Sex and the single grandmother

This month I turn sexty-nine.

That was intentionally misspelled to catch your attention.  When they see the word “sex”, many people (even those with no patience to read), sit up and take notice.  Of course, because, face it, sex is yummylicious!  But even if you’ve stopped being awed by the promise of multiple orgasms in seven seconds, you just might want to read on—at least, you’ll feel good to know this sexty-niner understands you.

When I was 29—a super active rah-rah-rah, sex-boom-bah age, I must say—a younger wife among my husband’s colleagues sighed, “You are such a perfect, sexy couple!  Sana ganyan din kami ng husband ko hanggang mamatay kami! (I wish me and my husband could be like you until we die)!”  Observing my hubby and me together, and hearing about our fun attitude towards sex—for example, we would check in at motels on impulse to enjoy those mirrored ceilings—she rightly concluded that we were a “perfect, sexy couple”.  We indeed were a perfect sexy couple, vucking lucky our bodies were built with equal sensitivity, libido, and precision timing.  Never had a problem getting aroused or coming.  I couldn’t ask for more; in fact, that early I was already acting as de facto sex counselor to wives with sex problems, like that 50ish mother of four who confessed to me she had never had an orgasm, and who also called her husband a brute because he would grab her by the hair and force her to do fellatio.

Thus, I took the young wife’s words “I wish we could be like you forever!” as a compliment, not even suspecting that one day I’d be telling myself: “Sex is great, but I don’t want to be having sex until I’m 92!”  But that was exactly what I told her when she was in her mid-40s, widowed and disabled by gout.

So, now that I’m already a seasoned sexagenarian, a grandmother, and virtually single, I believe I have earned the privilege to laugh at sex.  Because the sex act is so funny!  Even when I was still having fun with sex, I would already find sex funny, too.  Nothing could be more ridiculously funny that two humans humping and pumping away to frenzy, like hairless apes.  Watching porn movies I would cluck my tongue, the performers reminding me of the orangutans in a zoo.

Interviewing a zoo keeper long ago I learned that they had a pair of orangutans (named Josie and Diego) who were of mating age but didn’t seem interested at all to mate.  Diego would masturbate by sticking his thing into a faucet, not knowing Josie had the real thing.  The zoo officials followed the advice of foreign experts and soon Josie and Diego got a baby.  How?  They kept showing pornographic movies to the orangutans, until they learned by imitation and nature took over. 

If you’ve ever watched documentaries of animals mating you’d see that essentially there is no difference between humans and animal species in the sex game.  There is courtship, foreplay, the frenzied connection, the resulting offspring—except that sometimes the animals are better parents than the humans, with their parental instinct to protect and rear their young kept intact and healthy by nature, untouched by a contraceptive mentality.  Realizing that humans are basically animals is both humbling and elating, and a blessing particularly to women who, after years of an active sex life, enjoyable or not, suddenly wake up one morning asking themselves “Is there life after sex?” 

We have differing ways of dealing with life’s many turns, turns that are sometimes not to our liking, and if we are too lazy to use our power to think for ourselves we end up following the herd—which will most likely say it is a human right to have a sizzling sex life until our dying day.  The herd, of course, overrates sex as a way to human fulfillment, and propagates the idea of sex-for-pleasure with advice that will keep women believing they can be goddesses if they are forever sexy.

So herd followers bombard you with unsolicited advice to make you “do something” about your sagging breasts, eye bags, wrinkles and cellulites, and nudge you to hate yourself because you don’t look 20 in your Senior Citizen ID card.  They will offer you hundreds of tips to stay sexy despite the years, to revitalize a waning sex life, to satisfy your man: “try new positions and techniques… order oysters for dinner… undress and make love to him when he’s about to leave for work… read porn to keep your libido up… don’t be afraid to give him Viagra…”.  In short, the herd would want you to be sex-obsessed to the point of forgetting you are way much more than what your eyes can see.

I chose not to follow that path.  I have since Day One Of Discovering I Have A Brain been consulting that brain so that even when I sincerely followed my heart in the best and worst of times I never forgot that my anatomy also included a brain, which, by the way, is the most vital sex organ in the whole of creation.  Thus, I have discovered a marvelous world that taught me sex beyond the realm of the birds and the bees and orangutans and porn.  The knowledge should be an adventure to all, not only to women born with a vagina, though most receptive to this must be the women who have found themselves in the crossroads of “to sex or not to sex”.  Whether she has lost her partner to real death, to death by boredom, to a needier woman, or to a late-blooming gay kumpadre, if she’s bold enough to try the untried she can still find sex in the oddest of places.  But it will not be sex as she knew it.  And to hear me on this very special adventure you’ll have to pay—but not “pay” as you know it.  J

The gospel according to Pacman

I wish Pacquiao would stop fighting.  This month, he’s in the thick of training for his November match.  I hope he decides to hang up his boxing gloves after that, while he’s still strong and sane.  I don’t want him to be like Muhammad Ali who fought all his life until he was half dead.  Couldn’t be anything else anymore—except as a warning signal to boxers who don’t know when to stop.  I want people to remember this Pinoy champ as a sound mind in a healthy body, not as a vegetable in a wheelchair.  Especially since he keeps on saying he wants to serve his people.  If he’s sincere about that then he should stop getting his head punched inside the ring—for how can he care as a good public servant when he himself needs a caregiver?  People may think we have a lot of zombies in the Congress but that’s no excuse.  Pacman is not yet a zombie so somebody should tell him to stop before he becomes one. 

What’s that to me?  Pacquiao may not even remember me so why should I care?  I didn’t care eleven years ago, before I met him in October 2002, in Davao city.  I didn’t even care to meet him because I don’t like boxing—bloody inhuman sport!—but a friend of his friend persuaded me a world champion would make a good story anytime.  So I accommodated his spiel and agreed to interview Pacquiao.  But my agenda consisted only of dissecting his soul—his pictures wearing a rosary around his neck intrigued me.  Since that meeting I’ve been a Pacman watcher although I don’t watch his fights.

During our meeting he impressed me as a good man as he disclosed a lot about training for a fight, and incidentally, about his soul.  He was such a guileless soul and maintained eye contact the whole time we were talking.  When I asked him about the rosary, he said he should have faith and trust in God.  “Una iyan.  Tiwala sa kanya, at saka pananalig.  Kung wala Siya, wala rin ako… Hindi biro ang boksing.  Hindi mo alam kung ano ang naghihintay sa iyo pag-akyat mo sa ring… baka mamatay ka na o malumpo, walang nakakaalam niyan. Baka ibaba ka nang gulay o bangkay.  Dapat, sa Diyos ka umasa at magtiwala… tapos sabayan mo ng disiplina sa sarili.”

Of death, he is not afraid, he said. “Malaki ang tiwala ko sa Diyos, wala akong kinatatakutan.  Natatakot lang ako pag may kasalanan ako.  I practise, discipline myself,  and pray hard because I want to win to make my countrymen happy.  Masaya ako kapag napapasaya ko ang kababayan ko, pero alam kong hindi ko kaya yan mag-isa, kailangan ko ang Diyos.” 

Discipline for Pacman means an almost ascetic lifestyle two or three months before a fight.  His diet must be:  “Vegetables, fruits, fish, palagi kong ulam yan.  Six eggwhites a day for protein.  Bihira akong kumain ng karne, at kung kakain ako noon, kailangan alisin ang taba bago iluto.  Pati gatas, low-fat or skimmed.”  His marital duties are suspended: “Walang siping-siping, nakakapanghina yon eh, naiintindihan ni Jinky yan, para naman sa pamilya ko ang ginagawa ko.” His night life must be zero:  “Walang puyat-puyat, walang gimmick.  Tulog na ako by 8 or 9 PM, gising ng 5, run for one hour.  At 1PM, practice.  Sinusunod ko lang advice ng doctor ko, siya ang nakakaalam, hindi ako nandadaya. Bale wala ang advice ng expert kung wala kang self-discipline.  Kahit na may bantay ka, kung hindi ka marunong mag-control ng sarili mo, bale wala lahat.”

What also struck me was Pacquiao’s deep desire to help his kababayans by supporting sports—he spoke of the Manny Pacquiao Sports Foundation that built a sports complex and runs programs to train young athletes, “atsaka tumutulong doon sa pamilya ng mga nalaos nang boxers tulad ni Navarrete. Gusto ko lang tumulong, ayoko masabi ng tao pagka-retire ko na ‘Ganon lang?  Nagpayaman lang?’  I pray to have the strength to continue being the best until I retire.  I want to be able to continue helping even when I am retired.  That may not be very far away... You have to be realistic.  Walang nagtatagal na boksingero; pagdating mo ng trenta, tapos ka na.”

He was 24 then; he is turning 35 next December.  When he turned 30 I—recalling what he said 11 years ago— thought he would retire but he did not.  At 31, 32, 33, 34—he was still fighting, in spite of his mother’s pleas.  I understand how Mommy Dionisia feels, and in solidarity with her, a total stranger to me, I do pray that Manny quits while he’s on top.  With his amazing track record, his stunning victories, his enviable earning power—what more does he want?  If he wants to continue in public service he should conserve his energy.  But for me, he need not be in politics in order to serve.  He can make his foundations work without depending on the pork barrel or collaborating with a Napoles.  He has billions which he has honestly earned, risking his life each time he fights—something nobody else in Congress can claim. 

He no longer wears a rosary but I still believe Pacquiao is as God-fearing as he was when we met over a decade back.  I do pray for him to remain as faithful as before, and be spared from anyone who uses him in any way, especially those who never want him to stop because they make money out of his fights; they are the leeches who live off his blood.  I do not know what awaits the Pambansang Kamao in November’s fight but I am sure his faith in God will always make him a winner.  I write this remembering The Gospel According to Pacquiao: “Una …tiwala sa kanya, at saka pananalig.  Kung wala Siya, wala rin ako… Hindi biro ang boksing... Wala akong kinatatakutan.  Natatakot lang ako kapag may kasalanan ako.”

I love gays!

I love gays—of both genders.  And they love me, too.  Whether strangers, colleagues or friends, the gays in my life easily open up to me like I were the reincarnation of Tia Dely—they air their woes and fears, bring me gossip, ask me for prayers, daydream in my presence, give me beauty tips, and in moments of weakness describe to me in lurid detail things like—how their boy toys served them milkshake the past night, for instance.

Encounters with them almost always amuse me and offer me glimpses into the human condition, and when they speak most sincerely from their guts, I am led into a different world.  Like that time I interviewed in the mid-70s the first Filipino sex-change patient—let’s call her “Jeanne”.  We met in New York City.  At first I wasn’t quite sure how to talk to her because she was such a lady and I was careful not to offend her with my questions, but the moment she opened her mouth, there was no stopping her.  She was so funny, yakking on about her adventures with her new “instrument”.   Sex change surgery then was little heard of; Jeanne kept hers a secret from her boyfriends.  I asked her, “But how do you manage to keep it a secret when you do it?  I mean, how can you keep him off it?  Wala ba siyang mata, kamay, dila?”  Jeanne grinned, puffing at her cigarette, “Nilalasing ko muna habang pa-kissing kissing.  I do a lot of foreplay while he drinks, then he’ll be too high to notice where his thing is stuck in.  At that point he really couldn’t care less—all men want is to get it off, you know—so whether I squeeze it in my armpit or up between my thighs, he’ll come deliriously and wouldn’t know what hit him!”  

Sometimes I think I magnetize gays because they sense I have an ear and a heart for them.  I have a gay friend, “Jake”, who happens to be a Muslim, from central Mindanao.  Whenever he’s in town we’d meet for snacks and girl talk, since with me he’s free to feel like a girl.  Jake has to keep his sexual preference a secret back in his hometown because his father, a respected community leader, would definitely disown him if he found out his son (whom he wants to run for mayor) is in reality “a woman trapped in a man’s body.”  Jake would say, “I have a cousin who’s also gay.  Muslim din.  When in our hometown, min kami, we act and sound like men, malaki ang boses namin at saka barako kaming mag-aasta, pero sa men’s room, tita, naga-apir kami, ahahay!  Dito lang sa Manila ladlad ang kapa namin!  Otherwise, babayoo, inheritance!  Poor, unsuspecting papa, gusto pa akong mag-mayora!  Kaawaan nawa siya ni Allah, ahahay!”           

A lesbian friend says I must have been gay in a past life because with me she feels “like a tilapia in a tilapia pond”, at home and cozy.  It’s her kind of gay that’s most poignant to listen to, because she hasn’t quite come to terms with herself.  Her family thinks she’s a girl; she likes to think so, too, sometimes, and insists she will marry a man someday.  Meanwhile, she revels in same-sex affairs.  She has never had a boyfriend (still a virgin, technically) but she’s had at least eight bedmates, all women, whose photos she still proudly keeps in her wallet.  With her—and other closet gays—I’m Mother Teresa, Fr. Confessor, Dely Magpayo, Margie Holmes, and Sigmund Freud rolled into one wise and levelheaded expert, but unlike Ms. Holmes I come cheap.  One afternoon’s session costs them only a 49-peso value meal at McDo, with senior citizen discount to boot. 

I feel blessed to have gay friends, for they can be some of the most honest and brutally frank people around.  And while they bare their souls to me, they also take wholeheartedly what I have to dish out—whether advice or admonition which I dispense with clinical detachment.  I never have to mince words with them, like some days back when the subject of same-sex marriage popped up as we were having cocktails at a movie premiere.  My limp-wristed friends asked me if I’d been to a gay wedding in the Philippines.  I said I only got a first hand report from reliable witnesses—the waiters at this garden wedding held at a restaurant in the suburbs.

The waiters were giggling in the kitchen because they had thought it was a… well, a normal wedding, until they heard the pastor say to the couple, “Ang churva ng Panginoon, magmahalan kayo…”  It turned out the pastor was gay, and so were the bride and the bride.  One of them wore a white party dress, the other sported manly attire; the pastor wore a chasuble.  The wedding ceremony was replete with cord, candle and veil, with corresponding sponsors, but the pastor used grape juice instead of wine for the “consecration”.  At the reception that followed, the newly weds cut a wedding cake and fed each other a spoonful, while the pastor teased a boyish looking waiter “Nagpatuli ka na ba?” (Have you been circumcised?).

My friends thought my little story was a blast; we were the noisiest table in the room.   One of them said there is hope for gay marriage since Pope Francis is reportedly pro-gay.  “Sorry to disappoint you, guys; the pope may be pro-gay, but not pro-gay marriage—same with me,” I said, and gave them a mean piece of my mind:  “I love you all, you know that, and whatever you do with your milkshake is your business, really, but don’t try to change the dictionary, pleeeze!”  (“Mother, we’re not changing the dictionary, we’re crying for equal rights!  Kayo lang ba ang may karapatang magpakasal?”)  “By all means, fight for your equal ek-ek rights, privileges, opportunities, whatever, I’ll march to Malacanang with you, but leave marriage alone!  (“But we want lifetime commitment, fancy weddings, love in the open, mama!”)  Go ahead, legalize your union, hindi kaya ng powers kong pigilin yan, but don’t call it a marriage.  I’ll keep my sermon short: marriage is between a man and a woman, male and female, created for the propagation of the human race, foundation of the family.  To make another human being you need sperm from the male and ova from the female.  That’s a fact of life, and a law of nature.  Even Grade 5 pupils know that. Sperm and sperm, ovum and ovum—no way!  Male plus male equals a swordfight.  Female plus female, clanging cymbals.  Gets nyo?” 

LOL!  Mwah-mwah!  Everybody’s happy.  Straight talk between me and my gay friends always leads to a win-win situation.  Despite the blunt language they get my drift.  I think it’s because deep down inside they know that—I love gays.

One night in Bangkok

The other day a massage-crazy friend was telling us about unheard of massages she had tried somewhere in Hungary, making use of not just the usual olive oil, coconut oil, or mineral oil, but also of Dead Sea salt combined with grated Himalayan rocks, grape seed oil, whipped cream and yoghurt mixed with jasmine and ilang-ilang, jojoba, honey, chocolate, wine, and Schnaps.  Wow, you’d think we were talking about making desserts out of the human body.

Since it was an intimate group of real friends, it was safe for anyone to brag, and brag I did, as I told them about the body massage I had one night in Bangkok. “All those massages use the hands!  This Bangkok body massage does need the hands to knead your body!”    

I had it in a place called Valentino, frequented by men wanting to “relax”. There were 120 “massage artists” in a big room walled in by one-way mirrors—we could see them but they could not see us.  All fair skinned, young (aged 18-30), and wearing sexy lingerie, they were sprawled on the multileveled floor, watching television.  They wore numbered bibs so that a customer having cocktails just outside of this veritable fishbowl could survey the bunch and tell the floor manager his number of choice.

Just like the male clients around me, I had to choose my girl.  It was tough.  I started to get cold feet. I did not know what a body massage involved. Appraising the heavily made up “massage artists”, I feared the unknown. I was afraid I’d “get something” just being touched by one of those girls.  On top of that the manager thought I was gay, so he said, “We get around 120 customers nightly, five or six of whom would be women, mostly foreigners.  We have girls specializing on women…” I told him all I wanted was an honest-to-goodness professional job, something that might teach me massage techniques I could apply on my husband, and then I let him choose the girl for me.  He picked Number 32; her name was Ming Ming.

Ming Ming led me to our cubicle, a doorless bed-and-bath affair with a red light bulb, a vase of plastic flowers, a bed, a bathtub, and inflatable plastic mats on a completely tile-covered floor. Ming Ming smilingly chirped, “Remove clothes,” and prepared the bath paraphernalia.  I wiggled out of my jeans.  When I turned, she was naked.  (OMG, what am I doing in this room with this naked stranger?  But I braced myself for the unknown, believing that all experiences in time may be turned to profitable literature).

She had to bathe me before the massage, I understood.  Ming Ming ran the show like the mother she actually was.  While soaping me in the warm tub she kept on talking:  “I leave hasbin in Chiang Mai; he no coot, he have three wifes, no job.  One day I say him, you go away, you no coot hasbin!”  She said her three children were with her mother in Bangkok and that “I work here, give money to mother, so my children they grow up and go school.  You kiv me tip later?”  I replied, “Yes, if you’re good.”

She told me to just close my eyes and relax.  I cooperated.  “Give me arm,” she chirped as she reached for more soap.  She scrubbed the arm quietly.  I was savoring the silence when I heard her chirping again, “Stand up, dahlink!”  She had this amusing way of addressing me “dahlink”—a term of endearment she must have picked up from American servicemen in Pattaya, who knows?  Stand up, dahlink!  Sit here, dahlink!  Kiv me foot, dahlink!   

Ming Ming gave dahlink a second sudsing, a second shampooing, a second bath, indeed, which made me wonder why a massage would need such an elaborate cleansing ritual.  But she went about it like it was serious business.  For all intents and purposes she became for me an efficient nanny, while I virtually regressed to infancy, secretly cooing and gurgling in babyish delight.  Every square inch of my body was scrubbed with a sudsy sponge, except—and this is why she can’t be a perfect nanny—behind the ears!  I had to do it myself.

As my extremities began to shrivel from the leisurely soak, Ming Ming cooed, “Move here, dahlink!”  It was on the inflatable plastic mat on the tiled floor that (ahem) the body massage began.  Scooping more warm sudsy solution onto my passive body, Massage Artist # 32 began to knead my thighs with her breasts.  Repeat—her breasts!  I was speechless.  Then she did my knees, legs, arms, and abdomen—all with her breasts, OMG!  

Then she came to the parts that are verboten to the regular masseuse.  Chiding myself, “Teresa, the things you go through in the name of adventure!”  I nonetheless viewed with clinical detachment the bizarre exercise of flesh rubbing against flesh that might have triggered more delicate responses had my masseuse been a masseur.  I was wishing there were ceiling mirrors to show me how ridiculously funny we must have looked when Ming Ming said, “Other side, dahlink!” 

For the “other side” she switched to using her fanny—her fanny!—amply padded, I must say, and less jiggly than the boobsy.  She massaged my back from the neck to the ankles with her fanny in continuous circular motion—yeah, like a floor polisher.  My whole body done—still without using her hands—she asked me to turn over again and then proceeded to squeeze my legs and thighs with her thighs.  Her thighs!  No wonder they called the girls “massage artists”, I thought; using the thighs to massage is an art!  You have to be an acrobat to do it safely.  

Just as I was beginning to tire of the whole thing, Ming Ming pulled me up and set me smack against the tiled wall.  Before I could protest about the cold wall shocking my back, she resumed her fleshy gyrations, methodically employing only her thighs and the globular portions of her torso to massage.  “Other side, pleeese?” she said.  I turned to face the wall; she continued.  This must look hilarious—I thought—me naked and spread-eagled against the wall doing nothing, and she frantically kneading my backside with her soapy bum.  Looking back now, I’m glad we didn’t have YouTube then, otherwise a secret video of me going through this would have gone viral, like the Hayden Kho collection!

Any experience reflected upon leads to self-knowledge.  That body massage in Bangkok is no exception.  I went in hoping I could learn new massage tricks for my old man, but up to now I say “Forget it!” One needs DD cup breasts and Italian mama buns to do it properly.  I do a better job with my hands.   

UST human cross now Guinness World Records’ largest

It’s now official!  Guinness World Records has certified that indeed, the human cross formed by the Thomasian community at the the University of Santo Tomas (UST) on Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011, is the largest ever formed in the world.

If you're not E.T. read this

When I was about to finish high school, one of the courses I wanted to take up at college was Law.  Being young, I wanted to be many things—doctor, nurse, painter, ballet dancer, writer, and lawyer.  To all of those I felt I wanted to become, my father had objections, but the strongest was against Law.  He would say, “Yang mga abugado, magaling magsinungaling ang mga iyan!  Ang puti, ginagawang pula, at ang pula, ginagawang puti!”  (Lawyers are good at telling lies. They make red, white, and white, red!)  Naïve as I was, I didn’t get what he meant, nor did I bother to understand what it implied.  I was barely 15 then.

Now, 50 years later, the controversy over when human life begins reminds me of my father’s words about lawyers then.  I beg your pardon, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why supposedly learned men now deny that human life begins at fertilization.  Congressmen and senators are supposedly learned, right?  So why would a number of them—now that the controversy over the RH Bill is seething hot—prolong the controversy by clinging to this silly argument that human life begins only when the fertilized egg latches on to the uterine wall?  Doesn’t our Constitution say that the life of the unborn begins at the moment of conception—that is, when the sperm and the ova meet and produce a new entity?  I cannot believe that lawmakers are ignorant of the Constitution.  Having done some sleuthing into this issue I’m more inclined to suspect there is another reason they espouse a strange point of view.    

Even a grade schooler who’s been through biology class knows the truth about the beginning of human life, so how could sophisticated adults be blind to such glaring truth?  Just for the record, I engaged Autumn , my 10-year old grandniece, a Grade 5 pupil (here shown sucking on a lollipop), in a casual chat to find out what she thinks of this issue.  Her verdict: human life begins at fertilization. 

How could she be so sure it’s human?  “Because it is humans that produced the embryo.”  And how could she say the embryo has life?  “Because if it’s dead it will stop growing.”   Bravo!  She readily agreed that if “that thing” were dead, it cannot move anymore, much less travel to attach itself to the uterine wall.  Smart girl.  Over a “high five”, we declared the embryo is human and not canine or feline, hindi bulate, butete o palaka or anything else, and it definitely possesses life because it is growing.  Ergo, human life begins at fertilization.

See how simple it is?  The truth, unadorned and undistorted by human manipulation, seen without the help of a microscope.  Or of people who make red, white, and white, red.  And that’s the truth.

The whole truth about TRT

By Jasmine Ong 
     Some people say that names have an uncanny way of foretelling the character of their bearers. If that were true then this issue’s featured Servant Leader, multi-awarded writer Teresa R. Tunay, could not have been more aptly named.

The origin of the name Teresa is said to be rooted in either of two Greek words, “theros” meaning summer or “therizo” meaning to harvest. “Tunay,” on the other hand, translates to genuine in our vernacular. Whether through God’s infinite wisdom or His playful sense of humor, it seems Teresa Reyes was predestined to personify the warmth and authenticity befitting the name Teresa Tunay. 

'Langit sa Lupa' goes on air Sundays 6-7:30 pm

For indeed TRT, as she is fondly known, bears witness to the truth in the way she lives and loves.

Well-rounded would be an understatement for a woman who wears numerous hats. TRT is wife and mother, professed member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, acclaimed writer and editor, media consultant, film critic, and radio anchor, among many other things. On top of all these, she still finds time to be of service to her parish as well as to volunteer for Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying Destitute. 

But when hard pressed, she distills her primary purpose in life down to three words: purveyor of truth.  “Whatever position I happen to fill, in whatever field,” she says, “I am a communicator who bows to no one but The Truth.”

Communicating does seem to come naturally for her, as does her penchant for service.  Her extensive curriculum vitae is every aspiring writer’s dream; she has lent her byline and editorial expertise to publications such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila Bulletin, Times Journal, The Tribune, Woman Today, Mabuhay (PAL’s in-flight magazine), and Blue Collar Magazine as well as to government, the Press Foundation of Asia, Inter Press Service in Rome, Italy, Philippine News Agency, and Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

One of the fights TRT is in: the fight for life

Yet through it all, service remains at the core of her distinguished career. And though she may perhaps balk at the idea and consider it hubris, TRT’s life thus far is a testament to genuine self-giving and dialogue in action through her work.  She wields her pen to take up the cudgels for the rights of women and the working class.  She is also known to candidly write about matters of faith and spirituality. TRT does these matter-of-factly though, hesitating to refer to them as her advocacies.

With the gay stars of Club Mwah

She confides a distaste for the word “advocacy”, saying that it “smacks of a faddish preoccupation…which ends when the objective is met.”  Instead she would much rather consider her work to be a fight “for truth, justice, love, peace…but I do it on my own, without pledging allegiance to any ‘advocacy’ organization.  That kind of fight takes a lifetime without even a glimpse of victory at the end.”   TRT is also not one to be prone to affectations.  Despite all the grants and accolades bestowed upon her by prestigious bodies such as from the United Nations, Association of Asian Publishers, Confederation of Asean Journalists, and the US State Department among others, TRT remains grounded.

“You might laugh,” she shares, “but I don’t really care about awards and recognition.  One day my mother was horrified to see that I wasn’t bothered when my little nieces were playing with my trophies!  I didn’t really care but for my parents’ sake I kept them on a high shelf.  But I lost track of all those trophies and plaques when we moved.”  From this anecdote alone, it is obvious that TRT has learned to take her success in stride like a true Servant-Leader, with equal measures of grace, aplomb and humility. 

With a Tanzanian couple in Zanzibar

Having lived in different countries, TRT’s writing has taken her around the world and back again. But she says there was never any doubt in her mind that she would return home. “The Philippines is where I feel I’m needed most, and therefore where I could be most useful.  I sort of just allowed myself to be abroad in order to equip myself for whatever I could do in the Philippines, for Filipinos.”

When asked what galvanizes her to this kind of service, TRT says she is “driven by the passion to see man, creation and life restored to that beautiful state I believe God had meant it to be.  Not just to ‘build the kingdom of God’ but to establish God’s kingship here on earth.” 

Dialogue plays a central part in this Servant-Leader’s daily life.  She says it is through dialogue that her role models—Jesus, Mary, Joseph, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross—make their presence felt in all areas of her life. “I even write letters to them,” she laughs.

With Blessed Mother Teresa on her first visit to Philippines

As a seasoned traveler, TRT has also had her share of dialogues with prominent figures. “During Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s first visit to the Philippines, she spoke to me while holding my hands.  On a trip to Bali, Indonesia, I was given a rare chance to speak freely to the Dalai Lama when he invited me to join his entourage.  Pope John Paul II held my hand too, and uttered a blessing with his hand upon my head.” 

Yet for one so adept with words, she maintains that the most powerful and memorable dialogues in her life involved no words at all. “The most wonderful dialogue I had with Pope John Paul II was wordless, during his funeral which I attended.  I guess presence is more precious than spoken words.  And it doesn’t have to be physical presence.  Regarding your question about the kind of dialogue that ‘penetrates the soul, unravels secrets, wins it over and leads it to truth’…yes, that I do have, with the God within.      

With Polish nationals at Blessed John Paul II's funeral, April 2005

As a fledgling writer did TRT ever dream she’d achieve so much? And does she have any regrets?  “No.  I guess my dreams were myopic—or at least extended only to a certain age.  After all, how far can you see when you’re 18?  My career flourished despite my early marriage, its path turned out to be unique, and developments overtook my dreams.  I had no more time for dreams or plans because events exceeded my expectations.  All I could say was ‘Thank You’ for everything that came my way.    

“Regrets—I don’t think so.  It may sound (clichéd), but it’s true that God makes lemonade out of our lemons.  No unfulfilled dreams or goals either…My only ‘goal’ is what God wants for me, for you, for everybody,” she says with a smile. 

One has to wonder whether TRT ever even imagined that taking her husband Pablo’s surname on their wedding day would presage a bumper crop of deeply-rooted authentic dialogues harvested throughout such a warm and colorful lifetime.  Because without a doubt, tunay si Teresa. A Servant Leader in the truest sense.  (Originally published in Code Red Magazine March 2011 issue, the above article is posted here with permission from the author).