Health & Home (September - October 2022)

ISSN 0115-0839

COLLABORATIONS The Road to Our First Olympic Gold

COLUMNS

5

Journey Toward Eternity

Dr. Carlito P. Quidet, Jr.

SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2022

iContact

Michelle Anne P. Diamante

Collaborations

13

6

Personal Answers Dr. Sheryll Ann M. Castillo

Stewardship

Rose F. Fausto

Someone to Talk to

Money and Life Lessons From Modern-day Swindlers

21

8

27

Dear Doctor Linda L. Varona

We’re All in This Together

Atty. Silvino L. Sumagaysay, Jr.

Asking for Signs

18

Grace in the Act

Leslie R. Bagagñan

Home Gardening

Saul L. Roylo

Food for the Family

Siling Labuyo

Dr. Miriam R. Estrada

20

Modern Homemaking Royce Bellaire G. de Luna

Home Cleaning Checklist

Standpoint Nathanlie M. Baldoza

Backyard Lessons

40

Life Musings

Health & Home Staff

14

Food Jags

38

Consult Your Lawyer

Sensitive Personal Information

32

About the Cover

4

Powerful Partnerships

Diabetes and HbA1c Monitoring

CONTENTS

REGULARS

22

Education

Corazon D.C. Hernandez

Of Shared Meals and Letters

Learner’s Lab Dr. Mary Grace L. De Guzman

Are Bacteria Your Buddies or Enemies?

Achievement Unlocked. Team Hidilyn Diaz (Team HD) ended in 2021 the Philippines' gold medal drought in the Olympics.

Read more about the team's dynamics through sports nutritionist Coach Jeaneth Aro on p. 24.

Cover photo courtesy of Coach Jeaneth Aro Unless otherwise credited, all photos and graphics are by Harold Bryan L. Namoca and Lebette Angel M. Baybay, respectively.

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6

COMING UP . . . Devotions ∙ Mayor Lucy Torres-Gomez on Relationships ∙ Gout Out ∙ Be Glad to Plant Tanglad ∙ How to Speak in a Loving Way ∙ Living in a Post-truth World ∙ Entering Menopause ∙ A Doctor Amid Devastation

33

A Day in the Life of . . . a Vlogger

Eman R. Bustamante

Making Memories Count

34

People & Places

SULADS

Tagakolu: Perseverance Amid Poverty

36

Children’s Corner Children Around the World

The Lauhala Tree

39

Arts & Crafts

Gabriel S. Tiano

Heart Book Folding

44

Hope for Today’s Families Series

Willie and Elaine Oliver

How to Live Happily Ever After

46

Word for the World

James Rey M. Cabañero

Community of Faith

47

Notes From the Frontlines

Maricel L. Candelario

An Addiction for Many Good Reasons

10

FEATURES

24

SuperChamps: Kids Helping Kids and Communities Health & Home Staff

An NGO started and continued by kids and their parents

39

16

Teamwork Lessons From the Tortoise and the Hare

Some things are better than winning the race

24

Coach Jeaneth Aro: Team HD and Working Collaboratively

Elias Y. Apacible, Jr.

Health & Home Staff

How it takes a village to win in the Olympics

28

Space Will Not Save Us Ryan Stanton

The ethics of the recent space race

30

Could you be blinded by a silver spoon?

42

When Love Fuels Collaboration: Our Journey to Better Health

30

The Responsibility of Privilege Mark Delaney

Megan Fleur C. Crampatanta

In sickness and in health

Kids Helping Kids and Communities

By HEALTH & HOME STAFF

H

ave you figured out your life’s purpose when you were just 10? Most of us were probably just playing with our friends, watching TV, or bonding with our family. But what if you can find your purpose, reach out to others, and have fun at the same time?

That’s the opportunity that SuperChamps Life Mission Center (SuperChamps) offers to children (and adults).

Beginning It all began on a usual Sunday, September 1, 2013, in the house of Rey and Aireen Navales in Quezon City. Their then 3-year-old son, Vince Matthew, and then 2-year-old daughter, Jia, invited five neighborhood kids over to their home. Vince and Jia played with their friends. Aireen taught them songs and told them stories. Rey supplied the needed materials. That one instance became a regular occurrence every Sunday, and within eight months, those five kids grew to a hundred.

This prompted the Navales family to organize the program into what they call Play, Learn, and Serve (PLS).

At PLS, the family trains and mentors kids in leadership, discipleship, career awareness, and health. To achieve these goals, the group organizes outreach activities for poor urban communities, children with cancer, children with special needs, the elderly in care homes, indigenous communities, and the homeless.

Health & Home ︱ 10 ︱September–October 2022

photos courtesy of Aireen F. Navales

SuperChamps

Grace in the Act

By Leslie R. Bagagñan

photos courtesy of author

L

ike many girls, I prayed for a tall, dark, and handsome Prince Charming who would make me the queen of his kingdom.

But as I became older, I realized that true love was not all about appea­rance. It is a principle. It is not gained by simply asking for a sign but by earnest prayer.

No sign I find midnights the best time to talk to God, especially when I have special requests. I remember telling Him once what I believed my future husband would look like. I was not praying to meet him soon, though. I just prayed for a sign for me to know when I would finally meet him.

Then it happened—or so I thought. In college, I fell for an Engineering student. I was so enamored with the guy that I kept asking for signs if he was God’s answer to my prayers. Those signs never happened.

Could the absence of a sign itself be the sign? I was not sure then.

The feelings eventually fizzled out. I moved on and forgot about those signs.

Frozen in time In October 2011, teachers in our region/administrative area had a three-day retreat in a school nearby.

As soon as I arrived at the venue, the superintendent told me he wanted to introduce me to someone. I smiled and nodded, not because I was interested but because almost everybody in the retreat was trying to set me up with a gentleman. I was just 21 at that time. Quite frankly, I did not find their efforts entertaining.

While the superintendent and I were talking to each other, a man from a distance suddenly captured my attention. Things suddenly moved in slow motion.

“Is it him, Lord?” I whispered.

“Sir Jay!” called the superintendent.

The man came closer to where we were standing. He looked exactly like the man I was praying for.

Health & Home ︱ 14 ︱September–October 2022

Teamwork Lessons From

the Tortoise and the Hare

By ELIAS Y. APACIBLE, JR.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” — African Proverb

A

story that has been making rounds in business sites, albeit with unclear authorship,1 features a retelling of Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare.

May your team—be at school, in church, at work, or anywhere—gain useful insights from this story as my team and I have.

The online story

The tortoise did some thinking and realized that there was no way he could beat the hare in a race the way it was formatted. He thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route.

The hare agreed.

They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finish line was a couple of kilometers on the other side of the river.

The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime, the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking, and finished the race.

Health & Home ︱ 16 ︱September–October 2022

illustration/Gabriel S. Tiano

Once upon a time, a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. After agreeing on a route, they started off. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly. Seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he sat under a tree for some time to relax before running to the finish line. He fell asleep shortly.

The tortoise, plodding on, soon overtook him and finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ.

The hare woke up and realized that he’d lost the race.

This is the version of the story that we all know. But the story continues. . .

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he reflected on his mistake. He realized that he’d lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless, and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there was no way the tortoise could have beaten him.

So he challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed.

This time, the hare ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.

Lesson #1: Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady.

If you have two people in your organization, one slow, methodical and reliable, and the other fast and still reliable at what he does, the fast

and reliable person will consistently climb the organizational ladder faster than the slow, methodical person. It’s good to be slow and steady, but it’s better to be fast and reliable.

Education

By Corazon D.C. Hernandez

Of Shared Meal

and Letters

models not subjects of article

“And what of teaching? Ah! There you have the worst paid and the best rewarded of vocations. Do not enter it unless you love it!”

A

s a teacher for decades, Sonia had been living by this quotation even if she couldn’t remember the author. She would have wanted to become a journalist or a lawyer, but her disciplinarian father forced her to take up Education.

“It is the only course where money can be easily earned,” he said.

Sonia never thought that teaching would make her life inspiring and unforgettable.

After weaving through different educational systems—public, international, and private—Sonia picked up strategies to make her students enjoy learning.

English journal Since she taught English, she required her students to write in a journal. Here, they got to express emotions they couldn’t easily and personally convey to others.

Journal entries were typically addressed to: parents, whom the children could not talk back to; teachers, who might respond to the students’ rants with a reprisal; and crushes or enemies, for whom the students had intense feelings.

The only rule was that their thoughts and feelings should be written in English. The journal was one way the students could practice and develop their written communication skills in English.

To Sonia’s surprise, students seemed to enjoy writing. They would even have keys to their journal for fear others may read their work. Sonia assured them, however, that the journal would only be between them and her as their teacher.

Hating Math One of her students, Carlito, wrote a letter to his Mathematics teacher that looked like this:

Dear Sir, I know you are a very good Mathematics teacher, but I do not like the way you talk about students’ errors.

You may not be mentioning names, but I feel guilty every time you ask, “When will you ever learn?”

You see, I hate numbers. When we have our Math class, I honestly wish to leave the room.

I do not know why, but your booming voice when you get irritated sounds like an erupting volcano.

Although I did not fail your subject, I got my lowest grades from you. I wish you can teach calmly, so at least I can try to like your subject.

I will try to understand your subject, but I cannot promise I can do better. I am sorry . . .

Sonia pitied Carlito for he was really good in class.

She knew that his feelings toward his Math teacher might affect his overall performance.

Health & Home ︱ 22 ︱September–October 2022

COACH JEANETH ARO

Team HD and Working Collaboratively

By HEALTH & HOME STAFF

How did they work together to achieve what seemed impossible?

Coach Jeaneth Aro shares with Health & Home the Team HD story and her craft as a sports nutritionist.

First meeting

Collaboration Coach Aro described the Team HD dynamics as very collaborative.

No one singlehandedly makes the decision.

“We regularly have team meetings to discuss whatever we need to talk about,” she revealed.

Coach Gao is Chinese while Coach Naranjo is Guamanian.

Health & Home ︱ 24 ︱September–October 2022

photos courtesy of Coach Jeaneth Aro

A

fter almost a century since the Philippines joined the Olympics in 1924, it finally won a gold medal through Hidilyn Diaz (weightlifting, women’s 55kg category) on July 26, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.1 Diaz credits her success to God and to her support team (Team Hidilyn Diaz or Team HD) composed of head coach Gao Kaiwen, strength and conditioning coach Julius Naranjo, sports psychologist Karen Trinidad, and sports nutritionist Jeaneth Aro.2 After Diaz won silver in the Rio De Janeiro 2016 Olympics and since 2018, the team had been vigorously preparing Diaz for Tokyo 2020. But COVID-19 came.

Diaz and Coach Aro first met through a common friend in a sporting event. At the time, the champion weightlifter from Zamboanga was concerned about optimizing her strength after cutting weight.

“She has a very short recovery period during events. She has to lift two hours after the weigh-in,” Coach Aro explained during our video conference interview.

“In terms of producing a worldclass athlete, nutrition may just be a small factor. The more significant elements are talent, training, and motivation. But when you enter world-class competitions like the Olympics, everyone there is talented, motivated, and welltrained. Thus, it will boil down to the little details. That’s when the value of nutrition and sports psychology gets magnified,” she continued.

The Responsibility

of Privilege

By MARK DELANEY

G

rowing up, I thought I was “normal.” I didn’t feel particularly better or worse off than others around me. However, as I’ve journeyed further along the road of my 54 years of life, the more I’ve realized just how privileged I am and how this privilege can affect my daily life. That realization should, I suggest, give rise to a sense of responsibility to use our privilege to help others.

Inherited privilege

models not subjects of article

photos from pexels.com

Much of my privilege is “inherited.” It is not due to any effort of mine whatsoever. The nature of my inherited privilege first dawned on me during a high school trip when I lived temporarily with another family. That family was a broken one. I realized my stable home with loving parents was not everyone’s experience. Nothing I’d done merited such an upbringing, and nothing my host family members had done deserved their more challenging life—it is just how it was.

Related to having a stable family is the privilege of opportunity—the chance to try new things and, in so doing, acquire new skills. Learning to swim or play a musical instrument were opportunities I thought every child had. Only later in India did I find that most children in the world actually can’t swim or read music, let alone travel, skateboard, or surf.

As a 19-year-old, I spent a year in Denmark as an exchange student. That privilege allowed me to see that other cultures, in some ways, are better than our own. Denmark also showed me that having English as my mother tongue was an undeserved privilege. I hadn’t realized how illogical English grammar and spelling were until I watched others trying to learn it. Why is the plural of “house” “houses,” while the plural of “mouse” is “mice”? I had no idea.

I just knew they are!

Health & Home ︱ 30 ︱September–October 2022

Good things come to those who READ.

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