US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Philippines a few days ago to grace the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. In between the events regarding the said celebration, Hillary Clinton also attended a forum organized by GMA News and the Embassy of the United States of America in the Philippines.

On the eve of the forum, GMA News tweeted, “Any light questions (i.e. What makes you smile? et al.) for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Tweet using #SecClintonManila hashtag.”

Knowing that there’s no harm in trying, I replied to the said tweet with a question for Hillary Clinton. I asked, “What’s on your iPod?”

I hope nobody stones me to death for asking a shallow question. GMA News asked for light questions and I gave them one.

But how did I come up with the said question?

Here’s the story. I just finished reading Steve Jobs’s biography by Walter Isaacson about a week ago. I remembered that Isaacson talked (wrote) about the contents of Steve Jobs’s iPod quite extensively. He also wrote about how Steve Jobs loved Bob Dylan. That part of the Steve Jobs’s biography made me think-slash-wonder about the kind of music famous people listen to.

I didn’t actually care whether GMA News would ask Hillary Clinton to answer my question or not. I just wanted to ask the said question.

The forum Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Conversation in Manila aired on GMA News TV 11 and was also streamed live on the Internet last November 16, 2011 at around 2:30pm. I wasn’t able to watch it live because I was in school (I was in my Philippine Literature class at that time).

When I arrived home at around 4:00pm, I immediately checked GMA News TV and I discovered that the forum was already over. So, I turned to Twitter to check on what transpired during the said forum. I did not see any hint that my question was answered. But I remember reading that Hillary Clinton is a BlackBerry person.

I was sad and heartbroken although I didn’t expect anything at all. But how can GMA News ignore such a witty question? And so I tweeted, “So @gmanews didn’t ask my iPod question for Sec Clinton. 🙁 #SecClintonManila”

But I was wrong. GMA News did ask my iPod question for Secretary Clinton.

At around 9:00pm, my sister, Dianne, arrived home and turned on the television just in time to see a portion of Station of the Nation Address’s (a news program) feature on the said forum. GMA News included in that feature the clip wherein Secretary Clinton was answering my question.

I jumped. I screamed. I danced. I did some crazy things to express how happy, ecstatic I was upon learning that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually answered my question! 

I don’t care if I was not invited to attend the said forum. I am happy and grateful because I was able to ask Hillary Clinton a question and she answered! And she answered lengthily!

Thank you to everyone who made this possible! You don’t know how much you made this lowly creature happy.