MikeLigalig.com

By Felix N. Codilla

A mother and her daughter were reunited after 16 years with the help of the Ormoc City government and its website.

The heartwarming story began when an adopted daughter, who is based in America set forth to find her biological mother in Ormoc.

The mother, Luzviminda Garbo, 48, of San Jose here, narrates that she went to Manila after the flashflood to work as a maid in 1992. There, she got pregnant and gave birth to her sixth child, but her lady employer, who is married to an American, took the baby girl as her own.

However, Minda was still able to care for her own daughter as a nanny and even breastfed her for three years. The child was given the name Ayla Camille Mottor after her adoptive parents. However, Minda got pregnant again on her seventh child from another man, prompting her to come back to Ormoc and leave Ayla to her employers.

When she returned to Manila, it has already been two years since the Mottor family moved to Virginia, USA with her daughter. Now 19, Ayla grew up to become a fine lady. When she learned about her real identity, she began her search for her real mother.

Her first stop was the Internet where she stumbled upon the Ormoc City website from where she got the City Hall’s phone number. She contacted the mayor’s office and got hold of Administrative Officer I Juliet Alcala to whom she provided information about her mother.

Ormoc is really a small place because Alcala was able to locate Minda in San Jose, still unmarried. Arrangements were made for mother and daughter to speak on the phone. Ayla was filled with disbelief at first but was convinced when her biological mother mentioned familiar names especially her adoptive parents.

Ayla’s adoptive mother became jealous when she decided to go to Ormoc for the first time. But it is the only way for her to feel complete and so on the last week of May, she and her mother were finally reunited. It was a touching scene as if plucked from a soap opera, as both mother and daughter tearfully found themselves in each other’s arms.

Ayla paid a courtesy call to Mayor Eric C. Codilla and thanked the city government’s assistance in finding her mother. Discovering the city’s website made her search easier for which she will always be grateful. (PNA)

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Parehag salida sa sine with happy ending.

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Touching story...The 16 year old has a lot of love for two mothers.As for the adopted mom it is understandable for a stab of jealousy.She could have start a life in U.S. passing this 16 year old as her real daughter and no one would knew.She never kept it a secret from the girl,and knew this would happen one day...Salute to the adopted mom who raised  a child who is caring...

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I do agree with you there.

Blessing for the child that she got an opportunity, but what about the other 6 ?

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WOW!! That   is  so  touching  really!!

Bitaw  no alycks, naunsa  man  pod  sija  nga  nagsigi  man pod  ug   pamabdos  ug lain-laing  laki. Wa  man  maka-kaon  ug  tagam. She  should  have  been  more  responsible. The kids  will  end  up  being miserable..


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too bad, rj10.  your exposure is so limited, whether it's with bible readers or with pregnancies. 

there are many filipinos you haven't been lucky enough to meet who can leave you black and blue with their knowledge of the bible.  just because you failed to see any sense in the bible doesn't mean that others failed as much.  besides, faith, like salvation, is a very personal journey.  we chose to trek a certain path and because it does us good, then it must be good. we do not question that. 

in terms of percentage to the total population, there are more catholics in ireland and france, where there's divorce, than there are catholics in the philippines, where there's no divorce.  please note that while the catholic church frowns on divorce, it does not in any way hamper its practice when it becomes a law of the state.  our country, indeed, has a clear separation of church and state.  we need to be clear with our understanding of such separation though because the church, just like any organization, has the right to express its opinion on things that affect its flock.  an organization of businessmen or security guards can express its opinion on laws that have direct bearing on its interests, so why not our church where the majority of us belong anyway?   

yes, we don't have divorce in my country.  would that it stays that way.  it does not make us any less as a people, if you bothered to know.  (by the way, what we have is annulment.  as a last resort, it gets into the very heart of the union of husband and wife; it's harder to get because it means no marriage existed to begin with while divorce means a marriage ceases to exist.  that's a whale of a difference and is not to be trifled with.)   

as for pregnancies, unplanned and careless as they come, these are the exceptions and not the rule, like everywhere else, surely including the country where you come from.  carelessness is a universal human frailty and is not a monopoly of filipinos.

meanwhile, there must be something in our country for you to decide to live here.  your limited exposure doubtless limits your perspective, but while you're here, wouldn't it be more civilized of you to see our strengths rather than our weaknesses?  i mean, why generalize?

correct me if i'm wrong, but judging from the way you write, your first language isn't english.  i hazard to guess that you must be from continental europe then, which means you belong to a race whose history is peppered with a thousand years of mutual slaughter and, probably not satisfied with your own borders and peoples, went on to other lands, including the place where you are now, to subjugate my own ancestors who were keeping their peace in their own idyllic world. 

funny that it took murder and mayhem for your kind of civilization to get at where it is now.  lucky me for being filipino.  i don't have to live down such historical baggage.

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ok, so you have read the bible then i guess?
and what i was trying to state was that the majority of christians probably never read the bible therefor my question: Why does people belive in this when they havent even read the book?

I think you Islander got offend by my post and for that i apologize.
but i work for a helporganisation here in the philippines and see all these unwanted pregnancies on young girls who come to us for help. and very poor families that dont have enough food for themselves, but getting more children that they can, no problem. you have a responsibility towards the children you intend to put on this earth, and sorry but the church has a big part in this weather you like it or not. for instance we were in leyte with a nursing program to do health checks in this small town. we also gave out free condoms and teached girls about contraceptive pills and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, it was all fine and the intrest among the people was big until the local priest found out about it and came screaming and yelling that we were not welcome there anymore, apparantly its a sin to use birth control, "prevent life from happening" he said. so he would rather have children born into poverty which is for me very strange.


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apologies well taken, rj10, though i must say i was more disappointed than offended.  

it's nice to know that you are with a charity organization.  you do your job, the priest that you encountered does his.  

you must be aware of the current controversial reproductive health bill that's pitting our catholic church against congress.  that's democracy at work.  a thorough discussion on this appears in two threads in this forum some months back, if i remember it right.  if you have the time, kindly go over those threads (sorry i missed their titles).

may i just ask you two questions because your job, which you've mentioned, includes support for "responsible parenthood", like the distribution of condoms and possibly contraceptives and lessons on how to avoid unwanted pregnancies---

why is it that rich western countries who use funds to encourage their womenfolk to reproduce some more are now using their funds to support countries such as mine to do the opposite?  

are you aware that it's big western pharmaceuticals that are behind the birth control (now euphemistically called "reproductive health") lobby and that they stand to gain the most in terms of sales?        

so you've taught those girls in leyte how not to be pregnant.  would that you also taught them how to be disciplined human beings by emphasizing the importance of curtailing human desires during periods of fertility.

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Naay innocent tools of imperialism, naa puy willing executioners. Naa puy ugok lang jud...

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hi, too.  welcome back.  (i was out for a couple of days myself.)

please let me put it simply, rj10, and i hope i won't sound too belligerent about it; it is but too western to look at us as more mouths to feed rather than more hands that work.

while it is acknowledged that it is a universally good thing to help, when it comes to geopolitics, the reality is such that any country that appears benevolent with its aid actually has its own interests to protect first and foremost.  there is no aid without a tag that serves the donor’s interests.  the idea of overpopulation and its control is no exception.  the controversial  1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200) of the United States National Security Council, as directed by henry kissinger, is a fine example.  thus:
 
The policy gives "paramount importance" to population control measures and the promotion of contraception among 13 populous countries, including the Philippines, to control rapid population growth.

The policy deems population growth as inimical to the socio-political and economic growth of these countries and to the national interests of the United States, since the "U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad", and these countries can produce destabilizing opposition forces against the United States.

It recommends the US leadership to "influence national leaders" and that "improved world-wide support for population-related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mass media and other population education and motivation programs by the UN, USIA, and USAID."

This was adopted as official U.S. policy by President Gerald Ford in November 1975.  It was originally classified, but was later declassified and obtained by researchers in the early 1990s.

The thirteen countries named in the report as particularly problematic with respect to U.S. security interests: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.  These countries are projected to create 47 percent of all world population growth.


excerpts from wikipedia

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no study, not even by three nobel prizewinners, ever showed a direct link connecting high population with high poverty rates.  this makes the u.s.'s NSSM200 policy that "deems population growth as inimical to the socio-political and economic growth of these countries..." as a lame excuse for the more important "national interests of the United States".

may i share this interesting how-can-we-not-believe-this blog excerpt i found somewhere:

Correlation is not causation.  It is short-sighted to think of declining population growth as a goal in of itself.  Population control, as an economic policy, has proven to be unsustainable.  Across Europe and Asia, countries that saw steep declines in fertility in the past generation are now bracing themselves for the future consequences of an aging population, when a large number of elderly can no longer be supported by the smaller and younger working class.  During the 1970s and 1980s, Singapore instituted an aggressive two-child policy, which led to a situation of labor shortages and the difficulty of supporting an aging population.  In an effort to recover, Singapore now pursues a pro-fertility policy.

In the case of Hong Kong, the country’s dense population has had no debilitating effects on its economic development.  Hong Kong has experienced a great economic boom and high levels of economic prosperity largely due to a sound banking system, no public debt, a strong legal system, and a rigorously enforced anti-corruption regime.  This case provides a clear example that economic development is not synonymous with small population size, and that a large population is not only sustainable but an asset to development.


excerpted from http://fightrhbill.blogspot.com/2011/02/handy-summary-of-some-of-major.html

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no, i didn't mean that.  and neither do i need to say that we are not animals who go by instincts alone.  what i meant was the discipline of postponing the enjoyment of sex if at the moment one risks pregnancy that is unwanted.   unlike eating, which is basically for survival, sex is basically for perpetuation, no doubt a happy act that ought to be enjoyed by responsible couples, but still it remains an act whose postponement to safer days couldn’t kill.  i trust that humans are capable of moral restraint.   

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