So I was still wide awake after 15 minutes, as I find the plot interesting... a father with psychological deficiency who just wanted to give her daughter the best sailor moon bag but apparently wasn't able to buy it because someone got the last stock.  That someone, a baby girl, saw him the other day to help him get the same bag but accidentally slipped, bumped her head, hit by a brick and died on the spot, and the dad, having only pure intentions performed CPR but was wrongly accused of raping and killing the child which happened to be a daughter of high government official.

All the fun and the drama went on around the murder case, trying to prove his innocence and along the way the father gained new friends unexpectedly due to his innocent and loving nature.

I'm not sure if it was estrogen (as I think I will be having more since I will be more outnumbered by October, see my previous blog) or my deep association with having a daughter that made me shed buckets of tears during the climax scene but I'm not going to tell it here so as not to spoil your interest on watching the film.  But here's some thoughts and insights I gained from the movie:

1. Social Injustice, as light as the plot may be, I began to think how many daughters lost their fathers since the justice system (not just in the Philippines) didn't work as it should be.  One thing I realized is that one drawback of death penalty would be the irreversible effects of a decision that was wrongly implemented.  A thought process that under the ideal world with ideal people and ideal justice men or women would only be effective in preventing more crimes.  But in reality, we have imperfect men or women, trying to do an ideal process where the output penalizes those who doesn't have the power, intellect and money to defend themselves.  In short, death penalty can kill innocent people further adding to the injustice that was supposedly the case is solving in some cases like this movie.
2. How could something so obvious be not seen?  People tend to believe what they wanted more than the glaring and obvious truth for self preservation.  Looking at the high ranking government official dad, I really cannot get it why, he can't accept the fact that everything was an accident and that there's no need for another man to die. What's really bad about it is that anyone can recognize a normal man from someone with a not so normal behavior and intellect, so it was kind of frustrating watching the court scenes on the early part of the movie.  When we experience pain or heartache or any problems, we all have the tendency to cover up reality and just wanted to stay in our comfort zones so as to numb the pain or escape reality.  I read that there are five stages of loss/grief, namely, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  Unfortunately, many people stop at depression thus resulting to pulling other people into the same state as the mourning person.  Personally, before I was able to start a family, I went to different losses in life in terms of finances and relationships.  What made me grow was God's ability to bless me to go through the acceptance stage and learn from the past which prepared me to be more loving to Amanda and Cali and soon to be... our little baby girl.
3. Kindness.  The father in the movie was intellectually challenged. Despite his disability, what stood out was his innate kind nature of helping people.  Even taking a stab for his cell mate didn't matter to him as that's what he know was right.  And the entire story revolved on the scene where he just helped a girl to survive but was misinterpreted as a criminal act.  In reality, you may have all the good intentions for any actions you make, but there will always be that case wherein you'll be treated badly despite your good intentions... be kind anyway.  In the end, without expecting anything in return, kindness always win.  Maybe not on our perspective but through God's eyes.

It's a girl!

We just found out last weekend that we're having another girl in the family.

Then, I began to think about these three things:

1. Oh my!  In the Philippines, they said that if you have all girl kids, it was an indication that you were very naughty when you were a bachelor...

So then I began to reflect even more?  How come?!  I'm a very good boy when I was single... :)

2. Second, how can I stay manly in a world full of girls.  So I started searching for articles in the internet on how a man can deal with this situation.  I bumped into this article http://www.prevention.com/health/healthy-living/how-dad-stays-manly-while-raising-daughters and find it to be very interesting.  To summarize it, no matter how tough you are as a man, you really won't mind doing girly things to show how much you love your girls.

3. Third, what's good about this will be the sweetness and thoughtfulness of my girls.  I may not have a sparring partner in boxing or a hoops buddy in basketball (technically they can but on a different level though) but generally and biologically, girls are more expressive of their love which could cheer me up often in this busy and crazy schedule that we have both in business and corporate life.