I was talking to an old friend last Saturday and she asked me how my lovelife was doing. I could only reply: "What lovelife?" We tried to dissect why that is so or why it seems so hard for me to find someone worth investing myself in. Last Sunday, I got my answers.

I got a text invite from to attend a Gawad Kalinga recollection on Sunday Afternoon. When I got there, there were a number of people who had already arrived. One of the people I saw was Tito Tony Meloto, Executive Director of Gawad Kalinga. I knew when I saw him that this was not just small meeting.

Tito Tony Meloto is a very influential man in my life, a father figure of sorts. I met him when I was 18, during the National Leaders’ Conference of Youth for Christ. Tito Tony was a no nonsense guy. He does what he preaches and he challenges every Youth for Christ to do the same. He always told me: You cannot compromise Jesus. [My real father was not good in being a priest in our family: he could deliver good “speeches,” but his actions would always betray his words.]

I felt so small…most of the people were full time ministers, former Corporate Executives who gave up their jobs and careers to be of service. Only 20% of us there had jobs outside the community.

I am so overwhelmed with all the talks; I don’t know how to make it all fit in this entry. I guess I will just get to the gist of what Gawad Kalinga is all about.

What I gather from the talks is: Gawad Kalinga is about being a Christian in action. What does it mean to be: like Christ? A Christian…from the perspective of the CFC community.

What did Christ do? Christ did pray and develop His relationship with THE FATHER. But Christ worked.

Jesus showed and brought the message of LOVE in action: bringing glad tidings to the poor. It’s about Jesus being in the frontline…preaching not just in the synagogues but on the streets…it’s about Jesus healing the sick… caring for the Children…recognizing no difference between the Gentiles and the Jews…LOVING EVERYONE GENUINELY.

It was no coincidence that I met corporate executives: some who have given up their jobs to volunteer full time and some remain to work in MNCs with the hope that they can bring the message of love to their workplace.

If we were to be a truly Catholic Charismatic community, we shouldn’t just be limited in prayer. If you were a true Catholic, how can you sleep at night knowing that 91% of your brethren are dirt poor?

Gawad Kalinga is not about Charity. We’re so full of that in the Philippines. Tito Tony said in his speech and I agree: We have become so good at giving alms that he have succeeded in making a country full of beggars.

The call of Gawad Kalinga is a concrete call TO LOVE. Not to feel pity towards the poor because I’m better and they’re unfortunate and therefore I am obliged to help. Gawad Kalinga’s call to me is to recognize that we are all equal and therefore deserve equal opportunities in life.

So to answer my question above, WHY AM I NOT MEETING A GUY WHO IS WORTHY ENOUGH TO INVEST MYSELF IN? WHY AM I NBSB?

God’s answer to me today was a resounding: DAHIL HINDI KA PA MARUNONG MAGMAHAL.

Most of what I heard last Sunday were thoughts I already had…about my Lupang Hinirang lyrics analysis…about my post on true Freedom in February (about the EDSA REVOLUTION)…even my recent commentary on the article by Ms. Celine Lopez.

But it’s not enough that I think. It’s not enough that I talk. It’s high time that I ACT!

When an "Ate" in the community approached me after the talks and said: We’re throwing a birthday party for all the September B-day Celebrants (kids) in our Gawad Kalinga site in Buwayang Bato. Can you come and help us? I knew I had to say: “Yes”.

I know I already have 2 parties slated on Saturday. And it can be very taxing for me to say yes to a third one. But no one said it would be easy, right. Jesus did bleed to show LOVE.

But it’s not about the sacrifice…it’s about the prize. It’s about waking up knowing you have shown God’s love to others.

It’s about making myself ready to meet the Perfect Man that God has prepared for me…

…getting married and having kids

It’s about the security of knowing that your children will grow up in a COUNTRY that THEY CAN BE PROUD OF.

[Sorry for the grammatical errors. Did not have time to edit the entry.]

I was having lunch with two of my girlfriends earlier today. Just before our Crispy Binagoongans were served, they started talking about how irritated they were with the article that Celine Lopez wrote in her column at the Philippine Star yesterday.

Now I have never read Ms. Lopez’s work, although I’ve heard of her name somewhere. She’s that Pepsi Endorser who used to date Tim Yap. I cannot, for the love of bananas, imagine how any sane girl would date a guy(?) like Tim Yap.

I also saw her picture in a magazine. The magazine described her as “Manila’s Princess”. Duh? If she were my princess, I don’t know her. Then again, I’m no true-blue Manilena… I’m a Davaoena, so how would I know? But I could bet that less than 10% of Manilas population knows who she is. Hey, Judy Ann Santos or Ethel Booba might well probably be Manila’s Princess.

Like I said, I’m not one to read lifestyle articles. [Well, I don’t read period. But that’s a different discussion, altogether.] My curiosity was sparked by the intense irritation my girlfriends had towards the article that I had to search and read for myself. Thanks to the power of the internet, I found the article in: http://www.philstar.com/philstar/LIFESTYLE200509123706.htm

I was only halfway through the first paragraph, my blood already started to boil. Being no Kikay girl, all her words [mostly brand names] sounded Swahili to me.

Anyway, the article was basically some rambling about how the rich brats live their lives owning this and that, driving this and that, going to these parties and such. However, it was entitled: The Great Depression.

Ms. Lopez attempts some sensibility by alluding to THE GREAT DEPRESSION of the 30’s: the global economic slump that led to mass unemployment.

Ms. Lopez is worried that she only has Php3, 000 in her bank account. “You can’t even buy a decent pair of shoes with that,” she says in the article. And thus, she considers herself “flat-broke.”

She cited her moving-out from the ancestral house is the cause for her poverty. And went on to describe that she’d rather have this brand of clothes or bags that cost the same as a year’s rent of a “decent” apartment. Okay more and more paragraphs with Brand names, or what magazine her boyfriend reads, what car her brother drives, or that she was only able to travel once this year: to Australia.

Lopez also described how hard it was to find a “decent” place to live; even lambasting one advertised Penthouse Suite as a “brothel/closet.”

Ironically, after mentioning all of the things she owns or has and brandishing her family “wealth,” Ms. Lopez ended the article by saying that she’s not actually RICH. It’s just that she was trained to be like that. And that she hated being called a socialite. “What’s that anyway?” she asks. She hopes to be a “real deal and not just another clichéd sham.”

So I ask: What’s the point of the article, then, Ms. Lopez?

Was it really to dig deeper into your soul for meaning? Or just a run-down of all the brand names you own?

I hope Ms. Lopez and her fans can forgive me for not sympathizing with her feelings of meaninglessness, despite the abundance in her life. Forgive me for not feeling sorry.

Php3,000 in a bank account: flat broke? Ninety one percent of Filipinos can’t even earn that in a month—while having to feed a family of 5! Open your closet and sell your bags and shoes in a garage sale, for sure your disposable monies would multiply ten-fold!

Penthouse suite not good enough? Gawad Kalinga full-time workers are scrambling to get sponsors for 19-square meter houses for families in need of shelter. More than 10 million Filipinos do not have decent housing, Ms. Lopez.

Don’t get me wrong, people who work hard to earn money have the right to enjoy their money. Living simply does not mean living raggedly.

Before I can be judged as self-righteous, I will confess that I have my own way of enjoying my material blessings. For some people my ways of enjoyment are excessive.

But it’s one thing to enjoy your prosperity and another thing to flaunt it for the whole world to read. And worse! Is the lamentation that one’s current status of being RICH is not even RICH enough, that one would undergo a “great depression” over it?

I have seen Ms. Lopez pictures. She looks, unmistakably a Filipino: not very mestiza, nor does she look super Eastern or Middle Eastern. She could wear the same clothes as Paris Hilton’s, or carry the same bag that Ms. So-and-So took to some fashion event, or even receive the same type of engagement ring as the Princess of Greenwich (if she exists). But one thing is for sure. SHE IS A FILIPINO. [Well, she could be a Spanish-Filipino, but you sure look like a Filipino.]

And this goes out to all the socialites of this nation as well. YOU ARE FILIPINOS. No matter how classy you look, people from other nations will look upon like the rest of us, Filipinos…poor, beset by corruption, chaos and tragedy.

There is one statement that I did agree with in Ms. Lopez articles. She called herself “A sham in chic clothing.”

And you know what? All hope is not lost for Ms. Lopez. If she truly wants to make herself “the real deal and not just another clichéd sham,” then she better stop equating her value to the things she owns or the lifestyle she lives.

IF YOU WISH TO LOOK GOOD, HELP MAKE THIS NATION LOOK GOOD. Do your part in giving the Philippines a grand-make over.

We should all do.