ERNIE DELFIN
F = Family Background:
I was born in an agricultural village in Northern Luzon, 4 hours north of Manila, Philippines, of hardworking parents who never knew the word, leisure, as their lives revolved around work and raising us their children to have a better life than they found it. Bless their souls as they were successful! All my siblings : 3 sisters and 2 brothers and I became professionals, including a sister who is a Dominican nun who has been assigned in many parts of the world the last 28 years.
I came to America in the mid 70s in my early twenties, after passing the CPA exams and working in a big CPA-auditing firm, as a young single man. Like some of you, I have always been free spirited and always lived life to the fullest. I got married in Los Angeles 3 decades ago to another Filipina CPA, now an interior designer as her second degree and career. We live in the same house in Fountain Valley the last 31 years.
We have two wonderful grown up children: Donna Karen, an M.S.I.S graduate from CalState Fullerton (now a web programmer at Disney Corporation)and E.J. graduating with English major (now working as assistant teacher at his alma mater, Fountain Valley H.S.) Neither my son nor my daughter wants to become a businessman, a thought that sometimes baffles me why, although I am also very happy that they are enjoying their own career paths. Twenty years from now, they might want to be their own boss too. I really don’t worry about it. Only time will tell.
I can’t believe where years have gone, as I now have spent more than half of my earthly life in America! Life has been good, although getting older and wiser, I feel as young as most of you right now! I feel I still can match the energy level of some of you in this forum!... So much with this section.
O = Occupation, profession, business:
Double major in Accounting and Economics from Colegio de San Juan de Letran (now a university) one of the elite universities in the Philippines, oldest college in the Philippine, founded is 1611, run by the Dominicans, then exclusively for boys till 25 years ago), I sat for the CPA exams right after college and pass it in one sitting and was hired by one of the CPA auditing firms and my years of travelling starting as I was seldom in the city. I also took graduate courses in CalStateUniversity – Los Angeles.
I continued to work in accounting-auditing during my first years in California including a 2 year employment as an auditor in the County of Los Angeles (a job that left a bitter taste in my mouth having witnessed how work in the government stifles creativity and productivity!) I left very good employment to become my own boss. I took several licenses in real estate, insurance, securities plus some graduate courses in business and entrepreneurship. I have been successful in writing my own good paychecks since l985… I have been fortunate that through entrepreneurship and owning my own businesses, I never had anyone to tell me what to do every day (except my wife who does not want me to “retire” yet!)
R = Recreation, hobbies, interests:
I love creating, writing, and reading, and working with people who are energetic, enthusiastic and intelligent. I cannot stand mediocrity, that’s why I fired all my employers. LOL. I love playing chess and poker, if I have the opportunity. (that should be a prerequisite for any one going into business to teach them taking calculated risks that always go with winning) and also a hobby of watching, observing people, why they behave the way they do. I am as passionate partner of our JustFaith (Social Justice) ministry of our parish as I am a passionate leader of our Rotary District in Orange County.
M = Motivation, Message or Philosophy why I do what I do:
My passions at this stage of my life are in the areas of YOUTH services, Social Justice and Entrepreneurship. I believe that empowering other people to reach their full potential, lending a hand to those who are struggling, and inspiring them to never give up is the best work of life.
My heroes, both dead and living, are not necessary the richest (but it does help to be wealthy like Bill Gates who gave $355 Million to Rotary Foundation, using his wealth to better the world that he shares with all mankind!) include people like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Mandela, JFKennedy, Churchill, Warren Buffett and the many people (often unsung heroes) who join the Peace Corps who leave the comforts of their own families and birthplaces to be with people in other lands assisting them, educating them, inspiring them to have a better life.
My Rotary involvement, including the chartering your Rotaract Club, has given me experiences that are priceless and makes my life worth living for. With Rotary and Church volunteer work, I believe I have reasonably balanced my life in the four important quadrants of a successful life: PHYSICAL (TO LIVE), SOCIAL (TO LOVE), MENTAL (TO LEARN) AND SPIRITUAL (TO LEAVE A LEGACY). I believe that service to humanity is the best work of life and to see the fruition of your work is quite fulfilling that money can never buy.
And yes, working with this group of young people who also believe in “SERVICE ABOVE SELF” is helping me fulfill my life’s purpose to “leave a legacy” to make this world a better place than I found it ---- like my own parents did in their brief sojourn on earth, that is now contained in that little hyphen that separates the year of their birth and the year of their death on their tombstone. That has always been very sobering thought for me; it is a reality that our lives are so short and that it could end any time. It motivates daily to do my best to help make a difference in this world. As a Christian, I also believe that my life is God’s gift to me and what I do with my life is my gift to God.
Let me end this personal sharing with Socrates’ admonition: “AN UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING FOR!” to summarize my message and life’s philosophy.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
FREEDOM, FAMILY, FRIENDS, FAITH: FOUR REASONS TO BE GRATEFUL THIS THANKSGIVING DAY 2012
THE METAMORPHOSIS
By
Ernie D. Delfin
FREEDOM, FAMILY, FRIENDS, FAITH: FOUR REASONS TO BE GRATEFUL THIS
THANKSGIVING 2012
Happy
Thanksgiving Holiday to all of you, dear readers!
It’s Thanksgiving week, just another month before Christmas Day! If you are reading this,
you are blessed and lucky that you are still alive and hopefully you can also
come up with enough reasons to be
grateful to your Creator----- if you are a believer---- and to your loved ones.
Like the change of the seasons from
summer to autumn, winter to spring, this
Thanksgiving-Advent Season is an opportune time to take inventory of what we have and be
grateful for having them. And this is
my philosophical subject for this issue of our weekly Asian Journal: Freedom,
Family, Friends and Faith, with the ardent
hope that the reader is also encouraged or inspired to come up with his or her
own personal reasons to be thankful this
season.
FREEDOM:
Just
recalling the origin (the Pilgrims
giving thanks to their God for their
survival and plentiful harvest and the new-found freedom with their new
friends, the American Indians) of the first Thanksgiving festival in America by these first European immigrants
(without greencards!) in 1621, who braved countless dangers and
uncertainties in their bold adventure from the Old Word to the New World where more
than half died along the way, is
enough reason to be grateful. These Pilgrims
started what America has become and paid dearly for it. Their dream and vision of self-government
became the solid foundation of democracy as the world knows it today. Re-reading America’s history, from the bloody
American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Emancipation centuries ago, as
well as all the armed struggles and
bloody involvement of Americans in many wars in the world, we, the
living should be grateful. For instance,
just memorizing Pres. Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg address of
1863 can stir one’s soul and can easily
relive and realize the steep price ---
over 60,000 American lives perished --- that our forefathers have paid for our freedom today that many
Americans voters now take for granted.
Fast forward
to the 21st century, our steepest
sacrifice now is to pay our fair share of taxes to our ”government of the people, by the people and
for the people” and our primary
obligation is to exercise our right of suffrage wisely in every election, with eternal vigilance not to allow any of these
hard earned freedoms taken away by anyone, including our own gullible
politicians who want to change or control our way of life. History is a great teacher, that can teach us
not only to be humble and gracious but also can and should inspire us to continue to be ambitious and
become better human beings.
* * * *
FAMILY:
Every time I participate in our Catholic
Prison Ministry (providing Bible Study and Communion Services to the inmates in
Orange County jails) I cannot help but
count my many blessings that
most people take for granted. Millions
of citizens (was one of these citizens before) do not even
know nor realize how inmates or prisoners live without the company of their friends and family, food,
recreation and above all the luxury and the FREEDOM to do anything that one
desires. Yes, they are given food and shelter and even medical care, but those
things are never a fair substitute for
the beauty of freedom and family!
Family is indeed the bedrock of any society. Prison statistics shows that the vast majority
of the prisoners come from broken families, households with no fathers and/or
mothers. Oftentimes, the inmates in county jails (by the way, inmates are called “prisoners” once they are convicted
and sent to state or federal prison) often times they have intergenerational relatives----from
grandfather to grandchildren--- in jails or prisons for one crime or the other.
Many come from dysfunctional families where the old fashioned values of
love and respect and industry were not
practiced every day in their lives.
Without stable families ---- ideally two
parent households where the young children are molded to become good
citizens----- a stable country is almost impossible to maintain. It is
the family, complimented and fortified by a good schools, that plants the first seeds in a child’s developing mind to become his own person, to reach his full potential as a human being
that is carried on upon leaving the parental nest till he dies. What is learned
and internalized during the first years
of a child’s life, good or bad, will
live forever.
Being
a part of our church Prison Ministry, like our Rotary work, is life-sustaining and quite a fulfilling volunteer work. Daily, I recognize
that I am truly blessed that I have a good family that I love
unconditionally, and that loves me too. I truly
believe that love begets love. Our family believes that even our 6-month old, grandchildren Sofie and her almost three-year-old sister Olivia
instinctively know and feel that they are loved, and are showing their love in
return. As they are learning that love starts
from the womb to the grave, we are confident that they too will do the same when they grow up.
* * *
FRIENDS:
There is nothing more beautiful in
this life than a good friendship. It is said that if you find five true friends
in your life time, you will have lived a life infinitely blessed. That is a statement that I have often pondered as many friends come and go. Very few of them remain your friends for
decades, much less over a life time.
Once the glue that ephemerally binds both of you dries up with the summer
breeze or winter snow, the friendship fades away. What then is a true friend?
In his book, “Rediscover Catholicism” (highly recommended for Catholics or anyone)
the best selling author, Matthew Kelley describes about friends and their
attraction and influence in our lives. He writes: “As a child, I thought about friendship was about hanging out together
all the time and sticking up for each other when others were critical or cruel.
In my adolescence, I thought a true friend was someone who liked everything you
liked and never did anything that upset you. But as an adult, I have learned
that the defining characteristic of true friendship is someone who encourages you
to be all you can be and challenges you to become the best-version-of-
yourself. It is these people who tend to energize and invigorate us. What types
of people do you like being with? What types of people energize you?”
Mr. Kelley continues “For this reason, when I have time to spend with friends, I try
surround myself with people who make me want to be a better person. I admit
they are not easy to find, but when you do find them, they are more precious
than any treasure or pleasure this world has to offer. If you want a litmus test for choosing
friends, use this question: Will spending time with this person make me a
better person?” …. You will learn more from your friends than you will ever
will from books. Therefore choose your
friends wisely!”
What a profound advice to a man in search like me! At this stage of my life, however, I think
I am more discriminating in choosing my real friends who I want to be with, either in person or in cyberspace.
In the vacuum of true friends, I can still be with many “friends” dead
or alive, through their works or writings,
at will, by simply going to Barnes & Noble any day of the week!
I have enjoyed the company of a few chosen friends,
both the intellectual types like authors and philosophers and also the
humanitarian and/or religious people who find life’s meaning and purpose in
serving others. I am always in awe and find great admiration to rare
individuals like Mother Teresa or
Mahatma Gandhi, Rizal, Lincoln (see the movie!) and Mandela who strived to
love their God more, and did great
sacrifice for others. Their work
and contributions to the world even the blind can see! Collectively, these kinds of people inspire me to become a
better person that I want to be.
****
FAITH:
Faith like life is a mystery to be lived and
believed. It should never
be a problem to be solved during our lifetime. Like oxygen, it cannot be seen but can be felt deeply within us.
If we can remain still and quiet, and just ponder why we are here on
earth in the first place, faith and humility are automatically breathed into
our being.
It’s a fact of life, that our minds can never
fathom nor comprehend many things and events around us. Even scientists who are endowed with superior
intelligence believe that there is there
is Mighty Hand that causes all things to exist
and perform what they do even without
man’s guidance and control. These mysteries are manifested in the
harmonious order of our universe, the
magnificence of the galaxies in the sky
or the majesty of our solar system.
God’s creation are made more tangible for us to enjoy by the roaring of the sea, the flight of a bird,
the growing of a mustard seed into a huge plant and the birth of a baby from
the union of a father’s seed and the mother’s egg.
Faith is life giving; life without faith is a life without meaning
and purpose. Faith is not a religion but spiritual, a way of life. Faith is also
believing that things happen for a
reason, and accepting them despite the fact that we often do not fully comprehend. . Faith also provides us the humility and the
dexterity to accept that we are not immortal, that our physical
life has its beginning and ending.
Faith gives us hope for a better life
amidst the vicissitudes of life and our man-made vanity that contributes to our unhappiness and life
devoid of meaning. But faith also gives
us the humility to surrender to a Higher
Power, especially in moments when our body
and intelligence seem inutile to solve our own problems.
When all is gone, only our faith, our hope
and love (Love is God) remains. The first line of our Jaycee Creed sums it
all: “ That Faith in God gives meaning
and purpose to human life!”
HAVE A HAPPY AND BLESSED
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY EVERYONE!
---- 30 -------
THE
METAMORPHOSIS FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
“A person is born,
starts to walk, goes to school, finishes college, gets a job, marries, raise a family, retires and then just reminisces his lifetime that may last a few decades or even 100 years!” Then,
he grows old and eventually dies! Is
this all there is to life?
Dr. Banna Tiran
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
U.S. ELECTION (2012) IS STILL THE ENVY OF THE WORLD
THE METAMORPHOSIS
By
Ernie D. Delfin
U.S. ELECTION IS
STILL THE ENVY OF THE WORLD
President
Barack Obama just made history, being
re-elected to his second term as president of the USA, despite the financial fiasco in the housing
industry and the collapse of the stock market that almost brought America to
another great depression, and amidst the lingering anemic U.S. economy and high unemployment that
characterized Obama’s first term of
office. The very spirited challenge from
his Republican Party opponent, Mitt
Romney, made the election very nerve cracking to the very end. Now, the proverbial reaching out and mending of broken egos and relationships between the
victors and losers must commence for the
common good of America.
Like millions of Americans, this writer was also glued on the TV screen
till the early hours in the morning just to watch the real time happenings,
political surprises and analyses of this exciting political exercise in the greatest democracy on earth. Although the surveys several weeks before the election were quite
accurate that the battleground states,
namely Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Virginia, Iowa, Florida would determine the final outcome, the hours after the election was still full of excitement.
The
wonders of social media added to the excitement and drama as millions of people
learn and become witnesses of what is happening in all the swing states in real time. When CNN predicted just after 8:00 PM Pacific
Standard time, just 18 minutes after California closed its polls, that President Obama was re-elected for a
second term, euphoria erupted, especially among the Democrats in their
Headquarters and also in Time Square, N.Y. as if it’s another New Year celebration!
It’s also commendable that within a couple of hours, Mitt Romney called the President to
congratulate him and shortly thereafter made his brief but very graceful
concession speech sprinkled with hopeful wishes
and prayers that the reelected president will be do good for
America. That was followed by a stirring
acceptance speech of President Obama that is filled with challenges to all his
supporters and fellow Americans that there is still much work to be done to
make America great again ---to be the beacon and envy of the world. That is
quite moving to hear as the president apparently has the pulse of the people as
his message resonated well with the hopes and fears of the majority of the popular vote, that also led to
his impressive victory in the Electoral College.
The
recent America’s election, political
leadership and the shinning example of democratic exercise became the center of the world stage for a day and remained the envy or dream
of many countries on Earth. The spirited
debates, often with some sting of bitterness,
among opposing candidates espousing their different visions for the country were openly discussed and
analyzed. Despite the high octane in the
verbal duels among the candidates and
their passionate followers, however, the political atmosphere was peaceful and no one was killed or assassinated (unlike in
third world countries, including the Philippines) due to political reasons. The
speed and reliability of the results hours after the nationwide election is commendable and second to none. Politicians all over the world can emulate
the deportment that America’s political leaders exhibited throughout their campaigns across the nation. That is the greatest centuries-old legacy
that America can give to many countries in the world in their quest for a true
democratic government.
* * * *
A day after the election, however, I am still
wondering how many voters like me
experienced that inexplicable angst or anxiety for feeling out-of-sync with the American mainstream electorate,
when I compared my stand, YES or NO vote, on all
the Propositions in the ballot. I felt
some degree of anger and/or sadness that only about 40% of them passed! Simply,
I did not agree with 60% of California voters!
To put in another way, only 40%
of them agree with me on the same issues! It will be consoling to hear, if there are
readers who are feeling the same anger
or sadness that I had felt after discovering that majority in the electorate and I no
longer believe in the same issues. Or
does it really matter, if someone does not conform with the majority?
* * * * *
Although I voted in
the Philippines only two times before I left for the United States almost 40
years ago, I have also followed the political and democratic journey of the
Philippines to this day. Although the Philippines professes to be a
democratic country like the United
States, the political atmosphere and exercise between the two countries are
still day and night in comparison. For instance,
many candidates in the Philippines change party affiliation for
convenience and their philosophies and convictions change also with the political manna. In the
USA, it will be highly preposterous that
a Democratic leader like Hillary Clinton or a Republican leader like Newt
Gingrich to abandon their respective parties just to be a candidate of the
other party. Furthermore, Philippine candidates,
especially the filthy rich buy votes from the voters in order to win and be in a lucrative government
position, while in the USA, it is the candidates and their party that
request for political contributions from the electorate to finance their
campaign expenditures.
Due to these
stark differences between the land of my
birth the Philippines and my adopted country, I am ardently praying that the
political exercise be improved significantly
to really reflect the deep yearnings of Filipino citizens, to be truly free from their political and
economic shackles that is controlled by the upper 5 percent of their so-called leaders,
both in public and private. It may take
another one hundred years that this ideal scenario may happen, but it is never
too late to start the process now. Education, coupled with more stable socio-economic
and financial stability of more Filipino families and voters will accelerate
the maturity of the Filipino electorate,
who will not sell and compromise their votes during election time. The problems are man-made and their solutions must
also be man-made with vigilance.
There is another election in May 2013 and what
happens between now and then will be a
good start. Furthermore, any electoral reforms initiated before the May 2016
presidential election will also contribute to the enhancement of the Philippines political system, thereby
strengthening the country’s democratic foundation.
Only time
will tell.
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