What is a servant hero?

In layman’s term, we know a servant is a person giving service to another. Much as we refer a person who does extraordinary deed, a hero. Can these two personalities be rolled into one?

For some, it might be as easy as walking in the park. This might also be very difficult for others. But with right attitude, it is possible. Being an optimistic person, who usually sees favorable outcome of things.

We, public servants can be servant heroes in our own little ways. That is giving our ordinary services to the public extraordinarily.

How can this be done?

Let us create a client-friendly environment in our offices. We cannot deny the fact that an ordinary citizen is afraid to step inside a government office nowadays. He has the fear of not being attended. Some believe personnel are unapproachable, driving them away. Changing this mindset of our citizenry will certainly magnet the public to avail any of the services offered.

At one instance, I had a chance to entertain a middle-aged lady seeking help in our office. She was hesitant at first in our conversation. To my surprise, she confessed right at the end of our talk that she felt relieved, erasing her belief that government offices are difficult to transact.

Time is gold. Everybody wants to spend time productively. However, when you experience standing the entire day queuing, to transact a few minute business is absolutely unproductive. There must be something wrong somewhere in the process. This predicament has brought hassle and is cumbersome to most people. Given the circumstance, people will develop temper easily. They become irritated. Most of the time concerned offices gave vague and inconsistent explanations.

As servant heroes, we should try to explain to the public, the most comprehensible way why inconveniences arise at some point. Not giving them a cloud of uncertainty. Perhaps, passing a person from a desk to another should be minimized. However, if the situation calls for it, it is just proper to do the same.

A year ago, I was religiously standing, waiting for my turn to transact business with a certain government agency, only to find out that we were told to disperse, despite the clocks hand was still way far from the close of the office hours. I felt disappointed for the kind of service I got. This should be avoided at all times, if government offices want to project a positive image to the public.

Many say, we should not look at the outside appearance of a person, it is often deceiving, but rather look the inner appearance, there lies his true intrinsic value.

I must say servant heroes should possess both. External looks produce respect from others. The honor and dignity of public service start on the way you dress. Neither one would approach you if you have an unkempt appearance. Hesitation will occur and trust will materialize longer.

No doubt a servant hero is someone who has tested patience. He is able to empathize when necessary, not losing his impartiality towards the decisions he will make later on. In doing so, he gains a better understanding of the predicament of the other person. Thus, he will be able to come up with a balanced and well-rounded decision or advice.

A servant hero has a high degree of integrity and trust, unspoiled of any misconduct in whatever form. We all know that once these two attributes collapse, it is hard to build back.

Everyone has a servant hero spirit within himself. For all we know, it has been cultivated and practiced in our day to day dealings with others, particularly with our families, friends, co-workers and even to strangers.

I believe great things begin in small things. Minute deeds lumped together can move mountains, change society and change people’s lives.

As what Sydney Smith had said and I quote, “It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little – do what you can. “ Hence, let us be servant heroes in our little ways.

A hero out of a storm

She was a hero, despite her budding age at 12. She waded the flood, braving the strong current of waters, proudly holding up the Philippine flag. A hero rises from the mad storm Juaning, hitting the northern part of the country. She is Janella. The petite girl from Albay who save our national symbol.

What happened to her after that?

We saw in the news how the plight of her family. Their house was totally swept by the typhoon. They have nowhere to go to shelter on.

She returned the flag to the school. She received several accolades from the school authorities. In fact, a large picture of her heroism was displayed in the school premises. How proud this little girl was. By saving the flag, she became an instant hit worldwide.

She deserves an honor, even in Malacañang for her mighty deed.

In a television program yesterday, a cement company provided her family construction materials to build their home. A local university in her place, gave her a scholarship, an answered prayer of her grandmother who always wanted Janella to finish her education. On top of that, a livelihood package to start another  hope, much to their surprise was handed to them.

The little thing she did born huge things for her and her entire family.

I was teary-eyed to see her inspiring story. I can only hope this country has more Janella's within, waiting to surface in both happy and sad occasions.

Darkness

Darkness. It is the absence of light. It is manifested in black color. The color spells uncertainty and great fear for most of us. Absolutely, no one likes to live in darkness.

We experienced darkness for twelve hours lately. A widespread   brown-out hit the entire block where we lived due to   the accident,   which claimed the life of the jeepney driver. He wasn’t able to escape the aged-old acacia tree falling down for an unexplainable cause.

Interesting stories about the incident became the hot topic of the curious passers-by and residents. I could hear them talking about the spirits abandoning the tree, transferring to another equally giant tree adjacent to a school. Some people blame the rains, making the tree’s foundation vulnerable.    

The room was dim and dark. A tiny light passes through the small window visible from the rooftop. The lonely candle which I lit at past six in the evening continues to glow. It was comfortably placed on top of the television set.

At first the evening heat was just manageable. But as hours passed and the night goes deep, the warmth inside the room seems unbearable. I was liked cooked in an oven. I was even tempted to undress to compensate the ever growing heat. If anyone does see me, it could only be totally black figure.

I tried to entertain myself just to deviate my attention of the agony. I sometimes go out to breath fresh air from the rooftop. From there, I could hear the grinding of the chain saw, the light illuminating above to clear the debris and the linesmen fixing the electric lines.

The brown-out caused much inconveniences to us. We will miss the early night news. We will miss our favorite primetime drama series. Everything run by electricity are unusable.

Why female names?

Nang Juaning, she is our only neighbor back in the nineties, when our family secedes living with my grandparents to start a new home. She is Litang, my cousin’s classmate in the law school. Her is Bebing, the now gray-haired neighbor who never expected to settle down not until she’s in her mid 30s. And still many others.

These names are also used to name abnormal weather conditions. Female names in general. They are widely used by our authorities to describe storms and typhoons.

But why female names?

This question remained unanswered until today. I couldn’t find a valid and concrete explanation why our storms and typhoon have feminine names. I came across with an opinion which explains it. Storms are unpredictable, they change directions rapidly. He said females behave the same way too. They are fickle-minded. They change decisions quickly. She says yes now but after a few minutes she says no.

Maybe the writer, I could not exactly remember his name, have a point. We cannot predict how it behaves.

Typhoons are strong. Once it hits the ground, devastation occurs. Houses unroofed. Trees and plants bowed down to the ground. It has power and strength.

When we speak of physical strength, men are stronger than women. Why isn’t it named on the male specie, on that analogy?

Azkals fever

For a basketball crazy nation, introducing another kind of sport seems an uphill climb. Its like getting an elephant through the eye of a needle. We don't have the height. The most important and necessary attribute in the field of basketball. We are always dwarfed by our opponents in the hard court, more so, if they are Europeans and Americans. To compensate for our weakness, we focus on speed and quickness. Who never knows his highness Michael Jordan or the trigger man, Allan Caidic, our local hard court hero. Basketball has been embedded in our culture.

Years back, we were captured by the Brazilian beauties and their leaping abilities in the volleyball court. The women' grand pr ix held in the country awakened the Filipinos love for the sport. The thundering spikes of the ladies, somehow pierced into the hearts of us all, wondering where did these angels find their strength. But the fever has dwindled down gradually and vanished into thin air for good.

Then came the Pacman fever. Boxer turned congressman became the new sports icon of our country. The world seems to halt every time Manny climbs up the ring. In fact, no recorded crime and other related incidence of violence coupled all of his fights. Pacman fever reunites our diversified citizenry. And the fever goes on.

Lately, a new fever contaminated the whole nation, the Azkals fever. Football, an unknown sport for most of us, became part of our daily menu. Filipinos learned to love the sport. The team receives tremendous support from the ordinary , the middle class and from affluent families. Donors flooded too. The players, mostly Fil-foreigners, became instant celebrities and brand endorsers. The fever had really penetrated the industry.

I hope their prominence will not cloud the very reason why they are called Azkals.

Otherwise, they will be like dogs we see roaming in our streets, barking at the wrong tree, because the tree doesn't listen at all.

In search for new heroes

Are we out of heroes nowadays? We constantly seek to single them out. Do they still exist?

I believe they proliferate everywhere. They are in streets playing hide and seek with the jeepneys and buses to make their way of living. They are in schools to suffice their quest for knowledge. They are in offices working on an eight-hour schedule. They are in large haciendas, tilling the lands they will never own. There are those sailing in seas to send money back home. They are in dump sites, with the flies and worms, hoping money will surface out of a hill of garbage. They are just around.

I've known many heroes. There is Rizal,whose statues can be found in many parts of the globe.He fought by his pen. A peaceful revolution. Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Ninoy Aquino and many others.We have Lapu-lapu,the popular chieftain of Mactan who killed Magellan.

Our history books speaks most of these heroes well.

How about the OFWs often called our modern day heroes. Workers sentenced to death in an alien country are also heroes in their own rights. Those excelling in sports, music and entertainment and other fields of endeavor are heroes too.

What makes a hero? He should be patriotic. He should have a great sense of nationalism. Perhaps, he considers the benefit of others first before his own, even risking his life for them. Does someone needs to die before he can be called a hero?

I suppose it is more dignified to see heroes alive. Heroes that we can interact everyday. Heroes who continue to spread their heroism.

Our long search for them is never-ending. For all we know, they are on the brink of extinction like endangered species. Not unless, you're heroes are those monuments carved in metals and stones in our parks, then the search for new heroes remains to be seen.

Preparation

Preparation. It is a tool everyone must possess to attain goals established at the onset of every task and event. It lessens the risks of deviating from our desired output. In fact, immaterial things will surface in the course of our preparation, if remained unnoticed, can entirely turn things upside down.

Preparation comes with time. When one spends longer time to prepare for a certain task, getting the planned goal is very high. Shorter time possess several risks. The risk of omitting certain procedures or processes necessary for the task, but disregarded to beat the deadline perhaps. Time is uncontrollable. We can do nothing about it. But we can control ourselves. Longer time or shorter time doesn't matter, with right attitude towards things.

Reunions

A decade after we marched up stage to get our individual high school diplomas back in the 90's, we decided to hold a reunion in one of the favorite resorts of the island. We had great time reminiscing the bygone days over lunch. We parted ways and decided to hold a gathering again, undated back then.

Seven years passed. As promised, we did it again in mid May. We became lesser in number. This has been the dilemma we are facing, at the onset of our plans. Most of the members of the batch worked in the seas as navigators, others found their homes and have settled abroad. We have get in touch with them using the latest technologies. A dozen of them responded while others were unreachable.

We had a festive mode, much as the residents of our town celebrated the fiesta. We talked over several bottles of rum. We danced the beat of Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber, and other dance beats dominating the airwaves, until the wee hours in the morning. We had a cup of coffee to rejuvenate ourselves. And yes, we smiled to the snap of the cameras for posterity.

How time flies.

When we deserted and evaporated ourselves to go back our own homes, we tucked in our bag of memories the happy faces, the uncontrolled giggle and laughter, and most of all the sense of camaraderie we had built over the years, which remained strong and firm up to now.

Departures

I foresee the movie to be a story of travel. I pictured someone in the departure area of an airport waiting for the scheduled flight. But it's not.
 
Daigo, the lead character of the film ends up working as encoffiner after the orchestra where he played most of his life, dissolved for no apparent reason. 

He was one the cellist who finds himself unemployed after their manager announced the unexpected news.Without hesitation, he sold his prized cello and moved back to his hometown in the suburbs of Tokyo to start a new life with his wife.
 
He searched for jobs until one day he found an ad in the local newspaper, for a certain company. He visited the place and yes, the owner hired him instantly.
 
Daigo thought the company was a travel agency.In fact, he was imagining himself going to places he never visited before. Ironically, he didn't see anything that would confirm what he thought, but coffins piled neatly on the office walls. The owner then explained to him that the ad was erroneously printed. It could have been "the departed" instead of "departures". Unfortunately, Daigo was really in need of a job and this started the whole thing "encoffiner".
 
The owner, who was also his mentor taught him the basics of the skill. From the wiping the corpse, dressing and putting make-ups to make the body look alive.
 
At first, his intestines almost moved out vomiting the whole time on his first try, coincidentally on a woman's body feasted with worms and flies. He got used to these things and eventually, he mastered the technique to counteract the awkward feeling.
 
He was busy with his new found job but he never failed to go back to his first love and passion, playing the cello.He tries to rekindle the good days with his parents who parted ways when he was still a teenager. The faded cello he used, given by his parents years back became the eyewitness in his reminiscing moments.
 
Is it destiny? He received a call from his boss one day, told to proceed to a town several miles away, to fulfill his professional responsibility. It turned out that the body was his father's corpse, who he haven't seen for years.
 
Such encounter seems to be the highlight of the film. Daigo and his wife were really emotional and so do I.
 
Departures. A film worth watching. It was a story of love. Of failure and hopes. A story of persistence and hard work. Above all, it was a story of family values.