Thoughts in the Raw

I believe in the unjust judges, unjust laws principle. 

That naturally, a just society crafts just laws. But how just a society is depends not on its laws but on the measure it gives to its laws. Law magnifies justice and justice magnifies law. But everything in the system depends on what we put in.

This principle is quite similar to the thought behind the "broken windows" principle. That the tipping point between order and lawlessness are found in the little things... 
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The BBL is a means to achieve a dedicated end. It is a means, not an end; meant to produce the conditions that favor the establishment of a meaningful, durable, equitable peace in the ARMM region.

The BBL is not a guarantee of peace in Mindanao. Any mutually agreed upon version of this Basic Law still has to produce what the Basic Law promises to produce.

If a final version of the BBL passes Congressional muster, the responsibility of proving the worth of the BBL will pass from Congress to the constituent peoples of the BPE - their leadership especially. The proof of the Law shall be what the Law produces - as a means to a dedicated end.

Take our 1987 Constitution for example. Consider how our own Constitution remains dependent still on the political will residing within the Republic to materialize its ambitions. The BBL through the BPE will more or less encounter the same kind of proving.

The proving of the BBL will not be whether it passes Congressional muster or not. It will depend on how the Basic Law is allowed to take root among its constituent peoples in the ARMM region.

This is why my stand on the issue is resonant with the Catholic Church's stand - Give the BBL a chance. For it is but one question upon a path of many others. Give the journey a chance to begin. From there, many other answers need to be found. From there, the issue of the BBL will meet up with the Mamasapano issue.

Thus, give Congress enough time to address valid concerns about the quality of the Basic Law as well as surmount all legal and constitutional challenges about it

Because this much is true - Peace in the ARMM can be a cornerstone of a broader peace in Mindanao and therefore, a more perfect peace right across our Republic.

The vision we are working towards is worth the risk - so let us be careful.
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The fire in Valenzuela is horrible. I have been a fire victim myself but my experience is dwarfed and humbled by the experience of those who have lost friends and loved ones in Valenzuela. May God lead the souls of all those who perished into His safety and the hearts of all those who grieve for them into His solace.

This fire is the 3rd worst in our national memory. Adequate measures should be enacted so that both the City and the BFP may proactively ensure that fire safety is one of the foremost capability concern among business establishments. How can we lose 72 citizens in the way we lost them in Valenzuela just like that?
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I support the Bangsamoro

I support the Bangsamoro. 

By this, I mean all our brother and sister Filipino Muslims regardless of political faction or tribal distinction who desire for a better peace in the Philippines.

I am of the opinion that the BBL though an imperfect document fully represents in spirit the sincere desire shared by many Filipinos of a more perfect peace in Mindanao and that passage of the BBL will serve as a foundation toward the fulfillment of this hope.

I support the passage of a final form of the BBL with revisions in keeping with this spirit. 

The basic law is a means toward better means in the ARMM region. The BBL is not an end to itself. The passage of the BBL is not a guarantee of a perfect peace in Mindanao or elsewhere.

There is no such thing in this world as a perfect peace. 

Peace shall be something we as a nation must always strive for in every generation. Much more effort shall be needed on the part of our Republic after the passing of the BBL.

Therefore, preserving our unity as a Country for Filipinos and cohesion as a nation of Filipinos must be a part of the considerations being made in the current deliberations as regards the BBL.

One AFP and one PNP. We should insulate both military and law enforcement arms of the Republic from as much political considerations as much as possible.

Constitutional bodies must remain national in scope and accountability.

I think public education most especially in this new age where innovation as regards education is made necessary must at least be a concurrent power.

Funding must bear in mind the public nature of public funds. While I can see that the BPE is to be allowed a necessary head start, funding must eventually prove equitable and fair as a means toward better temporal ends for all provinces and regions across the Republic of the Philippines.

This is so as not to cause internal friction that might lead to destructive rivalries and popular discontent in and among our national communities and their representative, structural LGUs. To preserve that unity and cohesion necessary to carry forward, from strength to strength, into fruition the intentions and vision embedded in the BBL in consonance with the Republic vision founded on the 1987 Constitution.

That is all I can think of...

The earlier the BBL is passed, the better. The sooner its intended benefits reach our people closest to the soil of our earth - the bakwit or IDPs, the Badjao, the IPs, etc., the better.

What I submit through this post I intend as guidance. It is a personal expression of my own long-standing commitment to peace in the Philippines. My hope is to share them through this blog to the prudence and wisdom of our representations in Congress and all other Filipino souls interested in the bringing forth of a more perfect peace in our beloved Philippines; a peace for all Filipinos.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. May God bless us all.
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Friendship is the only real choice we can make in the night. We can not keep saying to each other in the night it is dark. And recognize each other not on account of the night.
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Beware of easy extremes: Absolutisms in a democracy are employed like demagoguery is employed in fascism. They stop people from thinking for themselves. For fascists, this is good. For a democracy, this is bad. Very bad indeed.

Ideas are a part of our lifeblood as a free people. 

Mamasapano and the BBL

Mamasapano and the BBL are issues distinct.

Justice and Politics are matters separate. They are related only in significance, one proceeds from the other.

Justice is indispensable and the truths Justice serves are changeless. For the ideals of Justice are older than time, original to being, and inherent in all living purpose.

(There is a kind of justice that harms. Sadly, we know of this kind of justice in the aberrations we feel our own justice system is capable of. Know it enough to harbor mistrust in the Justice of the State and even fear it. This we will reflect upon in a separate post.)

Politics is necessary but its effectiveness must rely upon how well our Justice is able to deliver - not to change what has already happened last Jan. 25, but to make amends and ultimately reconcile ourselves to what we had lost by the gain of their memory.

It would be disadvantageous to the Republic to confuse the pledge of Justice which is eternal with the mission of Politics which is temporal.

Anger will not serve us in the pursuit of Justice.

Anger if it can be transformed into a passion for what is necessarily a good, may fuel the Political but may also cause it to exceed itself. Politics are always bound by the real and what can be real is always limited by many things. Anger turned to hatred can be boundless.

We may recall to mind examples of this... politics of last resort. Politics must be joined to a vision that is a good that embraces the nation to safeguard it from excessive passion. Reason shepherding emotion.

Lives lost is never a political issue. These things do not go away. There is a saying, "the angry can be made happy but the dead can not come back to life."

This to me is a principal lesson that we ought to understand from Mamasapano:

Let us be careful when it comes to human life.

It pays to appreciate how fundamental human life is to our nationhood; how central human dignity and human promise are to the obtaining vision of the Republic and the success of the national peace.

Even if we were as a nation blessed by Providence enough to obtain from the memory of our painful experience in Mamasapano, the most good it may offer to our communities there will always remain among us the silence of those names... (if only we can hear what from behind the silence cries out...)

All of them, every one of us who perished during that day, everybody we lost who are each of them Filipino by grace of God - especially those civilians no matter how few who had nothing to do with battle and only wished for something better than a constant state of war.

We are, by our names, always more than just numbers. The visible universe is made up of numbers. We who behold the universe and ascribe it beauty are much more than the universe.

I want us to remember this...

For however political one may wax and for any reason one may think, they were all of them Filipino and this nation shall be made to account in the truth. The absence of this "we" presence in our hearts and therefore, in our times is a primary source of all our internal troubles.

I am not defending any evil done. I wish to consolidate in our thoughts and in our love on what in us is good that it may be easier for our communities to let those evil days flee in and of itself - because we are as we are.

Think about it.

Some say the Moro people do not or have never considered themselves to be Filipino. 

What matters to me however, is that I recognize the fact that they are. Because I am. And I will never do them justice as least spiritually if I allow myself to be swayed by the misguided political opinion of others.

In another place and time, all those whom we lost that day could have been fighting shoulder to shoulder for a cause that is common to all... building, building, building toward better days.

Some disagree with the usage of the word Filipino because of historical or other reasons. 

Words are both meaning and sound/script - essentially the meaning of words can neither be voiced or written. Words say something they can not really express by calling our attention to it - by sound or by other mediums physical.

Think about it.

What you hear or read and what you understand are two different things.

What matters is that one understands.

It is better to wear your truth inside your heart than to speak it loudly just to be heard.

Past generations of Filipinos including Rizal and Bonifacio and their illustrious generations did not have any qualms in the usage of the word Filipino. To challenge this now would only dislocate us further from the line of our history.

There is an expectation and a responsibility in citizenship. 

Most of the ideals that have shaped, informed, and enlightened our civics belong to the memory of the nation. Our identity remain constant to our mind and hearts even in the midst of change. For everything about being a Filipino are truths that are for always. All these things has to do with the national peace.

I wondered at one time what the real name of our nation is. Before the Philippines was. One can reach back into the past only so much until it becomes wishful thinking. Know the truth, and you will know the name of it. It is motion.

In the temporal realm, we go by name first introductions. The name itself is not as important as the acts that proceed from friendship or lack of it.

In the timeless, one recognizes the truth first, the motions of it, then the name. The name is the most intimate expression of unity, and makes it whole.

Our nation goes by the same principle... What matters is not things before, though we have an obligation to memory; not things a day past today, though we have a responsibility to duty and vision, what matters is the here and now.

Citizenship is what comes out of your heart.

And so I do not feel any prejudice nor am I imposing any upon anybody by saying I am Filipino.

A street kid once asked me for alms. I was by a fishball cart at the time and offered him fishball instead of money. He was happy to have it. I was happy to give it. And the fishball seller had a smile on his face... That smile gave me a thought. 

Who were we to each other to relate like that? We were not related by blood. We were in that timeless moments, Filipinos, that is why.

In a way, all nations are like that...
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In summary, 

The value of human life in this nation is to be realized. Human respect and the recognition of the human potential in every single Filipino is an aspect of our equality as citizens.

Integral to our sovereignty as a nation is the inestimable value of the life of each Filipino.

Mamasapano is a Justice issue. Central to this issue is the question of overkill or proportionality of response. If we lost too many because of administrative lapses (the sanctions of which I understand will vary accordingly), this is no excuse for us to have lost too much because of the bloodlust of a criminal few. These individuals being as they are - unchanged and unrepentant - have no place in Mamasapano, in the future Bangsamoro or in the whole of this Republic - ever.

The BBL is a Political issue. The citizenry ought to return to our ideals of what good governance is. How we, the people, commonly enjoy the simplest of everyday things within a state of domestic tranquility that may be characterized as dependable, durable, meaningful, equitable and quite cognizant of our human needs. And how this state of domestic tranquility may be shared.

Instead of tearing the basic law apart let us please ask, "how may the blessings of our democracy (meager though it may be at present) be shared more equally across the Republic, and in particular in the ARMM region?"

I believe the question of constitutionality is a question of accommodation first. 

What is truly unconstitutional is what is missing and what is lacking in our peace to make it more perfect. Why is the ARMM a failing experiment? What can the BBL contribute to make it work?

How may the promises of the 1987 Constitution be more effectively brought to the lives of the people on the ground in that beleaguered region?

Constitutionality becomes a question of exclusion only when we derive from it laws and political behaviors that are unclear, being furthest from the guidance and intent of its policies, principles, and provisions.

The BBL in the first instance is an approach at accommodation.

The legislature ought find the balance between the both Justice and Politics to arrive at a final form of the draft law; one that is effective, equitable, and compatible to the end by which the peace process is dedicated to - which is a more perfect peace in Mindanao and by extension, across our one Republic whole.

I, having determined my own limitations, will devote another post on my own personal observations on the draft law and go into detail about it. That I may keep my civic peace. And my thoughts be brought forth into the councils of the national conversation.
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What can I trust?

When I think about how much suspicions swirl about our thoughts these days, one thing becomes clear to me: These suspicions are up to no good.

Left unchecked, I can see these suspicions contribute only to the growth of more ill will. And lack of good will is not conducive to the prospering of the peace.

Then I ask myself, what can I trust?

I think there is a genuine desire for a meaningful, equitable, and durable peace in Mindanao and that this desire has taken hold in the soul of the Filipino nation. What I mean by this is that all who speak in behalf of peace in Mindanao are these days not just voices from Mindanao, not just voices from our Muslim brothers and sisters in the nation, but are from Filipinos across the entire width and breadth of our sheltering Republic.

Certainly the RPH itself not just the GPH wills to establish a meaningful, equitable, and durable peace in Miindanao and that the desire for peace in the Filipino nation remain sincere.

This is a truth I can trust.

Our President in being responsive to the clamor of the people for peace in Mindanao in his own heart I believe desire peace as sincerely as the rest of the nation.

The OPAPP too I believe is sincere and have done (and is still doing) their level human best to carry out the sovereign will of the Filipino people for peace through the authority of the Office of the President. I trust Sec. Deles, Atty Ferrer and Justice Leonen before her to be good, hard-working public servants and that all of them remain so notwithstanding everything.

OPAPP to include not just its visible public heads but all civil servants who comprise this Office were before and remain until now, committed to the Philippine Peace Process as a whole. The sincerity that pushes things forward in behalf of the RPH in them above all, I think has never wavered.

Having followed the GPH-MILF track for a time now, I have been witness to its highs and lows. There were two low points in the process; the first one was al-Barka and the second, Mamasapano. The latter one being indeed the most difficult one so far.

There will be more low times, I expect, but in the midst of these I equally also expect little victories along the way... If there were mistakes done, it surely must be corrected and I think all concerned are open to better means to achieve the singular end for which OPAPP was commissioned.

Let us be reminded that the peace process is being carried out on a broad front and is wider in scope than just the MILF track. Peace reform is a difficult thing but commensurate with its challenges are its hopes and the hope I myself believe a successful conclusion to the Philippine Peace Process as whole shall bring to full fruition in our Country is immense.

The MILF I believe likewise retains, a workable measure of sincerity.

All this sincerity I observe still endure even in the midst of the controversies at the wake of Mamasapano.
And these are practically seeds of good will; not yet fully maturated as measures of trust but exists in the form of a desire to be able to trust.

Indeed, trust within the nation has suffered and this wounding have made for unsettled days. However, even as suspicions swirl about dissipating like so much acrid smoke into the atmosphere of the nation, let this observer point to the fact that the desire to heal and to recoup what immaterial gains were lost to us still remains in almost all of us.

This makes me hopeful.

What can I trust? If not who at this time, what can I trust? 

There is a new definition of politics I have been chewing on... politics it stated - is a means to harmonize human relationships to advance the goals of the State.

Politics when it comes to pressing forward an agenda or a policy in a democratic forum can be a fight. That much is true especially when old molds need to be proven old to make way for the new, but politics too as stated above can be a decent, constructive conversation.

I can better appreciate the above way of thinking about politics... 

As a concerned citizen, I am for a politics that maximizes on the truths about our national conversation, avoids complexities, presents itself simply, humanly and faithfully, defines it advantages truthfully, and exploits nothing untruthfully.

To know the "goals of the State", we should refer to our Constitution. In all things, one thing I am sure of about politics is that it is a duty. It is not a lifestyle. And that there is an on/off switch to our being political creatures. Hence, public service is a calling not an ambition.

Anyway, back again to sincerity...

Firstly, we can trust our sincerity.

Let us give to each other at least, the benefit of the doubt - that we all still want in this Republic to serve and experience the common good. In this particular case, a broader, deeper peace in Mindanao.

Secondly, we can trust the truth.

Truth is what the beholder beholds in his or her heart to be. It just is. Capable of standing on its own. Truth is capable of defending itself. It fights. It sometimes bites. 

Because -

"Scripture is like a lion. Who ever heard of defending a lion? Just turn it loose; it will defend itself."
- Charles Spurgeon.

Truth is also as such.

So don't just believe in me because I say it, believe it because you know to believe it. Accept it because its true. Because as a human being, truth is I too can be wrong.

In the realm of things spiritual, where each of us live the interior life in our souls, often the hardest thing to do is to admit that, "I don't know". This in itself is a profound truth and opens for all seeking hearts, the way that lead into every good journey.

(Back again to topic...)

Public opinion is conflicted. But public sentiment is unified. Why?

We all thirst for peace. This thirst is but one thirst. And because we do, most everybody is asking in essence, the same question, "what is the truth"?. And truth can be many things to everybody.

The questions about the BBL ask the truth about the BBL - that we may together trust it.

For there are things we would like to know about the BBL - that we may together understand it.

It is only right to ask and to seek.

But if peace to us is important, in our doing so let us not so readily take to heart second and third hand information if we can help it. Let us care enough about what we commonly thirst for to seek to drink in the truth about everything from its primary sources.

I'll be honest, I have my limitations on what I can understand about the BBL. Thus, I am limited as to what questions I may ask that are truly relevant and constructive about it. Hence, I rely upon our Congress to do what they must... and seek to learn from what they find and accomplish in our behalf.

All this seeking in my own mind is indicative of the depth of our national sincerity; that our desire for a more perfect peace across our Philippines is not only just but also true.

Finally, I believe this seeking for truth as regards the BBL is a seeking that must be sought separately and apart from the political fallout of Mamasapano. It is my opinion that we should be able to make that distinction. It may serve us well to do so...

If our Congress can deliver the BBL on target, by or before June 4, so much the better.

We are dealing with a draft law. It must be scrutinized with legislative objectivity (as opposed to political subjectivity) else our representations in Congress lose sight of their own sincerity...

Truth is if this is done properly, everybody wins.

Everybody wins.

Perfect.
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The BBL at the wake of Mamasapano

The peace process as far as the MILF-GPH track goes have led us to the national debate about the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Mamasapano for all it's pain, was the catalyst.

It used to baffle me, and I once felt it to be slightly injurious, that all this attention to the peace process with the MILF has bubbled up into the national consciousness because of the pain that Mamasapano inflicted on the psyche of our peoplehood. It was a pain which was complicated and made even painful by the controversies surrounding that badly done operation.

Why do I say it was badly done? In memory of our fallen SAF, their wounded comrades, and their families - the performance at the tactical level on the field by those 44 that we lost along with those who survived Oplan Exodus was extraordinary, their legacy will always be glorious.

But we bled too much in Mamasapano. The entire Country knows it, understands it in our heart of hearts that we lost too many. Even for one such as Marwan, 44 was too much. I personally would that we had lost none, not a single one of them. Nada.

How do we bring justice to the fallen 44?

Continue with the peace process. Proceed smarter. Give the BBL a fighting chance. Recognize the hope invested in it. Find the lapses that were internal to the operation. Dispense with command authority. Quit assuming blame on the President. Wait. Command authority only applies when there is a clear and established chain of command which in this particular mission was deemed lacking. Why? Determine accountability and extent of administrative liability. The fault is structural first. It is personal last. Loop the families into what is being done. Determine criminal liability. Exhaust all means to enforce the law of the land, in coordination with the MILF through the AHJAG, where criminal liability is found and the persons culpable reasonably identified. See to it we never have to endure another "Mamasapano".

In time, when we have peace, we shall return to these terrible days of loss and make compensation for all lives lost to us - this time in spirit - and through a right remembrance of those days help to fully heal the nation. We shall build monuments to our unity. We shall honor war no longer but the virtues of our common peoplehood that led us all to peace. We will have renounced war within as well as without. And the defense of the Republic shall be stronger and surer for all of us.

The Mamasapano incident is illustrative of where our counter-terrorism efforts intersect with our internal peace and security efforts. Two distinct but very closely related things. Distinct because the MILF is not a terrorist organization. Closely related because terrorism at present is motivated by political exploitation of religiously inspired tensions. Let me underscore here that the landscape of terrorism is also evolving.

Terrorism is something I have thought about for some time now. I am careful about my labeling of something or someone as terrorist. I know accordingly when and where to apply the label. For I have seen and now believe it contrary to our efforts to contain the scope and spread of terrorism if such a word is left so broad as to escape a precise definition, at least, in the usage of the State.

Marwan is a terrorist. He was a callous and indiscriminate mass murderer. No matter his labeling of himself or his ideals, he is a political extremist. Left. Right. Center. It doesn't matter. His politics was way off base, serving an ideal/s less than human and therefore, more than real or possible.

One becomes a terrorist for the sake of politics alone. One crosses the line from peace to war through murder. Murder for the sake of justice. Murder in behalf of the nations. A lie for the sake of the truth. An affront to the collective dignity of the living communities of the earth.

What the State serves are human causes. Human causes natural to and evident of its own Nation. The particular Nation of which the State is sovereign expression of an intangible truth. Justice is what it speaks of. Not vengeance. Restoration. At the center of this Justice is Human Dignity and Human Promise. Goodness upon the earth. Humanity upon our humanity.

In Mamasapano, we got Marwan. And we will continue to hunt down, capture or kill terrorists such as he. It is clearly in our national interest to do so. In pursuit of counter-terror operations such as those which this Nation of ours through the Philippine State, as a Republic will very probably continue to mount, we, the people, may very well be asked again and again to make many small sacrifices for and in each the other's behalf. Some of us will render the full measure. Receiving loss for loss - continuing the violent cycle. Perhaps feeding it. To what end?

I think it is important to hear that the defeat of terrorism itself will not fully depend on operations such as that one we now will remember as Mamasapano. Politics at its very core is a hearts and minds game. When the ideals that espouse extremist politics that support terrorist thinking seem again what they really are, unreal and inhuman, terrorism will die. Person by person, terror as we know it will diminish. Not in the field alone shall the threat be fully countered, contained, deterred and finally diminished to the point of irrelevance.

Mortal fear is a negative freedom. To defend against it, we have to know when and where to defend.

Not so much that the people may be completely free from fear but in being inclined to the public good, fear not each other. Civic peace. Consider then, little acts of human kindness - mercy and compassion. For these things defend from terror just as mightily as the mightiest of arms.

Imagine for just a moment, just one hour of little acts of kindness multiplied by 100 million Filipino souls - what amount of good it does to the receiver, and more importantly what amount of good it does in the giver... multiply this further by the grace and the Providence of God.

In saying this, we return to the ideals of our national peace. Why do we forget that we are all Filipinos? That nobody wanted Mamasapano who believes in the promise of our peace as a Nation. I would hate to think Mamasapano is being politicized. There is nothing there that needs our convincing. No policy over it that needs defining. The pain is unanimous. The lessons clear.

We should be mourning all of our losses in this continuing war within ourselves. In saying this, I shall add to the Fallen 44, in the general list of casualties that our internal divisions have exacted from our nation through the years, the fighters from the MILF side that perished as well as the civilians who perished with them.

Why should anyone feel content or even happy to see everyday in the papers the mounting toll of decades worth of indifference and inaction on our part? Do we not know one life alone lived to its fullest can change our national destiny, alter it by degrees, make it a shade brighter, a tad more colorful...?

How much more can we dare to lose? How much more can we afford to overlook before the scale tips from light to dark and how slippery goes the slope from there... How easy it is to see all those lives lost without a care. As if we weren't graced by God to be one nation, as if we ourselves refused to embrace the legacy of our heroes, known and known to God alone.

So we return again to the peace process. It is good that we are talking about it.

Perhaps, the enlivening of the national conversation as regards the peace process in particular with the MILF was serendipitous of Mamasapano. Let us not lose the moment.

Let me just say that the BBL is not the end of all ends as regards the peace process with our brother and sister Muslim Filipinos. But as regards the GPH-MILF track, it well might be. It is important to give the BBL a fighting chance.

But equally important is to not lose our horizons despairing over the political what ifs being brought to play in our minds. The absolutisms of partisan politics. Good when good. But mostly bad. As if the only choices we got to deal with were either the BBL or an all-out war (or the BBL as it is or nothing). Because it isn't.

It isn't good for a democracy to be limited to black and white choices. Because often times, both black and white choices are wrong. Democracy is all about finding the middle course between two extremes. It is about having an honest conversation on issues that matter to all-in-the-nation. Horizontally across our communities as well as vertically up echelon to our leaders in the formal government of the State.

Democracy is the grace-inspired dawn of enlightened human reasoning in a nation. It is not the rule of the mob. It implies give and take. It requires listening and hearing and in between them, compromise. It is the caregiver and nurturer of the peace that our Republic is sworn to defend.

Trust is requisite to freedom. Respect is a requisite of trust. This respect as a shared belief in the necessity for mutual confidence between the central government and the BPE is written into the BBL as the principle of parity of esteem. Respect is also at the root of this principle. A respect which was built on years of dialogue and common action between the GPH, the OPAPP, and the MILF.

I think some of this fundamental sense of trust was tested during the Congressional hearings. I also think the MILF should do some soul searching because what was done to some of our troopers fall terribly short of the mutual respect they themselves require in the BBL. Discipline your forces.

When and where did we lose respect for each other? I think it was long before Mamasapano. A lingering pain from Colonial times. A wounding we long endured to the point where we became comfortable with the pain. A pain that have long eluded our capacity for social adaptation. A pain we adopted instead. It went right back into our national psyche. Not because we remembered but because we lack memory.

We are each fully accountable for each other. For as long as heaven recognizes the citizenship Providence Divine did vouchsafe for us in our hearts, all our generations together are each fully accountable for each other. Did we not implore the aid of God Almighty as a people in our 1987 Constitution?

We asked for trust yet show less respect. And the cycle begins again. Mamasapano had nothing to do with the peace process. Ideally. Were the Oplan that was its genesis redone without the mistakes we know were made on the fly, the peace track with the MILF would have not at all been - in any way - significantly associated with it. But now, the reality is - that it is.

All this attention is good. We can make great headway in the peace process through it. The BBL may benefit from it. I am not against the BBL. I am against a sloppily crafted version of it. I am against a version of it that lacks respect for the hope and the effort invested in it.

I am against whatever unfairness is therein contained in its draft form. Unfairness meaning any lack of equitable concern for the other communities wherein the BPE shall dwell in actuality amongst, in the context of its promised peace, a peace which we shall all likewise as one Nation make our own, like a wedding. One peace. For life.

Funding is one of my primary focuses. Because we are not yet that so well endowed with loose funds and constrained politicians. Funding and planning are two things intimately related in my mind. They are each a side to one coin. National security is my secondary focus, this includes civil defense, including effective public service commitments and real community policing. Education is my third. Human Fluency. These must be structurally spread equitably across the Republic. Most notably in the CAR which is the ARMM's closest political kin.

Fundamentally, constitutional bodies such as the COA, COMELEC, CSC, CHR and the Ombudsman must remain at the national level being wholly responsible to the one whole Filipino nation. I understand what is being called for as the asymmetry of political powers. But the branch should know where it must connect to the trunk and the trunk to the roots and the roots in the ground. Furthermore, there should only be one AFP and one PNP.

The CAFGU and its equivalent evolution or outright decommissioning after the peace process is another question altogether.

I want a vision from the BPE that goes beyond and above the constraints of the letters of its enabling law. I want to gauge the buoyancy of its spirit. Political commitments. Shared human causes. Subsidiarity.

And above all, moderation. Moderation in politics that preserves common respect. Respect in politics that encourages confidence in the process, and trust in the politicians. Not absolutisms. Truisms.

Not artless partisanship. Clubbing each other over the head like thugs. Patriotism. Helping each other along the way like citizens.

Politics is a fight. But whenever it is a noble fight. Like it is as one expects in watching the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, at least for the Pac-man, it shall be glorious. Glorious and profitable to the nation.
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A Milestone for Mindanao

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What War Expects?

If you are familiar with the theme of this blog, you must likewise know how happy I am for this moment. 

Alhamdulillah, Alleluia, Praise God - May all who share in this moment bless the LORD. And may we also bless each other for everything we have achieved so far and appreciate the dignity of the common work of Peace we have together set out to complete. 

Let us gain a fresh perspective on the way ahead from this triumphant vantage - and soldier on. 

Let us persevere in our Peace Process. The successes we achieve thought it I know will most certainly help to feed our families and our generations tomorrow. The Filipino shall be the better off for it.

Let us be more eager then - for more. For the reality of this success must have quickened something in us. Let us also find a way to get the NDFP (CPP-NPA-NDF) back to the peace table. 

Let us as one Nation together - do now what War does not expect. Let us do this in our souls - in behalf of everything we suffered. Much depend on it.

---<--@

Our right of ascent is Peace. Our way of ascent is Goodwill. And proceeds from the prevailing strength and clarity of our Peace. Peace in ourselves. Goodwill to others like ourselves

We renounce war not by policy. But by a free and human choice.

It is in our Constitution that we renounce war as an instrument of the State. It is contingent upon this Nation therefore, to enshrine Peace in our civic spirit and thought - being the Peace of who we are - as a free and sovereign people - and a Nation upon the earth.

The way of Amity between Nations, also in our Constitution, naturally proceeds from this, our Turning Away from War.

The War within the Filipino soul can not defend us.

It can neither feed our children, clothe our human dignity, embrace our human potential, nor may it hope to satiate our profound need for a strong and concentrated sense of national identity as Filipinos - one that reaches into the very soul of the Citizenship that lives in ourselves, a sense of the Truth, much more to us in substance - than just the word itself.

The Great Radicalizer

Who is the great radicalizer but the spirit of War?

Consistent,
persistent states of violent war
that reduce to meaningless suffering
unto despair -
the labor of our nations,
destroying the living fabric of our national communities,
and displacing the spirit and the memory
of entire peoples
from their own sense of common humanity.

War
that eventually calls down
an atmosphere (strange and unfamiliar)
that attracts radicals (i.e. political extremists)
from all walks of life -
and from all ways of religion.

But we, my people -

The Peace we shall share - together this time - shall be a great producer.

The Peace we are striving towards shall be a great producer of leaders, builders, farmers, fishers, merchants, artists, healers, craftsmen, and soldiers.

It shall be a Peace that sustains our common humanity and a Peace that obtains from God and All Heaven, every form of gift and blessing the LORD has promised our Father Abraham of old - for this Nation and all our kindred Nations in our one Family of Nations.

Learners we shall each be unto one another, knowing wonders - under this new Season and Sky.

It shall be our shelter in these times, and the overcoming strength of our generations.
---<--@


Keep Calm and Support the Bangsamoro

Some Thoughts on the Bangsamoro

The Bangsamoro is a National Initiative: It is therefore, the concern of all Filipino citizens. It is an effort to evolve the ARMM and learn from its lessons - and make it work.

Mindanao is endowed with much abundance. But it is run like a frontier - 'tis a place ever awash in a sea of uncertainty, its communities trapped between the ebbing and flowing tides of random sky and restless earth - never seeming to be able to change to master change.

But the Island of Mindanao does not constitute our Southernmost frontier, in fact, it is a center of gravity of our Republic - it owns one of the three Foundation Stars that form our National sufficiency.

What is it that make us sufficient as a Nation?

Our Republic is not random nor blind. Neither is the Peace that it promises empty.

Our Republic is a shelter of Peace. Its labor with ours, as a Nation across our generations, is to constantly ensure that the sovereign will of our people rise above random sky and conquer restless earth.

To be sufficient as a sovereign and free people is to be capable of sustaining this Peace. Not as a product of  strings of random events, the whim of tyrants, or an obscure fate but as the sum of our free and independent choices.

Indeed, this ability to ponder "what we are" (being) and "who we are" (becoming) came at a high cost in personal sacrifice and heroic dedication. Let us always remember - to Remember them - and seek to know them by their names.

We have suffered too much indeed in our struggle for self-determination to abandon our common destiny. The Bangsamoro is a result of this realization. It is a deliberate National effort to re-establish a meaningful, durable Peace in Mindanao.

AND is one of the many processes now taking place - in our hearts and minds - to take back from the brink - the soul of our Country and the spirit of our Republic center. It is a process that along with (1) the National Rebuild in the Visayas, (2) the difficult fight against Corruption in Luzon, (3) the labor to balance the ecological promise of Palawan with our Energy needs and stabilize our western frontier constitute the four main areas - under the Eternal vigilance of Almighty God - wherein this Peace is likewise being advanced - on a broad front - all across our Nation.

PEACE which is not an absence of conflict but a return to the Memory - of what we are - and - of who we are - that we are a "we" and that as a "we", we have belonged forever. Peace which overturns War - that the life of our people may find rest - and the enemies of our Peace find only restlessness. Peace which is the truth of something real to love, something real to defend with a zeal that can never be lost or misplaced.

For we can no longer allow ourselves to be divided by the idols of chance or the gods of ignorance. For this Nation answers to God alone and this House (Republic) serves the LORD, the one Sovereign of all Nations, above and beyond all things, seen and unseen.

- selah -

The one constant that may be presumed from the nature of frontier areas are that they are always peripheral to the politics of the central government - this to our Republic represents a problem of perspective. In the political arena, this tragically mistaken sense have denied from many of our common generations, the abundance of Mindanao, spawning policies and laws self-prejudicial to the well-being of our Republic and detrimental to the common weal of our being as a National whole - past, present, and forever.

This near-sighted politics of the frontier exists as a constant challenge to competent Ambassadorship - for what is peripheral to the National consciousness and what is central to the International consciousness are almost always in need of political synchronicity as well as human reciprocity - and so as a rule, good Ambassadors are always good managers of frontier politics - from the center - transforming them in accordance with specific foreign policy goals and specified state interests.

And most certainly, Mindanao does not require an Ambassador from Luzon. What we need to do is to draw Mindanao into the Republic center - where the Island, its peoples, and its star rightfully belongs - equally - with Luzon and the Visayas. We can not do this without winning the Peace in Mindanao for we can not win back to our Republic center that vital Foundation Star by remaining with the rule of War.

- selah -

As a direct result of a misguided perspective, the Island is trapped in poverty. Its people never knowing the enabling peace of our Republic sky and the life of its communities never knowing the empowering Good will of our Nationhood.

Poverty is the lot of Man and the labor of the Nations is to overcome it. We are here to work to be happy and be free to be wealthy. Simply put, the labor of our coming together as a Nation upon this world is to become rich - both - in the more lasting spiritual as well as in the more immediate material (or temporal) sense.

Our Republic exists not only to establish Peace, but to overcome poverty. But not artificial poverty. For we can not become fully established - as a Nation - in the sovereign labor of obtaining from Heaven - in behalf of the Earth, our legacy of Justice and the heritage of our National Wealth - without Peace among ourselves.

Coincidentally, the former secessionist spirit of both the MNLF and the MILF were fed by this problem of perspective. Because this problem - compounded by increasingly provincial politics - espoused a sense of inequality that is uncomfortable in a Republic.

It is uncomfortable because we were already established as a Nation before God. Else, we would feel no compunction. It is uncomfortable to us as a Nation because it is unjust before God and inhuman before the Memory of our people.

It is uncomfortable to the point of bitterness and the shedding of so much blood and tears. Both factions have heretofore, according to all our understanding - repudiated this separatist mission. Because now we are pursuing a common mission of Peace - together this time - in the Bangsamoro vision.

The fact that there are deep and ancient divisions between the two great Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam that together shape the living culture of our Republic - in the past - often did nothing to heal all those simmering political rifts, many a time adding only to the heat of those many fires that in the darkness consume instead of shedding more of the light that in the darkness leads out into the Truth. And so we have fought among ourselves to dismiss and disown the Truth for so long...

Until this new time, until this new season under heaven...

Indeed, these present days - it would be a sin not to recognize the fact that we can, as a Nation - accomplish nothing further by being divided in our hearts and in Mindanao we may find the main epicenter of this division - this fragmentation in our soul of Country. (The Visayas may feel it too, to a lesser extent - but at large, we are faced with a different set of challenges to win for ourselves that Star).

And it can all be explained by the fact that we have not done enough to draw Mindanao to the center of our Republic and address this fundamental sense of inequality that leaves so many of the least and littlest among our peoples in the shadow - apart from the light of our three stars, and away from the reach of our one sun.

To become sufficient in our Nationhood, we must in spirit - become one people - to become this, as our 1987 Constitution does not include within it, a deeper reflection on the spirit and the character of our citizenship (as it relates to the fundamental natures of our democracy and of our Republic), we must come to a deeper REALIZATION in ourselves of the spirit and character of our citizenship - one with another.

AND we are, as a Nation, the most sufficient when we do our utmost for God and Country - when we seek the good, know the good, and do the good - and to be citizens not unlike each other in this way.

None of us is a Filipino citizen unless one accepts this basic equality - to do unto each other - equal Justice before God - through our one Republic undertaking of Country - and to fear no evil - by virtue of a common civic spirit.

This common civic spirit binds us deeper than blood ties and liberates us from tribal limitations that we may - as citizens of creation - come to know greater freedoms.

These bonds of citizenship are what makes us a cohesive democratic society - it is this fundamental equality as citizens that allow us to endure and in freedom prevail.

BUT what make us truly a Republic is the constancy with which we learn to freely and humanly live out this sufficiency to allow us - with every cycle of our generations - to ascend the way of our Maturity and obtain from the Truth its fullness - in the all of us - for the All of us.

- selah -

Those three stars on Old Defiant represent to us - our being - as a Nation, and its relationship to our sun represents - our becoming - in our Republic.

Before God - at every time and place, all Filipinos true to our Memory profess this as truth - that before the LORD and the assembly of the Nations before God in Eternity - we receive freely in our souls - this being - and - this becoming - as citizens not unlike to each other.

AND our sun is the symbol of the unconquerable Dream of freedom (in God and through God's Country) within which every single Filipino dream of happiness is to be forever possessed in its golden pursuit.

This is our basic equality as citizens before God and its fundamental activity is - to seek to be good, to know to be good and to do what is good - to proceed from Benignity to establish - a dominion of Justice upon our souls - and the rule of Law upon our soil - and the realms of Sacred Life preserve upon this Earth - and to make it all "very good" before the LORD - and on each other's behalf - through His Peace - and in Good will of our common humanity - forever as Nations - of the one Family of the Nations of the Children of Mankind.
---<--@

Across the Land

We can not hold ground that we do not hold first in our hearts. 

Thank you, Army Boots. 

To all who through our most recent crisis in Mindanao gave to our Nation, their best, their bravest, and their finest to defend the life of the national community in Zamboanga City and preserve the hope of the dawning of better days in our Mindanao, salamat po. 

May God bless all those who saw us through the crisis - civilians, police, and armed forces personnel - citizens not unlike each of us, who honor us by the shining example of their citizenship, along with those who now live in our eternal remembrance. 

May the sacrifices that they made together never be in vain.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.

---<--@

Personal Reflection -

20130920, Friday - I look again toward Zamboanga, contemplating whether I was too overzealous in believing the crisis to be over in that besieged City of our beloved Republic, and observe that - yes, it had already peaked. It's tide is turned.

Conflicts, especially armed conflict, when they are fought from within a nation is never a contest that is fought on ground, air, or sea, but in the spirit; their battles won and lost from inside the soul of the people.

We are not a nation at war with another. As such, we can not apply ourselves to the task of overcoming with military force, "the enemy" - in the conventional sense of the word.

To do so would only create and re-create the conditions that propagate the divisions that plague the soul of our nationhood and afflict our spirit like a lingering, festering, sickening malaise.

We can not use the arms of our own nation to annihilate itself - our nationhood would soon also act to afflict us with the pain of burdens (debt of remembrance) meant to pierce the darkness that hold us back from the memory of ourselves as ourselves.

We are a nation involved in a struggle to overthrow the bondage of a war within ourselves. We do not aim to overcome, nor can we, our own nationhood against each other - our aim must be to allow a space for it and establish an equilibrium whereby our spirit as a human people can compose and settle itself in our minds and in our hearts - that we may stir no more with the stirring of war - this is why a meaningful peace to all of us is important. 

Because relief to our Muslim brothers and sisters does not mean to feed them, clothe them, shelter them, and offer them opportunities in places far from their hearts.

Relief to our Muslim brothers and sisters means to obtain for them, and with their help, relief from hunger, the safety of law, protection from war in a place near to their hearts wherein their community can prosper and grow, thriving in peace alongside all the communities within our nation.

This is how we shall give them relief. We will help them establish themselves in community at peace within the peace of our Republic.

I think this is the aspiration behind the Bangsamoro - and this is why we must help them - because there is no them and us - only a "we". And to ignore this is to call down upon ourselves a dark and deepening madness of a night without a twilight.

But are we not the Land of the Morning?

Therefore, as regards to the particular situation we find ourselves now in Zamboanga -

The less strong the enemy will - only in this particular - the less strenuous should be our exertion to do battle with them in the field. They fight on our terms now. For this is the time, at the waning away of each of their greatest advantages in warfare, that we are able to expose the strategy that brought their cause into conflict with our military and the politics behind it, that needs unmasking, that it may revert once again into mere opinion and thus, be permanently undone.

Our mercy should fall only on those deceived by the art of their warfare - for indeed, they have fallen short of it's craft and it's intended truth. They fight for the benefit of fighting, while our soldiery defend against their violence. For they hate the love unto which we all must return to when the call to the greater building of the national community is issued once again, particularly in the City of Zamboanga, as it must, for all the days of war are numbered, but numberless are the ages of peace - and we do not stand as a nation to add to the life of the spirit of war but to hasten it's eventual extinction.

We should always leave an avenue of surrender - a way of return to the Nation - and break them by their bones by stripping their command structure bare who needs breaking - that their violence against the peace of our people cease - that they who with all their hostage taking, their murdering, their abusing, their will of death - reap the consequences of the freedom they embraced.

To a man with no sense of remembrance, one hundred people murdered in war and one million people murdered in war makes no difference.

But to those who know of sacred remembrance - to save one life, is to save all of mankind.
---

20130928 Saturday - At the conclusion of military operations in Zamboanga City -



Within that 20 day siege we lost more than 200 people - all of them human beings, all of them citizens of this Nation - 23 of whom are from the ranks of our soldiers and police with more than 100,000 - Muslim and Christian alike - displaced by the fighting with some Muslims reportedly prevented by the outbreak of hostilities from doing their Hajj.

This is not to mention the physical, emotional and psychological wounds of those civilians who were taken hostage agaisnt their by the rogue MNLF contingent along with the deep spiritual wounding that the whole community of Zamboanga must  now be suffering from.

The material cost of this episode may be something that experts can qualitatively surmise but of our deeper immaterial losses here, we can only maintain a vigilance, because while it's easy to tell when the blood stops bleeding, the guns stop firing, and the building stop burning, the end of tears are harder to tell - for there are tears that flow invisibly - shed from the soul long after the eyes have stopped weeping.

It will take the whole Nation to hope to contain all that hurt - a hurt that I am sure shall linger on - and linger on long after the event has quietly slipped away from the attention of the press, the politics, and the majority of the public. Therefore, their community shall require - for their longer term healing - the focus of pertinent national institutions and related civic and religious organizations concerned about the relief of human suffering and the quality of life of human community.

All Cities in our Republic share an equality of function and this is the most important equality that dictates the strength of the freedom they possess to continually realize, in the lives of their citizens, the hopes they are by this Republic our entrusted with - an equality of being - for their most certain endowment is their simply existing and to affirm and to continually recognize this equality is to strengthen - collectively - our sovereignty.

Zamboanga needs the help of her sister Cities in the Republic - here, at the conclusion of the fight - our military, police, firemen, emergency personnel and various other first responders showed - in exemplary fashion - how they honor our Nation by their citizenship through faithfulness and excellence, each in their respective calling to serve. What must now flow in - is the rest of us - who with willing hands and helping hearts shall deliver another decisive blow - this time against that spirit of division that has no place in our communities and help Zamboanga to eventually heal.

Bangsamoro: A Dialogue of Unity

This does not mean the way ahead shall be easier for our nation, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, but it does mean we shall now have more of our own strength to overcome the difficulties that lie ahead of our peoples. Our unity does not make the straight path easier, it makes the journey safer... for all Filipinos.

For today we have resolved to walk the way of our nationhood - together this time - in the shelter of peace than in the shadow of war.



"Bangsamoro" shall be the dialogue of unity we shall now have with our Muslim brothers and sisters of the Promise within our one nation. It shall be a continuing dialogue - political, economic, cultural, and spiritual - but most of all, it shall be national. For within it we shall now endeavor to speak with one voice.

Within and between the nations there exists this vital dialogue (mostly invisible) composed of thought, time, discernment, and will - flowing like a river of whose tributaries lie at the heart of each of our citizens, a river that nourishes everything that is built and grows in our Republic. The freer the flow of this river, the mightier the reality of our peace together, the better our peace, the greater our prosperity - spiritual as well as material. 

(Material riches by themselves alone bring only misery and to claim to be spiritually rich without economic prosperity is a lie. To be truly rich, my nation, is to be rich indeed - in spirit and in time.)

Let us remember this, my brothers and sisters of the Promise - we who are raised from the diversity of the earth and joined by Providence Divine into one heart, one labor, one destiny:

We are a free people and so must continually exercise this liberty in order to temper it and make it strong, being very much aware of its costs and its inestimable value to the life of our Republic undertaking of Country.

Let us know that if we shall now choose to begin speaking with and to each other as citizens and human beings equally engaged in building a shelter of Country worthy of our common peace together as Filipinos...

If we shall now choose to become more than the words and become the essence of the nationhood inside of ourselves...

If we shall now choose to secede from the rule of War that have for so long denied from our generations (and from our world) the blessings of our own nationhood and enter into this new conversation of peace and national unity and human good will - together this time - we reclaim the hopes of the past...

And it shall serve us well, my people, for we too shall have been reclaimed by their memory. What we have lost in those terrible years of internecine conflict before this time would not have been in vain.

For we would have begun through this conversation to come alive to their enduring legacy.

No one falls back to the earth without uttering this one hope in the heart - a hope for better days, a hope for brighter times, a hope for kinder tomorrows... a hope for peace. Shall we, as a nation before God, abandon the remembrance of our dead to feed the hunger of War?

My people, my beloved people, the new age opens itself up only to those who are willing to enter into its embrace - my brothers and sisters of the Promise, and this - this seminal peace - is the way for our nation to enter into the new age.

Go and look at the darkness that we leave behind us - the depth and terribleness of it - and let us each ask ourselves today if there is any other way.

Let us reflect upon those tomorrows we, the people, commonly dream of - a future that is our right and our destiny - and let us seize the moment. Let us gather unto the gathering of our nation and heed the call of our peace - today is the day and now is the favorable season.

Let us allow ourselves to be joined together as one Country - being distinct in each person, family, and tribe, but never again distant in spirit - let us entrust ourselves to each other as citizens under the vigilance of Almighty God - let us work for this one outcome - that of unity - together this time

For our enduring compact is one of unity - in this compact we shall entrust to each other our everlasting good being called by Providence into one nation forever.

I have printed a copy of the Framework Agreement and shall be with you in prayer as well as in the labor to complete a comprehensive agreement by the end of this year, 2012.

Indeed, we have much work to do but I can see now that no longer - after this year - shall it be a labor of bitterest tears but a labor of hope.

My heartfelt thanks goes to the negotiating teams from the GPH and the MILF, the MNLF, and above all OPAPP and the Office of the President, as well as the tireless efforts of those nations - especially Malaysia - who have offered us the third element necessary in all peace processes - that of Peacemaker; a conqueror of heights.

May we all be blessed, may all be blessed by all - mabuhay po ang Bangsamoro at mabuhay po ang Pilipinas nating lahat: Shalom. Salaam. Peace - God bless us all.
---<--@

The brightness of thy Banner undiminished in triumph waves,

the glory of thy stars and sun are lights that shall never fade.

Ang kislap ng watawat mo'y tagumpay na nagniningning,
ang bituin at araw niya'y kailanpama'y di magdidilim.

Salutation #69

Do you think hatred cares

what wood it may devour

to keep from burning out?

Nay!

It shall seek to devour all trees

and consume the whole orchard!

For hatred is a dark fire

and shall burn until it is out.

Hate is never meant to last.

But Love is a bright fire.

Love consumes but is never consumed.

Love burns Eternal.

- selah -

What limits War from prevailing over our communities

is the presence of those who despite all the violence and the rage,

continue to hope, pray and work tirelessly for peace in this Country

all those who in spite of this unhappy state

of a prevailing temporal enmity among brothers

have chosen - in their heart of hearts -

to place unity over division for the good of all Filipinos.

What limits the darkness

of the Night from devouring our nation

is the presence of these living lights

who are of the stars of our Father Abraham

and born to that one promise of old

that we shall bless our national communities;

a promise made not by any Man

but of the one God of all Mankind.

(A Message to the Bangsamoro)

To the Bangsamoro -

Peace, I salute you.

I acknowledge each of you,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise,

as you are - and so -

as you cherish yourselves,

I cherish you.

And I tell you no lies.

Because what I want for us is peace.

You possess through your lineages

a distinct cultural and ethnic identity

containing within each yourselves,

a noble and lasting heritage,

worthy of our one Republic undertaking.

I also realize

- there still lingers -

the evil of days past.

I offer you no apologies for them.

For I too am hurt

by the pain of those evil days.

Though I am not born from thy own descent,

I am hurting as you are hurting.

For I am different yet I am the same.

(And I am certain there are many others

who are like myself - a citizen not unlike yourself.)

- selah -

O Bangsamoro peoples,

there are some things we can never undo,

for they are not meant to be undone.

Some pains are meant to bear us away

from the evil of things past.

The darkness of the night

can never flow back into itself.

It may only deepen - if we are not wise -

and darkness that is deep is madness.

If we focus on the pain of our history,

we shall be found forever looking backward

being without a present and without a future.

For the hurt that we witness in our history

- goes deeper and deeper into the darkness past -

but the wound we need to commonly address

must always rise into the present.

Truly, the past can be painful

but we can never heal these hurts

without first letting go of them.

We have a history and also a destiny.

We are one nation - Now.

We are one people

beloved of God and bound

to the freedom of each others' gifts

into one Republic undertaking of Country.

We represent each other's common human hopes.

Therefore,

I will not allow you to be forsaken in the night.

Believe thee with me

we have suffered enough

and the recompense we desire

is a just and lasting peace

for our one undertaking of Country.

This is why I am ardently supporting

a lasting and meaningful peace in Mindanao

specifically to bring to your homelands,

a measure of prosperity and freedom

that is met for you - and -

to bear our Country away, here today,

into a future that is met for all Filipinos.

For we are a forward looking nation.

and must now look eastward to the dawn.

I realize - that -

we shall face many difficulties

along the way - this for is certain -

but a nation is intended by God

to overcome these difficulties.

No one individual, family, or tribe

can master the untamed earth

nor can any human community

short of a nation among a family of nations

- build up the inhabited earth -

and fill the darkness of this world

with living lights.

However,

only a nation united

- as one truth in the heart -

shall prevail over the unknown earth.

Indeed,

we shall do this work of raising a Republic

worth all our sacrifices and common dreams

as one nation - together this time -

one whole sky.

We shall build a shelter of Country

for all our generations - mabuhay!

If we are merciful to ourselves, O my nations,

if we value the life that take their shelter under our wings,

we shall ardently seek peace, one with another.

We shall look to the dawning of the new age and never look back.

Eid'l Adha Mubarak!

---<--@

Salutation #61

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