Citizen
My name is Filipino citizen.
The name of my nation is Peace.
Peace means, "we belong".
My work is Freedom.
My ambition is called Happiness.
My calling is known as Truth.
My name is Filipino citizen.
My family name is called Endless.
It means, "I love".
My Country is called Promise.
The land of my fathers is called Bountiful.
The name of my city is Friendship.
The name of my religion is Sacred Life.
My God is called Beautiful.
Beautiful means, "We are one".
My government is Service.
The name of our leader is Servant.
It means, "Great Soul".
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PHL in the ICC: Strengthening Asia's Posture on Justice and Human Rights
Judge Sang-Hyun Song (Republic of Korea), first Asian President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), in an article printed on the opinion/editorial page of the Daily Inquirer dated around February 28 or March 1, invited this Republic to ratify the Rome Statute (adopted in 1998 and joined by 114 nations).
I should like to voice out through this post my unwavering support of the above invitation:
This one Republic of the Filipino people should move to ratify the Rome Statute and officially join the ICC where I believe we can make a good contribution towards strengthening Asia's posture on Justice and Human Rights.
YEA. It think now is a good time.
(Too, I think it would have been better if OBL had his day at the ICC. The past is the past however and the issue of paramount concern remains a conclusive as well as a comprehensive end to this War on Terror.)
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Taxation is an often misunderstood subject. Of the three elements of Country, the burden of taxation belongs to the nation.
It belongs to the people to share this burden.
Because the public funds that are being constantly replenished through the activity of taxation belong also to the people. That means us, my fellow Filipino compatriots.
It is our representative Congress that holds the purse strings of government.
It pays for all necessary government services, it builds public infrastructures, and it helps to enrich the Common Market.
It even pays for the upkeep of our laws.
The Republic government through its institutions in the executive sphere are intermediaries that facilitate and enforce the process. But the benefits of sharing the tax burden must always return to the national trust - or at least, it always should.
It is a good thing to know that the government has been busy in this regard. It was recently reported in the news that tax targets are all being met. This is good news.
Part of the work to diminish corruption in our Country is to restore our common confidence in the public trust.
If we are to reconstitute these
social contracts that keep the peace and comprise the civic order our national communities, we must as individual citizens begin by learning how to once again place our confidence in these national processes.
Taxation (which drive forward the economy of the national trust) is an unmistakable litmus test in the fight against corruption.
We can gauge it truly by its visible, natural, material results.
But it really must come from we, the people, first.
It
requires a certain sense of moral bravery and personal integrity to discharge our tax duties as citizens as well as to responsibly receive these taxes from the citizenry as public servants in the government.
It is first and foremost something that is done out of a sense of personal justice.
However, these duties are mutually safeguarded also by the laws of the Republic to preserve the interests of the common good of the people.
That other people seem wanting in this duty, whether factual or perceived, whether least or great, alone or with others, is not an excuse to fail or to fall short of the civic virtue required of our common citizenry in the sharing of the tax burden.
Or to willfully break the laws that are the foundations of our social cohesion as a nation.
Also, the personal generosity of those individuals, who out of their great patriotic sentiments, go above and beyond, and therefore, apart from what is ordinarily expected in the actual sharing of this burden of taxation must also be appreciated and the spirit of their philanthropy promoted and remembered.
For what goes above and beyond the ordinary requirements of taxation in the building of the peace of our nation belong to the realm of charity and sacred duty which
transcends the realm of civic duty and fills another vital economy - that of divine grace.
The yoke that we wear now is the yoke that this nation also shares with God. It is
the double yoke of which Jesus spoke of in the Gospels. Because the burden of the national undertaking is one that we also share with God Who everyday fights for us with and through His grace.
It should be light to those who know what particular love of Country is required by this, our common Republic effort.
We do not live anymore under the pain of a colonial yoke, nor are we anymore completely asleep and under thrall of any foreign power.
We do not live in a perfect world. However, w
e can no longer use any of these ghosts of shadows past to justify those present illusions we ourselves tend to create that we - both in the Nation and in the Responsible State - are not ultimately responsible for this Republic undertaking.
Because we are - each one of us.
The pain of all our poorest Filipinos are all too real. The simple truth is that their lives matter and matters the most because i
t shall be part and parcel of our Final Accounting as a nation.
I wish to congratulate the BIR and Commissioner Henares for their brave efforts.
Let us also remember Marcelino Yap, the BIR official who was gunned down in Antipolo last February in the line of duty. He died constituting the necessary reforms in his office to facilitate and expedite the collection process.
May justice be served here and without delay.
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OBL is dead. Good.
Because human lives matter - no matter how different, no matter how similar we may be. It matters we are free.
The world changed after September 11.
All the world felt it. We didn't want it. Humanity was set back 10 years. Now the world is changed once again.
What did terrorism ever achieve?
Did it feed more hungry mouths? Did it shelter more needy families? Did it gain more for justice than it took out in war? Did it lighten the common burdens of our nations? Did it safeguard the ideals of the youth? Did it open the way for more safety and more prosperity?
OBL is dead. Good. Kudos to you, America. Kudos to JSOC and the SEALs.
Now the world is changed once again: We can now ask ourselves the question denied us 10 years ago, "what do we - those who desire peace - want?"
Because this time, its not about OBL. The tide has turned.
On September 11, everybody became one heart with the victims. They were from many nations, including mine. And the world lost 10 years worth in war seeking for justice.
Many other nations have suffered the loss of many other lives and promises in the process.
Now justice has been done, we can be one heart again and set the time forward toward peace.
Peace which is an end to this very difficult war. Peace which will bring the needed respite to our one family of nations.
When this happens, everybody wins.
And it will be 9/12/01 over again.
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Mabuhay ang Amerika!
Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless all our nations.
As a counterpoint to the death of OBL: As far as these things go, my honorable compatriots, let us always bear in mind and heart that remembrance holds its eternal vigil (here in our heart of hearts) only for the sake of those whose lives and promises now rest with their hopes entrusted to the cause of Peace and of Sacred Life (which is Country and God respectively).
No nation on earth can ever be truly and meaningfully sustained in its own soul by the evil inspiration of war criminals and mass murderers of whatever particular creed or race.
The truth tends to always break free of the limits and confines of evil inspiration.
And those of my own Christian religion knows this with an understanding of faith most especially in this season of Easter: Did not that tomb, my beloved brothers and sisters, sealed shut by an unimaginable weight of evil intention, literally explode on that first Easter morn?
Victory belongs always to real heroes, those who though vulnerable - least to great, known or known to God alone - even in the midst of great adversity remain faithful and true to their own common humanity:
Defender of the People
To the Lion of Pansjer -
The resounding clash
of steel against steel,
and the clamor of battle
was first fought
in the quiet of the night
and in the prayer of the heart
that rises like the sun
to bring forward the hopes
of your orphaned nation
and restore upon them
the guardian peace
of the Responsible State.
The devouring foe
with relentless tenacity
have only succeeded
in establishing
in the hearts of your people
a strong desire for solace
and a shelter away
from the wilderness
of their wandering hearts;
a dream that was born
from the hope that
through battle
and through loss
you have triumphed
to maintain
not for yourself,
Amer Sahib,
but for your nation.
You are certainly
most cherished in memory,
noble commander and
defender of the people.
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Ahmad Shah Masoud, the Lion of Pansjer, a true son of the one Afghan Nation (19530902-20010909).
So let us say, "peace be to Afghanistan of the one family of the nations of Mankind".