My honorable Filipino compatriots, don't you know we have not yet begun to build?
You must never allow yourselves to become prone to comparing our Country with others before our time. This inclination only leads to disillusionment, bitterness and despair.
Whatever difficulties God has set before our nation is sufficient for us in our day. Verily, God allows each undertaking of Country upon the earth a measure of evil sufficient for the good of each nation according to His most beneficent design for all the children of Mankind.
If today we somehow feel we do not yet possess a sense of national history illustrious enough to satiate that desire within our collective memory as a people, it is only because this history is still being written for us and by us even this very day.
Never must you delve again into the things we ought not to be, my nation, because what we take into our hearts these days will invariably dictate what our generations make of this land and its peoples.
Therefore, we must, under the eternal vigilance of Almighty God, exercise our citizenship to each other with the utmost fidelity.
If we are to emerge into our ages in time, we must know by instinct that as far as Country goes, we are all Filipinos - one work, one people, one destiny.
This is not to say that we shall allow evil to dwell in our land, this is to say that we shall now work to banish it - into the void, forever. For true citizenship does not make deals with the evil in all evil things.
But let us also not forget, my fellow Filipino compatriots, here in this present time, that we are still at the twilight of our present awakening. Here, O my nation, where our greatest enemy is truly only the darkness itself (or as Kenneth Cragg eloquently stated in his book, "Palestine", the guilt of structures, the wrongs of society i.e. the inhumanity in interhumanity).
Therefore, let us be gentler in our dealings with one another. Let us be kinder in our perceptions about ourselves. We have no other master now but the freedoms our nation have gained for itself at such a cost; a liberty we must continually purchase with much sacrifice and vigilance of heart.
We have no other sovereign now but the LORD Whose manifest will it is for us to succeed in our quest for an abiding peace and true self-determination; God Whose most efficacious and decisive assistance we may always rely upon.
Never again must you lose sight of the hope that we have always possessed as a people. Nor the love that must forever bind us all together in our authentic human freedoms. Nor the faith that allow for our nation to overcome all that is adversity.
In the midst of these present travails, O my people, never again must you believe in despair. Be generous in this way, my nation Philippines, and we shall not fail to see the morning dawn upon this Land of Promise.
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For the Philippine Peace Process:
Concentrate on building up the national community. This is our primary task.
Let us not forget that the foundation of a meaningful, sustainable, durable peace is a strong and vibrant national community.
If we neglect this or lose sight of it, we will - as ordinary citizens, lose our necessary sense of an abiding connection to the larger process of peace-building that we, as a nation, have duly invested in our responsible state.
This larger peace process is only secondary to this task of nation-building with which we as ordinary citizens are everyday engaged.
Everything we do as a nation is connected to this larger peace process (and this larger peace process is also connected to the greater peace-building initiatives around our world).
In this way, your smallest kindness counts for much. If you are to be kind to our poor and needy compatriots, you affirm the peace in our communities. If you help them but above all teach them to be right about themselves as citizens, one to another, you add to the strength of our civil order.
Nothing that is good is ever lost. For all good things contain in them something that is true about ourselves as human beings and all true things cleave to each other in the light - for as these are the things that are truly worth remembering, these are also the things that angels remember, that God does not forget.
So strive to always fulfill what good God places before your heart. Do not cling to evil things nor be influenced by it.
The peace process walks on two fronts - nation to nation and state to state. I am speaking this to you as part of the nation.
It would be a hollow victory indeed to have peace on paper alone. Do not be discouraged. Break the rule of war (division) in your hearts and make the choice to shed away the darkness forever.
Be generous in this way, my nation Philippines, and we shall not fail to see the morning dawn upon this Land of Promise.
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An Abrahamic Prayer:
LORD God, We humbly implore Thee: help all of Thy Muslims, help all of Thy Jews, help all of Thy Christians, help us in all Thy nations, dear God. Help us to find each other in the dark.
Incline each our hearts unto Thee, O LORD, our one True Light. Refresh our spirits. May we be as a people after Thy own Heart, O LORD, all Thy numberless stars, guided by the light of Thy peace and blessed by Thy will of good for all Mankind.
Forsake us not, O LORD, lest we perish in the darkness. Fulfill in us that promise Thou swore to our Father Abraham, that promise Thou hast made of old, O LORD, that Thou shalt lead us ever onward, that Thou shalt guide us toward the building of a better world for all Thy nations.
By the light of Thy own faithfulness, O LORD, bind us together in the unity of Thy own Truth. Establish Thy Holy Presence in our hearts as a revelation upon the nations, that Thou art God, O LORD, He Who is, the LORD and let this be as the dawning of Thy glory upon the earth.
AMEN.
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Serviam (Serve): This is what is meant by the last will be first and the first will be last.
Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.
Angelo Reyes (19450317 - 20110208) via con Dios.
Are we not all Filipinos? This is the bottom line: We have lost one of our own.
However which way we are to receive his passing away, we are still the lonelier now for it and for this I am grieved.
Nation-State