Contraception shatters human dignity

I had my personal copy of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (CSDC) a long time ago. Just recently, I chanced-upon glancing on it in my bookshelf. An idea flashed in my mind!

Is not this the portion of Catholic Doctrine that the Church proposes as principles for reflection, criteria for judgment, and norms and guidelines for action (CCCC, 509) in order for people to proclaim the Gospel that brings salvation and genuine freedom also to temporal realities. (cf. CSDC, 2)?

Student Mentoring in the Philippines

I participated in the 1st National Conference on Student Mentoring entitled Shaping Young Minds and Hearts: Towards Integrative Coaching, Counseling and Mentoring. I can't help but write a few lines to give some feedback on the event.

Successful!

I must say it was successful in the same way, but in an analogical way, that the first major invasion of Allied forces against Germany in 1944 known as the D-Day was successful. The conference succeeded in establishing a beach-head in the hearts and minds of a significant number of teachers and administrators on the importance and need of a student mentoring program. Like the D-Day, it is important to follow-through with this success and push further towards popularizing student mentoring in the Philippine education sector.

Blessed John Paul II on Religious Freedom

Source:
Address of His Holiness John Paul II at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Sunday, 8 October 1995

I was in the prayer rally

I was in the prayer rally! And it was tiring but a liberating experience!

I went to EDSA Shrine on August 4, 2012 to join Roman Catholics and pro-life advocates to pray for the dismissal of House Bill (HB) 4244 also known as "The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011" and express publicly such a stand.

A few days after President Benigno Aquino III's State of the Nation Address (SoNA) on July 23 and the subsequent House leaders' vow to vote on the bill on August 7, the catholic bishops called and campaigned for a prayer rally to be held in various major cities and set the date to August 4.

I listened to the Wongs

Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong, authors of The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher, came to Manila. I had the chance to listen to them on July 28, 2012. I was lucky to get a free-ticket from Dualtech to attend the couple's presentation.

We arrived at the venue early enough to get well-placed seats. I was surprised there were so many coming in: I was told about two thousand came for the morning session alone.

My understanding of capital sins

I read a part of point 407 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC): 

"Ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature inclined to evil gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action and morals."

It made me think how the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, affects our day-to-day living.

I also read in the CCC the resultant condition of our human nature after the Fall (cf. 405, CCC):

1. Wounded in the natural powers proper to human nature;
2. Subject to ignorance;
3. Subject to suffering;
4. Subject to the dominion of death; and
5. Inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called "concupiscence".

I'm a half-marathon (21K) finisher

I'm a half-marathon (21kms) finisher. And I did not achieve it easily. My PR was average and normal, it was two hours and 42 minutes.

Several months before the run, I practiced several times a week running for more than 30 minutes per day. I wanted to be physically prepared for the expected two hours of running.

The night before the run, I drank lots of water, took an early supper and went to bed early. I had to be at the starting line at 4:45 am for the gun-start.

Corregidor Island

I was lucky to be part of a company-tour to see Corregidor Island. Thanks to the learning initiative of the management and HR Department of Dualtech Center (DC), I was invited to come with the faculty and staff of DC.

I was in DrupalCamp Manila 2012

I'm an accidental website builder. My work with a non-profit firm a couple of years ago gave me the chance to learn it. It was a time when company websites were becoming a fad. For a non-profit, every cent count. Getting an institutional website up and running at that time was still uncertain and seemed outside our non-profit's mission-and-vision. To save on funds, we tried to get our own website through volunteer contribution. My boss had a computer professional friend whom he invited to help us put-up one. He then assigned me to follow-up his friend on his contribution. It turned out his friend was very busy and could not give ample attention to it. His friend decided to give me a crash course on open-source softwares, web-servers, web-programming, and content-management-systems. He pointed me to online resources for more readings and self-study.