Summer Sportfest

That was fun!

Our KICC teacher Sir Joni invited us to join the Intra-Parish Sportsfest that was held in De Lasalle Greenhills. Other choirs and youth members joined too.

Me and other choir members met at the Edsa Shrine Church and instead of taking the car we walked so we can exercise already.

Before we played some sports, we have a mass with Father Aldrin. After the mass, our host named Ate Twinsy, explained how this sportfest came to be and what we will expect that day. After she explained everything, we have our national anthem and then we went out to watch the runners pass around the torch. After they run around then they lighted a bowl of coal or wood. It was like in the Olympics J. Then sportsfest officially began.

First, we played the novelty-game “Patintero”. This was how we played it. The yellow team was the “blocking” team who needs to block horizontally and vertically any opposing team member from crossing to and from their base. The blue team, that was us, is the “running” team. If one of our team member gets caught, then we lose our turn. The blue team becomes the blocker and the yellow will be the runner. Unfortunately, we lost that game.

Our next game was Dodge ball and this was how we played it. The “throwing” team will have 5 members on each opposite sides and the “dodging” team was composed of 10 members in the middle. Our blue team was the throwing team and we threw the ball against the members of the green team until all of them were out. Each time a member of the dodging team catches the ball, the team can add one more player. The team with the most number of members in the middle after a given time won. Again, it was not us.

Our next game was chess and this time all teams are allowed. This was also an elimination game contest.

There were other games like basketball and volleyball but these were mostly for the young adults.

So far our EDSA team lost a lot of games but even though, we still have a lot of fun. We even get to eat lunch in the big school canteen.

After the sportfest ended, one by one, the people left with smiles on their faces.

Awesome Holiday

We started our school vacation on Dec. 16 at the start of Simbang Gabi.

On Dec 17 we went to the Lego competition to try my luck to win another Speed Lego competition but I lost to another kid. Better luck next time for me but it’s a good thing that others have chance to win.

On the next day, I went to the Awesome Kids Christmas party. We ate there and have some activities and even met new friends. I joined the AK choir that sang during the mass for the Feast. After that I got to meet Bro. Bo Sanchez’s friend and Feast builder Brother Arun. We have photo together.

After we went to the church, we went to the Jollibee to join the youth party. In this party we sang to the Lord and prayed. It’s like the youth party is a place to worship God, but of course we also have activities such as shooting the marble in the small cup and another is bringing the small chocolate candy in the cup using straw and the prizes are a couple of sweets. These activities reminded me of the show called “Minute to Win” cause these are activities are challenging also.

After the youth party we bring our mother to the WFMA party while my father, brother and I watched the latest Star Wars movie – Rogue One, that was just released on Dec 15. The movie was kinda cool and sad but I don’t wanna spoil the movie so you’ll have to see for yourself. It’s a surprise.

I recently joined the Bosconian Voice Chorale (BVC) and we had a mini concert at the Vista Mall where we sang many Christmas and other love songs. we sang for one hour and its kinda cool too cause at the end we have free food The BVC is a group of teenagers that sing in the Don Bosco church every Sunday mass.

On December 24, we went to Malolos to visit my grandfather’s house to hold and join the Christmas party arranged by our Maia Outreach Programs. There were so many young and less-fortunate children. There were fun games such as “drinking soda” race, “passing around this item” and tongue twister words. There were also two performances. First was a song number “See You Again” by myself with my father and my cousins. Second was a magic show. And then we have a raffle where the grand prize was a rice cooker. Of course the little kids ate and I helped by passing the food to them. After the party, we went back to my grandfather’s house to celebrate our own Christmas party.

At the rest of the Christmas season, we visited our relatives and have a party too. My father’s relatives live in Malolos and my mother’s relatives lives in Paranaque. All my cousins were there too so we played games, performed songs, received gifts and of course ate a lot.

This was our busy happy holidays.

Thank you Lord, it was awesome!

Why are we homeschooling?

Homeschooling, presently, has gained quite a solid base following after many years of being frowned upon and misconstrued as a sort of deficient learning method. We clearly remember before how well-meaning friends and family members around us either giving us their blank stare of disbelief or an upfront unsolicited advice to bring our son to a traditional school whenever we told them that he is being home-schooled. 

Looking back, our home-school journey started with painful a family tragedy. Back in 2008, while we were living overseas, we lost our 22 month-old daughter. We were devastated. But with God’s healing and loving support of people around us, we slowly picked-up our broken hearts and discerned how to move forward with our eldest son Zek who was barely 4 years old at that time. Wanting to spend more time with him, intent in sharing our own and shared family values and for lack of any Catholic educational institution in our host country, we searched for options, found a few choices and ultimately decided to home-school our son.

We him enrolled into one of the pioneer-provider of home schooling in the Philippines, the Catholic Filipino Academy (www.catholicfilipinoacademy.com) from Pre-school up until Grade 6.

We had a great time learning lessons together, making it fun and creative. Despite living in a foreign land, Zek learned a lot about our Filipino culture specially our religious belief while taking advantage in learning other things around him. We use lots of Legos, game boards and materials that can be interactive to help us to have more fun in learning. Admittedly, making every lesson interesting to Zek was really a great challenge for us every time. He’s unending questions wore off our energy and our patience so we needed a lot of time out just to gain back our strength to finish our daily tasks. Praying together everyday is what makes us at peace together and helped us persevere.

Zek is more of a visual learner with an entertainment type of personality. We needed to prepare a lot of drawings, posters or visual aids for each topic and we did a lot of art works together that all our walls around the house are filled with hanging papers. We looked for his activities related to his lessons for the mastery of his skills. We visited museums, watched theater plays and frequented theme parks. We also enrolled him to a music class for he loves to sing. We also encouraged him to write about every event that he attended to or any outdoor activities he did into his blog site from www.zeksantos.ph to www.readyzekaim.blogspot.com for this is one of our way to keep track of his amazing journey in learning besides making his portfolio with his progress reports to be submitted quarterly.

After more than 7 years of homeschooling, we still ask the same question to ourselves every now and then especially during tough times teaching our eldest son. For now, he has started his Grade 7 in a traditional school because we feel he needed to learn and experience a real-world educational environment and to learn to deal with different kinds of people and situations too. We also decided to build our own house away from the city to improve our lingering health concerns like endless asthma attacks, sinusitis, rhinitis and the host of other pollution-related allergies.

Now that our youngest son Aim has turned 5 years old and is a preschooler, we are leaning towards independent home-schooling based on his learning pattern and do his lessons according to his interest. Aim is showing skills as an auditory learner with organizer type of personality and he loves to read books. With God’s guidance, we will hopefully journey with him as well throughout his young learning life.

We are always thankful and grateful to God for all the amazing years of home schooling journey of our family.  After all, enjoying while working together with our kids is always a mutually learning experience we look forward to.

May God bless us all.

Martial Law Years

On September 21, 1972, Ferdinal Marcos declared Martial law.

Ferdinand Marcos has a suspended the writ of habeas corpus meaning that he jailed anybody who did something that he did not like.The time when Ferdinand Marcos was president, many people in Philippines were jailed, tortured and even killed under his command.

The people in Philippines were protesting because they did not like the president Ferdinand Marcos so he jailed the people that were protesting.

He makes election every 4 years but he still won because of the martial law and he was greedy power power

In 1979, Ninoy Aquino has heart sickness so he went to USA for his operation.But the people in Philippines were asking Ninoy Aquino to go home and help fight Ferdinand Marcos. Ferdinand Marcos has cancelled Ninoy’s passport so he will not go home and he told stories like he will die if Ninoy returns.

On August 21,1983. Ninoy Aquino returned to Philippines and he was shot by an unknown sniper and he died.

There was an election in 1986 and Ninoy’s wife Cory Aquino became the president and all the Filipino people joined her and fought Ferdinand Marcos.

One of Ferdinand Marcos’s general in police, Fidel Ramos and army friend, Juan Ponce Enrile were no longer loyal to him and they joined Cory Aquino. Ferdinand Marcos ordered to kill all rebel soldiers in EDSA but Cory Aquino called on all the Filipino people to defend their camp and Ferdinand Marcos’s army refuses to shoot innocent lives.

Slowly all Ferdinand Marcos’s army and police joined Cory Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos has no choice but to call help from America and brought him to Hawaii.

Ferdinal Marcos was president for 21 years.

photos downloaded from Google site

reference video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG2Mx7Y5vzc

This article is part of Zek's National Heroes Day homework for his Pilipino subject.

Semana Santa

It was a busy holy week.

On Palm Sunday, we went to the church in EDSA Shrine to celebrate Palm Sunday and we bought plants for us to shake and wave after the mass.

On Holy Wednesday, I went to home to Malolos with my whole family.There was a procession and there were lots of “karosas”. In our family karosa, there is St Peter with the rooster and two angels decorated with lots of flowers. After the mass, I pulled and pushed the karosa with my cousin Bono. Our grandfather, papa Ben was leading the way. The procession went around Alido subdivision.  

On Maundy Thursday, we went back to the EDSA Shrine church. Our Kid’s Inn Choir sang religious songs at the roof of the church while the people pray the 14 Stations of the Cross. We sang at least 8 songs and we sang them every 30 minutes for 4 hours. And after our singing, I went inside the church for a confession.

On Good Friday, we went back again to Malolos for another procession and this time my other cousins were there to participate in the procession. There was no mass but the was longer because we went around the entire Alido.

On Easter Sunday, we celebrated the “Salubong” in EDSA Shrine. It was the day of Jesus resurrection. There was a procession for Mama Mary and for Jesus that finally met at the top side of EDSA Shrine. After the procession we get a balloon attached with a written a prayer-letter to God. Then, all the balloons were let go to fly up into the sky. After that there was a mass and we stayed there until 1:30 am in the morning.  

CFA Recollection

On March 10, we, the Grade 6 students of CFA, participated in a year-end recollection where we learned new stuffs and played games. We talked about teenage life with our teacher Kuya Pao and Tita Mayette.

First, we played a game called “Do you love me?”. Next was, “Introducing yourself” and wrote something about ourselves and writing about the things we love and hate. Then Teacher Pao showed us some short videos for us to memorize and he also showed us a few pictures examples for seeming, seeking, identity, seeing, selfie  and sinning.

 After we read Psalm 136:14, I thought that what the Lord is telling me are not to be afraid and not to worry. He will always be helping me in times of trouble, and He will help me to find my passion.

Mandy and I went to the photo studio to take pictures of us wearing graduation clothes. Afterwards, went back to CFA to get our stuff and went to our parents so I could go home.

Celebrating EDSA 30

On February 24, 2016 we went to the EDSA Shrine church at 7:00 pm so we can join the procession. There were so many tents full of snack for us to eat after procession. My friends Bill and Cyrus also joined the procession. Cyrus joined the altar service so when the mass was done, he was on the front of the procession.

There was a Mama Mary float which is at the end of the procession and the priest was at the middle of the procession while he prayed the rosary. There was also a marching brass band at the front of the procession. We went to the EDSA road then got inside the Corinthians Garden.

 After that, we watched the cultural dance performance of the people. First, there was the candle dance. Next was the kiddie dance which was cute because it combine modern and traditional Filipino dances. Bill and I sat on the stairs and watched them.

Finally, Father prayed to Mama Mary’s help and intercession, for all of us there and for the food we will eat.

I ate with my friends and we all went home.

My Hometown

Hello! Kumusta!

My name is Matt Ezekiel C. Santos. I am 11 years old and a Grade 6 student of Catholic Filipino Academy.

My hometown is Malolos City.

Malolos City is located 45 kilometers north of the capital City of Manila. It can be found in the big island of Luzon.

The most famous landmark here is the historical Barasoain Church where the Malolos Congress happened on Sept 15, 1898. The inauguration of the First Philippine Republic on Jan 23, 1899 also took place here as well as the oath-taking of General Emilo Aguinaldo as the President of the First Philippine Republic.

A few years back in 1998, then Pres. Joseph Estrada also took his oath of office at Barasoain Church.

So do you know how significant Barasoain Church is in regards to Philippine history? Well, back in 1969, it was imprinted on the reverse side of the demonetized ten peso bill.

Eventually, Barasoain church was declared a National Shrine on August 1, 1973.

Malolos City is also known for its Bulacan Sweets like Pastillas de Leche, Pastillias de Yema, Pastillas de Ube, Macapuno, Inipit, Ensaymada, Cassava, Puto, Kalamay and Suman. These are popular “pasalubongs” of people to their loved one every time they visit our town.

I like my hometown because my grandparents and relatives live there and I have lots of fun memories with them. It is also an exciting mixture of traditional, religious and modern living.

Thanks for watching.

Hope you learn something from me.

Paalam and God bless!

Just The Way You Are

As the new school year starts with the spiritually uplifting and grace-filled Holy Mass for the CFA Anointing Day yesterday, our family looks forward to another challenging weeks ahead of us. And so we offer our family prayer to our Life Teacher above as our kuya Zeke embarks on his Grade 6 journey and as we welcome our Aim into the introductory play-learning of a four year old toddler.

Surely, a lot of our home-schooling parents can relate to us when we say that being a full-time parent-teacher can really stretch one's patient to the thinnest limit. As my Star-Wars fanatic son would often feels that we are pulled into the vortex of the dark force whenever the quarterly tests are coming, I, inadvertently, becomes Darth Vader and my son, well, he would retreat to all the corners of our house as he transforms to E. Vader (yes, evading me all the time and with all the chance he can get). 

So why do we keep on home-schooling our son? Well, the officiating priest beautifully put it this way - home schooling is about relationship, it is about life-lessons and it is about loving our children. It is about fulfilling our parental mission to bring up God-loving children, responsible future citizens and purpose-driven individual. 

With the Father's endless grace, Jesus' unconditional love and the Holy Spirit's guidance and direction, we remain optimistic and positive that we will be, once again, fine this school year. 

OK, let the fun begins.

- daddy rowin

For this year's family theme, we are borrowing the Chorus from one of the famous songs of our good friend (wink) Bruno Mars and twitched its lyrics a little to fit our goal.

When we see your grades

There always something we can do

Coz you're amazing,

Just the way you are

And when you smile

The whole world stops and stares for a while

Coz you're amazing

Grade Six at CFA.

My Holy Week For Jesus

On Holy Wednesday night, Bono and I pulled the St. Peter carriage. The design is that the rooster is besides him, angels are at the front and flowers are around the carriage. We pulled it around the whole of Alido subdivision in Malolos Bulacan.

On Maundy Thursday night. We went to EDSA shrine church. We held the station of the cross and our parents read the prayer and reflections while the kids sang a religious song. Bill ( my choir friend ) carried the cross and I carried the candle.

On Good Friday in Alido church, Papa Ben, my grandfather, made a speech in Filipino language for the Seven Last Words of Jesus and his topic is the fourth last word. At night we have another procession.

On Black Saturday night we sang to Jesus, “Queen of Heaven Rejoice” while others performed dancing and singing also during the “Salubong”. There was even a fireworks show.

Finally, on Grand Easter Sunday Feast at the SM MOA Arena there was a holy mass celebration, lots of stories and lots of singing. The priest is a foreigner and uncle Brother Bo Sanchez was also there at the arena. He told a story called the Good Samaritan (it’s a play). A man was hurt by a robber and the Priest and the Levite did not help but the Samaritan helped the poor man.

If Jesus was here, I will thank Him for saving us and I promise that I will try not to sin again.

Come Let Us Adore Him

On Friday. My whole family went to the Obispado building and the Christmas party is in the 9^th floor. There were so many food. It’s like a feast.

My classmates were also there. Their names are Paul, Nathan, Bene and Fil. We played and ate before practice. We were going to sing “Heto na naman”, a Tagalog Christmas song.

The students of kinder, prep, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3 and Grade 4 pupils performed first before the Grade 5-6 pupils (that’s us! ). Some sang English songs while some sang Tagalog. After them we sang “The Heto na naman song”. They liked the song and so did we.

Then Paul, Nathan, Bene and Fil played and talked. We played Football and talked about the games we liked to play. Then we ate some chicken and drink some ice tea. Then we all continued playing our football and talking. After a few minutes past, we have the exchange gifts. While they told the story, we have to give the gifts to each other then as we finished the story we all like.

Then say good-bye and went home.

THE END

KICC Concert 2014

On Friday, we went to my Kid’s Inn concert  at night. Bringing my barong, we first went upstairs to eat and practice. All of my choir members are there eating rice and chicken and drinking juice so they will not get hungry or thirsty.

After that, we practiced all 7 songs. Then we entered the church and prepared to sing. As we went in front of the altar, I saw my friends, Francis and kuya JC. (Rowin: Papa Ben, Mama Tonette, Tita Bles, Tito Remir, Tita Maria and Tito Rene were also there.)

I sang with the choir members. After a few songs,  the adult choir sang one song before we continued. We sang four more songs. We also sing the closing song.

All my friends were happy and my parents were so proud. (Rowin: Indeed !)

Rowin:

The Kid’s Inn Children Choir concert is the first among a series of concerts and exhibits in celebration of the 25^th year of the EDSA Shrine on December 15, 2014.

Congrats to Teacher Joni who has been at task for the past three years to teaching these energetic and talented kids. This concert covered the songs from the “Prince of Egypt” movie and were diligently practiced by them since February this year.

Christ The King

Last Sunday, we went to papa’s house at Malolos, Bulacan. They are preparing for the Christ the king processional walk. We have to stop at five houses. First at papa’s house and all the four are papa’s neighbors. The priest has six knights each with a swords as guardians.  We started at four o clock and ended at six o clock followed by the holy mass. For the mass we pray to Jesus to forgive all our sins and for all those people that we have hurt.

I have learned that I should pray also to other people especially those who are in need, the poor and the sick.

I love most the part of the Knights of Columbus and their sword to protect the Holy Eucharist and the priest.

Holy Week

On Tuesday (April 15), we went to Malolos because we are going to celebrate Holy Week, that’s the time that Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead.

Bono and I went to mass to pray on Wednesday. I went home because I’m sick. I just ate my dinner and watched TV. And I also rested. It means I can’t play on Thursday. We watched the movie “Son of God” (since it’s Holy Week, we can’t watch anything, only a Jesus movie or a prayer movie).

On Friday, I was feeling better and I can join the procession. We went around Alido. I had so much fun. We went back home and play with my cousins.

But the next day, I have to leave Papa and Mama’s house because I’m going to sing at night (Rowin: for the “Salubong”) because tomorrow God is already gone from the tomb and is raised up from the dead.

My favorite part is pulling Saint Peter’s carriage with his rooster. 

Stella Maris

We go to Kid's Inn and I practice with my friends. Then we all enter the first mass and pray and sing a lot of songs. There were 4 priests. After the mass, we eat some adobo and rest for 5 minutes. Then we start to sing again in the second mass and there is only 1 priest. After the mass, we all go home.

(Rowin: Last June 8 was the nationwide simultaneous consecration of the Filipino people to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was a con-celebrated mass at Edsa Shrine and the Kid's Inn Choir in which Zek is an active member since last year was given the honor to sing during the mass. The render their newly-learnt song "Stella Maris" during the communion song)

Sto. Nino Basilica, Cebu

By: Zek Santos

The next day we go to a church. We ride a taxi, too. We buy candle then I put the candle offering. We can also pray. We go to the shop so we can buy a crucifix for our home. After we go to the church, we ride the taxi to SM Cebu. Tomorrow, Daddy and I go to the swimming pool and we have a lot of adventure. It can be raining outside. Now it's just one sleep and we will ride the airplane again. The end.

Happy Father’s Day to All Daddies!

(originally posted on June 18, 2010)

Happy Father’s Day to all!

This article challenges us, fathers, to live according to our heavenly calling.

May the true meaning of fatherhood echoes in our lives for the sake of our children.

God bless.

Help your children know God

by Rick Warren

I showed what You are like to those You gave Me from the world. They belonged to You, and You gave them to Me. John 17:6 (NCV)

“I must care about my kids enough to show them what God is like and show how they can become like Christ.“

The world is full of sons and daughters who desperately need a father who is a spiritual leader. Is it possible your kids are among them? You can become a spiritual leader to your children by developing the characteristics that we see in Jesus as he taught his disciples for three years.

Even if you are not a father, or a mother, you will be able to lead others into the heart of God by following the example of Jesus.

First, Jesus helped the disciples to know God.

Dads, this is your number one responsibility as a father. You need to help your children get to know God because eternity is in the balance: life or death, heaven or hell. It is your job to help make sure your kids are introduced to God.

Look at what Jesus says: “… they belonged to You.” He’s acknowledging that the disciples belonged to God. And reminding us that we don’t own our kids. They belong to God. He loaned them to us for a period of time in which He wants you to parent them. Parenting, like all forms of leadership, is really about stewardship. You learn to say, ‘God, I am the steward of these children, whom you put into my care and I will do what you need me to do to help them achieve their purpose.”

Notice Jesus then says, “I showed what You were like to those You gave me.” Jesus doesn’t say, “I preached. I sermonized. I pontificated. I lectured so the disciples would know you.” He says, “I showed.” He led by example. This is one of the most sobering truths about being a parent. For right or wrong, for good or bad, whether you like it or not your children’s idea of God is going to be largely determined by the kind of father you are. You may not like that. I may not like that, but it’s the truth.

If you are an impatient and demanding father, they’re going to think God is impatient and demanding. If you are distant and detached and never have time for your kids, they’re going to think God is distant and detached from them. If you are inconsistent and unreliable, if you break your promises, they’re going to think their heavenly Father is inconsistent and unreliable and breaks His promises.

What is God really like?

• God is caring.

• God is close and aware of the details.

• God is consistent.

• God is competent.

If my kids are going to grow up knowing God is caring, close, consistent, and competent, then I must be caring, close, consistent, and competent. I must care about my kids enough to show them what God is like and show how they can become like Christ.