Wednesday, January 30, 2008

family

a few days ago, my second degree (in layman's terms) aunt came to us and left their conjugal dwelling. she and her husband's marriage were legally legally dissolved a few months ago. although she can stay in their conjugal dwelling, certain circumstances required her to flee. since we are her only family she has in malabon, we had to accomodate her.

now i have a 15 year old boy and an 8 year old girl to think of.

i feel sad for them, 'coz we know that life is harsh, especially for separated families.

now i'm playing big brother...

so may the Almighty help me...

'coz it's a new phase in our lives...

an aunt who used to live with us about 16 years ago after her marriage.... never mind her, but the kids... the kids i'm worried about... change is so difficult especially for kids.

they shouldn't worry... 'coz their 'kuya' is out there to work things out....

Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Things I did today.

Went Greenbelt, attended Church Services, which somehow gave me some spiritual respite. The Greenbelt chapel being so cosmopolitan that I felt like a blank mask in a sea of faces. It felt good. And I thank God for the good tidings which I received today.

Hung out at Fuzion for a few hours with some friends and acquaintances from the Economics Major of AB. Dined at Big Buddha. Had a few drinks at Cena, then danced the night away at bed space.

I enjoyed it. And all the dreary moments of my solitude went away for a while.

Yesterday I had a nice conversation over coffee with Lot. Those things about Girl A and Girl B… about taking risks et al. Plus, that superb and profuse use of our own language. Nobody understands us better than us ourselves. Our world is once again relived.

In these two days of wondering, I’ve come to the conclusion that I should not close doors, but at the same time, I should be cautious enough not to let someone enter just like that. I guess I have set the terms thereof… The issue of trust. How much trust am I willing to repose and how much trust should be given to me.

I had good moments for the past two days. And it felt good despite the confusion.

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Thursday, January 24, 2008

vincent






"Tempting Fate"

"POST HOC, ERGO, PROPTER HOC"

Saturday, January 19, 2008

kindly visit our organization's website:

http://libertas.ph/

i have authored the banner article entitled OBSERVATIONS ON THE RULE ON THE WRIT OF AMPARO.

my nome d'plume is Rasul. (my official name in Libertas et Iusticia)

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

the mask of melancholia

Two days after having my emotional high, I am waging war against depression. A lot of people do not know it, but I have Manic-Depressive Disorder. I only drown it out by the hustle and bustle of my life. Or the life I once had.

The utter lack of intellectual, emotional and social stimuli is taking its toll on my being. I am not cut for Monasticism. I need to be around with people. I feed on stress. I need to be challenged. My sense of purpose is being dissolved like sea foam, wave after wave after wave.

Don’t get me wrong, I love solitude. In solitude I find peace of mind in the crazy world I live in. Through solitude I can exercise my social skills with clarity of vision and create certain flaws to make my reality natural.

I feel like I have been sentenced to incommunicado. The adverse effect of which is emotional claustrophobia.

Sometimes it is difficult to fit in with persons whom you share a lot in common, because the differences are larger and far more defining. Though you may be gathered together constantly, you feel utterly alone.

I am not in my element. Waiting for the bar is an ethereal out-of-body experience, some sort of parallel dimension. You know the other world exists, but you can’t be in it, you can’t touch, until the time comes, you become part of that world once more. Either way, pass or fail, you go back to the world of Law, and all the people who goes with it. I am TOTALLY INTANGIBLE right now.

And I realized that persons whom you have constant contact with, whom you utterly care for, and vis-à-vis, care for you, are devoid of any semblance of emotion. Whilst those whom were already distant and share nothing in common with, except excerpts of intertwined histories of life and love, have more to give in the brief periods of time that you are enjoined.

I dare say they are psychologically incapacitated. So am I.

No one’s life is perfect. Some are more flawed than others, while some are better to a certain degree of reasonableness.

What used to relax me became burden. What was once burden, now to me is refuge.

I miss my world. And my world misses me.

I’ve realized that ANY employment is not the answer. There must always be the PASSION for what you do in order for you to have satisfaction in whatever you endeavor. I need the tribulation and the intricacies. I need to fear.

Once I thought I was emotionally dead. Perhaps I am not, my heart still beats for love and life. And perhaps this depression is a part of it. It makes me feel alive.
Perhaps I need to simulate death… an expensive bungee jump or readily available tablets of valium and beer.

If I die, what if…

Who would cry?

Who would go to my funeral?

Who would voluntary carry my casket?

Who would laugh?

Who among them will give in to a long overdue procrastinated profession of what should have been done and said while I was in an animated state?

I am not normal. I’ve known that for many years. There are others like me out there too. We should meet and celebrate in a Gothic bacchanalia of somber and sordid dreams.

There are so many masks that the soul chooses to wear, and my soul particularly chose melancholia this time.

I wish I were a mask… so that any soul who wears me will see the world through my eyes.



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Donde esta, Doña Paz?

(Cuidado: This is not a dissertation nor a complete legal opinion, it is however, a learned critique regarding Media Usage of Legal Parlance vis-a-vis the Technical Rules of Procedure in our Court sytem.)

Twice already I've heard the words "Class Suit" being used by media men to refer to two media-covered incidents. First, the Separate Action filed by a number of media personality who were accused by the First Gentleman of Libel, which he eventually withdrew; and second, just so recently, the Action to be filed by those injured during the Ayala Mall blast last November.

Perhaps due to the media's 'tabloidism', the words themself offer a sense of importance, and can easily be remembered by laymen. However, I can assume that every barrister, lawyer, judge or justice of this land, and even every law student who already took up Civil proceedure, feel a certain degree of outrage for this kind of abuse to a term which has a particular meaning in the realm of law.

The Requisites of a Class Suit are:

1. The subject matter of the controversy is one of common or general interest to many persons;
2. The parties affected are so numerous that it is impracticable to bring them all before the court; and
3. The parties bringing the class suit are sufficiently numerous or representative of the class and can fully protect the interests of all concerned.

Every Law student knows the celebrated Doña Paz case where the Supreme Court differentiated a Class Suit from a mere JOINDER OF PARTIES. These requisites came from this particular case.

Although several persons are named as party plaintiffs in their Actions, the second requisite is not present. The media men involved can all be named in the complaint, albeit the Caption of the Complaint may be longer than the body. Furthermore, their Causes of Action are separate and distinct from each other. In other words, in other for a Class suit to have the first requisite, the interest of each and every person cannot be identified with him... it must be COMMON to all parties.

Let me name a few more examples which ARE NOT class suits:

1. The Sumilao Land case. (All the farmers can be identified and named.)
2. The Agricultural land case of the Archdiocese of Nueva Caceres.
3. The M/V Doña Paz case.

A classic example of a Class suit is the celebrated case of OPOSA vs. FACTORAN whereby the Supreme Court upheld the locus standi of children in a representative capacity to petition the Court to enjoin the Government from certain logging activities, citing the so called "INTER-GENERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY". This may be a maverick interpretation rather by the High Court, however, it falls squarely within the requisites. How many children are there in the Islands, and how many are to be born? Naturally, the loss of the environment due to certain activities is of common and general interest not only to children, but of all citizens, if not mankind itself.

Generally, class suits are big in Common Law countries as regards Tort cases against multibillion dollar corporations. Tobacco, Medicine, Food Products, Appliances, etc. Although the author of this entry is inclined to think that the Common Law notion of a Class suit is slightly different from ours, they are essentially the same in many aspects.

It is quite understandable that the media parlance differs greatly from the technical words of the law. A classic example is the usage of the word "SALVAGE" to mean a sort of heinous murder, though in the true sense, SALVAGE means "TO SAVE". (whether person or property) However, for the rare few who read this, this may shed a bit of enlightenment of the nuances of our ever so evolving languages.

So, would the media in the future label any similar situation as JOINDER OF PARTIES? I highly doubt it. It is our responsibility perhaps to educate the people of the intricacies of the law, of what should be, and what could not... of what is, and what isn't.

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Monday, January 14, 2008

stolen moments

we know we can't be together... but our love was ever so magnificient at one point...

thank you for those clandestine kisses.

barely hours, i miss your tender lips already.

our fleeting moments always seemed forever.

but you'd always be that girl i never had, and I, the boy that never was.

ever so you are my huntress, and I, your willing prey.

until our next kiss...

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Cholera Damaged the Whore.

Okay, now that I've got your attention, and at any rate I rarely sleep, and in a few hours I'd be traveling for an overnight stay at Puerto Galera, I'd thought of posting a sort of review of my recent readings and what I have watched lately. MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES: Old Age and Youthful Lust, not so romantic. Good, but not one of my favorites. Translation could possibly be the problem, as it translator perhaps did not capture the Marquez magic for words.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA: Still not half way through, however, I could not put it down when I started reading this. Each page is superb. The play is words is just enthralling. With an opening line of "It was Inevitable: The scent of bitter almonds reminded him of unrequitted love.", you know that it is a good novel. I would kill to find a book in the original spanish text and feel the sensuality of the language, despite my limited grasp of the Castillan Tongue. Said to have exceeded the One Hundred Years of Solitude Fame. One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' finest masterpieces.
DAMAGES: I got this pirated DVD of this series which is just about to start airing this January on Philippine Cable. It stars Glenn Close and Rose Byrne (who somehow resembles a young Monica Belluci). The First Season revolves only on a single case, unlike other legal dramas which have different cases every episode. Less legal talk, more of the human side of lawyers. Very dark and sinister. The time line is not straight, so you have flash backs every now and then, sometimes of the the same scene every episode. There are also several flash forwards, so the whole plot of the story unravels episode by episode. This is dead serious TV. Several betrayals occur within the characters, and there's no feel good moral lesson in the end, except for that tag line: "TRUST NO ONE." If lawyers were really like that, then everybody would probably be dead by now.

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