"Dating is Dating the Valentines"

Valentine's Day is celebrated on February 14. It is a festival of romantic love. Many people celebrate their love for their partner by sending cards or letters, giving gifts or flowers and arranging meals in restaurants or romantic nights in hotels. People who would like to have a romantic relationship with somebody may use the occasion to make this known.

The most common Valentine's Day symbols are the heart, particularly in reds and pinks, and pictures or models of Cupid. Cupid is usually portrayed as a small winged figure with a bow and arrow. In mythology, he uses his arrow to strike the hearts of people. People who have fallen in love are sometimes said to be 'struck by Cupid's arrow. Other symbols of Valentine's Day are couples in loving embraces and the gifts of flowers, chocolate, red roses and lingerie that couples often give each other.

However, we may ask what is really the story behind this date? The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. 

Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15. Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

                             

Mamasapano Clash: Justice is Where?

         The operation targeting two Jemaah Islamiyah-linked terror suspects, Malaysian bomb maker Marwan and Filipino bomber Basit Usman, resulted in the death of 44 SAF commandos who were attacked by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in two separate locations.

The military was criticized for being slow in reinforcing the SAF men despite the longstanding ceasefire between the Armed Forces and the MILF. The SAF requested for back up units from their military counterparts around 5 a.m. Sunday, however, only arrived at Mamasapano at 8:20 a.m. and reached the positions of SAF units in the afternoon. We may consider it reasonable to think that it is because military units were clueless on the locations of the SAF members, who were scattered in neighboring villages; soldiers in the area were positioned also to secure main supply routes and could not easily leave their designations; and a minimum force would still be needed to protect the road nets from possible attacks, yet would it be absolute to disregard and be contented already to what happen to these victims? Why there is no action yet? Why such reinforcements acted so sluggish where in fact in the first place, cease fire has been declared and a peace agreement between the government and the rebel has been in progress. And to what extent doing this brutally? Now, where is the Commission on Human Rights? Is this lawful for you?  If so, then justice should be infuriatedly discussed.