Our Muslim brothers and sisters are truly brave, I understand their heart - their commitment to their Faith is without question to me.
But I still fail to fully comprehend the logic behind the incident at Zamboanga City.
All the sons and daughters of our one Republic, most especially those who serve as first responders to her sovereign defense, civil as well as military - who are rightful stewards of the arms that preserve our peace, internal as well as external, are also just as courageous - who would dare waste them?
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I have initially thought, very early on, that the individual persons who chose to involve themselves with the MNLF contingent inspired by Nur Misuari and led by his lieutenants into Zamboanga were somehow duped by forces larger than themselves - into committing an obviously destabilizing act, in the midst of a decisive moment, against our national community in that City. Until now, I am reserving reasonable doubt that Nur himself is a victim.
I respect their Islam that much, and much more, I respect their commitment to the process that shall regain for all of us together the blessings of Providence in a Nation that is one and at-peace with itself before God - for the LORD is not served by our division - I respect our citizenship.
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Our citizenship together is a quality that no Man inspired in our hearts as truth in our souls.
For the LORD is not served by division in the heart of Man - there is a purpose and order to our Nations, and it is not to destroy the purpose and order to our Nations. For without it, the Commandment to build up the (Inhabited) Earth can not be duly fulfilled.
War is not a choice we as citizens can make - ever. It shall always be a choice - as ancient as our roots - imposed upon our Nations - and we shall again and again break ourselves against this reality until "we" are no more.
Or learn from the lessons of this war that have among us wrought so much death and grief - and place greater and greater value on peace - a peace that we, as a people, have never known for generations and a peace therefore, that we have to work together to re-discover in and among ourselves; this peace whose vision we must painstakingly discern from the blanketing Night like it is to collect many a delicate ray of starlight (and become cognizant again of the fragility and smallness of our noblest human hopes).
A peace that, if allowed in love to grow as truth from each our hearts, shall restore true sanity in the Soul of our nationhood (citizenship), true strength to our national communities (sovereignty), and true vision to our Republic undertaking of Country (victory).
A peace whose fruits we so desperately need - now, today.
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This is why no victory can be declared in Zamboanga City. The word "victory" is an inappropriate word to use to describe conclusively the unfolding aftermath of what had recently occurred in Zamboanga City.
It was an outbreak of violence, unhappy and unwanted, that came in the night like a thief against the peace of a household.
It is a struggle must be framed in the context a much larger contest - in a scale that must always exceed the encapsulating darkness of the Night that makes it difficult for some of us to perceive and understand the spirit of the Beast against which we all must - as citizens alike - strive to overcome.
For we can not defeat "the enemy" in this particular fight, but we can win back ourselves by a restoration of a vision of the Peace which have always - always - belonged to our Nation.
In a sense, our victory here - taken in an absolute sense - as all victories must - is not against the reality of "an enemy" - though indeed, there really does exists, enemies who arise as evil in men.
Where the fight is within ourselves - the real battle that must be forever won is against ignorance of the reality of ourselves as ourselves - for the one peace our nationhood is the timeless rock against which the temporal tides of the wiles of war shall utterly break and exhaust itself against - until the Day of the LORD banish War forever.
Not the other way around.
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Zamboanga will be restored into full health and helped back along the way of our Republic Vision by her sister Cities in the Republic - for our Cities take care of their own!
In their Provinces embraced and in their Regions sheltered, the labor of City building never ends...
"You do not just build a City - you envision it!
Therefore, a city is never built, never!
You do not manage its problems, you manage its wealth...
and the problems that must come later... are managed by it.
Else, you will find yourself overrun by the minutiae of daily things
and become too earth-bound to continue on freely dreaming
the unfolding vision of your most beautiful City!"
Led and directed by our servant leaders in the Responsible State and embraced by the unfailing love and support of all Filipinos - our Nation too is a becoming in time.
Because this Building up of the (Unknown) Earth - the taming, the channeling, the conservation, the preservation, and the ultimate transformation of our exile darkness back into our original heritage of Life and of Light, is the highest calling to which our particular belonging together - as a people of the Peace - was commissioned by God (at the East Gate of faded Eden).
While the Nation exists, there is always hope for Zamboanga, for Mindanao, and for all our Lands and Seas and all the living life contained herein - received in common trust by our generations (as well as any prevailing region of local but definitely transient systems that belong to the greater, more dynamic realms of Air, and of Space - that is the common trust of all Nations) - in each our individualities, families, and tribes - as citizens to each other.
(Our ASEAN has an automatic commonality in Air and Space - a prepared place for regional unity from which we, as sovereign Nations, can learn to grow in greater trust and human cooperation; a special space in our spirit that we can as a regional belonging of Nations utilize not to erase our boundaries of Earth and Sea but to transcend them when we meet to prevail in our will as a sovereign Region in our Asia. This is also why the concept of a regional Air Superiority Squadron - the SEA Tigers - in my own opinion, is a feasible idea - Europe has the Eurofighter project, why not we?)
ALL of these, and more is being prevented by those who wish to see us mired forever in the weakness of war and the poverty of this exile darkness!
The guilty must answer to our Justice for what happened in fair Zamboanga City - but the nature of the fight must never be lost to us - for as evil flee where none pursueth -
war is banished where peace is cherished.
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via con Dios, to our brave policemen - this war was imposed upon our peace, now that we are engaged in a constructive process to restore our peace over war, it is being imposed again over our hopes... shall we let it? I don't think so.