The Bluff in the Prophecy

Necrotizing fasciitis. Mysterious flesh-eating disease.

Which of the two are you more familiar with?

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This Tuesday morning, I was greeted by several posts regarding a disease along with a hashtag of "PrayForPangasinan". It turned out that these posts began shortly after the airing of a story about a mysterious disease in the province of Pangasinan which allegedly coincides with the prophecies of Vincent Selvakumar and Jesus Ministries founder Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj. On the 24th National Prayer Gathering held at Cuneta Astrodome on April 2013, Prophet Selvaraj claimed that a fatal disease will begin in Pangasinan which will soon spread in the entire country then all over the world.

“The Lord says there is a place called PANGASINAN. The Lord says it is in the northernmost part in your land. From there a grievous disease will spread all over the world. That will consume the flesh of men; all their upper (outer) skin will begin to decay. It will pierce through the bones. The fear of this disease will spread all over the world. The Lord said that this (disease) will begin from the Philippines."

I, as a writer, have the duty to enlighten my readers the knowledge acquired from my perusal of the prophecy. Permit me to lay down my arguments point by point:

1. The Disease and Its Identity. Little did people know that the labeled "mysterious disease" in Pangasinan is in fact a known disease in the field of medicine. Necrotizing fasciitis, as we all know as the flesh-eating disease or flesh-eating bacteria syndrome, is a rare, easily spreading infection of the deeper layers of skin and subcutaneous tissues. Currently, there are many names that have been used loosely to mean the same disease as necrotizing fasciitis: flesh-eating bacterial infection or flesh-eating disease; suppurative fasciitis; dermal, Meleney, hospital, or Fournier's gangrene; and necrotizing cellulitis.

2. The Origin. The prophecy implies that the onset of the disease is in Pangasinan, Philippines, whereas truth claims that it was first discovered in France, way back in 1783. Historically, several people first described the disease in the 1870s, and it was Dr. B. Wilson who first coined the term necrotizing fasciitis in 1952. It is likely that the disease had been occurring for many centuries before it was first described in the 1800s, clearly opposing to the claims of the prophets.

3. The Cause. Contrary to the current information, the disease is not a mystery; it is caused by a bacteria called Group A Streptococcus, the same bacteria that causes strep throat.

4. The Doomed. Another fallacy in the prophecy is the people at risk -- everyone is at risk of this disease, not just the sinful and unrepentant; however, higher risks are estimated for the immunocompromised, diabetic, alcoholic and drug dependent.

5. The Place. The reason why Pangasinan was mentioned and chosen of all places it simple because it is an easy choice of having this bacteria as there are a lot of fish ponds in this area.

5. Diseases and Disasters are not made or from God. “If you don’t repent and pray, God has planned much destruction all over the Philippines which are very disastrous. The cup of God’s wrath over the Philippines is very very disastrous. There will be much disaster all over the land. The Lord will give you over to flood and waters. The Lord will torture your land with typhoons and hurricanes. The Lord will plague the land with diseases. The Lord will punish your land with famine and scattering,” Sadhu said. From this statement, it simply implies that the Lord made plans of giving mankind destruction, disaster, and disease. However, if one would rely on the bible, Luke 9:54-56, our Lord vividly said that the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them from the penalty of eternal death in response to his disciples John and James who suggested of commanding fire to come down from heaven and consume the people. God can't do that to us and God will never ever do that. God will never create a catastrophe to the people around the world, but He will allow it. Catastrophe happens because of we, people in this world are sinful. I'm not saying that He can't send us diseases and calamities because He can, but God won't because He is a loving god; all diseases and calamities are a result of man's actions.

There will be no loss if we act in accordance to the prophecy -- repent and pray. Nevertheless, we do not need a prophecy to repent and believe in God; we do not need to experience Yolanda or flesh eating bacteria to have faith in God. If you do not believe in God, he is not your enemy. God loves everybody no matter what they have done, who they are, or what they believe in.

I do agree that we should all pray, repent, and unify though.. with utmost sincerity and initiative.

{1 John 4:1}

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see

whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into

the world.

The Introvert

Dear God,


Hello! 2014 is just a few sleeps away. You know very well how my year went, right? I had a very rough start of 2013, but in the end, everything fell into awesomeness.


Father, I would like to thank You for all the blessings I have received throughout the year. Shall I enumerate them all? I graduated second best to our class, passed in the finest universities of my country, (UP, PUP, UST) and even got the chance to study in one of it, in sintang paaralan. I even passed my Math subject in the first semester. (You know how much I suck in Mathematics.) I met a lot of new people, people meant to pass and people meant to stay. I have been accepted to my dream journalism org. I learned to commute finally, too. And most of all, I met the guy who breathed life into my heart, brought me out of the shell, and made me want to be better.


Father, he's the world's coolest introvert, ever. I knew him via online, chatted for a while, and yeah, we have gotten to know each other a little too well. He's a graduating student of the university I'm studying at. He has a good heart, high hopes, interesting personality, and not to mention a good voice. He's amazing. He made me conquer fear in my heart, he made me open up. You know very much how hurt am I, right? You were there. But this man, wow. The Gift's line suits what I intend to tell, "You saved my heart from being broken apart. You gave your love away, and I am thankful everyday for the gift.."


Times are sometimes difficult for us. It's hard to be the one who always stays, and waits, right? He had hurt me; made me worry to the point of dying a thousand deaths; made me wait and almost let me go because of his insufficiencies and fears. We have our ups and downs, but I swear, I will never give up this man. God, I know I am not perfect and neither is he. I know I've made a lot of mistakes, but I do know that meeting him and feeling this is not part of it. I may not be his first, but I'm hoping I can be his last because surely, what I am feeling as of this moment is probably the most beautiful; best.


Please, grant me this chance. If You will let me, I promise, I will never hurt him. I will cherish him as much as I cherish myself. Let us have this chance, God.


Because Father, I love him. I really do. I can't unlove him and I don't want to unlove Kristian.


I am bound to him..


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To the introvert who holds my heart,


Hey, baby, how's everything? I haven't talked you pretty much lately.


I miss the long talks. Remember those hours of conversation? We'd even lose hours of sleep just to keep in touch. I miss the morning texts and late goodnight messages. I miss everything. I miss your voice. I miss your noisiness about us. I miss you, baby.. Geez, believe it or not, I am smiling as I type..


To tell you the truth, I was afraid. I was philophobic. I hated love. I hated men. I evaded every guy. I trusted only a few aside from my father. In spite of these, I felt perfectly fine depending and needing no one and nothing; attached to no one and nothing. Not until I knew you -- my only exception.


Sometimes, things are rough. It's hard to be always waiting for you, because I don't like waiting. It's hard to miss you and not knowing what to do. It's hard that you are out of my reach. I always die a thousand deaths whenever you don't talk to me. Some stuffs are hard for me, baby, because you know very well that I am an introvert too. But for you, my only exception, I tried and I will try. This is love, dear. You overlook his flaws because he means the world to you, and with all these flaws, you're gonna stay. No matter what, no matter how hard things will be.


If only you knew..


I want to be the girl who could always brighten up your day, even if she couldn't brighten her own. Is my smile still enough? I hope so.

I want to be the one you can pour your heart to whenever you're hurting, whenever you're sad, whenever life throws you reasons to frown. Whenever you need me, whenever you want to..

I want to be the one who hugs you when you are cold..

I want to be the girl you can talk to about everything.

I want to be the girl you would watch a movie with. Horror films, baby.

I want to hear you sing, always. Your voice sounds better than all my favorite songs put together. Have I told you that yet?

I want to be the girl you always tell things first, because it's the main indicator of love, right? You want them the first to know.

I want to be the girl you include in your dreams; the girl you take with you as you make your future.

I want to take care of you. I want to love you. With all my heart.

I want to stick around..


I'm thankful that He put you into my life. I will always be grateful for that. You are always in my prayers, dear. Hoping to be with you this January..


From the bottom of my hypothalamus, the seat of my emotions: I love you, Irving Kristian. Mahal na mahal kita.

Unconditionally.
Selflessly.
Always.

- J x

Please take a risk with me.

Pselaphao and Eido

I have lain awake for several nights, I stood up and I pulled out a book from the ledge over my bed. It was an old book I haven't read yet and I was clueless how it came up there. It has no covering for me to know its title and author. I flicked through each pages wanting to find something worthy of note to read. Then I traversed upon two highlighted words, "pselaphao" and "eido". These are two thought-provoking Greek words which have something to do with touch, sight and feeling. Pselaphao as what the book defined it, means to intentionally feel, handle or touch. It is just like getting hold of and running one's hands all over something just merely to look into for the purpose of learning its parts, make-up and substance.

Pselaphao can be compared to people who get along with people for the purpose of only knowing them rather than molding, enlightening, uplifting them or helping them during tough times. Eido on the other hand means to see, but not as in a casual sight. Unlike the first, it goes much further, more to seeing with our minds in order to achieve an abysmal realization and understanding of something. Eido can be likened to those people who reach people to understand and learn them with empathy. It's just like not physically seeing or feeling people, but in a very real denotation reaching out and touching their lives through other ways or medium.

Sometimes we tend to figure out something by actually feeling its presence and looking at with it at close range. But can we understand something or somebody without actually seeing them? We can make connections to anybody without necessarily getting too close or feel their presence especially this high technology epoch, we can reach and make connections with people through different channels. What is important is that we are able to know the vital needs of others and encourage and influence them in good faith. People have the universal need to be important, to have someone who thinks well of them. Every last one of us longs for love and attention. To be significant. It is a stark reality that there are a lot of people who feels unforgotten and unloved or think that life is prickly trail so hard to struggle and too intricate to cope up with making them too engrossed with their setbacks and heartaches that they become unmindful and overlook so many of the small paradigms of how great life and love is.

But the good thing is there are a lot of people out there too who set their own aspirations, outline their own course, spend time and energy not to only reach out these people but to carry others with them.. We can touch lives by insisting not to give hope for those who are in the threshold of their courage and faith or have lost their self worth, that life is beautiful and love is alive. We can change a life by a mere simple touch of kindness, courtesy and caring words. Life is to live to the fullest and love is not just to be taken but to be given too. These two most important things goes on and on... Often times it is uncommon to show love, compassion and kindness because it is much easier to concentrate on ourselves and our own little world than to spare a little time of these things for others. Words may be forgotten, deeds may be put into oblivion but people will never forget how you made them feel. It only takes a moment of love, benevolence, and understanding to touch and feel a heart... and see a life change.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.

The Labyrinth of Suffering

“How will I ever get out of the labyrinth of suffering?”

The labyrinth is my conceit of life's unanswered questions causing suffering.

All my life, I keep trying to find the answers to the same questions over and over again. Why do good people have to go through the worst? Why do people leave? Why do we like to hurt so much? Is suffering a part of us?

And then life gives me a clearer view of the picture: that suffering isn't something inborn but rather acquired; that you must first define your labyrinth; that your perspective affects how you tackle it; that everyone has their own individual labyrinth, their own cause of suffering, the part of their soul that always stays dark even when everything else is alright.

I somehow realized that there will always be answers, we just have to be smart enough. We often go far searching, and amidst the journey, we lose ourselves entirely. What we desperate wanderers fail to comprehend is that the more we seek, the more we feel trapped for we get farther from where we are supposed to be. Answers don't necessary have to be in the form of answers, for a question is sometimes meant to be answered back by a question. We, humans, often deny ourselves the simplest pleasure of life - to be innately true, and that's when we label our queries unreplied. Every question has an answer, and every answer leads to another query, which implies that we sometimes either have to let go a few or learn to live with them. 

The only way out of this labyrinth is forgiveness and up. Forgive yourself; no matter how good is your best shot, some things will still be inevitably out of thy control. We are but human beings, bound to commit mistakes. We can choose either to get consumed by our own self in the labyrinth or to acknowledge that everyday we are offered another opportunity to everything. Because honestly, we play a major role in putting ourselves into this maze of suffering, then we disregard the fact that we are also the key that leads the way out. Forgive yourself. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. This labyrinth is optional. Giving in and giving up is what truly makes you sink. There is no way out but up, so rise up, keep struggling.

And to tell you a secret, the only indicator of triumphantly escaping the labyrinth is the absence of "Why" in our lives. 

What is your labyrinth?

To the Hypocritical Whiners (of the victims of Yolanda)

Will you guys please stop hating PNoy? Instead of slapping him with his insufficiency, why don't we help him and fill in the lacuna? Before you blame PNoy, what have YOU done to help the victims? Try going to Tacloban & deliver aids to the deepest towns with impassable roads. Can you? Please, you don't have the right to criticize the dirty river if you haven't contributed to its cleansing. Yes, I am talking to the lucky pretentious mourners who might be reading this at this moment. Are you one of them?


Just this month of November, the Philippines was devastated by a super typhoon named "Haiyan", or nationally known as "Bagyong Yolanda". The super typhoon is said to be one of the strongest typhoons in history as it caused severe damages to unfortunate areas of the Philippines, taking away thousands of lives and homes. What's irritating me at this moment is the endless rants and complaints of my fellow Filipinos regarding the disaster's impact.


In my social networking accounts, not an hour will pass that I won't be able to read direct messages to our government /president saying how inefficient and inadequate they are/he is. It's really getting on my nerves, seeing messages like these from these people who haven't done anything exceptional other than tweeting and posting the rants. Seriously, I am not a supporter of President Noynoy Aquino, in fact I do notice that he can be inefficient at times just like other people, whether in position/power or not. (which is very humanly) Inspite of the fact that I don't fully like the president, I haven't closed my mind and my eyes to what is happening in my country, unlike these hypocrites, who continue to post their sentiments on sites.


The problem with us Filipinos is that we have the wrong idea of "solidarity". We Filipinos attain unity via agreement of actions and feelings towards pessimism and wrong, but seldom in optimism and right. As you can see, people at this moment are brought together, but what brings them together? Pessimism. Rants. Complaints. Wrong. But as soon as there comes optimism, everyone else divides.


My fellow Filipinos, let us all keep in mind that regardless of his efforts, some things will still be out of his control. He's not perfect as a president and he will never be and no one will ever be. He may give his all but it will still be not enough and it will never be enough. But we got to trust the prime official of this country because it's the best we can do for him. He is not taking care of tens or hundreds or thousands of lives. He has millions, or perhaps hundred millions of lives in his hands. Before you open your mouth, please, open your mind first: HE IS OFFERING HELP IN ALL POSSIBLE WAYS. If you don't like what you are seeing, then BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT. DON'T JUST WATCH AND WAIT. ACT.





I'm donating some stuffs, clothes, and food because this is the best I can do as of this moment. How about you? Is "that" the best you can do?

Time check: 1:19.

My head started to hurt like hell, so I decided to resume watching the movie "Perks of Being A Wallflower." Yeah, that sensational book you see on the shelves of the leading bookstores. Somehow, I cannot fall asleep as the film managed to provoke emotional disturbance.

Just like Charlie, I must admit that I have mastered the art of repressing. Thoughts, feelings, emotions -- you name it. It was just nice that it doesn't harm anyone around me. If there's one thing that dominates my "Repression Kingdom" that will be no other than the "need for genuine love and making decision with hearts'affairs" Unlike other girls, I would never be heard complaining on how I look, or how I don't have any boyfriend. I need a genuine love, not a boyfriend.

You know this feeling you get when you're just all alone or something/someone triggers your hopeless romantic side? Well, have you ever been in the stage wherein you have no idea whether you should trust or not? That, should you welcome in somebody "new" in your life or not? Well, I do. I hate to say this but I've been throwing out every chances given to me to be loved. I've been lying to myself that I am not "attached" to anyone. I just don't know how and who to trust anymore. I can't bear another heartbreak, whether it be romantic or not.

I always try to tell myself that not all people are the same, specifically the male species. Unfortunately, no one has proved me right yet.

Okay.

I'm scared.

Year 2018

5 years later..


A year has already passed since I graduated from college at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Back when I was young, I would always fantasize about studying the human mind and behavior and being capable of predicting the possible behaviors of an individual towards a given situation. I've almost taken B.S. Chemistry back then, but I am grateful that I chose the road less traveled instead - the path of a Psychology major.

I'm very passionate about abnormal psychology so I can therefore say that my forte is Clinical Psychology. Right after graduation, I started looking for jobs and jobs also looked for me. It was a good thing that I came from a university with a good reputation. Furthermore, I was able to receive my bachelor's degree with flying colors due to my perseverance and love for my chosen career. Three months later, I officially started my career as a teacher. It was not the usual teaching career, I taught special children. I love my first job because I am very fond of children.

Even at this point, I could still hear the all-time popular misconceptions about my course. Most people say that it will lead to nowhere. Some say it has no significance at all because it is inferior compared to other courses such as accountancy and engineering. My first job supported my belief that they were all wrong. It is very essential that one has polished and good social skills for you are always in front and with people. I earned a lot of patience during my stay in college because I've started accepting the truth that nobody is perfect. In my class, I must deal with several young people, and they are all far from the usual. They are gifted and unique.

I am already on my eighth month of teaching these wonderful children. I have already saved some money for a very important matter. I am planning to pursue a degree in law someday, very soon. I chose Psychology and Law as my combinations because the way I see it, awareness of the law is not enough to make justice prevail. A good lawyer must know how to look beyond what is seen and hear beyond what is heard, and Psychology provides both. I love people and I understand them, I want the best for the human race so I will be part of the change I dream of.

To quote Confucius, "Choose the job you love and you will never grow tired of it," I chose Psychology because I know I will get satisfied just by seeing people around me happy because I was able to help them. I earn fulfillment by helping. Seven years from now, I will be a forensic psychologist. I will keep on chasing my dreams for I live in spite of the things I fear most. 

It's been 5 years, and sky has always been the limit.