My Catholic Faith

interior of Antipolo Church

Our Lady Of Antipolo


In Antipolo, you can find the religious shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, popularly known as the Virgin of Antipolo. Every month of May, my husband and I together with my mom always visit the town to pay homage to the shrine of Our Lady of Antipolo. We have been doing this for almost six years. According to the historians, this miraculous icon has sailed back and forth from Manila to Acapulco eight times and on several occassions was credited with saving her galleon from destructions by pirates. The galleon's safe arrivals were attributed to the miaculous powers of the statuette.

Black Nazarene

Facade of Quiapo Church

Quiapo Church, officially known as Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene, is one of the famous churches in the Philippines. It is the home of Black Nazarene, a black wooden statue of our Lord Jesus Christ, which many people believe to have miraculous attributes. I've been visiting the church since last February 2008 because I have been coughing a lot and having backaches for a month and I was so scared to have a very serious illness. I learned about the Black Nazarene from a friend and so my husband and I go there every Monday night since then. People who have touched the Nazarene are reported to have sometimes been healed of their diseases that is why we always get close enough to touch the statue and perhaps even receive a miracle. So far, my visits to the church and constant prayer to the Black Nazarene had worked miracles on me which made me go back there once a week.

interior of Baclaran Church

Our Mother of Perpetual Help, Baclaran

I've been a devotee of Our Mother of Perpetual Help since the year 2003. It started when I had a lump on my left breast and it was painful. I was breastfeeding my third baby that time and the lump was just merely because of the breastmilk. I took medications for awhile and after a month of continuous prayer to the Mother of Perpetual Help seeking for good health everything went fine. Then my family suffers from many misfortunes after that which gives us more various reasons to visit the place. Some people even walked with their knees going to the image and pray for better fate. Our Mother of Perpetual Help always hear and answers my prayer which makes me believe in her more.




Our Lady Of Manaoag Cathedral

Our Lady of Manaoag,Pangasinan

We first learned about Our Lady of Manaoag in Pangasinan from a friend last May 2005. Since then, we have been visiting her shrine at least three times every year. She is the patroness of the sick, protectress of the helpless and the benefactress of the needy. I'm a devotee of Our Lady of Manaoag and praying to her helps strengthen my faith in her and God as well. I have been sickly lately and constantly praying to her for health restoration surely helps a lot. She answers most of my prayers and I am greatly thankful for that.

Parenting Style

My husband and I are authoritative parents. We encourage our children to be independent and we always let them explore the things around them freely. We set rules and limits. If we say 'no' to them, we really mean it. Whenever our children falls short, we give them punishments but we always explain to them the motive for that. We sometimes let our children experience difficulties, defeat, and other negative things in order for them not to be deprive from it's value. As much as possible, we want our children to realize that failure, disappointment, sadness and negative emotions are part of life. We strongly believed that for a child to grow up emotionally healthy, he or she has to experience the good and the bad things and learn how to cope with them.
We always praise our kids for their good deeds instead of looking at their mistakes. We focus also on our child's strength so he will feel good about himself. We are strict when it comes to doing their homeworks, having good manners towards other people, and eating properly during mealtime. Lately, we've been trying to enforce strict rules for TV watching. We are very particular with the shows our children is allowed to watch and very specific in the number of minutes that they can stay glued to the tube. Anyway, we try to create a unique relationship with each child. Each of them have different personalities so we tend to deal with them individually. We are not only parents to them, but we are friends to them also. That is our way for them to be open to us about everything that's happening within their lives. It's funny because when go out as a family, other people always thought that we are sibblings and they were looking for our parents. Then we always have to tell them that we are the parents. We always spend "quality quantity time" with our kids by playing with them and getting to know them more. My children loves doing sports like swimming, biking and basketball with my husband. With me, it's mostly arts and crafts, reading storybooks, playing hide and seek and eating. It is very important for me and my hubby to let the kids enjoy their childhood. Lastly, it's very important for us to teach them how to pray. My husband and I are both religious and we want our kids to be the same also.

On Motherhood

Motherhood has changed me a lot. For sure, growing a human being inside your  stomach is amazing. Having a baby was the first time in my life that I really felt proud of myself. The feeling of excitement and joy never cease from my first to fourth baby. Motherhood is the single most important driving force for shifting to a healthy and safe lifestyle. I became more conscious of what I take and what I eat. I'd like to live longer so I can stay and see my family grow. My priorities, of course, just like any mother, have changed. I've mellowed a lot. Not just as a mother, but as a person. I have to make adjustments. Instead of going to the mall and buying new stuffs for myself, I just stay in the house to tutor my three little ones or go to the grocery with my family. When I was younger, I had so many other interests. Now, I've streamlined my activities and all my other extra curricular endeavors into what's good for me as a person. The dream of my whole life was I wanted to be a mother. To be a good wife to my husband and a good mother to my children. I run the household and take care of my kids. It is very stressful but rewarding. Motherhood makes me appreciate my mother more. I'm closer to my dad before but now it is the other way around. I take a lot of pride in saying I have many kids. I think it is one of my greatest achievements. I'm so grateful to have my kids and I get so much joy from it. It's really the hardest job in the world, but it's so rewarding and so wonderful. I love teaching them things. It's a wonderful experience really and an incredible blessing.

My Fourth Baby

This is Andrei Jacob. He is turning two years old on November. He is my angel. So many things happened when I was pregnant with him. But because of him, I was able to weather all the storms that came to my life. He was fully breastfed for one year and I really enjoyed every moment of it even though it was really very tiring. He loves to play basketball at such a young age. You can see different kinds of ball in our room and he owns it all. He loves Barney so much. He can sing some of Barney's song. My baby is a very sweet boy. He wants to be with the people he loves. He is smart and very funny. He is obsessed with cars also just like his brother AJ. He still sleeps in our room. He brings joy to our family and he will forever be our baby.

My Third Baby

My third baby is Aizaach Jheramie. We call him AJ for short. He's turning six on November. He is now in Preparatory. He is very smart and the most independent. It's like he thinks he's as old as his older siblings. He does his homework all by himself. He can play gameboy and playstation at the age of two. He can read a book at the age of three. He gets perfect in all academics most of the time. One problem only is that he has asthma. We found out that he has asthma when he was three months old. Anyway, this son of mine is so talkative. He loves to ask questions and wants a good answer right away.  He is very sensitive also. So we are very careful about hurting his feelings. At the age of five, he knows how to operate the MacBook. He even teaches his big brother how to use it. This son of mine is a fan of 80's music. Just like his dad, he loves listening to the songs from the 80's especially the ones played in the game Vice City. He loves cars so much. He knows all the name of different cars and their logos at the age of two. Well, my message for him is that I hope that he'll stay smart and cute always and we love him so much.

My Second Baby

This is my son Angelo Jehrard. He is seven years old now turning eight next Saturday. I have many stories to tell about this boy of mine. I almost lost him during the first month of my pregnancy with him. My doctor told me to have a bed rest for one week due to bleeding. When he was born, he was fully breastfed for six months only. It was totally sleepless nights for me and my husband since baby Jehrard slept between me and my husby. I have to stop breastfeeding him when he was six months old due to German measles. Both of us have it and we stayed in the hospital for 1 1/2 weeks in the same room. He was a brave baby but I was really sad seeing my little baby with the dextrose attached to his little hand. Another misfortune happened when he was two years old. He had a fracture in his right femur. I just gave birth to my third baby that time and was breastfeeding then. It was painful for me and my husby seeing our little boy with a cast on the leg for two months. He wants to play with his big brother but he can't do so. He can't sleep well because he felt so uncomfortable with the cast on. When the cast was removed, he couldn't walk. He has to undergo a physical therapy for one month. He had a speech problem when he was four. We had him checked thinking maybe he is autistic or what but fortunately he is not. After 2 months of observation, he started to talk and was able to say a lot of words. The most horrible thing that happened to him was when he had dengue fever last July 2007. I just gave birth to my fourth baby then. He was in critical condition already. His pediatrician told us that he is in second stage already and the last thing we can do is just pray. I can't bare to see him vomitting blood and crying in pain while in the hospital. This is the second time I almost lost him. We all prayed for him to get well. I couldn't help but cry almost every minute. I was even crying while tutoring my two other kids who were at home looking for Jehrard and praying for his health. I cried also while breastfeeding my fourth baby. It's hard really and a very traumatic experience for my family. I went to different churches to pray that time seeking help from God. And God answered my prayers. He did not take my son away from me and I thank him for that. He gave my son another chance to live. To my son Jehrard, I love you and mommy will always be here for you no matter what happens.

My First Baby

Andrew Justyne is the name of my first baby. He is nine years old now and very handsome. I was pregnant with him at the age of eighteen. I was so young then but there was no regrets. I love kids in the first place. At such a young age, I was already excited to experience motherhood. I've been reading a lot of books about pregnancy and what to expect after giving birth. I told my husband that I want to be a hands on mother and he respected my decision. I was expecting to have a normal delivery but unfortunately I gave birth to him via caesarean section. I was already admitted at the hospital four days before his birth date. I was bleeding then and was brought to the emergency room for how many times. After three days of examination and still bleeding, the doctor decided to let me have an operation. Seeing my baby for the first time made me forget all the pain I've went through during the labour and operation. I planned to breastfeed him right away. My husband and I are so overjoyed to see our first newborn baby. Anyway, Andrew is a smart and bubbly boy. He is a good swimmer also which made us proud parents. He is an artist like me. He loves to read books also. He just had his first holy communion two weeks ago. He is in third grade now. I love him so much and I really hope that he will remember all the good things we've taught him.

Husby and Yfee

First of all, I would like to share with you how we first met and all that. We were classmates when we were still in our grade school years.Then after graduating from grade school, I transferred to ICA and finished my high school years there. During high school days, he still visits me at my house as friends only with our common friend Johnrich. The communication ended when we were in our fourth year high to second year college. I was shocked when he called me again over the phone during the second semester of my sophomore year in college. That marks the beginning of our love story. Well, I call my husband "husby" which is short for husband of course. He calls me then "yfee" which means wife. We've been together for 9 years already and we will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on the end of November. We have gone through a lot as husband and wife. We have our ups and downs also. Guess there's really no such thing as a perfect relationship. We fight also over small petty things but we made sure that at the end of the day everything is in its normal state again. We learn new things from each other as the day goes by. Despite having four little boys in our family, we still make it a point that we get to spend time together alone by having dinner date during Friday nights mostly. We both love to travel. We love food trippings also. We are both hands on parents to our children. We love doing things together. We pray a lot also. Every Monday, we go to Quiapo Church then Baclaran every Tuesday night. We just love each other so much:)

My Husband

This is my husband. His name is Andre. Well, what can I say! He's the man of my life! He's my source of strength really. Every time I'm at my lowest, he's there to cheer me up and giving me encouraging words. He is a very funny person close to being a clown I should say:) There is never a day that he missed to joke around. He is also a man full of stories. He can tell you the same stories all over and over again for so many times. My husband is a good father, a good son,a good friend, a good husband and a good brother. A man of good deeds to top it all. In our family, he is the disciplinarian but sometimes also tends to give way to whatever the children likes. He is the breadwinner to his family which made him to be a good son. He is very supportive to his three siblings and never gets tired of giving them good advises. He is a good husband to me because he teaches me all the good things, shares to me all his good and bad experiences , takes good care of me when I am not feeling well and loving me unconditionally. Yes, a good friend indeed! He surely knows how to make his friends laugh. He is always ready to lend them a helping hand. Well, to end this, I just want to say I love him so much and thank God for giving me a husband like him.