Wednesday, January 28, 2004
A friend from Shell sent me this piece.
The Rigged Trade Game
NYTimes - Opinion Section July 20, 2003
Put simply, the Philippines got taken. A charter member of the World Trade Organization in 1995, the former American colony dutifully embraced globalization's free-market gospel over the last decade, opening its economy to foreign trade and investment. Despite widespread worries about their ability to compete, Filipinos bought the theory that their farmers' lack of good transportation and high technology would be balanced out by their cheap labor. The government predicted that access to world markets would create a net gain of a half-million farming jobs a year, and improve the country's trade balance.
It didn't happen. Small-scale farmers across the Philippine archipelago have discovered that their competitors in places like the United States or Europe do not simply have better seeds, fertilizers and equipment. Their products are also often protected by high tariffs, or underwritten by massive farm subsidies that make them artificially cheap. No matter how small a wage Filipino workers are willing to accept, they cannot compete with agribusinesses afloat on billions of dollars in government welfare. "Farmers in the United States get help every step of the way," says Rudivico Mamac, a very typical, and very poor, Filipino sharecropper, whose 12-year-old son is embarrassed that his family cannot afford to buy him a ballpoint pen or notebooks for school.
The same sad story repeats itself around the globe, as poor countries trying to pull themselves into the world market come up against the richest nations' insistence on stacking the deck for their own farmers. President Bush deserves credit for traveling to Africa and trying to focus attention on that continent's plight. But meanwhile, struggling African cotton farmers are forced to compete with products from affluent American agribusinesses whose rock-bottom prices are made possible by as much as $3 billion in annual subsidies. Sugar producers in Africa are stymied by the European Union's insistence on subsidizing beet sugar production as part of a wasteful farming-welfare program that gobbles up half its budget.
Instead of making any gains, the Philippines has lost hundreds of thousands of farming jobs since joining the W.T.O. Its modest agricultural trade surpluses of the early 1990's have turned into deficits. Filipinos, who like referring to their history as a Spanish and American colony as "three centuries in the convent followed by fifty years in Hollywood," increasingly view the much-promoted globalization as a new imperialism. Despair in the countryside feeds a number of potent anti-government insurgencies. Leaders who hitched their political fortunes to faith in the free market have grown bitter.
They include Fidel Ramos, who was Washington's staunch ally when he managed the Philippines' economic opening as president in the mid-1990's. Now, Mr. Ramos blames rich nations' unfair trade practices - especially their "hidden farm subsidies and other tricks" - for much of the suffering in the countryside. Given how long the world's economic powers have been trying to persuade the rest of the world to embrace a more open global economy, Mr. Ramos said in an interview, he was taken aback by their unwillingness to level the competitive playing field. "Poor countries cannot afford to be on the short end of this deal for long," he said. "People are in real need. People are dying."
Mr. Ramos's plea could have emanated from any number of countries in the developing world, home to 96 percent of the world's farmers. It is a plea that needs to be heeded, before it is too late.
The United States, Europe and Japan funnel nearly a billion dollars a day to their farmers in taxpayer subsidies. These farmers say they will not be able to stay in business if they are left at the mercy of wildly fluctuating prices and are forced to compete against people in places like the Philippines, who are happy to work in the fields for a dollar a day. So the federal government writes out checks to Iowa corn farmers to supplement their income, and at times insures them against all sorts of risks assumed by any other business. This allows American companies to then profitably dump grain on international markets for a fraction of what it cost to grow, courtesy of the taxpayer, often at a price less than the break-even point for the impoverished third-world farmers. If all else fails, wealthy nations simply throw up trade barriers to lock out foreign commodities.
The system is sold to the American taxpayer as a way of preserving the iconic family farm, which does face tough times and deserves plenty of empathy, but it in fact helps corporate agribusiness interests the most.
By rigging the global trade game against farmers in developing nations, Europe, the United States and Japan are essentially kicking aside the development ladder for some of the world's most desperate people. This is morally depraved. By our actions, we are harvesting poverty around the world.
Hypocrisy compounds the outrage. The United States and Europe have mastered the art of forcing open poor nations' economies to imported industrial goods and services. But they are slow to reciprocate when it comes to farming, where poorer nations can often manage, in a fair game, to compete. Globalization, it turns out, can be a one-way street.
The glaring credibility gap dividing the developed world's free-trade talk from its market-distorting actions on agriculture cannot be allowed to continue. While nearly one billion people struggle to live on $1 a day, European Union cows net an average of $2 apiece in government subsidies. Japan, a country that prospered like no other by virtue of its ability to gain access to foreign markets for its televisions and cars, retains astronomical rice tariffs. The developed world's $320 billion in farm subsidies last year dwarfed its $50 billion in development assistance. President Bush's pledge to increase foreign aid was followed by his signing of a farm bill providing $180 billion in support to American farmers over the next decade.
A fair shot, more than charity, is what poor nations need. According to International Monetary Fund estimates, a repeal of all rich-country trade barriers and subsidies to agriculture would improve global welfare by about $120 billion. An uptick of only 1 percent in Africa's share of world exports would amount to $70 billion a year, some five times the amount provided to the region in aid and debt relief.
The rigged game is sowing ever-greater resentment toward the United States, the principal architect of the global economic order. In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans have desperately been trying to win the hearts and minds of poor residents of the Muslim world. Somehow, we expect other nations to take our claims to stand for democracy and freedom more seriously than they must take our insincere free-trade rhetoric.
The beleaguered Philippine island of Mindanao is crawling with Communist and Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas, and links between Al Qaeda and the local insurgents have made the island a battlefield in President Bush's war on terrorism. There is talk of sending in American troops. But to farmers on Mindanao, home to more than two-thirds of the Philippines' corn production, subsidized American imports loom as large as any other threat. Since the Philippines joined the W.T.O. eight years ago, American corn growers have received an astonishing $34.5 billion in taxpayer support, according to an analysis of government data by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group. This helps explain how America is able to export - the less polite word in the patois of trade would be dump - corn at only two-thirds its cost of production.
The resentment is intense. "The common view here is that the United States, our former colonial master, is a destructive force," said Lito Lao, the chairman of the Alliance of Farmers group in the Mindanao province of Davao Oriental. Farmers' despair, he adds, fuels the Marxist New People's Army insurgency.
The global economy is supposed to change the world for people like Rudi and Nelly Mamac, who live with their seven children in a two-room shack on the edge of a massive plantation in Davao Oriental. The Mamacs are lucky if they clear the equivalent of $1 a day. Mr. Mamac, the sharecropper, was ready to imagine the better future promised by the great global trade game. He wishes he could afford a television and, when drawing a blank upon being asked about life beyond his corn-and-coconut-filled existence, he will wave vaguely, somewhat apologetically, toward the corner of their living space where they imagine the tube should stand.
But none of their dreams are happening. Arnel Mamac, 12, already skips plenty of school days, when his family cannot afford to buy rice. His parents don't want him making the two-mile trek on an empty stomach. One thing the Mamacs seem to realize, even without the benefit of a TV, is that the global economy they are forced to compete in is no level playing field. "It's very unfair that the American government takes so much care of its farmers while abusing those in the third world," Mr. Mamac says.
The United States and its wealthy allies will not eradicate poverty - or defeat terrorism, for that matter ? by conspiring to deprive the world's poor farmers of even the most modest opportunities. And the threat of a devastating antiglobalization backlash set off by a widespread resentment of "northern" trade practices is enormous. Acknowledging the imminent crisis, W.T.O. negotiators labeled the current round of trade liberalization talks, begun in Doha, Qatar, in late 2001, the "development round." Any success depends on a commitment by the United States, Europe and Japan to reduce barriers to agricultural imports by 2005, and to cut subsidies. But several deadlines have already been missed. The European Union and Japan are particularly reluctant to make the painful reforms needed to make trade a meaningful two-way street, and the Bush administration has little credibility to prod them along, given its own outrageous farm subsidies. So a crucial September meeting of the W.T.O. in Cancún threatens to be a reprise of its Seattle meeting in 1999, when the last round of trade-liberalization talks stalled, and protesters outside famously threw their anti-globalization fest.
Back on Mindanao, it's a shame Rudivico Mamac cannot have his TV set to watch all those trade delegates gather in picturesque Cancún come September. After all, what they really will be discussing, notwithstanding all the mind-numbing trade jargon, is whether a global economy has room for the world's poorest farmers.
The Rigged Trade Game
NYTimes - Opinion Section July 20, 2003
Put simply, the Philippines got taken. A charter member of the World Trade Organization in 1995, the former American colony dutifully embraced globalization's free-market gospel over the last decade, opening its economy to foreign trade and investment. Despite widespread worries about their ability to compete, Filipinos bought the theory that their farmers' lack of good transportation and high technology would be balanced out by their cheap labor. The government predicted that access to world markets would create a net gain of a half-million farming jobs a year, and improve the country's trade balance.
It didn't happen. Small-scale farmers across the Philippine archipelago have discovered that their competitors in places like the United States or Europe do not simply have better seeds, fertilizers and equipment. Their products are also often protected by high tariffs, or underwritten by massive farm subsidies that make them artificially cheap. No matter how small a wage Filipino workers are willing to accept, they cannot compete with agribusinesses afloat on billions of dollars in government welfare. "Farmers in the United States get help every step of the way," says Rudivico Mamac, a very typical, and very poor, Filipino sharecropper, whose 12-year-old son is embarrassed that his family cannot afford to buy him a ballpoint pen or notebooks for school.
The same sad story repeats itself around the globe, as poor countries trying to pull themselves into the world market come up against the richest nations' insistence on stacking the deck for their own farmers. President Bush deserves credit for traveling to Africa and trying to focus attention on that continent's plight. But meanwhile, struggling African cotton farmers are forced to compete with products from affluent American agribusinesses whose rock-bottom prices are made possible by as much as $3 billion in annual subsidies. Sugar producers in Africa are stymied by the European Union's insistence on subsidizing beet sugar production as part of a wasteful farming-welfare program that gobbles up half its budget.
Instead of making any gains, the Philippines has lost hundreds of thousands of farming jobs since joining the W.T.O. Its modest agricultural trade surpluses of the early 1990's have turned into deficits. Filipinos, who like referring to their history as a Spanish and American colony as "three centuries in the convent followed by fifty years in Hollywood," increasingly view the much-promoted globalization as a new imperialism. Despair in the countryside feeds a number of potent anti-government insurgencies. Leaders who hitched their political fortunes to faith in the free market have grown bitter.
They include Fidel Ramos, who was Washington's staunch ally when he managed the Philippines' economic opening as president in the mid-1990's. Now, Mr. Ramos blames rich nations' unfair trade practices - especially their "hidden farm subsidies and other tricks" - for much of the suffering in the countryside. Given how long the world's economic powers have been trying to persuade the rest of the world to embrace a more open global economy, Mr. Ramos said in an interview, he was taken aback by their unwillingness to level the competitive playing field. "Poor countries cannot afford to be on the short end of this deal for long," he said. "People are in real need. People are dying."
Mr. Ramos's plea could have emanated from any number of countries in the developing world, home to 96 percent of the world's farmers. It is a plea that needs to be heeded, before it is too late.
The United States, Europe and Japan funnel nearly a billion dollars a day to their farmers in taxpayer subsidies. These farmers say they will not be able to stay in business if they are left at the mercy of wildly fluctuating prices and are forced to compete against people in places like the Philippines, who are happy to work in the fields for a dollar a day. So the federal government writes out checks to Iowa corn farmers to supplement their income, and at times insures them against all sorts of risks assumed by any other business. This allows American companies to then profitably dump grain on international markets for a fraction of what it cost to grow, courtesy of the taxpayer, often at a price less than the break-even point for the impoverished third-world farmers. If all else fails, wealthy nations simply throw up trade barriers to lock out foreign commodities.
The system is sold to the American taxpayer as a way of preserving the iconic family farm, which does face tough times and deserves plenty of empathy, but it in fact helps corporate agribusiness interests the most.
By rigging the global trade game against farmers in developing nations, Europe, the United States and Japan are essentially kicking aside the development ladder for some of the world's most desperate people. This is morally depraved. By our actions, we are harvesting poverty around the world.
Hypocrisy compounds the outrage. The United States and Europe have mastered the art of forcing open poor nations' economies to imported industrial goods and services. But they are slow to reciprocate when it comes to farming, where poorer nations can often manage, in a fair game, to compete. Globalization, it turns out, can be a one-way street.
The glaring credibility gap dividing the developed world's free-trade talk from its market-distorting actions on agriculture cannot be allowed to continue. While nearly one billion people struggle to live on $1 a day, European Union cows net an average of $2 apiece in government subsidies. Japan, a country that prospered like no other by virtue of its ability to gain access to foreign markets for its televisions and cars, retains astronomical rice tariffs. The developed world's $320 billion in farm subsidies last year dwarfed its $50 billion in development assistance. President Bush's pledge to increase foreign aid was followed by his signing of a farm bill providing $180 billion in support to American farmers over the next decade.
A fair shot, more than charity, is what poor nations need. According to International Monetary Fund estimates, a repeal of all rich-country trade barriers and subsidies to agriculture would improve global welfare by about $120 billion. An uptick of only 1 percent in Africa's share of world exports would amount to $70 billion a year, some five times the amount provided to the region in aid and debt relief.
The rigged game is sowing ever-greater resentment toward the United States, the principal architect of the global economic order. In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans have desperately been trying to win the hearts and minds of poor residents of the Muslim world. Somehow, we expect other nations to take our claims to stand for democracy and freedom more seriously than they must take our insincere free-trade rhetoric.
The beleaguered Philippine island of Mindanao is crawling with Communist and Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas, and links between Al Qaeda and the local insurgents have made the island a battlefield in President Bush's war on terrorism. There is talk of sending in American troops. But to farmers on Mindanao, home to more than two-thirds of the Philippines' corn production, subsidized American imports loom as large as any other threat. Since the Philippines joined the W.T.O. eight years ago, American corn growers have received an astonishing $34.5 billion in taxpayer support, according to an analysis of government data by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group. This helps explain how America is able to export - the less polite word in the patois of trade would be dump - corn at only two-thirds its cost of production.
The resentment is intense. "The common view here is that the United States, our former colonial master, is a destructive force," said Lito Lao, the chairman of the Alliance of Farmers group in the Mindanao province of Davao Oriental. Farmers' despair, he adds, fuels the Marxist New People's Army insurgency.
The global economy is supposed to change the world for people like Rudi and Nelly Mamac, who live with their seven children in a two-room shack on the edge of a massive plantation in Davao Oriental. The Mamacs are lucky if they clear the equivalent of $1 a day. Mr. Mamac, the sharecropper, was ready to imagine the better future promised by the great global trade game. He wishes he could afford a television and, when drawing a blank upon being asked about life beyond his corn-and-coconut-filled existence, he will wave vaguely, somewhat apologetically, toward the corner of their living space where they imagine the tube should stand.
But none of their dreams are happening. Arnel Mamac, 12, already skips plenty of school days, when his family cannot afford to buy rice. His parents don't want him making the two-mile trek on an empty stomach. One thing the Mamacs seem to realize, even without the benefit of a TV, is that the global economy they are forced to compete in is no level playing field. "It's very unfair that the American government takes so much care of its farmers while abusing those in the third world," Mr. Mamac says.
The United States and its wealthy allies will not eradicate poverty - or defeat terrorism, for that matter ? by conspiring to deprive the world's poor farmers of even the most modest opportunities. And the threat of a devastating antiglobalization backlash set off by a widespread resentment of "northern" trade practices is enormous. Acknowledging the imminent crisis, W.T.O. negotiators labeled the current round of trade liberalization talks, begun in Doha, Qatar, in late 2001, the "development round." Any success depends on a commitment by the United States, Europe and Japan to reduce barriers to agricultural imports by 2005, and to cut subsidies. But several deadlines have already been missed. The European Union and Japan are particularly reluctant to make the painful reforms needed to make trade a meaningful two-way street, and the Bush administration has little credibility to prod them along, given its own outrageous farm subsidies. So a crucial September meeting of the W.T.O. in Cancún threatens to be a reprise of its Seattle meeting in 1999, when the last round of trade-liberalization talks stalled, and protesters outside famously threw their anti-globalization fest.
Back on Mindanao, it's a shame Rudivico Mamac cannot have his TV set to watch all those trade delegates gather in picturesque Cancún come September. After all, what they really will be discussing, notwithstanding all the mind-numbing trade jargon, is whether a global economy has room for the world's poorest farmers.
Comments:
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
//sweetcakes and milkshakes
Here's a poem from the movie "Before Sunrise," one of the best movies I've seen. There's a sequel coming in 2004, entitled "Before Sunset." Hope it'll be worth the 9 year wait.
In the movie, this was the piece written by the poet beside the Danube.
Daydream delusion
Limousine Eyelash
Oh, baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and MILKSHAKES (laughs)
I am a delusion angel
I am a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Launched in life
Like branches in the river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I'll carry you. You'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me (poet hands poem back)
Don't you know me by now
In the movie, this was the piece written by the poet beside the Danube.
Daydream delusion
Limousine Eyelash
Oh, baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and MILKSHAKES (laughs)
I am a delusion angel
I am a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Launched in life
Like branches in the river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I'll carry you. You'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me (poet hands poem back)
Don't you know me by now
Comments:
Thursday, January 22, 2004
//fichures!
fraternity brothers at almer's wedding...
a classic refinery geeks class pic....
cleanup divers (yes, i'm there somewhere...)
never... ever... drink and dive...
a classic refinery geeks class pic....
cleanup divers (yes, i'm there somewhere...)
never... ever... drink and dive...
Comments:
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
//top 10 reasons to date a MECHANICAL engineer:
oh yes, i came up with this one boring day at work...
10. We understand the kinematics of moving bodies.
9. We know why objects undergo gyration.
8. We can move fluids using pumping motion and convert heat using reciprocating motion.
7. We invented the screw.
6. We recognize clearances and adhere to tolerances when it comes to fits and measures.
5. While a diamond is a woman's best friend, to us it's just an element.
4. Brinell hardness test. =D
3. We do not just play with fire. We USE fire.
2. We know how to look for the critical points.
1. We never make anything move without lubrication.
10. We understand the kinematics of moving bodies.
9. We know why objects undergo gyration.
8. We can move fluids using pumping motion and convert heat using reciprocating motion.
7. We invented the screw.
6. We recognize clearances and adhere to tolerances when it comes to fits and measures.
5. While a diamond is a woman's best friend, to us it's just an element.
4. Brinell hardness test. =D
3. We do not just play with fire. We USE fire.
2. We know how to look for the critical points.
1. We never make anything move without lubrication.
Comments:
Friday, January 09, 2004
"It seems to me now that the plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone."
-Nick Hornby, How to Be Good
-Nick Hornby, How to Be Good
Comments:
Thursday, January 08, 2004
//brownian thoughts on a wedding
Almer, my best friend, got married yesterday.
His decision to get married somehow seemed like watching him relocate from one big room where single people live together and party all night long and have coffee afterwards, to another room just across ours, where married couples do their laundry, feed milk to their children, and make grocery lists. And over the last five or so years, I have seen friends, classmates, drinking buddies, and oh-my-golly-wow, old girlfriends, pack up and go. Some hastily, and a some with dreamy, love-shot eyes. Everytime this happens, friends from both rooms would dress up, gather around, drink wine, and exchange tales about places, faces, and little feet.
Yesterday, my friend finally picked up his bags, and I was the one who walked with him to the door. I stood at the altar, right beside him, as we watched his bride walk down the aisle, wearing a veil that failed to hide the tears in her eyes.
As I walked back, the faces of friends who used to live with us in our big room but have chosen to move out not too long ago, flashed inside my head. RB, who used to be a bully back in Pisay, and the butt of our jokes, is now all excited and proud about the baby who is coming in about 6 months. Arnie, one of the bad boys of our batch, is now father to 2 lovely daughters. Lani, the first person to love me in a romantic way, she used to paint the town red along with her friends, but she now hardly ever stays out after 10 pm because she's always worried about her son. Patrick, my Machine Design partner and batchmate, whose son, Mateo, is now my Godson. And there's Jun, my co-kiddo and idealist in second year high, whose 3-month old daughter just underwent a successful surgery.
Today, I go back to the life I've lived and this room. As I look around me, I realize that as much as I have spent most of last year's vacation leaves just to attend friend's weddings, a good number of us still remain behind. I do remember that as of our last high school reunion, people were already starting to show off photographs of their kids, but I also do recall that most of us still lived in a world of overpriced late-night coffee and beer. I just can't help but wonder how long this is going to last. I just can't help but wonder if the time will ever come when friends and loved ones will dress up, gather around, drink wine and exchange stories, because I invited them to walk with me towards the door.
His decision to get married somehow seemed like watching him relocate from one big room where single people live together and party all night long and have coffee afterwards, to another room just across ours, where married couples do their laundry, feed milk to their children, and make grocery lists. And over the last five or so years, I have seen friends, classmates, drinking buddies, and oh-my-golly-wow, old girlfriends, pack up and go. Some hastily, and a some with dreamy, love-shot eyes. Everytime this happens, friends from both rooms would dress up, gather around, drink wine, and exchange tales about places, faces, and little feet.
Yesterday, my friend finally picked up his bags, and I was the one who walked with him to the door. I stood at the altar, right beside him, as we watched his bride walk down the aisle, wearing a veil that failed to hide the tears in her eyes.
As I walked back, the faces of friends who used to live with us in our big room but have chosen to move out not too long ago, flashed inside my head. RB, who used to be a bully back in Pisay, and the butt of our jokes, is now all excited and proud about the baby who is coming in about 6 months. Arnie, one of the bad boys of our batch, is now father to 2 lovely daughters. Lani, the first person to love me in a romantic way, she used to paint the town red along with her friends, but she now hardly ever stays out after 10 pm because she's always worried about her son. Patrick, my Machine Design partner and batchmate, whose son, Mateo, is now my Godson. And there's Jun, my co-kiddo and idealist in second year high, whose 3-month old daughter just underwent a successful surgery.
Today, I go back to the life I've lived and this room. As I look around me, I realize that as much as I have spent most of last year's vacation leaves just to attend friend's weddings, a good number of us still remain behind. I do remember that as of our last high school reunion, people were already starting to show off photographs of their kids, but I also do recall that most of us still lived in a world of overpriced late-night coffee and beer. I just can't help but wonder how long this is going to last. I just can't help but wonder if the time will ever come when friends and loved ones will dress up, gather around, drink wine and exchange stories, because I invited them to walk with me towards the door.
Comments:
...the best man raises his glass
Almer asked me to deliver a speech for the usual ceremonies last night. I never liked pre-writing my speeches, being the spontaneous, and usually unprepared crammer that I am. So, from the time I put on my Barong, up until dinner, I wrote the piece in my head, in imaginary bulletpoints. I was lucky that the the bride's best friend, the Matron of Honor went first. It bought me time to give structure to what I wanted to say.
Here goes, as downloaded from inside my cluttered head...
"Almer and I have known each other since we were 12 years old, and though it seemed like ages, we became best friends only after we joined the fraternity. We went to the same high school, took up college in the same university, the only university our families could afford for us, joined the same fraternity, the same organizations, and at one point became roommates after we were kicked out of our dorms. It was in that small boarding house in Project 6 that we built our friendship, as we'd sing Apo Hiking songs over the the guitar, and talk about life as it takes each of us by surprise. Almost every night, we would talk to each other about things that bother us, questions that neither of us could answer, and we'd often wonder about the one thing that we both fear: the future. He'd always tell me about all the girls he was courting, and ask me for my opinion on each of them. Just kidding, Kath. And always, we would end up talking about this very day. And we were both scared of getting married, as we could only guess the amount of emotional preparation one has to make to finally give himself up to one person for the rest of his life. I am glad and overwhelmed, that Almer has finally crossed over and made that decision.
If there was one thing I have always known about Almer, it would be the fact that he is the kind of person who never makes a decision without pondering over the options and consequences a million times over. Each and every choice he has made was for a good reason: When he chose to study in Pisay, it was because he wanted to secure a better future. When he took up college in UP, it was to get the best education there is (oops, sorry, Ateneans...). When he joined the fraternity, it was because he wanted to expand his horizons. When he chose to work for Accenture, it was for a fruitful and challenging career. Not too long ago, he made the biggest decision of his life. And as always, it was for a good reason. And it shows with the way he beams now: that he is truly, and deeply in love with Kath.
This afternoon, I stood beside him as his best man. And it made me feel honored to be chosen as the last person to walk with him before he takes his next step as a married man.
I was able to look up the traditional meaning of what a best man is. In the medieval times, he is supposed stand with the groom at all times, and help him protect his bride from barbarians and raiders, in case they plan to take her away. Almer and Kath, I would like to take that challenge to heart, and tell you that in all trials that may come your way, now that you are one, I will still stand beside you and still and always be your best man."
Here goes, as downloaded from inside my cluttered head...
"Almer and I have known each other since we were 12 years old, and though it seemed like ages, we became best friends only after we joined the fraternity. We went to the same high school, took up college in the same university, the only university our families could afford for us, joined the same fraternity, the same organizations, and at one point became roommates after we were kicked out of our dorms. It was in that small boarding house in Project 6 that we built our friendship, as we'd sing Apo Hiking songs over the the guitar, and talk about life as it takes each of us by surprise. Almost every night, we would talk to each other about things that bother us, questions that neither of us could answer, and we'd often wonder about the one thing that we both fear: the future. He'd always tell me about all the girls he was courting, and ask me for my opinion on each of them. Just kidding, Kath. And always, we would end up talking about this very day. And we were both scared of getting married, as we could only guess the amount of emotional preparation one has to make to finally give himself up to one person for the rest of his life. I am glad and overwhelmed, that Almer has finally crossed over and made that decision.
If there was one thing I have always known about Almer, it would be the fact that he is the kind of person who never makes a decision without pondering over the options and consequences a million times over. Each and every choice he has made was for a good reason: When he chose to study in Pisay, it was because he wanted to secure a better future. When he took up college in UP, it was to get the best education there is (oops, sorry, Ateneans...). When he joined the fraternity, it was because he wanted to expand his horizons. When he chose to work for Accenture, it was for a fruitful and challenging career. Not too long ago, he made the biggest decision of his life. And as always, it was for a good reason. And it shows with the way he beams now: that he is truly, and deeply in love with Kath.
This afternoon, I stood beside him as his best man. And it made me feel honored to be chosen as the last person to walk with him before he takes his next step as a married man.
I was able to look up the traditional meaning of what a best man is. In the medieval times, he is supposed stand with the groom at all times, and help him protect his bride from barbarians and raiders, in case they plan to take her away. Almer and Kath, I would like to take that challenge to heart, and tell you that in all trials that may come your way, now that you are one, I will still stand beside you and still and always be your best man."
Comments:
