taxes, taxes, taxes

There are a few things in life that are sure to come and the deadline for tax payment is one of them.

As always, I steeled myself to the BIR office last April 16 to pay for my bookshop's tax dues. I had to fall in line and wait along with so many others attempting to be good citizens. Admittedly, I don't really enjoy giving up part of my hard earned money to a government known more as corrupt than capable.

But I also hate bad roads and the high cost of healthcare in the country, among other inadequacies. As such, I always want to have the right to complain.

I hope the government does its part, too.

Dateline: St. Luke's Hospital

(A personal account of childbirth)

Friday, March 30.

I was alone at the Napocor press office. The rest of my colleagues were in Bangkok for a coverage. I couldn't come because I was on my 38th week of pregnancy.

Then it happened.

My water bag broke at around 7:30 p.m. I had just finished sending my stories for the day and I was just waiting for breaking news. I was already looking forward to a good night's rest. Little did I know that the moment I had been waiting for had come.

Suddenly, me seat was wet, as if I had just urinated but I did not. My leggings were wet all over. It was a sign of things to come.

Thirty minutes later, I was at the delivery room of St. Luke's Hospital. I was led to a small room where resident doctors started to check if my water bag had broken. If it did not, I would be allowed to go home.

But indeed, it had.

My labor had just begun.

I was brought to the labor room and it was then when, despite months of psyching myself for a laborious journey of childbirth, I felt scared. I felt like a child again, unfamiliar with the things around me. I was treading unfamiliar territory and there was nobody there but myself. Everybody else -- the doctors, interns, clerks and orderlies -- were strangers. It was my first time to give birth. I had no idea -- despite reading every recommended book about pregnancy -- just how it would happen.

This is it, I told myself. I was brought to my "labor bed," hooked on to a fetus monitor, a dextrose bag and so many other pins and hooks I could not quite understand.

Around 10 p.m., my cervix was 3 centimeters dilated. Stranger after stranger would check the innermost part of me every hour to see how my labor progressed. Nothing can compare to the discomfort, awkwardness, pain and embarrassment.

Two hours later, I was getting bored. I was the only patient in the labor room. The resident doctors, interns and clerks started to take cat naps. They made sure though that I had someone by my side monitoring the baby's heart rate and my contractions, round the clock.

I started interviewing the interns but they seem to be in no mood for small talk. Some were kind enough to answer a prying journalist's questions but most concentrated on my baby's fetal heart rate and my contractions.

I learned that resident doctors and interns are on duty for 36 hours. They're there on standby and they're the ones who update the patient's OBs or practitioners when it is time to go to the hospital.

My OB for instance, was updated every two hours through her mobile phone on the progress of my labor. That way, she would know just when she would rush to the hospital.

Saturday, March 31.

Around 3 a.m., I was startled from my sleep when a hysterical patient was rushed into the labor room. She was crying all her might. Her screams of pain must have reverberated in the whole hospital.

I would later learn that her cervix was already 9 centimeters dilated. She would be giving birth anytime. And she was in so much pain. She was banging her bed, pleading with the doctor to give her more anesthesia and crying the whole time.

"Doc, please, please, please!!!!," she was screaming on the top of her lungs. I felt sorry and scared.

I felt cold all over. I felt more scared than I already was.

She was rushed into the delivery room, which was right next to the labor room. And ten minutes later, I heard a different cry. It was the familiar, beautiful sound of a baby crying. She had just given birth.

I fell asleep. When I woke up, I saw my practitioner right beside me. It was 9 a.m., Saturday.

It felt good to see her. She said everything was ok. I just needed to prepare for a long labor because that's how it is. She instructed the resident doctors to monitor me well and to give me oxygen for me to make it to the night.

Seven hours later and after more than ten strangers have examined my cervix, I was informed that my labor was not progressing. No wonder I didn't feel any pain.

My doctor visited me again. It was already 3 p.m. She then instructed the residents to give me a medicine that would speed up my contractions. Otherwise, I would have to deliver my baby via Cesearian section. I pleaded with her that I didn't want that.

One hour later, I felt my first brush with labor pain. Tears started falling. I was biting my hand to ease the discomfort. The pain wouldn't stop. It only became worst. At this point, I was calling on the dead to help me go through my journey. I called on my dead grandfather and some dead journalists. I whispered prayers to the different saints.

Two hours later, my cervix was 4 centimeters dilated. I was now officially in active labor. And the pain was nothing I had experienced before. I thought of my mother and wondered how painful it was when she gave birth to me.

I was crying on and on but silently, saving the screams for later. The pain progressed along with my labor.

At 5 centimeters, I cried louder. The resident doctor, Dr. Ivy looked at me with so much sympathy.

"Do you want me to sedate you?" she asked.

"No, doc, I can still take it," I said, feigning confidence. I simply didn't want to be asleep while I give birth.

At 6 centimeters, my screams probably reverberated along the whole stretch of E. Rodriguez Avenue. I don't know where I gathered the strength to shout. All I know is that I was screaming so loud.

The contractions were getting faster and the pain, worst. It's like when you have menstrual cramps except that the pain is so much worst.

A nurse came by my side and injected me with something. The world started spinning. Things turned black. The pain eased. Everything in front of me slowly disappeared. I seemed to have walked out of the labor room.

But then I was back. The doctors were instructing me to push the baby out.

"I-re! i-re! i-re! i-re pa!.....Good! I-re pa....yung walang sound na i-re! I-re pa," the people around me were saying.

"Seven centimeters....I-re ulit...Yung walang sound sabi eh!"

"Nine centimeters....I-re ulit....I-re pa. Yung ulo, yung ulo...malapit na...i-re pa," they said.

At this point, I was in such pain I never imagined was possible. But all I could think of was how to bring my baby out successfully. I was dead tired.

This was the last thing I remembered.

At 10:58 p.m., March 31, after 24 hours in labor, I gave birth via normal delivery to the 6 billionth plus plus world citizen. She is a 6.8-pound baby girl.








Her name is Isabel and she is the most beautiful thing I've seen my entire life.








(photos by Stella Arnaldo and Marie Gonzales)

37th week

(This is personal)

I've successfully reached the 37th week of pregnancy. These days, all I ever want is for the moment to come. It's been a very, very long and arduous journey after all. People around me including my doctor are saying that I've had a relatively smooth pregnancy. I am thankful. But then again, I can't deny the difficulty. Nobody really knows for sure just how difficult it is. I've been talking to 'bump' that I'm ready for the pain and that he or she can come out anytime.

Sigh. I am tired.

I wake up in the middle of the night because 'bump' is moving in all directions. The heat is unbearable even if the aircon is running nearly 24 hours. My tummy is so itchy but I can't scratch it. I can't drive and I hate it. I get leg cramps during the most unexpected times and it really pisses me off. I can't have anything else on my body including caffeine, nicotine and all the other sanity-saving substances available in the market.

Boy, I can't even devour on chocolates when I want to. My body indeed has been taken over.

These may seem little things to others but you put them all together and you do get a really difficult ride. Did I mention the emotional roller-coaster ride just yet? Only a mother or a mother-to-be knows the 360-degrees emotional experience that goes along with pregnancy.

BUT.

Yes there is a but...There is no greater experience than to be in this journey. I am privileged enough to be experiencing this despite my insanity, selfishness, dysfunctional emotions and undomesticated soul. I have no right to complain, really. Instead, I have so much to be thankful for. I read somewhere that pregnancy is a sign that the world should continue.

I do look forward to meeting my first child. I hope that he or she will come out anytime soon. And I know that the more difficult journey has yet to come. I expect motherhood to be a lifetime vocation with the difficulties far worse than what one can experience during nine months of pregnancy.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

learning

I had a talk last night with my favorite economic journalist and as usual, I learned a lot. I was working on a special report and he gave me invaluable tips, possible sources, possible angles to pursue and the different sides of the debate that I should work on.

It's always fun to learn from senior colleagues, who in turn, are so much willing to share. There is so much to learn from so many things. Each experience is a learning process. Every interview is a goldmine of information. Every story is a discovery.

Incest on the rise

This news broke my heart. To me, incest and sexual abuse are the worst things that can happen to children.

I still dream of a world free of these crimes because as Sydney Sheldon once said, we don't inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from the children.

Incest on the rise with feminization of overseas labor
By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 06:16pm (Mla time) 03/09/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- As more Filipino mothers leave for work abroad, incest between a daughter and the father who are left behind has become an emerging social problem, a non-government organization said Friday.

However, the Kanlungan Center said the scandalous nature of incest has kept the problem hidden despite its growing seriousness.

Loida Bernabe, program officer of Kanlungan's direct support and development program, acknowledged receiving only one call for help on an incest case but added she believes the problem is more common than believed.

“Nangyayari talaga ito dahil malayo sa pamilya at ang tingin sa mga anak ay pag-aari [It really happens because of the distance between spouses and because children are viewed as possessions],” she said.

She spoke of a runaway maid in Singapore who wrote to Kanlungan September last year about her 13-year-old daughter’s account of being raped by her father.

The mother said she had already asked a relative to take the girl away but worried about her nine-year-old daughter, who with her six-year-old son, remained with her husband.

Bernabe said she referred the case to the archdiocese in Mindanao to which the overseas Filipino worker’s (OFW) hometown belonged.

On Thursday, International Women's Day, Senator Pia Cayetano also called public attention to “an emerging problem in labor-exporting countries like the Philippines.”

The senator, who returned recently from New York where she represented the Philippine Senate at the 51st Session of the Commission for the Status of Women, noted that older daughters of women OFWs are made to take on the roles left by their mother, sometimes as “substitute spouses.”

"This disturbing phenomenon of the girl-child being turned into substitute spouse has been happening in our country along with the feminization of labor migration," said Cayetano, who noted that women now comprise 70 percent of Filipino workers deployed abroad.

“The problem remains largely unreported, however, due to its sensitive nature and mainly because of the fear of the girl-child to file a formal complaint against her own father which would bring severe stress and shame to her and her family," the senator said.

As a result, she said the abused daughter is forced to become an "adult" at an early age, depriving her of the opportunities and rights of being a child.

She described the phenomenon as one of the most damaging social impacts of labor migration, one that can never be measured by any of the government's socio-economic indicators or captured by statistics on labor export.

The international forum-session, entitled "A parliamentary perspective on discrimination and violence against the girl child," was jointly organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), of which Cayetano is first vice president of the Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians, and the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (UNDAW).

Cayetano presented the problem of incest among families left behind by OFWs at the forum-session, which stressed the need to push for national laws and policies to protect girls from violence and abuse.

A baby boom in Asia

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- A baby boom is about to hit parts of Asia, as couples try to ensure their newborns get a happy, wealthy life by starting off in the Year of the Pig.

This Chinese lunar new year, which starts on February 18, is believed to be an especially auspicious "golden pig year" which only comes around every 60 years.

South Korea is going a step further, saying it's the best time in 600 years to have a baby due to an anomaly on the Chinese calendar. This pig year -- known as "red," the color of wealth -- follows a year with two days to mark the start of spring.

In China, where most families are allowed only one child, baby-related businesses are bracing for an influx of "piglets".

"The Year of the Pig will certainly be busy. There will be a lot of precious pigs born this year, because of the Chinese superstition that pig babies will have an easy life," said Tian Hua, who manages a nanny sourcing firm in Shanghai.

Tian's firm specializes in caring for mothers and infants during the first month after birth, when Chinese tradition holds that a woman should rest and eat special foods.

Her 200 nannies are booked through July, and the company has raised prices by up to 45 percent, she said. Hospitals in mainland China and Hong Kong are also heavily booked.

In South Korea, which has one of the world's lowest birth rates, the Year of the Pig could herald the bundles of joy that years of government incentives have failed to create.

South Korea has seen a recent rush of expectant mothers at maternity clinics, keen to have their babies after February 18.

Fortune teller Kang Pan-seok, however, says 2007 is not the super lucky event it's been hyped up to be.

"The government is selling people on the golden pig year in order to have more babies," said Kang, vice director of the Korean Fortune Tellers Association. Korean folklore scholars note that the last time this lunar combination occurred, it wasn't hyped as a spectacularly auspicious year to have children.

"This is just a red pig year, but I don't mind because I have been swamped with customers seeking advice." But the red or golden debate does not matter to South Korean companies, who are interested in the color of money.

Condom makers have said sales are down this year, while maternity clinics said patient visits are way up.

Leading pharmaceutical company Dong-A is trying to spur sales of its fertility drugs and offering a gold pig statue to the first couple who uses its medicine and conceives.

Retailer Shinsegae is rolling out a special swine-based marketing plan and is selling items such as piggy banks and golden pig charms to attach to mobile phones.

Shares in one of the country's biggest baby clothes makers, Agabang Co., have jumped by more than half since July last year, in anticipation of a baby rush.

South Korea has tried to raise its birth rate, where an average of 1.08 children are born per woman, by making family life more affordable. But the policies have done little to stem the graying of society, where the population will soon start sliding from current levels of around 49 million.

"We hope this golden pig year will bring more babies," said health ministry official Shin Min-sik, adding the government was trying increase births through policies, not the lunar calendar.
Day care center bookings are rapidly filling up, and newspapers have warned these babies will face tough competition in South Korea's already overheated education system.

But amid the gold pig rush, some people still have their feet on the ground. "Any time you have a baby, it is a lucky year," said one expectant mother.

(photo: sorority sisters at my batchmate Nikko's place on Chinese New Year's eve)

out of town

BAGO CITY, Negros Occidental - It's my first out of town coverage in six months, pregnant and all.I made it past the airport security after successfully convincing the ground steward that I have been permitted to travel.

I, ofcourse forgot my doctor's certificate but made it to the plane after negotiating with the airline staff.

I'm here to cover President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo inuagurate the 49-megawatt North Negros Plant of PNOC-Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC).

I'm fine so far although I felt really delirious on the plane that I even heard the pilot say we were going to land in Mindoro because of a turbulence. My colleagues insist the pilot never said such a thing. True enough, the flight was safe and sound.

I'm eating a lot of chicken and seafoods because the food here is soooh good I probably gained 5 pounds. I'm enjoying sweet mangoes, too.

I hated the slightly rough road trip to the plant, however, but "bump" seemed not to mind with enough music from the I-pod.

While writing our stories, a barrage of Presidential Security Guards escorted us out of the room because the president had to stay there to re-touch her make-up.

I would have sighed in frustration but the guards were kind to me and allowed me to stay though I was not allowed to touch my laptop.

I am now sending my stories to Manila and look forward to my flight back home tomorrow. Most of all, I look forward to another heavy dinner later and a good night's rest.