planet philippines

Planet Philippine hosted by Richard Gutierrez, a famous actor of GMA7 is a documentary film about saving the environment. It reveals the country’s best-kept secrets of the natural world as well as providing information on creating awareness among the people. It motivates the people to act — simply by saving what is left of the environment.

After seeing the documentary, there was that one word that kept ringing on my mind. “Sayang” is the word I’m talking about. Sayang because we have lots of treasures to be proud of but we became pathetic and ruin it slowly. We say we want to preserve these treasures but then our actions contradict what we say. From the biggest creatures down to the smallest ones, people became cruel. In line with this, the documentary has mentioned a lot of times the term “biodiversity hotspots”. The term refers to the areas in the world where species decline and habitat losses are at alarming levels. The Philippines belong to the so-called “biodiversity hotspot” countries. This serves as a caution to our country and to the whole world. Time will come that we will be left with nothing. Our pennies can’t surely bring our natural resources back. We must not only motivate the act, but we must act.

Planet Philippines isn’t the first environmental documentary hosted by Richard Gutierrez in GMA7. There was “Signos” before it. Signos’ aim is to give awareness to the people about one of the big environmental issues — climate change. It also provides measures that must be taken to prevent its disastrous consequences. In the Signos’ blog that I have visited, it was stated there that lots of people appreciated the efforts of GMA Network in spreading environmental awareness. These appreciations have encouraged them to bring more relevant programs and documentary specials. With this, “SIGNOS: Banta ng Nagbabagong Klima” was not only replayed on May 24, 2008 but the GMA Public Affairs produced Planet Philippines.

Richard Gutierrez as the host is undeniably GMA’s most prized talent. He is an active environmentalist and Greenpeace advocate which makes the documentary suitable for him. As a very famous actor, Richard will be a big help to influence the minds of the people. Therefore shifting the minds of the people from passive to active thinking.

“Jesus is our bench”

We believe that there are only two paths you can choose to live your life: a life without Him or a life with Him. And we prefer the latter! There are many instances in our lives where we cannot find meaning in everything we do without His presence. As a curious Christian seeking for an understanding of Christ, I have come into my consciousness that I am nothing without Him. I would only be physically present but there is no meaning in my existence. Living a life without God is not a purpose-driven life. He is the purpose of our living—to worship, praise Him, and live the life the way Jesus did. He had proven to us that He should be the center of our lives. We can consider Him as our strength, hope, our guiding star. On a personal note, with regards of our student life, it’s very evident that our days without prayers bring incompleteness. At a certain situation, during examinations he could be the only one where we run for help. We ask for His’ holy guidance that could somehow strengthen us in studying hard and keep us in focus. In the verge of doubts and inhibitions we ask for His’ advice. In the midst of frustrations, the first and the only person we can rely on is God, we feel relief with just a simple conversation with Him. It’s something that I could not live without talking with Him creating an atmosphere away from problems and concerns. During pains that you could not find someone to cry on, He is always there to comfort you in way that only God knows. Moreover, Jesus is also the truth. This means that he is truthful. Certainly, we may rest assured that he is completely reliable in what he says and what he does. Jesus is the truth personified. He is the embodiment of the truth that by his saving work he sets us free from sin and death. He is the dependable source of God’s saving grace. Jesus makes this saving grace a reality in our lives when we accept in faith the gospel of salvation. A passage from Mt 26:52 saying “They that take to the sword shall perish by the sword” is an indication that Jesus doesn’t want things to be done in a ruthless way. Jesus can be described in various terms. However, the passage states that Jesus is a teacher of moral values. He has thought us to be righteous for it is his’ words in text. He has thought us not to steal and has thought us not to cheat in class for the possibility of being caught. The order of Christ to one of his disciples to take away his sword and not to use it only meant that it is wiser for men to play fairly.

Furthermore, God is like the benches that we see everywhere, particularly in our school. Unconsciously, the benches usually help us. We cannot appreciate it anyway, but in fact it has done a lot of things to us. The benches are always present and are always there. When we get tired, it’s there to offer us a seat. When we have problems may it be our boyfriend, family and studies, the benches are there to offer us relaxation and comfort. When we want to talk to someone, we search for a bench for a more convenient conversation. It sometimes frees us from stress and can take you away from the world bombarded with problems. The benches, just like Jesus, doesn’t complain and choose whom to offer a seat. It simply does so without a single word of complaint. It offers a seat to the wicked, to the rich and to the poor and to everyone who needs it.

However, Jesus is not a bench. He is more than a bench. He is more than any names that we know. Though the presence of Jesus in our lives gives us same things which a bench can offer, He cannot be equated to an object for He is more than anything else. There is no best title to describe Jesus but the word “God”. Jesus is God himself.

“What IPC means to me”

Interpersonal Communication is a process of exchanging ideas to a person or to a group of people. It is a process in where everyone communicates. Since we all need people and we all need communication in order to survive, I’ve found studying IPC a necessity.

IPC makes me realize the importance of communication. It is a requirement for human survival. To live a better life doesn’t mean that there must be more communication involved. However, it must be present and one must know it. As the saying goes, “No man is an island.” And in order to have a companion, one must know how to communicate in its most efficient way as possible. IPC has a goal of making ourselves more confident by sharing our thoughts to others.

On a personal note, IPC means Interpreting People through Communication—be it verbal or nonverbal. It’s the thought of having the senses capable of interpreting the message behind what the person presents to the public. However, a good communicator must be conscious of themselves first in order to study others. An ideal communicator must have a clear conception about himself. He must study his self first before going to the next level. On the other hand, the individuals who study IPC are trained to be sensitive to the feelings of the people around him. Behind the smiles, there are those tears; behind the words, there are those hidden meanings which are to be discovered—and those are a few of the challenges to be considered. In addition to that, Interpersonal communication involves people who have known each other for some time. You see, it would be very difficult for the other person to read his mind without having a single background of that person. Most important is that, these people must view each other as unique individuals, not as people who are simply acting out social situations. To make it easier to define, IPC can be equated to the word “understand”. That is, to be able to understand ourselves and to understand what people say in context since we may have different interpretation of their messages. Finally, we cannot deny the fact that each of us wants to belong to an environment of friends or of people. There’s always that loneliness in us which is a reason of having our friends. And one must understand this loneliness in order to overcome it.

I can describe the IPC classes under Maam Shiella in a few words — learning while enjoying. This is where we learn loving and we love learning. The theatre lab turned out into playgrounds, clubs and more. It’s not only me who will miss and is missing the class already in our group. It’s impossible not to miss this class. And it is impossible not to miss the people who have been true during the class hours. Learning with bundles of enjoyment isn’t impossible at all. And our IPC class is irreplaceable. Now I have a new definition of “fun”, and that is IPC.