Do you ever follow that hunch or figurative voice in your head? Have you had cases were a premonition was so powerful that you just had to do something?

I have in many instances had this eerie feeling of uneasiness so bothering that in a split second I am simply compelled to act on it. My reactions are akin to becoming instinctive and in a microsecond virtually instantaneous.

I was then going home after a whole day of classes at the University of the Philippines where I was taking up Psychology Pre-Med. The first bus that had a lot of available seats was my choice and I immediately took the seat at the very back of the vehicle. Suddenly, I had this unsettling and unexplainable feeling. I immediately stood up and sat on an empty seat four rows away. Almost instantly the bus was rocked by a loud crash and it started to skid and go in a slowly dizzying tight circle that had me plastered on my seat. After it was over, with the bus facing the wrong side of the Epifanio delos Santos Avenue, I happened to look back. The rear of the bus where I was seated a few seconds earlier had caved in and the back seat was literally non-existent… crumpled and folded like an accordion together with the second row in a Gordian knot of metal, upholstery and wood.

Decades later, my wife and I were going home to San Pedro, Laguna after having gone shopping in Makati City. Air-conditioned buses were lined up and being filled to capacity one after the other. We were told by the barker that there were still two more seats available and the bus would be leaving at once. We boarded and made our way to the vacant seats which were to the rear of the bus. Midway, I suddenly told my wife that we were taking the next bus even if we had to wait for it to be filled up. My wife started to protest saying that she wanted to go home and was very tired. However, I simply made an about face, went down and she followed behind. The second bus did take some time but we eventually left for home. After over an hour, we happened on the first bus stopped on the side of a turnpike with a lot of people milling about. The said bus’ conductor boarded our ride and declared that they were held up by a couple of armed robbers. All the passengers lost their money, jewelry and belongings!

The year was 1995, I was negotiating the steps to the Philippine Ambassadors office in Seoul, Korea where I was requested to assist in the preparation of a report on workers welfare and protection for the then Gancayco Commission, an offshoot of the hanging of a Filipina worker in Singapore. For no particular reason, I missed a step and almost fell down the stairwell. A feat that was so improbable as the steps were carpeted and not slippery. Again that uneasy feeling propelled me to find a phone and call home at once. I was greeted by our crying househelp who told me that my nephew who was our neighbor and was very close to me had just died a few minutes ago!

This time finds me in an overseas post as a Senior Administrator in an Italian company in Libya. The feeling again had me very fidgety. I instantly went outside our camp and made a long distance call to my wife. When she answered the phone, I asked her at once what happened. She replied that our neighbors' house just burned down that night and that she was so scared.

Still a lot of cases have happened involving possible harm to myself and those close to me. In my desire to rationalize these incidents, I chose to ascribe them to reflexes which were somehow likely honed through my decades of exposure to martial arts training. However, whenever I feel uneasy, I always decide to change course and choose a different path or immediately act on my now familiar intuitive jolt. Whether anything happens or not is basically of no consequence since this uneasy feeling, that tugs behind my mind, has always protected and signaled me of danger to myself or my loved ones.