Prisoner

We were young and free

Enjoying our burgeoning

You held my heart

Gently you stole it from me

I didn’t see it, I didn’t see it

Til I noticed

You took me wherever you wanted to go

Never letting me go

Now I was a prisnoner

A prisoner of your love

Your cell was the best place

I myself didn’t wanna go

I wanna be a prisoner

A prisoner of your love

We were young and free

Enjoying the spring time of our lives

You walked into my life

I didn’t see it, I didn’t see it

Til I felt you running
Running in my head

And thumping my heart so fast

You locked yourself up

Threw the key

Never leaving

Never stopped thumping my heart so fast

You were a prisoner

A prisoner of my love

I woke up one day

Still a prisoner of your love

The cell I didn’t imagine this way

Sometimes it’s cold

I laid on the ground alone

Waiting for your gentle arms

Wrapping them around me

Sometimes it’s too small

I stayed on the corner

Sharing the chamber

With two or three more

I woke up one day

Still a prisoner

Now finding the door unlocked

Hesitating, stumbling

Hesitating, crying

I myself didn’t wanna go

I wanna be a prisoner

A prisoner of your love

I woke up one day

Still a prisoner

Now finding the door unlocked

But it was still the best place

I myself didn’t wanna go

I wanna be a prisoner

A prisoner of your love

You still take me wherever you wanted to go

Still never letting me go

Told myself,

I’m in cold, I’m in crowded

Cold and crowded cell of your love

I remembered the days

We were young and free

Now, when I wake up

I remember those days

When I was still a prisoner

A prisoner in your cold, crowded cell

I should thank you

Thank you for making it cold and crowded

It led me back to freedom

Freedom I couldn’t have relished again

The juvenile is now free

Free again

Enjoying the time of my life

Enjoying the time of my life

Like never been before

Thank you for making it cold

Thank you for making it crowded

I’m now enjoying the time of my life

Enjoying the time of my life

Like never been before




Just a simple February art :-) I noticed I haven't written any poem for quite a while. I wish I were a  musician so I could arrange it myself and sing it after saying, "hit it!"

Thinking Out Loud in My Boudoir: Sweet Tooth

It’s not how much money you spend for the surprise, rather, how much of yourself you put in it.

“Which is sweeter—love or sugar?”

I chuckled upon hearing that kindergartish question. The words are fundamental and the tone innocent that it appeared witty for me.

The statement hovered in my head. I wasn’t sure why the guy asked it. What I’m sure of is it made me think like a six-year-old who just saw her crush playing with another girl along the corridor.

I thought to myself, “Love’s sweetness goes beyond the taste buds. It flows down the heart and stimulates the senses.”

The munchkin in me retorted, “Sugar is forever sweet while love sometimes gives bitterness. Touché!”

Love or sugar. Flower or chocolates. Home-cooked dinner or fancy 12-course dinner date. Massage by your bare hands or Swedish massage in a hotel.

Whatever your dominant love language is—words of affirmation, service, gifts, quality time, or physical touch—the important thing is you express your true feelings out of joy and with sincerity… fine, with real love.

Don’t worry if you’re still a student, unemployed, or just not as wealthy as the other guy. Girls, ladies, women—whatever body type we have at the moment (because we, I for one, don’t grow old, only mature with age *winks)—what matters to us is the thought and the deliberateness of actions of our significant others’ expression of love.

 

It’s not how much money you spend for the surprise, rather, how much of yourself you put in it.

Love or sugar?

Uhm, like a dark chocolate or a kiwi-strawberry smoothie, love’s bumps and dents and even heartbreaks, or the other sources of bitterness or sweet-lemonading, are what make love’s taste just right…

It's the numerous feelings, tastes, and colors that love brings and teaches that make the next moment or next romance or next relationship better tasting and vibrant. It's the quintessence your expression of love and the authenticity of your feelings still weigh more to a she-heart.

I’ll go for love. It may not be forever sweet, but it sure does not cloy your appetite and melt your icing to waste or harden your boring caramel to death.

Five sure things:

            1. Telling us the basic “thank you” “sorry” “I love you” “you are special” is a very good way to hearts. (Words)

      

           2. Surprising us with your simple personally cooked food, whatever its taste, makes you better looking. (Service)

            

            3. Grabbing anything for us on your way home, like as grand as a sachet of coffee or as fancy a hand sanitizer, is like watering our blooming hearts. (Gift)

            

           4. Sitting beside us as we watch TV, waiting for us in the salon, or accompanying in the department store—whether you’re just acting you’re awake or enjoying or cool with it or not—makes you a bodyguard, correction, a security blanket which makes us feel safe. (Time)

           

           5. Simple gestures as wrapping your arms around us while watching TV, holding our hands while crossing the street, stroking our hair to sleep just make you seem like a gentle wingless angle. (Touch)

So simple to express love, right?

Us women are particular and feely like that in varying degrees. Some of us just don’t admit it, but there is that someone inside us who still wants to feel special no matter how nagger, hysterical, dominant, snooty, nonchalant, cool, we may seem.

Besides, when you're in love you don't run out of ways to express your feelings—simple or grand—and you always feel excited, tireless, and unremitting expressing what you feel just for the other feel loved and special.

Being in love is feeling limitless.

Know the love language, you will get the right measurement of love’s sweetness in different situations and days and moods and…

We seem complicated because men give us that label, but we’re not.

We are simple. We just want “you” in it.

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Thinking Out Loud in my Boudoir is a column for some of my random thoughts that, perhaps, other ladies my age are also experiencing or thinking of—whether from same vantage point or another. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just my own voice reverberating in my own world. I will do my best to discriminate my reason in this column, and just write spontaneously the first things and thoughts that a normal lady could think of. Just writing as I think...

My Two-Cents Worth: Sex Ed and RH Law

PROVIDED! Provided that the teacher is one who is specially equipped with proper knowledge, training, and moral consciousness in properly teaching the course. FURTHER PROVIDED, that sex ed will be taught in school at the right or proper time ascertained by an expert in the matter.

Intellectual masturbation... Yes, masturbation--a stimulation. I mean an informative or intellectual discussion that gives cognitive satisfaction.

To start our cerebral orgasm firework display, say…

“Sex! Sex! Sex!”

Why many people can say it out loud? A crime? Wickedness? Nah… You're not violating any law when you say it... Nor you sin just because you say it.

Sex. A taboo for some, perhaps.

I read a tweet on sex education, so here I am.

There was a forum in my Alma Mater and some of the senatorial candidates were asked about sex ed being a school based thing.

One of the Reproductive Health (RH) Law's objectives is to properly educate the people, including the youth, on sex.

With the advent of recently approved RH Law, I think it's but fitting for the government to push through school based sex ed in Health subjects or classes.

School is a more, if not the most, comfortable, informative, responsible place, I presume, where this topic can be discussed with the students openly, honestly, and positively. I believe. PROVIDED! Provided that the teacher is one who is specially equipped with proper knowledge, training, and moral consciousness in properly teaching the course. FURTHER PROVIDED, that sex ed will be taught in school at the right or proper time ascertained by an expert in the matter.

Now that we have RH Law, we should implement it productively and effectively; and part of doing that is to utilize the appropriated money for sex ed properly. (If not, a huge chunk of the budget will just go to condoms and pills; or, god forbid, to the pockets of some public officers.)

Since RH is now a law, we cannot just go against it nor be unmindful of it just because we don't agree with it.

RH being a law now, we have to make ways on how to effectively implement it to live up to its purpose and embolden its wisdom.

On the aspect of sex ed, we have it since a looooong time ago anyway. So now, with the budget appropriated for RH that trickles to sex ed, then we should make sure sex ed get the attention it deserves.

Sex education is a double-edged sword. It can either soil the innocence of the youth and desecrate the supposed to be one of the best things, sex; or teach the youth what is beautiful and make them desire what is right (as Plato treated education).

Improve the old ways of teaching sex ed. Train a special set of teachers because it’s a sensitive topic for a [conservative] Christian country like ours; more than that, it will greatly affect the future of the youth. Print quality books. Come up with a well-thought of curriculum to precisely target the objective of the law.

I mean, not just teach it... But teach it properly with the guidance of authorities in the field. Yes plural. Authorities composed of experts in anatomy, biology, psychology, sociology, morality, and even a lawyer I believe. This is to make sure the students will have the right information they need on the implications of their every action--physical effects, social implication, legal consequences.

Not to mention, the relevance of having a set of responsible, ethical, professional, and willing well-trained set of sex ed teachers.

Common sense dictates that we shouldn't just depend on the educational institutions.

The family, especially the parents, have the fundamental and significant roles in shaping their children's character, personality, values, integrity...name it.

RH Law is now here. Now, what we need to do is use it for the good it is aimed at.

And oh, did I not say, "scientific learning can be taught, but character cannot"?

Character is built over time--starting from home when babies start to grow (parent's wisdom, actions, and guidance) to children's experiences out there in the open sometimes-cruel-sometimes-just-downright-honest world.

Parents’ active roles in guiding their children is very important.

School's supplementary yet equally important role in teaching the students the proper and right thing is undeniably as crucial as the parents’ role.

So I hope, rather than still ranting about the RH Bill, let us all move forward and breathe life into this law for the best interest of our posterity.

Ease With Legalese: Bedazzled by Embezzlement

Let us help each other. Together let us build a better community… province… region… better and promising Philippines. 

Let us make a change, contribute, or help... however big or small, remote or convenient our way is. The important thing is we act.

2013 midterm elections is in the offing. Many politicians—newbies, oldies, re-electionists, public servant, or public savant, what have you—are fired up... I mean, “excited”; not ready to fire their guns, you know.

 

It’s just but high time that we know some of the basic and important provisions of the law that we always hear in the news and we even comment on... [Yet] we ironically and sadly, fail to familiarize ourselves with.

So watchdogs, before we cast your votes this coming elections, let us first understand some provisions of the law related to public officials and their performances of their duties as public servants.

Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) talks about PRESUMPTION OF MALVERSATION OF PUBLIC FUNDS OR PROPERTY.

We always hear in the news that politician X had a road project which gone worse even before it existed; mayor Y received millions of royalties from a natural resource found in his jurisdiction but there was never a project done until his term expired; or governor Z kept on building infrastructure projects but the buildings were always substandard and not in keeping with the budget the projects reflected.

What really is malversation?

Etymology of the word is traced from Middle French malverser or to be corrupt; from Latin male versari or male as in badly; from Indo-European versr or to behave. The word was first used in 1549 (Merriam-Webster).

The lexicon meaning says malversation is a misbehavior and especially corruption in an office, trust, or commission (Merriam-Webster); corrupt behaviour in a position of trust (Oxford); wrongdoing (Cambridge); behaviour that is illegal or not moral (Macmillan British).

Under the Article 217 of the RPC, the acts punishable as malversation are:

1. Appropriating public funds or property
2. Taking or misappropriating funds or property
3. Consenting, or through abandonment or negligence, permitting any other person to take such public funds or property
4. Being otherwise guilty of the misapropriation or malversation of such funds and property

Within the ambit of Chapter Four of the RPC, malversation is otherwise called as embezzlement or taking of funds/properties for one’s own or personal use.

Now, you may ask what makes an act a crime of malversation committed by a public officer.

There are still other acts of malversation other than those mentioned above. But all these acts have common elements that make them felonious or in violation of the RPC.

1. That the offender be a public officer
2. That he had custody or control of funds or property by reason of the duties of his office
3. That those funds or property were public funds or property for which he was accountable
4. That he appropriated, took, misappropriated, or consented, or through abandonment or negligence, permitted another person to take them.

It is very important to note that what is controlling is the nature of the duties of the public officer, and not the name of his office. Also, the term “public officers” embraces every public servant from the highest to the lowest positions. The RPC wipes out the standard distinction in the law of public officers between “officer” and “employee”. Hence, a temporary performance of public functions by a laborer makes him a public officer.

Even an emergency employee entrusted with custody or collection of public funds or property may be held liable for malversation.

The funds or property must be received in the official capacity or by virtue of his duty. Thus, if a public officer had no authority to receive the money/property and he misapporpriated it, what he committed is estafa not malversation.

You think a private individual can escape charge of malversation? No.

Private individuals may commit the crime of malversation in these cases:

1. Conspiracy with public officers guilty of malversation
2. Accessory or accomplice to a public officer
3. Custodian of public funds or property in whatever capacity
4. Depositor or administrator of public funds or property

So even you, yes you, can be charged with malvesation under Article 217 of the RPC.

When demand is made to the accountable officer to account for the funds or property and the officer cannot provide the funds/property, then the law presumes that he has put such missing funds or property to personal use.

Whether the public officer misappropriated the fund/property with malice or through negligence or imprudence, it doesn’t matter... Once the essential elements are all present, he is still liable for malversation under Article 217 of the RPC.

Demand and damage to the government are not necessary in malversation. Actually, damand merely raises a presumption. So whether there’s demand or none, a public officer may still be held liable.

Return of the malversed funds will only lessen the punishment, but the officer will still be liable.

So now... do some names just ring in your head?

We still have ample time to observe, background check, and evaluate…

Let us help each other. Together let us build a better community… province… region… better and promising Philippines.

Let us make a change, contribute, or help... however big or small, remote or convenient our way is. The important thing is we act.

Let’s all be informed, aware, and be engaged!

Vote based on your wise observation and evaluation.

Bayan natin, mahalin natin!

Thinking Out Loud in My Boudoir: Falling in Laugh

Yet love life isn't exciting without a dash of laugh out of surprise, ounce of laugh out of amazement, and a liberal sprinkle of laugh of out joy.

It's February! It's love month!

Yes, everyday should be a love day, but February is February... A love month! Uhm, yes by tradition.

For many girls, ladies, and women, February is a special love month. (Or is it just me?)

As a grade school girl, February 14 was a special time for me to make a personalized Valentine card for my parents. The one with two stick persons holding a heart and with more small hearts above their heads.

When I was a teenager to early 20s, the entire month of Feb was just so special and the month was just really short of days for cooking special gimicks and surprises for the one I loved.

As a lady that I am now, February is still much like when I was in the immediately preceding phase, except that now is just more fine tuned in many aspects and inclusive, and of course much better.

Bottom line, whatever stage we're in, we ladies are just inherently expressive of our feelings and we love loving.

So you guys, don't be irritated or intimidated nor be indifferent. Reciprocate the actions while they last. Be surprised if your woman does nothing to make you feel loved.

Yet love life isn't exciting without a dash of laugh out of surprise, ounce of laugh out of amazement, and a liberal sprinkle of laugh of out joy.

Laugh! Be happy in the relationship you're in. Have an authentic love laugh!

Call it silly love... But for us girls it's simply love itself.

Us girls translate our overflowing joy, excitement, and "kilig" with a controlled laugh when we can no longer contain our feelings.

If you're single dear girlfriend, don't worry. After a long relationship, I'm now happily single too! Enjoying the time of my life--the positive and productive freedom and me-time I have between a relatively long relationship (past) and the real thing life-long partnership (future). Things are simply refreshing and enlightening in many ways I didn't imagine.

Despite being single, I still see February as a great month. I'm still excited to express love and surprise my loved ones.

Ladies are just naturally expressively loving. It's a girl thing (winks).

It's so easy and handy to express love when you truly love the person--family, friends, special someone.

So hey hey hey you (and me), what are you doing right there? Go and surprise your loved ones with a simple I love you note, cookies you baked, flower from your garden, what have you...

February. Forever Excited to Bestow and Refresh Unconditional Admiration and Respect with Youthfulness...

That's just how I see February should be. Expressing love... not only for your BFs or GFs, but also to those you admire and respect.

Happy February! :-)

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Thinking Out Loud in my Boudoir is a column for some of my random thoughts that, perhaps, other ladies my age are also experiencing or thinking of—whether from same vantage point or another. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just my own voice reverberating in my own world. I will do my best to discriminate my reason in this column, and just write spontaneously the first things and thoughts that a normal lady could think of. Just writing as I think...