Raissa Laurel's strength and will

[garner]

---

Really impressed with Raissa Laurel's strength and will. It’s rare to find that courage in young people today.

[garner]

I salute raissa laurel for her incredible faith, courage and strength! She is indeed a miracle, and an inspirational example of faith.

[neurain]

kinsa diay na cya?

[Morcego]

kinsa diay na cya?

dara link brah o..

Raissa Laurel: I've forgiven the people behind bar exams blast

[em_b]

kadto san beda law stude na naputulan tawn ug duha ka tiil tungod ato senseless na bombing sa barops.

yah, i salute her strength. humbling kaayo. hurot ako bilib.

[garner]

'Impossible is nothing'
CTALK By Cito Beltran (The Philippine Star) Updated October 04, 2010

Here is a “Dear Cito” letter that I really need to share with all of you because it is a true story about tragedy, love, courage and determination. It is also a lesson and a promise that if we choose to believe, we achieve.
I am Rubin Tan and one of your column’s avid fan. Your subject today prompted me to write this email to you as it brought back painful memories to me of something that happened to my family fourteen years ago which somehow was eerily similar to the bar exams tragedy. I don’t know how to express in words my own true feelings of what happened but anyway I’d like to try.
Fourteen years ago, my ten-year old daughter Kathryn figured in a tragic foundation day school fair accident at De La Salle Santiago Zobel School in Ayala Alabang Village on November 20,1996, which necessitated the amputation of her left arm. I am not sure if you were aware of this accident as it was headlined also in the papers at that time, but your account of last Sunday’s bar exams tragedy and your visit to Raissa Laurel was like déjà vu to me. I felt goose bumps all over me as I read your piece. Tears rolled out of my eyes as I watched on TV the anguish, emotional pain and the tears that her father showed because it was exactly the same reaction that I went through that fateful day. Signing the waiver to allow the doctors to amputate my daughter’s left arm in order to save her life was the most painful decision that I ever made in my life. I don’t know what kind of strong characters our girls seem to possess, but somehow they became stronger than ever after the accidents.
All throughout the events after the accident, my daughter remained calm and accepted her fate, though she felt the pain physically. However, she never cried one bit. She told us that it was God’s plan for her to do something good out of this misfortune. She did away with the psychologists’ trauma sessions saying they are just a waste of time for they could no longer bring her left arm back again. She assured them that she is okay vowing to become stronger than ever. She never became bitter, depressed or moped. Instead, she came out stronger and did whatever she could to thank God for giving her a second life and doing extraordinary things that no one thought she could ever do. She joined and was accepted in the girls basketball varsity champion teams in the elementary and high school, playing ball with only one arm and excelling at that. She represented Adidas Philippines in the “Impossible is Nothing” promo campaign in Dallas, Texas in 2005 where she was introduced to NBA basketball stars. They marveled and awed at her ability to play with only one arm. She finished college at De La Salle St. Benilde and today is working as a graphic artist.
One thing that I am most grateful and happy about these days is the kind of work that my daughter is doing. She gives inspirational and motivational talks whenever she could to athlete and student groups, urging them not to give up easily on failures or misfortunes but to rise up from these downfalls believing that as long as there is life there is hope. She would also like to tell Raissa to just believe and have faith in herself and always pray for God’s help and guidance.
I truly believe that Raissa Laurel has that same kind of special strong character that my daughter has. We really admire her and believe that she will come out of this unfortunate bump in her life stronger than ever and become a successful lawyer. We will always pray for her immediate healing and for her to achieve her dream in the near future.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Rubin Tan

[garner]

Not fear but faith</SPAN>
CTALK By Cito Beltran (The Philippine Star) Updated October 01, 2010
By all accounts she should have simply crumpled and died.
Given what she lost she had every reason to be angry at the world and at the Creator himself. But she didn’t. Like a mangled lamb spared from the slaughter, she said “I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time”. But was she?
How could she seem dismissive of the violence that victimized her and some 30 or 40 others? How could she seem fully “recovered” and chirpy given that 2 COWARDS had directly caused the amputation of her two feet?
I first heard about her, when I caught the video of her anguished father crying, begging to understand how absolute strangers can toss a bomb at her daughter’s feet and cut them off.
Like many fathers who saw “Bob” on the news, I felt the pain and the deep anguish he was going through. We need not go through the actual experience, in order to feel the actual pain. We simply need to be human and to be fathers, then, the hurt becomes familiar.
I was destined to learn this story on a personal basis because it is a story that the devil does not want told. He threw every obstacle in our path to get to the PGH: the MRT train stalled in its tracks, then we couldn’t get a cab, we climbed seven floors to get to the room, then on the way back, after hell, came the high water in the form of a thunderstorm and partial flooding in front of PGH.
But we got the story.
As it turns out “Raissa” is part of the family; my “Victory” family of Christians, where she is part of the worship volunteers for the youth church. I learned that “Raissa” being the compulsive volunteer, had yet again volunteered to be part of the welcoming committee of sorts for her schoolmates, who had just gone through the Bar Exams.
Unfortunately her goodwill was what placed her “At the wrong place at the wrong time”.
She saw the bomb land at her feet. She caught a glimpse of two guys running away and then the explosion. In seconds she knew the extent of her damage. What used to be her feet were just shattered bones on the pavement, pieces of flesh and blood. What remained was a small piece of skin and flesh stubbornly holding on to a toe and a bone. She knew with absolute clarity that she had already lost both her feet.
In an instant, “Raissa” knew she was about to lose her life.
There on the pavement she became a lawyer before the fact. As she lay mangled, bloodied and bruised, she pleaded the case of a lifetime: her life. There she offered a deal: “ Lord, please give me a second life and if you do I will accept “what I have”.
In the face of terror it was not fear but faith.
“What I have” in “Raissa’s” case would be a life without feet. But we all know so many people walking around without a life or the living dead. Given the options, she knew she got a good deal from the turn around king.
At the PGH, Fate and faith conspired. While “Raissa” and her boyfriend held tight whispering worship songs to keep her from slipping into a coma, her relative happened to be on duty and swept aside every obstacle and every challenge that would have robbed “Raissa” of her very life. A total of 15 minutes of delay was all it would have taken to kill her.
When I met “Bob” face-to-face and listened to his tale of this tragedy and I wondered who hurt more: the father or the daughter?
When “Bob” and his wife “Reggie” reached PGH, their primary concern was for the doctors to do everything to save “Raissa’s” feet. That seemed the logical and normal concern. But in hindsight it served as a life-long lesson.
While they were focusing on “Raissa’s” feet, little did they know that “Raissa” had already seen the “light”. Her pulse and her blood pressure were almost none existent and in a matter of minutes she would have been in a coma and perhaps to the other side.
The great irony was that a choice had to be made: Life or limbs?
Inside the ER they presented “Bob” the waiver and consent form to amputate “Raissa’s” feet. As “Bob” told the story I realized that no one else in the audience of three seemed to understand that being given the waiver and consent form was like asking a father to cut off his daughter’s legs.
Yes it was a medical emergency and yes her life depended on it. But that is my daughter, who someday I hope to walk down the aisles. It was not just a form and he could not sign it and I understood why.
Tragedy often raises the ghost between what is and what might be. In “Raissa’s” case I am reminded of the warning: Those who love their lives, will lose it, and those who lose their lives for my name’s sake will gain eternal life.
In becoming a Born-Again Christian, “Raissa” gave up control of her life, in the bomb blast she lost a certain life she expected to live, In the face of terror she chose faith over fear and got another lease on life. You can’t kill what has been reborn. You celebrate it.
That’s how our visit at the PGH ended. Donita Rose was there, Rica Peralejo-Bonifacio was there, but they were not the celebrities. Instead they were the fans of a real celebrity, a person who celebrated God and a new life: “Raissa”, the girl who is now at the right place at the right time.

[clarkhkent]

makahilak man sad ta...anyway sakto man sad siya...nganong di siya maka pasaylo nga maka sasa man sad cya...may unta ingon ana tanan taw sa?wish ko lang

[AbsoluteWilkins]

who's this pokemon?? i don't know her.......

[Mr. BrokenHearted]

she must be a hero as well her strong faith makes her survive