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Wednesday, May 9, 2012
A GIRL CHILD SHOWS TRIUMPH OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT
By Marivir R. MontebonWhen their heads are being shaved, they begin to cry, because what comes next would be the excruciatingly painful mutilation of their clitoris. The tradition in the Maasai tribe in Kenya is such that when girl children enter their pre-puberty age... (read more)
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Can Journalism Ever be Objective?
CAN JOURNALISM EVER BE OBJECTIVE?It has always been an impassioned discussion among journalists as to whether journalism could ever become objective. Since my university days, objectivity is quite a cut-throat matter which journalists are confronted with.
Objectivity is generally defined as ‘not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts, actual existence, or reality.’
In essence, therefore, objectivity rests on the unbiased account of what has truly happened. One could easily see this in reportage of natural disasters, fires, bank robberies, and other social circumstances.
In this sense, objective reporting has a degree of applicability.
But society is more complex than just its material truth. With the interplay of politics and culture inherent among reporters, the subject of the news, and the owners of media institutions, objective reporting becomes tricky and problematic. More often than not, the truth is angled or tweaked to the favor of who owns the information and to what purpose this could have helped him/her.
Today we see highly polarized media institutions in the US especially because it is election year, a classic example where politics plays a conscious part of.
Too polarized such that an ordinary reader or viewer of news, based on his or her own political or cultural orientation, chooses which media institution to listen to or watch. It is no longer simply about the objective reality.
Politics is so thick in the matters of both relevant and irrelevant issues, that the truth gets too muddled for the public to be able to go down to the bottom of the truth.
Unfortunately, the profession of journalism is not as precise as that of the doctor or the accountant. To save lives, the doctor must be able to correctly diagnose his patients. The accountant has to know the real numbers in the books of accounts in order to understand the precise financial condition of a business. The professional writer or commentator, when he opens his mouth or writes an article or editorial, do not necessarily help cure political or cultural malaise, much more lead the readers to understand how an ailing economy could recover.
It is in here that I express concern. The US is in the crossroad of highly crucial times, and if long-standing social issues are so effectively maneuvered by political machineries, including media institutions, having a common direction for economic and social recovery may all go down the drain.
I go back to the ethics that I had committed myself to since the beginning of my profession. Media practitioners are political and cultural agents, I just hope many would regard the conduct of their work as a matter of public interest as larger than any partisan political persuasion.
Marivir Montebon
Executive Editor
ALPHAY: Create balance in your life!
An Afternoon with Ninotchka Rosca
BY MARIVIR MONTEBON
With the way the weather behaves these days – extremely changeable and swift in a matter of 24 hours – having a pleasant day could just be considered a miracle. The afternoon of mid-April when I first met celebrated Filipino writer Ninotchka Rosca was blessedly pleasant – warm and sunny. It was one of my longest interviews as well, as it was over late lunch in a Filipino restaurant in Queens. I purposely ordered a train of Filipino desserts, for it was a celebration that finally, I met the Ninotchka Rosca.
Ms. Rosca is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and frequent contributor to The Village Voice, the Huffington Post, Q, Ms. Magazine, and other US and European periodicals. She authored six books, which includes two bestselling novels, The State of War and Twice Blessed which won the 1993 American Book Award for Excellence in Literature.
Born and raised in Manila, Ms. Rosca studied Comparative Literature and Khmer Civilization at the University of the Philippines.
She founded and was the first chairperson of Gabriela Network, a US-based organization of women and women’s rights advocates which supported the Philippine women’s movement.
A human rights activist at the perilous time of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Ms. Rosca was forced into self-exile when she was threatened a second arrest. She now lives in New York.
But as one would always say, you bring your convictions wherever you are. She was and is still in the thick of organizing and educating women and men into the fold of gender equality and ethics. She has been in vital positions with Amnesty International and the Pen American Center and was actively involved in the Beijing International Women’s Conference.
She is one of the 12 Asian American Women of Hope designated by the Bread and Roses Cultural Project, considered to be role models of youth for their commitment and compassion for change.
Currently busy with AF3IRM, a New York-based organization of women and handful of writing projects, Ms. Rosca continues to be relentless.
[caption id="attachment_617" align="alignright" width="300"]
"They each paid me 5 centavos to read aloud periodicals and comic books -- which likely made me conclude that one could make a living doing what I already liked."[/caption]
1. What inspired you to be a writer?
When did you begin to write in the professional sense? I learned to read and write at a very early age, around 5 or 6 years -- and by that I don't mean the usual way children read/write. I was reading college level books, like Cervantes's Don Quixote, etc. Also, the neighborhood domestic help found out I could read/write, so they'd buy comic books, Liwayway and other periodicals and made me read aloud to them in the afternoon when their bosses were asleep. They each paid me 5 centavos -- which likely made me conclude that one could make a living doing what I already liked. I remember writing a poem when I was 7 years old, about galaxies. But my first paid publication occurred when I was 12 years old. Never looked back from then.
2. Who are the writers that you love/respect and regard as models/mentors?
There are thousands of writers I respect enough to read their books over and over again. Can't say I "love" them but I do take pleasure, aesthetically and philosophically speaking, from specific books: all the classics, of course, from the Homeric epics to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Upanishads, even the Bible; then works by Tolstoy, Babel, Gogol, Dostyevsky and a host of others; plus among the contemporary writers, Le Guinn's The Left Hand of Darkness; Murakami's Kafka on the Shore;Pamuk's Red; then the Latin American writers: Belli, Garcia Marquez, Puig, etc. Just too many to name. I don't regard anyone as a model or mentor. I did learn a lot about writing techniques from Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks & the Magic Mountain.
3. The name Ninotchka Rosca is already a brand name in writing, how did you develop your craft? What attitude should there be to become an accomplished writer?
I am my harshest critic. When my name goes on something that's to be published, the thing usually goes through many, many revisions plus months and sometimes years of intellection.
4. What projects (books/events) are coming up soon with you in the US and the Philippines?
I am trying to finish several short stories plus one long manuscript on the firefly.
5. You are also a women's rights advocate, a prime mover in the women's movement, how do you see the women's movement in the Philippines and the US (compare or contrast) in terms of truly responding to the essential needs of women for growth and recognition? You can cite flaws please, and challenges that have to be dealt with.
The basic difference between the US-based and Philippine-based is simply this: the first is concerned with expanding the definition/scope of rights, privileges and freedoms toward the achievement of comprehensive equality for women. The second is concerned with re-gaining the basic rights, privileges and freedoms lost to colonialism/imperialism toward the achievement of national self-determination. In the focus on the national paradigm, the importance of absolute comprehensive equality for women is often neglected.
[caption id="attachment_618" align="alignleft" width="300"]
If you check the projected map of the world after a complete polar melt, there is no Philippines.[/caption]
6. Is there hope for the Philippines to be able to release itself from material poverty and cultural malaise? How? And in what manner are you contributing to it?
The effort to liberate the Philippines from material poverty and cultural malaise, as you call it, is in a race with global warming and the polar meltdown, which is already starting. If you check the projected map of the world after a complete polar melt, there is no Philippines.
7. Who/what inspires you to write and continue to be an active part of the women's movement?
I don't know what -- inspires is not the right word -- compels me to write. Maybe the certainty that I am good at it. I am compelled to remain active in the women's movement since this is still an open dynamic field of intellection, its ideology has NOT yet congealed and been reduced to citing texts from a hundred years ago. Plus it's really fun to watch the development of young women from timid, romance-ridden creatures to self-aware and self-confident beings who can strut, if need be, with the best of them.
8. A writer has certain quirks, what do you do prior to writing and focusing on it to beat your deadline? Tons of coffee? Impeccable cleaning up of your desk? Yoga?
I have to be physically fine, so my mind can let go of paying attention to my body. But writing or not, I do yoga, clean up the apartment periodically, have coffee, walk the dog. I really have no special rituals to writing as this is so naturally part of me it's like breathing.
9. Describe yourself as a mother and a no nonsense woman.
I can't describe myself as a mother as I have not experienced myself as a mother. I've been told I have been a horrible one -- which by others' standards is probably true, since I'm really not sentimental. All I say is that I've never been violent, physically or verbally; have always been logical and given logical explanations; and never tried to dominate, which does not necessarily mean I lose sight of my own needs and wants. My only wish has been for the other to be able to stand on his/her own feet and thus render my presence unnecessary. That of course is the rule by which I manage all other relationships.
[caption id="attachment_616" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
I don't know what -- inspires is not the right word -- compels me to write. Maybe the certainty that I am good at it.[/caption]
With the way the weather behaves these days – extremely changeable and swift in a matter of 24 hours – having a pleasant day could just be considered a miracle. The afternoon of mid-April when I first met celebrated Filipino writer Ninotchka Rosca was blessedly pleasant – warm and sunny. It was one of my longest interviews as well, as it was over late lunch in a Filipino restaurant in Queens. I purposely ordered a train of Filipino desserts, for it was a celebration that finally, I met the Ninotchka Rosca.
Ms. Rosca is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and frequent contributor to The Village Voice, the Huffington Post, Q, Ms. Magazine, and other US and European periodicals. She authored six books, which includes two bestselling novels, The State of War and Twice Blessed which won the 1993 American Book Award for Excellence in Literature.
Born and raised in Manila, Ms. Rosca studied Comparative Literature and Khmer Civilization at the University of the Philippines.
She founded and was the first chairperson of Gabriela Network, a US-based organization of women and women’s rights advocates which supported the Philippine women’s movement.
A human rights activist at the perilous time of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Ms. Rosca was forced into self-exile when she was threatened a second arrest. She now lives in New York.
But as one would always say, you bring your convictions wherever you are. She was and is still in the thick of organizing and educating women and men into the fold of gender equality and ethics. She has been in vital positions with Amnesty International and the Pen American Center and was actively involved in the Beijing International Women’s Conference.
She is one of the 12 Asian American Women of Hope designated by the Bread and Roses Cultural Project, considered to be role models of youth for their commitment and compassion for change.
Currently busy with AF3IRM, a New York-based organization of women and handful of writing projects, Ms. Rosca continues to be relentless.
[caption id="attachment_617" align="alignright" width="300"]
"They each paid me 5 centavos to read aloud periodicals and comic books -- which likely made me conclude that one could make a living doing what I already liked."[/caption]1. What inspired you to be a writer?
When did you begin to write in the professional sense? I learned to read and write at a very early age, around 5 or 6 years -- and by that I don't mean the usual way children read/write. I was reading college level books, like Cervantes's Don Quixote, etc. Also, the neighborhood domestic help found out I could read/write, so they'd buy comic books, Liwayway and other periodicals and made me read aloud to them in the afternoon when their bosses were asleep. They each paid me 5 centavos -- which likely made me conclude that one could make a living doing what I already liked. I remember writing a poem when I was 7 years old, about galaxies. But my first paid publication occurred when I was 12 years old. Never looked back from then.
2. Who are the writers that you love/respect and regard as models/mentors?
There are thousands of writers I respect enough to read their books over and over again. Can't say I "love" them but I do take pleasure, aesthetically and philosophically speaking, from specific books: all the classics, of course, from the Homeric epics to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Upanishads, even the Bible; then works by Tolstoy, Babel, Gogol, Dostyevsky and a host of others; plus among the contemporary writers, Le Guinn's The Left Hand of Darkness; Murakami's Kafka on the Shore;Pamuk's Red; then the Latin American writers: Belli, Garcia Marquez, Puig, etc. Just too many to name. I don't regard anyone as a model or mentor. I did learn a lot about writing techniques from Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks & the Magic Mountain.
3. The name Ninotchka Rosca is already a brand name in writing, how did you develop your craft? What attitude should there be to become an accomplished writer?
I am my harshest critic. When my name goes on something that's to be published, the thing usually goes through many, many revisions plus months and sometimes years of intellection.
4. What projects (books/events) are coming up soon with you in the US and the Philippines?
I am trying to finish several short stories plus one long manuscript on the firefly.
5. You are also a women's rights advocate, a prime mover in the women's movement, how do you see the women's movement in the Philippines and the US (compare or contrast) in terms of truly responding to the essential needs of women for growth and recognition? You can cite flaws please, and challenges that have to be dealt with.
The basic difference between the US-based and Philippine-based is simply this: the first is concerned with expanding the definition/scope of rights, privileges and freedoms toward the achievement of comprehensive equality for women. The second is concerned with re-gaining the basic rights, privileges and freedoms lost to colonialism/imperialism toward the achievement of national self-determination. In the focus on the national paradigm, the importance of absolute comprehensive equality for women is often neglected.
[caption id="attachment_618" align="alignleft" width="300"]
If you check the projected map of the world after a complete polar melt, there is no Philippines.[/caption]6. Is there hope for the Philippines to be able to release itself from material poverty and cultural malaise? How? And in what manner are you contributing to it?
The effort to liberate the Philippines from material poverty and cultural malaise, as you call it, is in a race with global warming and the polar meltdown, which is already starting. If you check the projected map of the world after a complete polar melt, there is no Philippines.
7. Who/what inspires you to write and continue to be an active part of the women's movement?
I don't know what -- inspires is not the right word -- compels me to write. Maybe the certainty that I am good at it. I am compelled to remain active in the women's movement since this is still an open dynamic field of intellection, its ideology has NOT yet congealed and been reduced to citing texts from a hundred years ago. Plus it's really fun to watch the development of young women from timid, romance-ridden creatures to self-aware and self-confident beings who can strut, if need be, with the best of them.
8. A writer has certain quirks, what do you do prior to writing and focusing on it to beat your deadline? Tons of coffee? Impeccable cleaning up of your desk? Yoga?
I have to be physically fine, so my mind can let go of paying attention to my body. But writing or not, I do yoga, clean up the apartment periodically, have coffee, walk the dog. I really have no special rituals to writing as this is so naturally part of me it's like breathing.
9. Describe yourself as a mother and a no nonsense woman.
I can't describe myself as a mother as I have not experienced myself as a mother. I've been told I have been a horrible one -- which by others' standards is probably true, since I'm really not sentimental. All I say is that I've never been violent, physically or verbally; have always been logical and given logical explanations; and never tried to dominate, which does not necessarily mean I lose sight of my own needs and wants. My only wish has been for the other to be able to stand on his/her own feet and thus render my presence unnecessary. That of course is the rule by which I manage all other relationships.
[caption id="attachment_616" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
I don't know what -- inspires is not the right word -- compels me to write. Maybe the certainty that I am good at it.[/caption]
Decisiveness, Dedication, and Discipline: Joy C. Luna
BY BISAI YA
So it seemed that being in a male-dominated corporation was meant to be for a woman like Joy Camomot Luna. This Manila-based gifted Cebuana has been on top leadership for a tertiary hospital in a province in the Philippines which she co-established and managed in order to provide the best health care service there is for the locality of Taytay in the province of Rizal.
“As the youngest and the only female member of the Board of Directors in Manila East Medical Center, a tertiary hospital, the initial challenge was how to be heard and taken seriously. In a corporate world that is dominated by males, you have to set your foot down and get your message across that you mean business.”
Joy who previously worked as a top medical representative for a multinational pharmaceutical firm in Manila and after several years, decided to avail the company’s early retirement option. With her retirement savings, she joined a group of 20 professionals, mostly doctors, to help found what is now known as Manila East Medical Center.
Her pharmacy degree and her exemplary work skills got her nominated as one of the Board of Directors of the hospital where she was also tasked to look after three important divisions: pharmacy, procurement and human resource. She initiated work reforms and introduced innovative ways to make her departments profitable, cost-efficient and helped develop a work system nurturing camaraderie between management, staff and patients.
Since the hospital business requires huge manpower support from doctors, specialist providers, administrative and support personnel, an efficient system of daily tasks are required to bring about the operational cost and profitability hand in hand. Joy focused herself in managing the challenges of utilizing these resources in a proper manner whilst also ensuring their patients are happy with the services paid for.
Working with mostly male counterparts can be oftentimes intimidating, Joy observed, as there are still many men in these fields who are unaccustomed to working with women who were either wary or openly resentful of their presence.
But this reality has not daunted her spirit at all, she carried on with her work with professionalism and dedication which has been openly acknowledged by her fellow directors and workers.
“For almost 11 years, I have been successfully managing two important departments at the hospital as the astute Pharmacy Director of the Pharmacy Department, and Head of Central Supplies Department where my good negotiation and analytical skills come in handy.”
Joy’s work experience as sales representative was put to good use when she headed the procurement team. She excelled in negotiating for both minor and major purchases made by the hospital, which has resulted in huge savings for the hospital. In turn, these savings were used to provide for better compensation and benefits for their workers.
“As a Pharmacist, I would readily know which medicines are best in quality, efficacy, and I am able to easily negotiate a good price from our pharmaceutical suppliers knowing how they work having come from that industry from past. With that experience, I was able to make better buying decisions where we shifted from purchasing to procurement making our cost management highly effective in the long term. That also allowed us to pass on the discounts to our patients so they don't need to go outside to buy their medicines as they can also enjoy competitive pricing from within the hospital pharmacy,” says Joy.
Amidst the presence of three new hospitals that opened in the area, Manila East Medical Centre (MEMC) has remained the number one tertiary medical center in Rizal, in Eastern Manila.
Her corporate life that was mainly spent serving in the medical industry has allowed Joy to realize how challenging their industry is and how the Philippine medical institution fared in today’s business world.
She observed, “Among countries in the ASEAN region, the Philippines rank lowest in spending for healthcare leaving the private sector to carry a significant health-financing burden. Adding to that problem is the unequal distribution of health workers as they congregate in the National Capital Region where healthcare facilities are mostly established, and a dwindling supply of other professionals as the financial opportunity in other countries are better.”
Joy personally believes that if healthcare establishments are also highly developed in central and southern Philippines, health workers and graduates from these locations needn’t have to come to the capital region.
“They can serve locally and in turn will result to allowing many people to avail of health services right in their hometowns instead of traveling to main cities like Manila or Cebu. That would save them time and money. This development would also greatly help our government where more jobs are generated for the populace instead of encouraging them to work abroad.”
She makes perfect sense, indeed. Until that day, health care system in the Philippines remains to be one of the most challenged service sectors of the country.
Joy was born in Cebu in August 1967, the seventh in a brood of eight. She is the youngest and the most adventurous amongst the five girls in the family. Her parents Florentino Camomot, a Retired Sales Manager and her late mother Amparo Camomot, a Grade One Public School Teacher named her “Joy”, a perfect description of the bundle of joy she brought to the family that year.
She studied at the premiere exclusive girls school in Cebu, Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion (CIC) and was a member of the graduate class of 1984. After high school, she took up Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy at the leading University of San Carlos in Cebu.
Not content with that degree, Joy pursued a post-college degree with a Master’s Degree: Masters in Business Administration (MBA) at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. She was in the Dean’s List in 5 out of 8 trimesters.
Asked what was her dream course in college and why, Joy was honest to admit, “My dream course, which until now remained a dream, was to take up Medicine and become a Cardiologist or an Ophthalmologist. Due to financial challenges of sending many kids to college, my parents sent me to take up Pharmacy course instead. My ultimate goal is a PhD, but I feel so old and too busy to study.”
Her educational background has landed her to acquire a post-college career as a Medical Representative in one of the leading pharmaceutical firms in the country. She did well in her work that she consistently ranked as one of the top sales performers of the firm and was often rewarded incentives and trips abroad.
Her excellent work attitude also endeared her to colleagues, superiors and clients. In 1991, she married Dr. Rudy Luna, a Pediatrician, also a business partner at Manila East Medical Center where they co-found together with 19 other founders who are also taking executive management roles in the hospital operation.
Brought up by devoted Catholic parents and coming from a clan that produced nuns, priests and an Archbishop who is now next in line for beatification by the Vatican (the Late Archbishop Teofilo Camomot from Carcar, Cebu), Joy also expressed having a dream vocation that she had wished she pursued.
Joy shares, “There is this silent call of becoming a nun ever since I was in high school at CIC that persisted even when I was already working and in a relationship. Always a true blue Inmaculadista, my Vincentian and religious upbringing figured strongly in my character, and had I pursued, I would have been running an orphanage or a home for the aged by now.”
For not materializing her intended vocation, Joy instead focused in putting aside a portion of her time and resources towards volunteer works for some of her specially chosen charities.
Asked what sort of fulfillment does she find in volunteerism such as her causes at “BISAYABABE” (a charity community group advocating free education for poor Filipino youths in Visayas and Mindanao) and other charity activities she engaged, Joy gleefully remarked, “When I see the happy faces of our volunteer teachers and learners at Alternative Learning System (ALS), I feel a different sense of purpose and fulfillment that I cannot derive from my career. It is nice to be able to help people by enabling and empowering them through the support that I can extend. It is such a feeling of bliss!”
Already wearing many hats from her corporate, community and family roles; Joy gladly tells us her other aspirations in life, her hobbies, and activities that gives her fulfillment, “My responsibilities at work are already enough to keep me busy, but I still find time to do other activities outside of the company, like conducting personality development lectures for friends and their companies. I also dabble in painting as my relaxing therapy. This is one passion I never discovered until recently when my best friend gifted me a canvas and a set of acrylic paints and prodded me to paint, now I am addicted to this passion.”
Joy plans to publish her own book “The Living Joy” which is about hope, survival, loving and living. “This book will chronicle my life as a young student from a struggling family who wants to do good and amidst the many personal challenges I faced, especially after a life-changing accident that almost took my life, the heartbreaking experiences I’ve been through and how I stood up for it with a strong heart, hope and love reigning in my heart - the message I would like to impart in this book.”
Asked as to who inspired her to do good and be successful and easily she replied, “My parents, especially my late mother Amparo, still remain as my inspiration in life. They struggled and managed to raise a brood of successful God-fearing professionals who are well rounded and grounded.”
So it seemed that being in a male-dominated corporation was meant to be for a woman like Joy Camomot Luna. This Manila-based gifted Cebuana has been on top leadership for a tertiary hospital in a province in the Philippines which she co-established and managed in order to provide the best health care service there is for the locality of Taytay in the province of Rizal.“As the youngest and the only female member of the Board of Directors in Manila East Medical Center, a tertiary hospital, the initial challenge was how to be heard and taken seriously. In a corporate world that is dominated by males, you have to set your foot down and get your message across that you mean business.”
Joy who previously worked as a top medical representative for a multinational pharmaceutical firm in Manila and after several years, decided to avail the company’s early retirement option. With her retirement savings, she joined a group of 20 professionals, mostly doctors, to help found what is now known as Manila East Medical Center.
Her pharmacy degree and her exemplary work skills got her nominated as one of the Board of Directors of the hospital where she was also tasked to look after three important divisions: pharmacy, procurement and human resource. She initiated work reforms and introduced innovative ways to make her departments profitable, cost-efficient and helped develop a work system nurturing camaraderie between management, staff and patients.
Since the hospital business requires huge manpower support from doctors, specialist providers, administrative and support personnel, an efficient system of daily tasks are required to bring about the operational cost and profitability hand in hand. Joy focused herself in managing the challenges of utilizing these resources in a proper manner whilst also ensuring their patients are happy with the services paid for.
Working with mostly male counterparts can be oftentimes intimidating, Joy observed, as there are still many men in these fields who are unaccustomed to working with women who were either wary or openly resentful of their presence.
But this reality has not daunted her spirit at all, she carried on with her work with professionalism and dedication which has been openly acknowledged by her fellow directors and workers.
“For almost 11 years, I have been successfully managing two important departments at the hospital as the astute Pharmacy Director of the Pharmacy Department, and Head of Central Supplies Department where my good negotiation and analytical skills come in handy.”
Joy’s work experience as sales representative was put to good use when she headed the procurement team. She excelled in negotiating for both minor and major purchases made by the hospital, which has resulted in huge savings for the hospital. In turn, these savings were used to provide for better compensation and benefits for their workers.
“As a Pharmacist, I would readily know which medicines are best in quality, efficacy, and I am able to easily negotiate a good price from our pharmaceutical suppliers knowing how they work having come from that industry from past. With that experience, I was able to make better buying decisions where we shifted from purchasing to procurement making our cost management highly effective in the long term. That also allowed us to pass on the discounts to our patients so they don't need to go outside to buy their medicines as they can also enjoy competitive pricing from within the hospital pharmacy,” says Joy.
Amidst the presence of three new hospitals that opened in the area, Manila East Medical Centre (MEMC) has remained the number one tertiary medical center in Rizal, in Eastern Manila.
Her corporate life that was mainly spent serving in the medical industry has allowed Joy to realize how challenging their industry is and how the Philippine medical institution fared in today’s business world.
She observed, “Among countries in the ASEAN region, the Philippines rank lowest in spending for healthcare leaving the private sector to carry a significant health-financing burden. Adding to that problem is the unequal distribution of health workers as they congregate in the National Capital Region where healthcare facilities are mostly established, and a dwindling supply of other professionals as the financial opportunity in other countries are better.”
Joy personally believes that if healthcare establishments are also highly developed in central and southern Philippines, health workers and graduates from these locations needn’t have to come to the capital region.
“They can serve locally and in turn will result to allowing many people to avail of health services right in their hometowns instead of traveling to main cities like Manila or Cebu. That would save them time and money. This development would also greatly help our government where more jobs are generated for the populace instead of encouraging them to work abroad.”
She makes perfect sense, indeed. Until that day, health care system in the Philippines remains to be one of the most challenged service sectors of the country.
Joy was born in Cebu in August 1967, the seventh in a brood of eight. She is the youngest and the most adventurous amongst the five girls in the family. Her parents Florentino Camomot, a Retired Sales Manager and her late mother Amparo Camomot, a Grade One Public School Teacher named her “Joy”, a perfect description of the bundle of joy she brought to the family that year.
She studied at the premiere exclusive girls school in Cebu, Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion (CIC) and was a member of the graduate class of 1984. After high school, she took up Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy at the leading University of San Carlos in Cebu.
Not content with that degree, Joy pursued a post-college degree with a Master’s Degree: Masters in Business Administration (MBA) at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. She was in the Dean’s List in 5 out of 8 trimesters.
Asked what was her dream course in college and why, Joy was honest to admit, “My dream course, which until now remained a dream, was to take up Medicine and become a Cardiologist or an Ophthalmologist. Due to financial challenges of sending many kids to college, my parents sent me to take up Pharmacy course instead. My ultimate goal is a PhD, but I feel so old and too busy to study.”
Her educational background has landed her to acquire a post-college career as a Medical Representative in one of the leading pharmaceutical firms in the country. She did well in her work that she consistently ranked as one of the top sales performers of the firm and was often rewarded incentives and trips abroad.
Her excellent work attitude also endeared her to colleagues, superiors and clients. In 1991, she married Dr. Rudy Luna, a Pediatrician, also a business partner at Manila East Medical Center where they co-found together with 19 other founders who are also taking executive management roles in the hospital operation.
Brought up by devoted Catholic parents and coming from a clan that produced nuns, priests and an Archbishop who is now next in line for beatification by the Vatican (the Late Archbishop Teofilo Camomot from Carcar, Cebu), Joy also expressed having a dream vocation that she had wished she pursued.
Joy shares, “There is this silent call of becoming a nun ever since I was in high school at CIC that persisted even when I was already working and in a relationship. Always a true blue Inmaculadista, my Vincentian and religious upbringing figured strongly in my character, and had I pursued, I would have been running an orphanage or a home for the aged by now.”For not materializing her intended vocation, Joy instead focused in putting aside a portion of her time and resources towards volunteer works for some of her specially chosen charities.
Asked what sort of fulfillment does she find in volunteerism such as her causes at “BISAYABABE” (a charity community group advocating free education for poor Filipino youths in Visayas and Mindanao) and other charity activities she engaged, Joy gleefully remarked, “When I see the happy faces of our volunteer teachers and learners at Alternative Learning System (ALS), I feel a different sense of purpose and fulfillment that I cannot derive from my career. It is nice to be able to help people by enabling and empowering them through the support that I can extend. It is such a feeling of bliss!”
Already wearing many hats from her corporate, community and family roles; Joy gladly tells us her other aspirations in life, her hobbies, and activities that gives her fulfillment, “My responsibilities at work are already enough to keep me busy, but I still find time to do other activities outside of the company, like conducting personality development lectures for friends and their companies. I also dabble in painting as my relaxing therapy. This is one passion I never discovered until recently when my best friend gifted me a canvas and a set of acrylic paints and prodded me to paint, now I am addicted to this passion.”
Joy plans to publish her own book “The Living Joy” which is about hope, survival, loving and living. “This book will chronicle my life as a young student from a struggling family who wants to do good and amidst the many personal challenges I faced, especially after a life-changing accident that almost took my life, the heartbreaking experiences I’ve been through and how I stood up for it with a strong heart, hope and love reigning in my heart - the message I would like to impart in this book.”
Asked as to who inspired her to do good and be successful and easily she replied, “My parents, especially my late mother Amparo, still remain as my inspiration in life. They struggled and managed to raise a brood of successful God-fearing professionals who are well rounded and grounded.”
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Bisai Ya is an artist in progress who dabbles in writing. She holds an Entrepreneurial Management degree from the Philippine Women’s University in Manila. She works as a marketing services consultant, Social Media professional in Cebu, Philippines. She can be reached at angelodominic@yahoo.com.
Nutritiously Yummy Soy Puffs!
NUTRITIOUSLY YUMMY SOY PUFFS!
An incredibly simple recipe that works wonders on the Ezra family's collective taste buds; I can hardly wait to prepare this one for when my daughter comes home for summer vacation from college!
Ingredients:
• 1 package soy puffs (cut in cubes)
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• ½ tablespoon dried onions
• 3 tablespoon soy sauce
• ½ tablespoon dried garlic
• 1 thumb size ginger julienned
• 3 tablespoon sweet rice wine
• 3 tablespoon oyster sauce
• Crushed red pepper to your taste
• Lettuce leaves (optional)
Directions:
• Combine well in a cup the soy sauce, sweet rice wine & oyster sauce & set aside.
• Heat olive oil on medium heat & sauté ginger till transparent looking.
• Then add the soy puffs and sauté them for a minute or two on both sides.
• Sprinkle the dried garlic and onions & crushed red pepper & pour the mixture till blended all together.
• Enjoy alone or wrap it with lettuce leaves.
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Ruth D. Ezra is a culinary queen in her own right through experience and training. She is a bookkeeper by profession at AllState Roadside Services in Northbrook, IL. Her greatest delight is serving good and healthy food to her husband Heman and only daughter, Isabelle. Kit would love to receive feedback on her recipes, and exchange them with yours at ezraruth@comcast.net.Love is in the Brain
LOVE IS IN THE... BRAIN
BY DEBBIE ALMOCERA
It was probably close to my last years in grade school when I got hooked on romance novels that epitomize hopelessly-in-love heroines and the ever so-stoic out-of-this-world-drop-dead-gorgeous heroes. Reading these books took me to new heights of imagination and expectation that someday I would be swept off my feet by one such unbelievable charming prince. I was constantly daydreaming, awaiting for that moment to arrive.
And arrive he did, (admittedly a few more after), along with a boat-load of disappointments and irrational expectations that tumbled-over like a pile of dominoes.
At first glance the overwhelming ecstatic emotional high that one experiences when in love, tend to dominate every part of one’s brain and sensibility. New research in the neurochemistry of love done at the Emory University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, to name a few, have shown that the notion of romantic love only goes as far as the reward and reinforcement circuits of the brain are being activated. This reward and reinforcement circuit appears to be facilitated by a bundle of nerve cells, called the medial forebrain bundle (MFB). When “activated”, this neural bundle appears to trigger activity in other areas in the brain, including the four areas referred to as the “love circuit”, namely, the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus. These are the areas associated with the release of Dopamine, Serotonin and Norepinephrine, which are fondly called the “feel good” neurotransmitters. When these neurotransmitters are released, you’re on “cloud 9”.
The rest of the body reacts accordingly, sending “butterflies” in one’s stomach, and causing the heart to beat a mile a minute.
There will come a time however, according to these studies, approximately between 12-15 months, when this neural activity goes back to normal, and the excitement of romance gradually diminishes. Sadly, there is a chance that you may wake up one morning only to realize that you are no longer madly in-love with the person you’ve been sleeping with. By then, one can only hope that there is something more in the relationship aside from blind devotion and heart palpitations.
As the brain quietly settles down, and the heat of passion subsides, thinking processes goes back to “normal”, and rationality seeps through. These supposed rationale thinking patterns eventually in fact, determine the lifespan of one’s relationship.
It is interesting to note that the frontal lobe, which is that part of the human brain primarily responsible for rational thinking, is also the last part of the brain to develop. (Thus I could understand why teenagers engage in impulsive and irrational behaviors). Fronting the frontal lobe, is the prefrontal cortex, which is the “head honcho” of decision-making, the seat of willpower, the “conscious mind”. Unfortunately, it is also the slowest.
The prefrontal cortex takes its time when making decisions. It has to consider a significant amount of information, such that, sometimes, decisions are made, even without it knowing. One might be able to deduce that when other areas of the brain are activated, such as the four areas known as the “love circuit”, the prefrontal cortex may not even know about it, or at least, haven’t thought enough about it to make a smart and logical decision. When one is madly in love, you can bet they just might have lowered their IQ levels, and currently experiencing a “dumb as a box of rocks” moment.
When the prefrontal cortex finally catches up with the rest of the brain, the love-struck person gradually realizes the consequences of his or her actions, and perhaps would thank his or her lucky stars for having found a perfect mate, or for the unlucky ones, to dig deep for reasons to stay in the relationship, and make it last. For where romantic love ends, real life begins.
I am not trying to diminish the value of love by reducing it into a bundle of neural circuitry. After all, I’ve heard people profess undying everlasting love to each other, over the years, numerous times. However, just because sparks don’t fly and there are no more fireworks in the background, doesn’t mean love is gone. It is simply replaced by intelligence and wisdom – knowing that the person you’re with is THE ONE, whether they look like your imagined hero or heroine, or having not the slightest resemblance.
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Debbie Almocera is a licensed therapist working in the behavioral medicine department of one of the largest hospitals in St. Louis, Missouri. For her, there has not been a more fulfilling and rewarding career than the one she has now. She can be reached at dholderle@yahoo.com
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