ORATION PIECE

Killing Myself

Chelyn Torejas

Diverse people from diverse places have once come to colonize our country. Literatures and pictures stand as a witness of how we endure, struggle and fight that yields forth of what we regard today as history.

At the heart of our country carves an era that manifolds through the regimes of Spanish occupation, Japanese conquistadors, American colonialism onwards to the Birth of World Wars. And the fruit of these all is my unique individuality. I am the child of the west and east combined.

I am a product of so many revolutions. For a time, I was blinded from what is real. For centuries I was enslaved by people of different blood, color and race.

Spanish colonizers use religion as an excuse to earn the hearts of my race. They taught me to embrace poverty as a virtue and exposed me to learn gambling and even cock-fighting.

The blond, tall Americans poisoned our way through education. The whites instilled in me to follow “adversial” communication hitting my country badly. Their tactic of “dividing and rule” has resulted to the regionalistic division we still have today.

The arrival of Japanese has even caused tremendous fears, hardships and pain.

For a time, I have seen the harsh realities filled with chaos, propaganda, hatred, vengeance, wars, hidden agenda, corruption, greed, lust and every devilish deeds. But Lo and behold, a new one has come.

I am killing myself. Killing the old Filipino. Within me, came rushing out the stinking blood of every devilish deeds. My heart has stopped pumping the music of deception. My lungs has totally exhaled every waste I have inside.

I am a new Filipino. I am bound to make a living history beyond a legend and a real history in the making that will continue to unfold through time.

The new revolution has given me true victory, a victory by which I am longing for long and the solution is not through war. This revolution has not been fought in the streets. It will be fought in hearts of men.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided. Knowing the present would mean understanding the past.

I am a new Filipino gaining wisdom from the past. Gone is the Filipino Indolence, beholding to erase the crab mentality, further eradicating my colonial mentality.

A new Filipino I am. In my blood runs the infitisimal seed of heroic deeds for the sake of the heavenly and for the benefit of the majority. The seed that drive away the oppressors and the seed that will further cleanse the filthiness of this country.

I will search the unkown. I will continue to dream my dreams wishing upon the stars and will never say never. I will continue to move on, to rise up towards the direction of a glorious tomorrow.

To look on the present onwards the future and to scale how my new country will develop will serve as an inspiration that is worth and is bound to be followed.

What the people today endures, struggles, and fight towards progress will continually mold a state of a new history –a bright history that is enough to urge individuals to continue to endure, struggle and fight for action and be a winner in running the race that is set before us, worthy to be repetitively told and retold. A transparent history free from thwarted truths.

Out of me are the voices of the unheard, the pictures of the unseen, the cries of the deaf and the truth that is ignored. I am but a dream but will stand to prove that this dream is becoming a reality.

I am killing myself. Killing the old Filipino. Killing the old me, building a new identity, erasing the undesirable assimilation from my past, picking the best experience I have before. A new Filipino I am, worthy to behold.

My eyes have been opened and I can see better now. I am a product of bloodshed, A new Filipino --free indeed, dreamer and the inheritor of a fruitful tomorrow. To live is to die. Thus, I am killing myself.

Junkyard?

Junkyard?

Chelyn Torejas

The Increasing concerns about the environment have persuaded some to act upon it while to some extent have unleashed protests to the underlying causes.

Despite the progressing number of programs and laws designed to protect the environment, still the problem of pollution along with waste mismanagement is spreading widely and potentially harmful.

Japan and the Philippine Governments have made a treaty labeled as the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) and is expected to go in effect before the end of 2007.

The agreement has empowered more Filipino healthcare professionals to land a job as workers in the Japanese economy. Among other things, the treaty has also allowed the country to collect tariff on the 11,300 commodities from Japan, in which 141 items are marked as environmentally sensitive. These include medical wastes and muddy deposits among other matters.

But what are we supposed to do with these wastes? Isn’t the country has enough?

Environmentalists are still aiding the Guimaras oil spill, which once have turned some

parts of Visayas waters into a polluted flammable wastewater.

Philippines has witnessed the booming industry of used clothings or the “ukay-ukay” business as best called in our own lingo. Secondhand cars imported from neighboring countries are also a hit to the society.

Though used and considered secondhand, Filipinos with built-in ingenuity behavior have surprisingly managed to utilize matters of all sorts.

. A cement company even plans to utilize the Guimaras oil spill into an industrial fuel.

Toxic substances such as cyanide, mercury and asbestos have benign uses for the society to recycle.

An important way to fight waste mismanagement is for the individuals to learn the effect of their every action. This is another way of producing individuals who can make responsible choices to reduce damage.

If the water can be turned into wine, why can’t a mess be brought back into use? Every mess has a message: recycle, segregate and make your part because every individual effort counts.