To be 76 and still work Like 26

Today, on the solemnity of Saint Joseph, the good husband, good foster father and the admirable patron of workers, I will have the honor again to celebrate my 76th natal day with the former Archbishop of Cebu. Most Reverend Jose D. Palma. Unlike him however, I have not retired and have no plan of retiring. I work like a 26-year-old lawyer. I am excited each day. I even work while on vacation. Work is my life and my karma.

I just arrived with my wife and some friends from a tour, and I thank God that I live up to 76 and travelled to more than 132 countries in the last 50 years of my career and profession. As a gift to myself, my wife brought me to a ten-day cruise from Manila to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. I felt guilty for such a trip at the time that there is an oil crisis and there is trouble to two million OFWs in the Middle East. But this tour was arranged a year earlier, thus, I obliged.

And I thank the Lord for these blessings and also my family and friends for supporting me. I write this daily column five days each week, and I am never late in submissions to my gracious editors who have been patient with me for the last twenty years or so. I write about law, about judicial decisions, about politics and the changing landscapes of the nation's and the world's politics, economy, and environment. It is a wonderful life.

I have been writing law and HR books for the last thirty years or so, and the last count was 38 Labor Law Books and 12 HR books, two books on legal ethics and one book on special jurisprudence. I have written two books on sexual harassment, as well as on workplace love, romances, sex and immorality among executives, managers and employees. This year, I am completing the fourth and fifth volumes of The OFWs, an 8-volume series about our modern heroes, our OFWs.

I continue to teach law in four universities, two by face-to-face and the two others on-line. I prepare my powerpoint teaching materials, I conduct my lecture every day, I conduct recitation and report sessions, I cross-examine students, I check their papers and compute their grades, in the same manner and with even more passion and fervor compared to my earliest law teaching days in UV Gullas Law School in 1977.

I have taught law and have been a Bar Reviewer in the colleges of law in UST, FEU, San Sebastian, Centro Escolar and UM. Today, I limit myself to San Beda Alabang and UE, Manila Law College and one more in Mindanao on-line. I have had many successful students who became bar topnotchers, congressmen, cabinet members, governors, mayors, RTC judges, appellate justices, Labor Arbiters, Commissioners and successful practitioners.

I have travelled the world and lived in three countries as a labor diplomat for nine years, in Taiwan, Kuwait and Malaysia. I am a travelling lecturer on comparative Asian laws and I go to lecture in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, and even in Kota Kinabalu, Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong, Beijing Tokyo, Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. All the time, while travelling, I still meet my clients on-line and my classes without fail.

With my family, I have gone to the Holy Land for a religious pilgrimage to Israel, Jordan and Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece. We went a Marian pilgrimage to Fatima in Portugal, the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, to the Sanctuaire de Notre Dame de Lourdes in France, the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris and to all the cathedrals, museums, castles, and palaces in France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain and Portugal. While on pilgrimage, I still conduct classes on-line at night.

We went to all the religious and cultural sites in Italy: to Duomo a Milano in Milan, to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, the St Mark's Basilica in Venice, the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, the Palladian Villas of the Veneto in the City of Vincenza, the Historic Centre of Sienna and the Historic Centre of Naples, the Castel del Monte, Of course, all these culminated in Rome, in the Basilica of St Peter and the Sistine Chapel.

I have travelled to the US many times because it is in the State of Washington where my five siblings reside permanently and in California, Nevada and New York, where my friends work and live as US citizens and permanent residents. I also visited more than 50 cities and 47 out of the 50 states in America, including Alaska and Hawaii. I have visited Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay, Panama and Ecuador, and went to Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. All the time, I work by the side, attending to clients by zoom and other platforms.

My wife and I have been married for 47 years going 50. My eldest son is a senior lawyer and my law books co-author, and my eldest daughter is a senior banker. My third child, a boy, is a corporate headhunter and master of talent acquisition. My fourth child, a boy, is a topnotch advertising executive handling major clients and corporate brands and conglomerates. My youngest is a lady graduate of Ateneo and UP, with degrees in social work and humanities. Shi is an advocate for social reforms and transformation.

For 76 years, I have done my best, worked so hard and will never stop working. To those who opine that I do not have a life, I would say work is my life and I enjoy it. Like my patron saint, St Joseph, I am God's co-worker and an instrument of God's continuing creation of the world. Work as Khalil Ginran says is Love Made visible. And work is my gift back to the Lord for the blessing of life He has given me so generously.