflections

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The diary of Eric Harris, Columbine shooter, is disturbingly full of puerile, senseless violence. But why? These insights crossed my mind:

1.) Strange modes of evolutionary thought. “Natural selection” comes into focus, with Harris thinking “I am higher than you people,” thus justifying to himself the idea that the superior human must destroy inferiors as a matter of natural course. Of course, this would be absurd even to the evolutionist, since competition within a species does not equate to wiping out all other members of said species. Clearly, the idea of natural selection here was a mere rationalization for…

2.) …Insecurity. We know that these kids were mocked mercilessly. This would have created feelings of inferiority and helplessness. (I have firsthand experience, having been teased unceasingly all through grade school.) But rather than retreating into themselves, the Columbine shooters seem to have instead overcompensated as a defensive mechanism, reversing their insecurities into Doom-god-like feelings of superiority, and latching onto a twisted concept of natural selection for use as a pretext to vent their anger on a world that — they felt — persecuted them.

3.) Which brings me to this: While the educational system was busy teaching them about evolution and natural selection, weren’t these children categorically told at any one time, “Thou shalt not kill?” I don’t know about anyone else, but I think a moral absolute such as the prohibition of cold-blooded murder should be of equal if not greater importance than the biological assumption that humans came from animals. I’m not saying that the Ten Commandments and Religion should be standard curriculum (although they were for me, having come from a Jesuit school), but certainly, those standards of morality — which I believe are universal to all humans — should have some place in the educational system, shouldn’t they?

That’s my line of thought. Of course, I’m no Psych major, and I have almost zero experience with the US educational system, (except for about a semester in first grade at a public school in SF) so I’m hardly qualified to give more than this little opinion.