GILAS PILIPINAS -Not just about winning the game

By: Roel Sibayan

Considering the game last night between our very own Gilas Pilipinas and South Korea created an intense excitement and entertainment to the spectators, I rarely watch basketball game for the last 5 years, but last night’s game made me feel and remember during the time of the Finals game of Barangay Ginebra during the 90’s, especially when Basketball living Legend and former Senator Robert “Jawo” Jaworski (a.k.a. Big J) was closed-up by the TV camera, it brought me back to the feeling of the “Never Say Die “spirit of Jaworski to his boys. My subconscious pictured the crowd noise, the suspense of back-ground music, the shouting and complaining coaches on the side-court, the stupid and unacceptable calls of the referees, deadlock scores, commercial breaks, and the final last two minutes of the fourth quarter.

But then again, last night’s game was great. Gilas made a fantastic game, although the South Korean team likewise performed a great play, still we can never underestimate them. It was indeed a remarkable play for the Gilas, shooting guard Jimmy Alapag’s three pointers were thrown like a bomb, Jayson Castro’s lay-up confused the South Korea’s big men of - where did it came from? This is where the viewers will see the difference between the height-advantage and the speed. Almost 60% of the entire game is running game, because set-up plays were most likely less better if your opponent are big guys and has more height advantage.  

Tonight’s game with the strong team Iran will become another level of thrill and excitement, and the fans are about to know, who will really Rocks the 2013 FIBA. But the viewers should be reminded that this is not just about winning the game only, this is about how a TEAM work together to achieve their goal. This will serves as a reminder and inspiration for the Filipinos to work together as one team, one nation, and one country towards success. Go Gilas!  

“The basketball team is like five fingers on your hand. If you can get them all together, you have a fist. That’s how I want you to play” – Mike Krzyzewsky

“There is no such thing as perfect basketball player, and I don’t believe there is only one greatest player either” – Michael Jordan

“I don’t know how tall I am or how much I weigh. Because I don’t want anybody to know my identity. I’m like a superhero. Call me Basketball Man” – LeBron James

ART MATTERS Part I

by Roel Sibayan 

"Las Meninas" 1656 oil painting by: Diego Velazquez



Considering the 1656 master piece of Diego Velazquez “Las Meninas” provides many questions such  as - who is the real main subject of the painting?, is it the King and his wife, the eldest daughter Margaret Theresa or the painter himself? But looking on a different perspective will give another prospective answer to this question.  First, I would like to take into considerations that the painter used a mirror as clearly mentioned. The painting itself is only a reflection of the mirror from the eye view of Velazquez. If the painting shows that Velazquez is on the left side, and the maid of honours is on the right side, this means the original positioning of painter is on the right side if we are facing opposite to the mirror. But I don’t want to set aside the possibility that the painter also used a camera obscura to capture the very moment of the seen on the painting before he paints it, because the camera obscura already exist during the seventeen to eighteen century. In my analysis, an artist cannot paint the moving subjects such as the princess with the maid of honours. It is impossible to paint the moving subjects in one sitting, most especially if it is a multiple subjects, and at the same time, I don’t want to set aside the possibility that King Philip IV and his wife’s image on the background is not a mirror, but a painting as well. A strong light source coming on the viewer’s front view and right side view, since there is no artificial light on the ceiling, it seems like there is another door from the back of the other maid of honour who tries to play with her left feet with the dog. The person to the right rear standing is Don Jose Nieto Velazquez, in my belief that he already went inside and was about to come out as he already stepped up his right feet, and holds the curtain that blocks his way, because there is no need to hold the curtain if he is already inside the room or studio

The entire painting tells me that during those time, Diego Velazquez is much close to the royal people or family, it seems like the artist painter occupies a special position on the hierarchy starting from the King and Queen, the princess, and the maid of honours, all the way to the lower rank individuals. Beside on being the personal artist of the family, he works on the big room or studio within the facility of the King and Queen’s place in Madrid. In my speculation, there is an important function to be presided by the King and Queen, their daughter is on a preparation and being assisted by their maid of honours. The royal family wants to document or put the very important event on record, by converting it to a painting creates high value on the piece.

Foucault pointed out, that what is outside of the painting gives meaning to what is inside, therefore, the King and Queen according to him are the center of the scene as the entire representation is ordered. Foucault’s analysis probably true, in the study of the elements of composition, it is also important to determine the balance, in between the subject or object is a space that determines the distance between each other. With regards the Las Meninas painting, in my point-of-view, the three primary subjects as one category are in the center; King Philip IV, the Queen, the Princess, and Don Jose Nieto Velazquez whose about to come out holding the curtain, the three of them has three different specific areas, the King and Queen are in the mirror or “painting” with black frame, Don Jose Nieto Velazquez is at the center of the door frame, and the princess is surrounded by her maid of honours. Three different positions, but occupying the same positioning in the entire painting, which is the center of the composition.



THE REAL DRAGON THAT WILL BRING LUCK

by Roel Sibayan

The year 2012 - a Dragon year in Chinese calendar, another delightedness and excitement to people who are born in 1976, lucky year for them as they say, but what do us really mean by luck? What is our understanding about it? People has different opinions or interpretations, but in a more broad context, it is a circumstances of (human) life brought by fortune, beneficial or not, but as a whole, people’s perception can be categorized into two – those who believe, and those who are not. The term “luck or lucky” has been part of peoples communication for a long-period of time, In fact, until now, this word has been part of our common expressions such as – you’re lucky!, good luck!, you’re the next lucky winner!, better luck next time! And so on. Decades or centuries has passed, this word is already imbedded in people’s mental reservoir that transformed into a principle that many are driven with, e.g. placing a bet in a Lottery, and thinking that luck might be in-favor of them this time, or dropping entries in national contest’s drop- boxes trying their luck to win the price of latest model car. Relevant to this, there is also the concept of - Law of attraction, the positive and negative vibes, or more common term as vibrations - the element which is present in a form of aura. On the other hand, there is also what we known as karma,-  a law of consequences, just like vibrations, karma comes in a positive and negative- or good and bad karma, as belief said, it comes back to you if you’ve done either good or bad things in other person.

But, I strongly believe that everyone is the provider of their own luck, I prefer the word “Opportunity” than luck. If you’ve done something good - you’ve just created yourself an opportunity to receive goodness and blessings (positive vibrations or good karma) in your life, either in personal or professional. Going back to the example scenario above; if you placed your bet in a Lottery, or if you keep on sending your entries in a national contests means -  you’ve just provided an opportunity for yourself to become a multi-millionaire or instant winner of a brand new car, but if you’re not betting or providing raffle entries, and you keep on dreaming and saying that if you won, you will buy these and that!, help the orphans and the poor!, or do some charity works!, I don’t  think if luck is in-favor to you. This also applies in many aspects of people’s lives such as career, business, love, or parenting. In other words, - Luck requires great amount of hard-work, commitment, discipline, determination, honesty, productive habits, and proactive works in order to convert luck into opportunities. These paradigms will bring a huge amount of luck or opportunities in people’s life, even the Bible emphasized in II Thesalonians 3:10, our Lord Jesus Christ said that we should work to eat, those who don’t work (lazy) should not eat, and this is exactly telling us about the fruit of our labor. The Greek philosopher Sophocles said more than 2,000 years ago; “Heaven will never help the person who will NOT ACT.”

 Everybody is delighted to welcome and embrace the year 2012 Dragon year, but I believe, the real Dragon that exist is the Dragon WITHIN US, if we awaken it, it will blow flame – by delivering our promises in our selves of change for the New Year!, a self-reinvention, to become actively industrious, generous, understanding, hardworking, and responsible individuals, acquire new skills, new learning, become a newly motivated employee, or start a businesses, in order to gain good opportunities (or luck) in our life for the next (11) eleven-months of this New Year, this new mentality will repatriate many people from poverty in the long-run, and survey rates on people who are saying they are poor, hungry, or no-income will decrease. Crimes of stealing, cheating, or robbery will deteriorate. We are now in the Creative Age, therefore, we should be creative, - awake the Dragon within and start a new YOU! Happy New Year! And God bless us all!       

TAKE CARE OF YOUR BRAIN

by: Roel Sibayan

Illustration by: Roel Sibayan

Brain is one of the most important vital organs in our body, for me it is an amazing built-in device in our head; it is our central processing unit (CPU), hard disk, or a super high-gig device that can record or stored many files, (memories) and retrievable at any time. It is the main control or command post of our body.  It is amazing to understand the basic functions of our brain. Experts in Neuroscience already determined the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which functions differently from each other. These findings were supported by many psychologists and book authors that explained the behaviour of the right-brain and the left-brain dominated persons. Right brain dominated are said to be the emotions or creative thinking part while the left is the control and analytical. But in general, they (should) work together hand-in-hand (control and creativity) in order to come-up with a brilliant output. Dr.David Rock - a CEO of Results coaching and author of the book Quiet Leadership explained how to help a person think to be able to arrive at their best insights without them realizing during the problems occur, this is a way of helping them think on their own solutions to their problems, rather than you think a solution for them, (It’s like helping a person in-trouble with his car’s engine by pushing the vehicle from behind in the middle of the road, and he himself will do the driving).  At this point, the brain is beginning to create new wire connections called dendrites that gather information for the neuron, this happen if a person is thinking for a solution to the problem. In 1883, Anatomist and artist Santiago Ramon y Cajal of Spain was first to discovered what neurons really do. He made an illustration in explaining; - his drawings changed the human understanding of the brain and nervous system. Previous studies also revealed information on how to boosts and sustain the brain or mental strength by protecting them, and some of the basics according to experts are; Regular exercise - this physical activity causes the release of feel good hormones or endorphins. In this activity, the brain will produced more of the important brain cell protein growth factor after exercise, increasing mental activity and memory. Adequate sleep may sounds like an old school for some, but this is one of the important in maintaining mental clarity and memory. On the other hand, Weight control is another important factor in protecting the brain, which research shown a strong link between obesity and cognitive with memory decline. Another one is Socialization - a person who has a lot of human interactions tend to do better both in terms of physical health and cognition according to study. Last is Eating fish and green leafy vegetables - this will reduced cognitive decline with aging. Research also shown that sugar is one of a cause of memory decline, blood supply to the dentate gyrus in the hippocampus, a portion engaged in memory formation, after a high sugar consumption resulting in a blood sugar spike which normally found out to diabetic persons. But did we know that there is an appropriate sugar that’s best for our brain? It is a sugar coming from the fruits - This made me realized and gave me better understanding and appreciation on the possible reason why our mighty creator provided Adam and Eve a variety of fruits to eat in the Garden of Eden based on Chapter 1:29 in the book of Genesis - “Then God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;”  .There are no rice, bread, hamburger, pizza, fried chicken, etc. provided by God for them to eat, because the sugar content of the fruits are very good for the body and for the brain, and the sugar content of the fruits is absolutely different from the “processed sugar” packed that humans are consuming. God is really good in providing fruits for us to eat, and he is also the intelligent designer of the most amazing and incredible device in the world-the brain. So, let’s include eating fruits as number 5 on the tips mentioned above, and make it a habit every day. Drop-by in the supermarket or fruit vendor and buy a bunch of Apples today. :)

Commercial airline with no flight-attendants and engine is being switched-off when the highest altitude is reached?

by: Roel Sibayan

Illustration by: Roel Sibayan

If you are a frequent traveller or a travel enthusiast, and had gone through many different places across the seven continents, around the world, I could say you’ve accomplished big percentage of your life’s achievements, which many of us dreamed of travelling and see different countries in the world. I believe you’ve already seen different cultures, and perhaps even learned from the vernacular of different nations. Of course, before you reached your desired places outside your home country, you need to take a transportation, the fastest mode of transportation,-an airplane. The commercial airplane in particular which most of the frequent travellers are dealing with, from the time of seat reservations all- the- way to the airplane boarding at the airport terminal ramp on the day of the departure flight. A couple of minutes after, here comes the cabin-crew announcements on the aircraft’s safety compliance; flight- attendants are checking every passenger’s seat-belts, hand-carried luggage, and other prohibited electronic devices or items. One of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) practices of the passenger cabin-crew is to perform the safety features of the aircraft, particularly the procedures on how to wear life-vest, oxygen mask, and proper evacuation during emergencies leading to the exit doors, and so on. All standard inflight services will be perform on the entire duration of the flight, until such time that the destination will be reach in a few minutes, and here comes an announcement again from the cabin-crew or pilots for landing preparation if the plane is already approaching the destination. These inflight scenarios are already common to travellers, and some were almost memorized the pilot and flight-steward’s spiels. According to news recently, a Singaporean family has already paid a booking reservation that cost $1Million for their flight for a commercial passenger airline, marking them as the first Asian family to fly with the said new airline, but it’s not just a usual commercial airline. One of the most amazing and innovative creation in the industrial and aviation sector will now give the world an opportunity to experience the place that we’ve never been before even in our dreams, the Space. Virgin Galactic now offers commercial flight to space, the venture is space tourism as they call it, but wait! Before you thought about having a ticket and seat reservation, think again. You cannot go to check-in counters of Chanqi airport in Singapore, Hong Kong International airport, Frankfurt airport in Germany, JFK airport in New York, or LAX. Virgin Galactic Spaceport America is located in the southern part dessert of New Mexico. Ticket cost starts at USD $200, 000.00 and a 10% refundable in-case you decided to cancel. With a million dollar costs, you get a chance to personally experience 50km to 90km above the Earth’s surface, it’s the 3^rd atmosphere level Mesosphere, and if you are one of the passengers seating inside the cabin of the 60feet long and 8 seater capacity (6pax, 2 pilots) state of the art Space-Ship-Two, don’t be terrified if you heard the aircraft engine turned-off and every pax including you began to float from the seats, instead look outside your glass window and see for yourself, the planet Earth and the black, quiet surroundings are right next to your eyes. Don’t look for inflight meals, beverages, magazines, newspapers, and dancing flight-attendants, because those things will just going to float inside the cabin! (But what if somebody wants to use the lavatory and needs to pee?…)

But seriously, Virgin Galactic is incredible, it’s amazing! The aircraft vehicle Space-Ship-Two and its mother ship White-Knight–Two is one of the most awesome airplanes that I have seen in my life. I Congratulate Mr. George T. Whitesides – President and CEO and founder Sir Richard Branson and the entire team. More power! I wish them all the best and success in all their endeavors. I hope to find an opportunity to inquire if the company is open for Free-of-Charge (FOC) ticket for sponsorship in the future?:))

source: www.virgingalactic.com                                                               



Filipinos are dominating the world!

Illustration by: Roel Sibayan

by: Roel Sibayan


I am truly fascinated how good and amazing Filipinos are. I highlighted some remarkable top major achievements that sustains in uplifting Filipino people’s image globally.  These highlights created noise all over the world that Filipinos are indeed world class. Despite of having bad news involving crimes and corruption related issues that affects the image of our country, we cannot delete the negative publicity that were spread-out in CNN, Internet, and Social Media, that stuck in the mental reservoir of many people in foreign countries, still there are positive things that gained multiple “likes” (which listed below) that reverses these negative issues. Since we are in the month of eleven (11) in the year of eleven (2011), let us review 11 great achievements of 11 Filipinos in the current year alone.

1.     Philippine Dragon Boat team in USA, August 2011

2.     Ms. Universe 3^rd runner-up Shamcey Supsup in Brazil,
September 2011                                                              

3.     Dr.Amado Gabriel Esteban first Filipino to serve as President of the prestigious Seton Hall University in New Jersey, USA. October 2011

4.     Nonito Donaire’s victory over Argentina’s Omar Narvaez, New York City. October 2011

5.     Lea Salonga’s Heritage Award in New York City, October 2011

6.     Michael Cinco, A Filipino Fashion Designer of America’s Next Top Model, April 2011

7.     Charice Pempengco’s concert with David Foster, Philip Bailey and Michael Bolton, November 2011

8.     Filipino Mathematics Wizard  winners in Mathematics International Competition (WIZMIC) in India, November 2011

9.     Manny Pacquiao’s victory over Marquez in Las Vegas, November 2011

10.   Puerto Princesa’s Underground River in New 7 Wonders of the World, November 2011

11.   Gwendolyn Ruais, Ms. World 1^st Runner-up in London, October 2011.

We can actually contribute great achievements to the list above that will benefit not only ourselves but our community and country as well, as ordinary people, we can do our best in what we do as– employees, students, housewives, church workers, traffic enforcers, PUV drivers, writers, teachers, businessman, investor, self-employed, artist, garbage collectors, fish vendor, farmers, and so on and so forth. We don’t need to be as popular as Manny Pacquiao, Charice, or Lea Salonga to bring honour and goodness in our country. The greatest common denominator is, we have different roles in life, and every one of us can give a big contribution in our country in what we do through our talents or skills. The question is, is it good or bad?,.. The choice will always be ours.   

Illustration by: Roel Sibayan