The Beauty of Brokenness

Sometimes you have to dig deepest to find it in mediation because more often, it isn't a pretty sight. Nor quiet.

Expect and Extend Mercy

Our Daily Bread reflected that when we judge others self-righteously, it is not Christian and more often than not leads to trouble, if not gossip.

Cyber-bullying, its most recent form has been criminalized.

Hair Today

Rob Lowe's comment on the diminishing hair of Prince William traces the start of conflict.

Mediation had dealt with some trivial matter that has been blown out of proportion.

Rough Waters

Joe Stowell recalls a whitewater rafting experience.  "The guide in the back of the raft had navigated us through."

That describes mediation.

Dysfunction

Our Daily Bread dealt with it in describing humanity as "broken, not working properly, unable to do what it was designed to do."

Mediation solves the mundane ones.

Proof of Life

The PMA graduation became a veritable outing of DU30 after the elections. But now his changing specimen signatures on documents he was reportedly busy with prove alarming too.

Mediation and even banks are against this.

Biggest Loser

The opposition got Rappler's vote for honor in defeat.

Wish they were in mediation which aims for a win-win settlement.

And the Fakery keeps baking lies

Now the move is against VP Leni and Trillanes. Could Bongbong be the interested faker?

Fakery and Drugs Administration highly active.

Proverbs

Our Daily Bread reminds us that "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." (Proverbs 15:1)

One of mediation's ground rules- no cursing, no shouting...

Balancing Act

CinemaEurope featured this down-and-out separated husband who rented a room then landed up sleeping in his car. His friend advised just going back to a couch at home, saying "Divorce is just for rich people."

Mediation can help out.

Center for Neuroscience Integration

Or something to that effect did not catch fully on CNN Vital Signs. Simply put, they are now using computer games to battle dementia.

Just like mediation of aging.

Back to the Future

Now there is a move to return to manual counting of votes. They figured it's easier to cheat via computers.

Mediation would deal with the cheating root cause.

Better Late Than Never

In Morocco, the four oldies visit a market place or souk where a supposed dentist sells teeth for pendants!

Mediation comes across weirder arrangements.

Circus

Not the Comelec but this episode in Little House on the Prairie about one man's claim of a cure-all drug which was actually sugar and baking soda in some effervesecent water.

No secret to mediation's cure for conflict but good old sincere goodwill of the disputants.

Trash Talk

From our messy election to Canada garbage talk. DFA finally got its voice to recall envoys from that country. If only it is as tough in dealing with China's treatment of our real live fishermen, corrals and clams.

If one clams up, mediation can persuade opening up.

Come elect

Who mediates between the Election Mediator Comelec and the electorate?

The Election Tribunal has to be perceived as neutral. We pray it is!

Connect the Dots

Now it appears DU30 crony Dennis Uy owns the company connected with the election's computerization.

In mediation, conflict of interest is a no-no, starting with the mediator especially.

Bought Wisely

That is the battlecry post-election. It could also be the reason for lower incidence of violence.

DU30 is no mediator when he excuses vote-buying as a tradition in Philippine politics!

Election.Results

Will it be Taumbayan or Taubayan?

Like in mediation, disputants should win-win.

Sex Coaching

Now comes this AFP news from Russia with lust. The 1991 USSR collapse also included its sexual revolution of sorts.

No taboo topic in mediation

Triple Taxation

Teachers assigned to polling places on Monday are being taxed literally and figuratively- physical exhaustion; tax on their honor-arium; "buwis buhay" threat to life.

Really subject to mediation.

The Cool Kids

Latest successor of the sitcoms Golden Girls and Better Late Than Never, their tagline reads: They're growing old, not growing up.

Meet them in mediation, too.

Royal Name

Prince Harry and Meghan mediated on their first-born's name. First name Archie is not from the cartoon character but Princess Di's ancestor Archibald. Harrison is not from Beatle George but to mean Harry's son. Mountbatten is for Prince Philip's family, as Windsor is Queen Elizabeth's.

Wounded Healers

Fr. Tito Caluag had a truly touching reflection in last Sunday Inquirer's column: "It is the experience of the healing grace of God in our life- that wounded broken part of our life- that inspires us for a lifetime to share this grace with others.

A veteran of strife could be an insightful mediator.

Triple V

It stands for partners Vicvic, Valentin and Violeta. Former employees of the  late Vicvic recall his teaching them to be "maagap." This could be loosely translated to being proactive.

For those who didn't "nip problems in the bud," there is mediation.

Plurality

The single-mindedness of fanatical Dutertards is amazing. In the caco-phoney, Randy David says that the majority who did not vote for him plus the families of all his victims living and dead could give another upset to this thug.

Failure of Unclogging

Not the drain but the court dockets. Former CJ Panganiban in his Sunday Inquirer column credits Senior Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio for setting and following a plan of deciding 1000 cases per year.

Mediation helps by reducing the number of cases being brought to pretrial at the lowest court level.

One's Honor to Avoid Strife

Can't recall now where this meaningful phrase was read.

Mediators help settle them.

The Truth

Senator de Lima is a voice crying in Crame's Custodial Center. Why is the government in hot pursuit of Bikoy cohorts? Nothing irks it more than the truth. VP Leni proposes treating them as whistleblowers instead. Ex- Solgen Pilo Hilbay clarifies that sedition is against the government not a family and its f(r)iends.

The Opposition might still win, especially since election day falls on the feastday of Our Lady of Fatima. EDSA to the nth Power!

The Gift of Giving

Aside from material things, a Compromise Agreement gives peace of mind to disputants. Such is the reward of mediators as well. As Our Daily Bread says, "whoever refreshes others will be refreshed."

Psalms for the West Philippine Sea

Ma. Ceres Doyo's Human Face column sought inspiration from the Bible's Old Testament on our predicament with Chinese intrusion. She "conjures up a Via Dolorosa dotting the howling West Philippine Sea, and on a craggy hill a lighthouse ablaze against the darkening sky."

Mediation is like that lighthouse, as China does not recognize the unilateral arbitration.