Admin to implement new STFAP in June — Page 5 Philippine Collegian Opisyal na lingguhang pahayagan ng mga mag-aaral ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas - Diliman 15 Nobyembre 2011 Taon 89, Blg. 16
Order to Occupy Kultura
Dibuho ni Marianne Rios
Mga kwento ng kanseladong biyahe at karapatan sa PAL Lathalain Pahina 6-7
Breaking the deadlock Editoryal Page 2
Pacman and the myth of social mobility Kultura Page 8
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The gift of death Terminal Cases Delfin Mercado
I
n the past days, numerous deaths filled the evening news. The fatal end of Ramgen Revilla and Charice Pempengco’s father managed to grab national headlines. In UP, news of the murder of a mother and her child in CP Garcie Avenue and the tragic end of a young teacher who fell from the UPIS footbridge and speared by a metal pole spread like wildfire. For days on end, people talked about the absurdity of it all—dying and the impossibility of knowing when it will exactly come or how it will happen. When it comes to death, most people talk in hushed and worried voices. After all, it seems normal for one to be afraid of one’s end. But not my sister. When my little Nina was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 13, I thought the idea of having to bear the moments of consciousness before certain death will surely destroy her. But as her cancer progressed, she found herself become more cheerful, talking to us as if being confined in a hospital was the greatest thing that happened in her young life. Few weeks before she died, I asked her why she was so happy. “Because finally, I am dying,” she said, smiling in a cryptic manner. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Dying is a gift that comes whether you like it or not. For very sick people like me, who somehow know that the end is fast approaching, it is quite exciting,” she said. “It’s the same feeling you have when you know you’re going to a field trip the next day.” Some days before her death, my sister asked for a catalogue of caskets, and detailed to my parents how her funeral should be like. I was at awe with her at that time, for her to treat death like some celebration. But I thought, why should one wish to live forever? To be immortal is a curse – endlessly existing while the world fades away. Dying is actually a gift, a relief from the burden of living. But why are we afraid to die? Is it because we fear to lose our precious possessions – money, power, friends, our loved ones? Not really. We don’t lose these when we die. They lose us. We are afraid to die because we are uncertain of what death has to offer. Will we become souls and enter heaven or hell? Will we be reincarnated into another form, or will we just cease to exist? As my sister said, no one but the dead knows. Therein lies the fear – from uncertainty. We live to die. We know that we are alive because we know what death is. We cannot know what lies between birth and death without death. Death is some sort of limit of life, and from that limit we know that we have lived. Without death, all we have are random experiences, endless aggregations of events, people and places. To consummate life, to put meaning to it, we must die. Hence, one should not fear death. Rather, one should fear of dying without meaning, of ending a story that has never really started. To prepare for death, one must live. ●