How they kept the faith and survived in US

They had every reason not to go to the United States.

Life was relatively easy for the newlyweds Nehemias and Perlita Legaspi in the late 1970s. He was the lone dentist and she was a staff nurse in a top teaching hospital in Manila. Together they were earning more than enough to start a family without having to sacrifice personal comfort and everything else.

Still, the announcement came that they were leaving soon—and for good—much to the disbelief of their peers at the University of Santo Tomas Hospital. “Are you crazy?” the wife remembers one doctor asking, echoing the prevailing sentiment among friends and relatives.

They probably were, considering the tough life that would eventually greet them during their first few years in Chicago and later in Los Angeles. But that was just part of the Nemy and Pearl saga in America.

The couple today have more than what they had wished for—a classy two-story dream home in Los Angeles, nice cars, stable careers and retirement opportunities they most likely would not have had if they had chosen to stay in the Philippines.

And that’s just the material side of the story. The rest of it is known only to people close to the couple – how they kept the faith, held on to each other and survived America.

“Everything was in control because we knew that God was watching over us,” Nemy, 58, says in an interview at the couple’s residence in Eagle Rock, LA.

It was Pearl, not Nemy, who was dead-set on settling in the US. She left him with no choice when she sold all their belongings within a week after they got their visas. She knew her children stood a better chance in the US.

Armed men at checkpoint

One afternoon in Parañaque, for instance, the couple and their 3-year-old son Marco ran into a supposed government checkpoint. Also in the car were their long-time friends Rene and Susan Villanueva and their first-born Irene. Before they knew it, Armalites were pointed at them.

Several anxious moments later, the four men manning the checkpoint let them go. “There are kids,” one of them was heard as saying. “Let’s not proceed with the plan.”

Whatever the “plan” was the family could only think of the worse. It didn’t take much convincing later on for Nemy to share Pearl’s American dream.

The family found instant accommodation in the Windy City where Nemy’s parents owned a three-door apartment. Pearl found work in three weeks at a nearby nursing home. Nemy got none.

Chicago’s biting cold kept him home most of the time, leaving him to tend to the children. By then they already had their second son Marlo.

In-law troubles

In one of those days when the weather was unbearable, father and his two boys woke up to the smell of French fries cooking at the Burger King joint next to their apartment. With Pearl’s salary barely enough for the family, Nemy bought his kids a quarter’s worth of fries, their dad’s best “treat” for months to come.

“That was when I was struck by self-pity,” he says. “I couldn’t even buy my children a decent meal.”

Pearl’s in-laws didn’t exactly make things easier for the new immigrants. To begin with, they didn’t like her, a provincial lass from Zambales. They felt their son deserved better, someone like this Chicago-based doctor they had been pairing him with for years.

“We didn’t come here to break up,” he told his parents each time. “We came here to improve our lives as a family.”

Then thanks to a rumor-mongering in-law, the immigrant couple’s American dream almost vanished. The relative spread the word that Pearl was having an affair with a co-worker.

Pearl found peace in her innocence, saying not a word when the entire Legaspi clan in their Chicago apartment confronted her. One of Nemy’s brothers even poked a finger at her face.

Told about the rumor, Nemy was incredulous, knowing too well that his wife was incapable of such a thing. This wasn’t the Pearl who had single-handedly protected him from a group of fratmen that nearly mauled them in UST a few years earlier, he remembered.

Fightin’ Pearl

With the couple surrounded and outnumbered, Pearl raised her fists, jumped to her toes and began circling her boyfriend to the surprise of their foes. The fratmen backed off and were literally kneeling before Pearl, one after another, at the hospital a few days later.

The fratmen, all medicine students, needed her forgiveness to avoid expulsion from UST. They never messed with the tough nurse or her boyfriend since then.

“That was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life,” Nemy recalls. “Imagine having your girlfriend protecting you with her bare fists? I was stunned myself. I realized then how brave she was and how much she loved me.”

So the rumor could not have been true that Pearl had gone astray, he told his parents in Chicago that evening in 1982. To clear things up, he went to the alleged lover and asked him to enlighten his folks. It turned out that this was the same guy the rumormonger had asked to walk Pearl to the subway every now and then.

“She told me to accompany Pearl because she’s new in the city,” he told Nemy. “I can’t understand why she would spread something like that.”

In the evening, the guy went to the Legaspi apartment and confronted the relative. Pearl was vindicated but knew it was time to go. She didn’t sleep in the apartment that night. The family packed for LA the following day, carrying only $300 max and expiring tourist visas.

Welcome relief

The City of Angels was a welcome relief for the weary couple, its moderate weather more to their liking. Away from his parents’ prying eyes, they started anew with Pearl finding another job as a nurse.

Nemy remained unfortunate. He would spend eight hours, job-hunting on the streets of LA daily but still finding none. Dental clinics shunned him for lacking local experience. It didn’t matter to them that he was an experienced dentist back home.

Pearl remained the sole breadwinner for the next year or so, taking home a monthly salary of $500. Much of it went to their small apartment’s rent downtown, leaving only $120 for the rest of their expenses.

Nemy the house husband would buy one whole dressed chicken that usually lasted them a week: “I would cut it into four and make a variety of dishes out of it.”

Young Marco had his contribution, too. He would take home juice packs that came free with his meal ration in school so that daddy would have something to fill their empty refrigerator with.

All the while, Nemy’s parents knew nothing about their suffering in the West Coast. The couple purposely stayed under the radar when told that his folks wanted them deported. They would later realize that it was probably yet another rumor unleashed by their in-law.

“The news we were getting was that my parents were angry,” he says. “They supposedly wanted to punish us for being ungrateful.”

As if their condition weren’t getting any worse, Pearl came down with a serious lung problem in 1983. The best place Nemy could take her to was the emergency room of a government hospital. There he realized how low they had tumbled.

He says that in the company of stab victims and penniless patients, Pearl became a virtual specimen for group upon group of medical students.

But she got a clean bill of health two weeks later. The hospital discharged her, too, charging her not a penny of the entire $16,000 bill. Nemy’s prayers were answered.

Healing wounds

Fortune began smiling for the hardworking couple in 1984. She passed the nursing Boards; he finally got a job as a dental assistant in Torrance. Later he would become a long-time dental consultant in a private clinic now owned and managed by his son Marco.

Pearl’s nursing license got her a job at the prestigious White Memorial Hospital where she was later promoted to unit manager. She moved to Cedars Sinai Medical Center years later as coordinator for rehabilitation. The probinsyana was made.

By 1986, the couple decided it was time to surface and face his angry folks in Chicago. On their way home from an affair in Indianapolis, the Legaspis detoured to the Windy City and stopped by their old place. The sight of a long-lost son and his family finally paying his parents a visit healed all wounds of four years past.

“Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you for so long,” Nemy’s mother told his family. Her embrace had never felt that good. Healing had begun.

The timing of their reconciliation would later prove propitious when Nemy’s mother phoned him in LA. She was crying. Her other son and daughter-in-law—the same woman who had spread that ugly rumor against Pearl years ago—had transferred ownership of the Chicago apartment to their name. The in-law brought her side of the family in, took charge of the house and confined the old folks to a single room.

‘Good soul’

Among all her children in LA, Nemy’s mom contacted him, saying she was most “at ease” with Pearl. She described her as a “good soul.” “I told you so,” the son told himself.

The couple helped his folks get started and later found them a decent place a few minutes away from their house at Eagle Rock. Last year, they brought them to Encenada in Mexico, their first-ever luxury cruise in all their years in America.

“Son, we didn’t know it was this good,” Nemy’s mother said. “Thank you!”

All’s forgiven

The Legaspis also made peace with the daughter-in-law. She paid a visit one day, apologized for her big mouth and the lives it almost wrecked. Nemy says she had been forgiven long before that.

All these are but stories the couple hardly talk about nowadays. They’ve made it in America. It wasn’t a crazy idea after all.(related by Christian Esguerra; INQ.net)

Five causes of rapid aging

Dr. Mao's Secrets of Longevity

Most people are aware that negative lifestyle habits like smoking and excessive alcohol can lead to rapid aging. But what about the repeated stress and poor nutrition that are so often a part of a high-pressure style of living today? Read on to see what could be causing rapid aging in your life.


1. Poor Diet
What you eat probably affects your health more than anything else you do. When you eat a poor diet—fatty, processed, or fried foods and simple sugars—you invite rapid aging by burdening your body with chemical additives and trans-fats and depriving your body of essential nutrients. On the other hand, when you eat the life-giving foods, you prevent disease and improve organ functioning.

In general, your diet should consist of a wide array of colors and balance of organic sources of lean protein, complex carbohydrates, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. Numerous studies show that the different pigments in the skins of fruits and vegetables are powerful antioxidants that are crucial for maintaining health, preventing cancer, and protecting against environmental toxins.

Avoid fatty foods, processed or fried foods. Keep dairy to a minimum because most dairy products are high in saturated fat. Take candy, sugar, soda, and all simple sugars out of your diet. Excess sugar gets stored as fat in your body, which spells in weight gain—a sure path to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes. You truly are what you eat, so eat well!

2. Unhappiness
Unhappiness does not only depress your mood, it also negatively affects your health. In fact, depressed, unhappy people are twice as likely to develop heart disease. And it has been confirmed that personality profile Type C—people that tend towards melancholy, depression, and excessive worry—are prone to develop cancer. Do not underestimate the power of your mind. Your experience is determined by the energy you embody, and in the end, it is your choice to have a negative perception or a positive attitude in reaction to life's breakdowns.

Years ago, I had the pleasure of working with the late Norman Cousins. His research showed that the mind has a powerful influence on many physiological functions, including the immune system. He found that an increase in immune killer cells that attack cancer occurred in cancer patients who experienced 30 minutes of deep belly laughter every day for twelve weeks. Laughter also increases the release of endorphins, compounds that give you a sense of well-being. Undoubtedly, joyful people liver longer and healthier lives.

3. Lack of Exercise
I have never met a healthy person or centenarian that lived a physically inactive life. Exercise is essential for a healthy metabolism, proper energy circulation, and the expelling of cellular wastes. Being overweight and inactive is a surefire path to rapid aging and a host of diseases. Cardiovascular exercise is the key to speeding up your metabolism, burning excess calories, and fighting body fat. Brisk walking, hiking, jogging, swimming, bicycling, stair climbing-the options are endless for cardio health! Exercise for 30 minutes at 60-80% of your MHR (You can find this number by subtracting your age from 220.) Regular exercise is also the key to preventing non-insulin-dependent diabetes, which is the fastest growing disease in industrialized countries throughout the world.

You can stave off rapid aging to your muscles, joints, and tendons by practicing exercises that extend your range of motion; some options include tai chi, qigong and yoga. Check out simple tai chi moves that you can learn easily in my book, Harmony Tai Chi by clicking here. Also, moderate load-bearing exercises are essential for bone density and muscle strength. Don't forget when you are exercising to always warm up and cool down properly to avoid injury.

4. Stress
Stress is a huge byproduct of our busy lives and it takes a tremendous toll on our health. Our body's "survival mode" gets turned on all too often these days. When you are experiencing stress, your body is programmed to go into fight-or-flight mode, a state that requires a lot of energy. Adrenaline is released from the adrenal gland, and it tells the body to convert stored sugar from the liver to glucose because the energy needs of the body increase substantially during the supposed fight-or-flight scenario.

Unfortnately, this scenario almost never plays out and the excess blood sugar that never got used ends up being stored as fat—inevitably resulting in weight gain. What's more, all of this stress continually depletes your body of its energy resources until it crumples under the overload, leading to adrenal exhaustion, a nervous breakdown, or a broken-down immune system.

To stay stress-free, remember to breathe deeply all day. And give yourself a break! You are a human, not a machine. Try taking a 15-minute powernap during your lunch break. If you only have 5 minutes to spare, just closing your eyes will release tension. Better still, consider taking up meditation, a great way to dissolve stress. To learn more about how to use meditation to decrease stress, click here.

5. Lack of Sleep
There's no way around it: the average adult needs seven to eight hours of quality sleep every night to maintain health. Consider that your immune system drops by an average of 60% after just three nights of poor sleep. Without sufficient "recovery time" each night, you will run your body down and wear out your life force, paving the way for disharmony and disease.

I hope you find the ways to live long and live strong! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

May you live long, live strong, and live happy! (By Dr. Maoshing Ni)

When Pinoy doctors become US nurses..

Since 2001, the Philippine Medical Association noted that about 5,000 doctors have become registered nurses in the United States, United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. GMANews.TV
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Almost every kid once dreamed of becoming a doctor someday.

From the moment they had their first polio shot or underwent a routine check-up, the image of a selfless, patient, and caring doctor has been embedded in children's minds.

And who doesn’t want to take care of lives? Care for the poor? Or help save the world?

If recent statistics are to be believed, a lot of Filipinos grow up not pursuing that childhood dream.

Recent studies show a dramatic drop in the number of college students pursuing a career in medicine. The decline in medical school enrollments can be as high as 50 percent while countless go on an exodus to greener pastures overseas.

Since 2001, the Philippine Medical Association noted that about 5,000 doctors have shelved their hard-earned MDs (Doctor of Medicine) to become RNs (Registered Nurses) in countries like the United States, United Kingdom or Saudi Arabia.

And it’s not hard to imagine why Filipino medical doctors want to become nurses in the United States, the country where most health care professionals migrate. While a doctor, say from the Philippine General Hospital earns P25,000 a month, an overseas nurse can earn more than 12 times overseas.

Faced with the soaring prices of petroleum and basic commodities, most Filipino doctors are forced to make the difficult choice of crossing over to become nurses which in turn create a huge void in the medical health system in the country.

When the doctor is out (of the country)

It is a fact that medical schools charge among the most, if not the most, expensive fees compared with other courses in the country. Therefore, there is an expected return-on-investment on the part of the family and also the person who has toiled to obtain the coveted degree.

In 2005, the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) noted that about 14,694 medical-related workers, or 4.4 percent of the total share of Filipino migrant workers, were deployed overseas as newly-hired OFWs. This sector was the sixth top occupation for Filipinos abroad that year, next to domestic helpers, entertainers, factory workers, construction workers and caregivers.

However, in recent years, the medical profession has experienced a slump. Dr. Fernando Sanchez, executive director of the Association of Philippine Medical Colleges, noted in a 2005 discussion that there is a declining interest in medicine as a career despite the increase of high school graduates - some of whom might have once dreamt of becoming a doctor in their younger years.

“The once popular profession of medicine has lost its glitter," said Sanchez during the 2005 Philippine medical summit. “In the early 1980’s the attention of the government was called to what is termed as ‘reverse education’ or the cross-professional migration of doctors to nursing."

He explained that the growing unpopularity of the medical profession can be traced to two primary causes: The economic situation and the lack of nationalistic policies and planning.

“Medicine used to be the preferred health profession but the course is too expensive for most and takes a long time before one can start earning, “said Sanchez.

The World Health Organization has also considered the loss of health professionals as a matter of utmost concern. Its Western Pacific Regional Office commissioned a study in 2001 which concluded that migration was not a “overspill" but a definite loss to the country, and the negative outcomes are both financial (loss of training costs) and social.

WHO noted that the shortage or complete absence of doctors in some regions or areas of specialization will jeopardize progress towards healthy communities, possibly leading to a reversal of recent gains, especially as degenerative diseases become more prevalent.(GMANews.tv)

Exercises for Sustainable Happiness

When Aymee discovered positive psychology in college, she set out to unlock the secret to lasting joy. Now an accredited happiness expert, she's made a career out of making people smile.


Aymee's Story

"I was at a pivotal moment in college where I was figuring out what to do with my life, and I realized that I just wanted to help people be happy."
In my adolescence I was social butterfly. I liked to have fun, played sports, went to school and had a lot of friends. It wasn't really until my 20s when the real hardship struck. I was fat, ugly, poor and divorced, and I knew that there was no way that I could help anyone be happy unless I was happy myself. Over the course of the last ten years, through these hardships and through studying positive psychology in school, I figured out how to bring lasting happiness into my life and the lives of others.

"What I care about is sustainable happiness, which comes from having purpose and meaning in life."

Everyone has gone through an experience of fleeting happiness - something you feel when you receive flowers from a secret admirer. I don't focus on that too much because it doesn't last. In sustainable happiness, people focus on and utilize their strengths. They explore the spiritual side of their happiness by achieving a higher level of consciousness. I've made it my mission to teach people how to create sustainable happiness in their lives by doing happiness exercises.

Exercise 1: Take responsibility for your own happiness.
No one is going to make you happy. You have to do it for yourself. You have to choose to let things go and to choose to find neutral ground. If you're just sitting there thinking about all of your problems, you won't be happy. Problems don't lead to happiness, believe it or not.

Exercise 2: Express gratitude for what you have.
Write down five or ten things that you are really grateful for every day. We always have things to be grateful for - our arms, our legs, our eyes, our teeth, the air that we breathe, our family, our friends, the house that we live in. The list goes on and on, so I don't want to hear any excuses.

Exercise 3: Practice random acts of kindness.
Practice five random acts of kindness a day. It can be something as simple as telling your coworker, "That outfit looks good on you." People just want to smile, they just want us to be good to them. There's actually a random acts of kindness foundation where you can learn different types of things you can do daily. If you do this every day for a month, I'm telling you your life is going to change. Mine did.

Exercise 4: Smile.
There is one crucial element to happiness, and you cannot achieve happiness without this element. If you take the corners of your mouth and you put them toward your cheek bones, are you happier? Our smile is the best happiness tool we have because it's a way to make other people happy without saying a word. When in doubt, just smile.

Because I explored the secrets behind holding onto happiness, I now have better health, better relationships and more success than I ever did before.(Aymee: happiness.com)

Why celebrity couples fail?

Rumors have been tiptoeing around about marriage troubles between Madonna and her husband of seven years, director Guy Ritchie. It seemed to everyone that the once wild, pointy bra-wearing Queen of Pop had settled down for good with her Brit, with her finding Kabbalah, doing massive amounts of yoga, and adopting little David from Malawi. However, all indications point towards a confirmation of a divorce, with word that she's hiring Paul McCartney's divorce lawyer, Fiona Shackleton. Thus, another celebrity marriage bites the dust. Sad, sad, sad. All relationships and marriages face their challenges, but in the world of Hollywood and fame, there are booby traps left and right from being surrounded by gorgeous men and women, having nasty rumors spread, and over publicized romances.

After the jump, pitfalls that celebrity couples face that us average Joe's and Jane's don't have to deal with.

Temptation: the other woman/man
Case in point: Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston
Imagine yourself in Jennifer Aniston's shoes: your husband is the hottest man alive and he's leaving to shoot a movie with the hottest woman alive, Angelina Jolie. The set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith proved to be too much quality time between Brad and Angelina and those pouty lips were no match for Jen's toned arms. Temptation abounds in the sea of endless beauty that is Hollywood.

Over-publicity
Case in point: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez
There was a time in 2002 where you couldn't turn on the TV or read a magazine without seeing or hearing that dreaded, stupid compound word, "Bennifer." They were the ultimate publicity whores, which probably was the end cause of their broken off engagement. The couple was overexposed in a bad way, resulting in the embarrassing, box office failure, Gigli. No wonder both J.Lo and Affleck try to keep a low profile with their now husband and wife, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Garner.

One is more famous
Case in point: Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe
Reese Witherspoon is America's darling. She was charming and hilarious in Legally Blonde and won an Oscar for her portrayal of June Carter in Walk the Line. Her husband...er, what's his name? Exactly. Ryan Phillippe was suffering from a severe drought of good movie roles, and little fame. Perhaps he felt neglected and emasculated? Whatever the real issue was, he cheated on her with actress Abbie Cornish and the World's population collectively thought: downgrade.

Overexposed by Reality TV
Case in point: Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey
They were like the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez of the millennium, except she was the wacky blond and he was the straight laced boy next door. Neither one of them was very famous before the run of their reality show Newlyweds, that documented their marriage, showcasing her ditziness and his good guy demeanor. It really catapulted Simpson to celebrity status, inflated her ago, and resulted in her leaving poor Nick. Another couple gone bad due to reality TV: Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler in MTV's, Meet the Barkers.

Are celebrity couples doomed to fail because of the nature of the industry they work in? How would it be possible to avoid these pitfalls?