Facebook or Google+?

Activity#27 (Ruby Portillo)

First, Facebook, is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc. As of February 2012, Facebook has more than 845 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.

 Second, Google,The idea is to topple Facebook from its throne by making every existing Google product socially compatible. The company certainly has a lot to work with, including Picasa, Gmail and Google Maps and information and functions from all of these will be integrated into the Google+ experience so that you don't have to sign into different services to share your photos and let your mates know what you're up to.

I think both of them are needed for our own good, so if I were you I'll choose both of them.

Love Does Not GIVE UP (32)

Activity#32 (Ruby Portillo)


I don't know how you feel to see that single parenthood life is becoming more admirable and an alternative to marriage, and the church seems to be getting more and more comfortable with it. Financial independence seems to be the only required ingredient to a family unit. Is God as comfortable as we seem to be?

A friend's marriage was falling apart for many genuine painful reasons but one day she made a decision to involve God to help. She prayed to God to save her husband and make him a pastor.

She spent six continuous months in serious prayers until God answered her desire and today her husband is a good pastor, a wonderful husband and father.

But before God changed the husband, God dealt with this friend first. She quit complaining and determined that she was to do her part as unto God.

God is not blind, brethren. God transformed her attitude to one of not fault finding or revenging. She saw her husband as one in need of God, not one full of faults.

May God help us realize that much as we would like to own our marriages, marriage is as sacred as life since it is not a man's idea, but God's.

If we honor God seriously and care for His institution, we will be concerned and view our marriages not as our own, but God's property.

Before we give up on our marriages, have we taken time to involve the Initiator of it all on a serious note?

May God help us individually to make a decision to work on our marriages with God as the interested party.

In marriage, we sign up to succeed, and the beauty of it all is that one can refer to the Initiator for help.

And God is very much wiling to help and is able to sustain a victorious marriage, helping us to understand that love does not give up!

May Christ born in you (and me)30

Activty#30 (Ruby Portillo)

The author Sue Monk Kidd has written about her youth and how she would prepare for Christmas. In early December, she would sit by the wooden nativity set clustered under their Christmas tree and think over the last year of her life. She would think deeply about Christmas and the coming of Jesus.

She also remembers how as a girl she once visiting a monastery. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas. As she passed a monk walking outside, she greeted him with, "Merry Christmas." The monk's response caught her off guard a bit. "May Christ be born in you," he replied.

His words seemed strange and peculiar at the time. What did he mean, "May Christ be born in you?" At the time she was unsure of what he meant, but now all these years later, sitting beside the Christmas tree, she felt the impact of his words. She discovered that Advent is a time of spiritual preparation. It is also a time of transformation. It is "discovering our soul and letting Christ be born from the waiting heart."

The thought stuck me as I read these words, “Do I leave time and space for Christ to be born in my heart during the average Advent?”  I am embarrassed to say, that far to typically, the answer to that would be, “No.”  I get too busy.  I get too overwhelmed by all the stuff (good stuff—church stuff, family stuff) that I have to do during the Advent season that I too often miss out on the why of my activity, and certainly on the who.  I get so busy working for Christ, I forget to let Jesus be born in me.

President Noynoy Aquino

Activity#25 (Ruby Portillo)
 
President Noynoy Aquino was born Benigno Simeon Cojuangco III February 8, 1960. He was the only son and was third child among four sisters, the most famous sister was the youngest: Kristina Bernadette or Kris Aquino who is now a very popular and prominent star in television and film. Noynoy was a pure breed Atenista from grade school, high school, up to college. He then graduated from the Ateneo University with a degree in Economics. At that time, his father the famous Senator Ninoy Aquino was the lone voice of freedom against the dictator president Marcos and so they were exiled to Boston because of this.
He was then elected as a Philippine senator and was part of the Opposition coalition whose main issues was the holding back of the Charter Change or the rewriting of the constitution under the control of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. It is interesting to note that as a political move during this campaign, he publicly endorsed the bailing out of ex-senator Gregorio Honasan who was then in jail for new charges of rebellion, effectively pardoning the past that almost cost him his life.

Now in 2010, Aquino has been approached by a group of activists and lawyers whose group was called Noynoy Aquino for President. This happened after the death of his mother former president Corazon Aquino. After some weeks of giving the possibility some thought he finally formally announced his bid. He is now officially in the running as a candidate for presidency.

Impeachment Trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona

Activity#24 (Ruby Portillo)
Renato Corona was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on May 12, 2010 succeeding Reynato Puno who reached his age of retirement. Corona had his law degree at the Ateneo de Manila Law School, took his masters degree at Harvard Law School, and earned his Doctor of Civil Law degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School.
Chief Justice Renato Corona was impeached last December 12, 2011 by the House of Representatives by the votes of 188 out of 284 congressmen. Corona’s appointment itself has a case. Corona was appointed by former president Arroyo days after the 2010 presidential elections, which is against the Constitution. It is written in the Constitution that a president cannot appoint any government official within the two months before his/her term ends. President Aquino never fully recognized Corona as the chief justice because of the irregularity of his appointment. The impeachment trial of Corona started last January 16, 2012 and is still ongoing up to the present. There are three main reasons why Chief Justice Corona was impeached: graft and corruption, violation of the Constitution, and betrayal of public trust. One of Corona’s cases was that he did not declare his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth or SALN. This covered the three main reasons why he was impeached.