Carry on, Sir

We stop not to argue
- in the shadows - about the Night
and the maddening depths of it.
Lest the Darkness overtake us
with madness.

We stop not
carrying on along the way
for our discourse is about the Morning
walking together as if with Christ
on the Road to Emmaus.

Carry on, sir. 

Remember always your promise (to yourself)
during your inauguration speech, that you are beholden
to the loving remembrance in your own heart - my kuya Noy -
of a memory both personal as well as national in their natures:
Use it to see clearly, and with steadfast faith in God
and diligent attention to His Providence,
continue to express through thy august Office,
the Executive vision that you want for our Country
to particularly possess - in your own time.

The vision of a Government
that is accountable to its own authority,
aware of its responsibility - to the mandate -
it has variously received from the one Nation
on whose life and promise, the Responsible State
derives from the Divine Providence of God,
it's powers to govern - with virtue and wisdom,
within the particular framework of a Republic undertaking of Country,
the greater wealth and the greater good, both spiritual as well as material,
of the common generations of our people - unto the last of our generations
- forever.

I pray your spirit be clear even when all things are not -
that you, dear Sir, in your own solitude may always, always have a recourse
to the Love of the LORD present and ever so near to thy own heart.
And so may God love thee and keep thee and bless thee forever.

May a living Remembrance of these times - kindle in thee, its own virtue -
that all things God may reveal to thee - come necessary to the account of thy heart
that thou in the Sanctuary of the love that you keep in your soul may reach out to the darkness
through a fire born of greater things, and a light forbearing in hope, be ever capable of the embrace
with which God embraces all individual realities - in the Spirit of His abundant Peace
- a seed of the ultimate experience of Country.

You are the center to which there can be no rising nor falling, the center unto which the powers of the Nation must derive their constant measure.

The wings that shelter our Country must continually form and re-form themselves, at the rise and fall of each and every moment, from thy Office. No where else may it rely upon for its life and life's purpose.

There could be no rising nor falling in your commitment to your Office - its lineage, virtue, and authority are all you have to bring down from God and heaven the necessary strength to power the flight of our Republic toward that promised Dawn - and verily, these are all you need.

May they humble you and in God, make you ever persevere.
---<--@

Personal Reflection -

A faithful President over a perfect one - always.

I do not always agree with our President Noy
but I implicitly know we walk in the same direction. 

He may seek to express within our Republic journey,
matters about our National Dialogue that are varied and distinct
or even, at times, seemingly antithetical to my politics, but never will I forget -
that the journey we all must take - under this season of sky - is but one, long march -
from the depths and the darkness of Exile unto the Light and the Promise of an Eden Rebuilt -
for our Nation and its own emergent Republic motion under heaven, and therefore, for all Nations.

Tyrants are not as fortunate to as be blessed with any prevailing sense of a National direction
let alone agree with anybody - with consistency on which way is forward and which way is back.

Thoughts on the Legislative System

Our Congress
may be likened to two lungs
- the Senate and the House of Representatives -
they both feature one function -
Respiration.

Now, as it were - in this metaphor,
each one whole act - of - each one whole lung
is the action of one system -
the Legislative.



IF within each lung
there were divisions that make it functionally stronger
then that is just a natural part of its physiology -
for these divisions assist and facilitate
in the efficient delivery of its vital function:
The meticulous crafting and maintenance
- in behalf of the National whole -
of a living system of law.

BUT if within either lung,
those divisions were to cause either one to weaken and fail -
shall the body ask which lung is giving it such distress?

Indeed,
within the Legislative System itself
- shall either lung - whether the Senate or the House -
reply to the organism, the one Republic of the one Filipino Nation
   (on whose a priori existence its own existence manifestly requires
   and unto whose well-being and safety, it is - as a whole - subordinated
   both in sovereign function - as well as - in sovereign authority),
"only a fraction of either one of us did it"?

NO, because in the first instance, the System itself - as a whole -
is directly answerable to both itself - and - the greater body of the people:
"The we forever" that this Congress exists to singularly serve
and on whose constant behalf must therefore,
diligently and sincerely maintain itself
ever toward that specific purpose
of popular service.

FOR however small the tumor
- just as much as the successful function of the System rely on its parts -
any failure of its parts to deliver is also a failure of the System entire.

This is (and should be)
the beginning and end of the measure
by which all the generations of the people
shall remember and acclaim - our Congress -
in its sessions and throughout its seasons, a Congress:
Never so by its parts but - always and ultimately -
according to its assemblies in their wholes.

Because for richer or poorer, in ill-health and in well times -
all elements that belong to the functions of the wholes within a Republic
are wed to the Systems unto which they serve
as parts to a synergy of wholes.

This is why,
in the way of understanding
our own particular Republic undertaking of Country,
one should never treat the Systems (and its Symbols) that comprise it - like its parts -
withholding one's convictions from bitterness and despair - for our own good,
and to reserve in thy civic spirit - a sacred space of patriotic belief -
where one may always seek to return to with honor.

And so
- in the case of this particular meditation -
one may likewise only exhort the legislative Offices
distinctly as their separate Houses - and/or - at their highest Collegial level,
exhort either august bodies to function FULLY together as a Congress -
and move independently of the stultifying spells of the politics
that this Republic may - even at sundry times obtain
from the persons of each their politicians.

- selah -

NOW
it is normal in the realm of politics to exist in opposition.
Therefore, Opposition parties do not choose to become Opposition parties
but are placed into their position by normal legislative circumstances prevailing in their day
and therefore DO have to perform a function
in particular with their specific calling
from within Congress.

Opposition parties
must oppose the intended legislative priorities of the Majority.
And this it does in order to give them pause - and - to remind them of the Opposition
or the Minority view that only by a twist of Providence, a circumstance of the Divine Wisdom,
the Majority could always have been - and could be - IF the Majority view fails
in their function to maintain the health of each lung, as it were - and coalesce
behind themselves the vital breath that bring new life to the living law.

The Minority view principally represents
the voice of the very, very fine smallness of random chance,
the nature of which the Legislative Body - as a whole -
must always be aware of - and - ever so be made to be aware of
for the System unto which they all as fellow legislators equally serve unto
once willingly given over to the realms of fate and of blind chance
- instead of being dedicated to the challenge of it -
loses control of itself completely and abruptly.

And so the Opposition must not be necessarily adversarial in nature
and should exist not to merely oppose but to "be in opposition" -
ever faithful to the Congressional whole - and - loyal to the Republic whole.
For the Minority in being aware of itself, lends its certain strength
to the Majority - and keeps the whole system sober
and functionally aware that it is.

Because in the end, within the embrace of our National peace,
everybody profits from knowing everybody belongs - to make things so -
and that politics and politicians - in and by their being, are transient by nature -
and this - their persons must always remember - that it is - and - that they are -
AND so realize that the ultimate vocation of all persons who in their souls
profess to belong to this one Republic whole - belongs -
to the right exercise of a common citizenship.

And that sometimes,
one has to be on the right side,
and lose - and carry on.
---<--@

As regards the question of the National Wealth, should the Government exist to serve the needs of the poor or the rich?

As regards
the question of the National Wealth,
its recognition, creation, conservation, transformation, and ultimate possession,
should Government exist to serve
the needs of the poor? No.
The rich? No.



Government exists to come to the aid of all of its citizens
that they may - rich or poor - be able to dwell harmoniously together
in order to effectively meet their common human needs -
WORKING together to secure both the dignity and promise of human life,
serve and defend the national peace, enrich their sovereign freedoms,
and to be better and better able to guarantee for their common posterity,
a Republic that - with each generation ripens - for the good of all generations -
in virtue and maturity - in time and in remembrance.

The material betterment that Capitalism promises
is founded on the truth that all citizens must first of all, regard each other as such -
as human beings to each other - being variously but consistently sympathetic
to the poverty and humiliation of the human condition and thus,
willing to work freely with each other under God
to continuously co-create and prosper
the National Wealth.

Upon this singular moral condition is founded
the ethical safeguards that are necessary to preserve the societal certainty
of its central ideals of entrepreneurial competition and market freedom.

Businesses that come to possess a superior management
stand to outdo those that consistently fail to acquire it.
And proceeding from this first ideal (i.e. authentic human entrepreneurship)
in a free market environment (i.e. one that is possessed of authentic market freedoms),
products (and services as products) that are better made consistently stand to gain
a better share of the Common Market (as a whole) - but -
only inasmuch as it is a consequence, direct as well as indirect,
of the first ideal -

An enterprise driven system designed to create and multiply both capital and industry
by inclining citizen-consumers to be citizen-producers, and provides for these ideals accordingly

a Free Market System - purposed, structured, and therefore, expected to faithfully function

(1) to encourage the maintenance and practical evolution of good business practices,
(2) reward both dedicated management and dedicated labor with a positive workforce culture
and (3) effectively transfer all of its variously intended benefits to the intended good of the citizenry
who by being able to - freely and equally - participate in the creation of both supply and demand
maintains his or her essential responsibility as an active participant in a Capitalist economy
both in the consumption of goods as well as in the promotion of the pertient commercial good
thus exercising free choice as regards the nature and direction of the Common Market.

(Materialism 
confounds these ideals
and places the merit
as well as the burden of virtue
on the Market itself which
can neither possess it
nor become possessed by it.
Citizens get enlightened.
Corporations do not.)

For indeed, everybody
must enter into everybody's labor
and everybody's labor must be aligned and directed
toward the ultimate end for which all human labor must be purposed
which is a just distribution of this world's material goods within the Nation
as a reality proceeding from an equitable appreciation of the National Wealth -
which is always more than just the material component of "being rich".

This is the kind of Capitalism
I should like to subscribe to -
an economy of matter and spirit. 

We are, as a Nation,
to be wealthy first (and recognize it)
before we become wealthy (and realize it).
For there is only one direction toward wealth
and that is to become truly wealthy - for everybody.

Virtue is currency.

Not the rigid, materialistic, purposeless
and therefore, at times, quite cruel and inhuman system
- divisive of rich and poor and therefore, ultimately hostile to both -
an economic system that has lost its ability to steer itself
with the progress of the Nation whose existence
guarantees it own success.
---<--@

What makes you happy does not always make you rich. 
But what makes you rich must always make you happy.

Mabuhay, Miss Malala Yousafszai!

This girl is a tigress; a passionate fighter for the cause she dearly loves: Academic Freedom, freedom for both the brave educators and the disenfranchised girls in her native Pakistan and all around our needful world to respond to each other's mutual call to human betterment and human rights through education.

What truly distinguishes her is that she is a witness to her own advocacy. The strength of her own cause is not something she acquires from others, but something she constantly lives in her life.

Look up to her, dear Starshine, for she is born of the same sky... as thee.

Mabuhay, Miss Malala Yousafszai!

At a time of falling leaves...

I asked the leaf
whether it was scared
because it was autumn
and the other leaves were falling.

The leaf told me,
"No. During the whole spring and summer 
I was very alive. I worked hard 
and helped nourish the tree, 
and much of me 
is in the tree.

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

I then asked the tree,
at a time of falling leaves, 
whether it was scared
to be as bereft of its lush greenery
and it said to me,

"No, seeker, 
for I am a tree".
---<--@

Kanlungan

Nakalilito man
at madilim ang mundo,
mga kapatid ko sa Pangako,
huwag tayong mabahala
at huwag mawalan ng loob -
huwag matakot sa gabi!

Pananalig sa Diyos,
kapayapaan sa ating bansa;
kagandahang loob sa bawa't isa
bunga nang pagkakapatirang
namumuhay sa ating diwa,
at pagmamahal natin sa ating
nag-iisang sambayanang Pilipinas -
ito ang lagi nating maaasahan;
ang ating kanlungan sa gabi
at daan tungo sa umaga.
---<--@

Salutation #186

Fatalism, it is oft implied,
is a cultural predisposition in our Nation
that inclines our society
to accept evil with resignation.

(The Brave Resignation of the First Filipinos)

The first Filipinos,
all of our elder tribes that comprise
those ancient Barangays and their particular communions
that peopled our lands and navigated our seas
long before the advent of Colonial times,
came upon this realm of restless skies
restless earth, and restless seas
and realizing by the power of their own experiences
an understanding of the greatness of these natural forces
sought not to take them into their knowledge
but to dwell in harmony with the spirit of this dominion
and so came they to a knowledge the forces of this realm
by seeking not to bend these forces to their will,
giving to these forces none of their words.

For our first Fathers, the ancients of our Nation,
in knowing the vast forces that dwell within this realm
sought not by their knowledge to master them through earthly will
but unanimously allowed from within each their own cultures
an abiding form of common and equal respect, each according to each,
and all according to their elemental natures as they are to be understood
through their own enduring reality and the character of its freedom
- as they are - in the restless natures of sky, earth, and sea
along with all the bounteous life therein that dwell within this realm
and so worked to introduce themselves to the Providential wisdom
that brought the lightning to the clouds, and fire to the mountains,
thunder to the earth, subdued the skies according its proper measures,
and gave due season to the winds that brought in the Great Water
and thus, dictated the life cycles of the earth and nurtured its flowing rivers
allowing these forces, in due time, to reveal themselves to them,
and the will of Providence to take them freely into their own safety
introducing to them a knowledge of the truth of those things -
adding to their wisdom, and blessing their communities.

Our ancestral cultures
- the lineages of the First Filipinos -
by their free acceptance of the Hand of Providence
in the restless natures of our skies, our lands, and our seas
gained through courage and acceptance of greater forces
an understanding of words greater and more powerful,
adapted to its wisdom, and made it their own.

This is the primary source of that Surrender.

It arose from a very determined will
born of the discerning faith of our ancient Fathers
to harmonize with the unyielding peace of greater things.

It is, as taught by their common heritage in our Soul,
a surrender to the greater wisdom that abide in greater things
freely accepting of the Providence that rightly governs All
and the better knowledge of truths that prevail in Heaven,
recognizing these things as greater and far above
any knowledge that is of the earth.

So we have come
to accept the existence of physical evil
and surrender to the greater purpose for their existence
by accepting the wisdom and the existence of a Divine Providence
that rules over all our choices... and does see beyond them
as a Reality ever so greater than our own, but most of all,
infinitely better than us and more benign than the limits
by which our hearts allow us to perceive and to understand
the pain of their reality, and the tragedy of our familiarity with its evils -
particularly when it touches ours - in our own time -
and in every time.

For we have learned - in due time -
not to question the wrath of natural forces
and as a people have come to bend like the bamboo
to the unfathomable will of Divine Providence
and surrender our pain to the embrace of a Good God.

- selah -

In our own days, seemingly far removed
from the time of ages past - so far removed, as it were -
that we forget that time is not a measure of its merest count
but is always a passage from a dawn limits to an age of limitlessness.

So where time seem distant - the distance is the illusion.
There is no distance in time - only timeless remembrance:

Love and remembrance.

It is tragic what happened to Bohol, Cebu, -
and as we feel the pain of the recent earthquake that shook
the Visayas and parts of Mindanao - we may ask again
the question the first Filipinos first asked, "why?"

It is a right thing to be hurt? Because it is not.

But should we believe
we should again seek to question
the existence of these natural forces,
challenge their reality over our own,
and seek to apply our will of anger or regret
- no matter how righteous they really are -
over forces far above the power of our humanity
to overtly command, and therefore completely prevent?

Because it is also not.

Rather, these forces should exist to question us -

as they did exist during the time of the First Filipinos.

Not to surrender to them but to expect them,
and to learn how to prevail over them
by surrendering them to God.

- selah -

Moral evil though - the things of War,
and the Evil in all evil things.

These we must always question.

For these were always alien to our Surrender
for a surrender to an evil fate is not the Surrender
that was inculcated in the spirit of our Nation
by our First peoples.

They are the source of our Fatalism.

The real words to use is Brave Resignation.
---<--@

Awesome vs. Not Awesome

Awesome - Elizabeth Smart.

Look at you, sister Smart, you have grown in maturity and grace!

Thank God your terrible ordeal at the hands of your jailers have passed and now they - who did abuse your freedom in your youth are now themselves without freedom in their old age.

For they were not able to mature as you did, Elizabeth. You have grown in measure and dignity where they have weakened - and by the grace of the LORD, here you are. 

Their evil was not able to triumph over you, not before, not during the unhappy days of your captivity, and most certainly not now. And so may you long endure.

You kept what truly only belonged to you, Elizabeth, that which is only thine to give that none can ever take from thy soul by deception or force - and now, by the love of our Savior, here you are.

Not Awesome - these two.

Anyare?

Let us pray for Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, may God have mercy on them and teach them of the Justice that does not seek to impose itself by fear but is freely sought because it is a virtue both highly esteemed and deeply loved by the heart of all Mankind - of love and mercy and truth embraced - and freely given - for the repair of the human spirit and the restoration of the human heart.

Personal Reflection

The most important possession of a girl or a woman can never be taken from her by deception or force by any man or creature on earth or in heaven.

For it must proceed freely from her spirit and is truth.

This is not the same as the last ages, the liberation of Woman from the receding tides of things past is ever in effect, especially in this new age of spirit and thought.

Woman as every Man's complementary but equal half - each a human being,
one whole in their persons that - when taken together, through the blessing of the LORD,
form a new creation of Love - in the wedlock union between Man and Wife
wherein new worlds are begun again anew with every human family.
---<--@

A Nation's Treasures

A Nation's wealth is the life and promise of its people - across all our generations.

My people, as we emerge as a Republic in our ages, before we are burdened more and more with the responsibility of material wealth - I want us to remember the simplicity of our happiness in this picture.

It is commonly said that one ought to find one's happiness before doing anything so that anything one does shall be of good profit to the self. This is true.

But lest the world anymore complicate it, this is true only if one can keep one's happiness in the soul and keep it there - present and abiding as a joy in thy spirit - without anything else.

So that in knowing this, we shall always know, as we together undertake to further progress our journey of Country, Earth from Sky - the bounds of our reach and the reach of our limits - where the freedom of Man ends and the Freedom of God begins.

For our freedoms
shall always be our bounds,
our happiness shall to each of us
always remain within their reach
appearing as limitless to our hearts as the Sky
only as far as their limits are known to us here on Earth -
therefore, to transgress the freedom that keep us real
is to distort the happiness that keep us free -
as the gravity of material things tend to do
to remind us of responsibility.

Let us always remain with the truth - we are a spiritual people and therefore, when it comes to our dream of happiness - simply, a simple people.

Everything we need is within each of us - from this unity, God-helping, we shall confidently build.

Now, let us carry on - into the morrow.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.
---<--@

We are to be wealthy first before becoming wealthy.

A Word on our Barangays

O faithful Republic of my people -

Some are all about height and distance,
but thou - let thou be all about width and nearness.

Nearness to the people is what governs;
thy popular mandate to reign is derived from it.

Width is all about completeness;
it is the fullness of thy will to embrace the Nation
in faithful service of thy most sacred trust.

From nearness to the people is derived
the authority to govern thy peers
and from completeness of will,
the ensuing exercise of Power
is consequently recognized
as legitimate.

Our Barangays
are the living sails of our Cities.

If the life of our Cities
are the wellspring of our Sovereignty;
the vitality of this life is singularly an attribute
of the general state of health of each our Barangays.

Our leadership in the Barangay are essential to the Nation
and so we must be free to seek them and they, to seek us -
through the electoral processes that is appointed for this task.

Indeed,
the toughest battles, invisible to the rest of the Nation,
to build up from the Unknown Earth, our Republic Vision -
are fought and won upon the ground of our Barangays.

It is here within our Barangays where - at every age -
the Divine Commandment to prosper and to make good
the sacred trust of our Nation - across our generations -
is everyday from the Providence of the LORD received -
and the labor of the Republic with each morning begun.

It is here where each our citizenship is everywhere exercised
and the blessings of our togetherness with each night kept -
the greater will of our Peace, each and every day won.

They are the oldest
and most venerable part of our Republic.
---<--@


The Diwata ng Lahi, a replica of the ancient Balangay boat, went out for a test sail in Manila Bay on July 11 2009. The word "barangay" is derived from an ancient Malayo-Polynesian boat called a balangay. It is commonly believed that in pre-colonial Philippines, each original coastal “barangay” formed as a result of settlers arriving by boat from other places in Southeast Asia.

Awesome vs. Not Awesome

The only way to counter racism is to foster a culture of racial harmony. 

Congratulations on your well-deserved Miss World victory, Megan,
you do honor to your people with your beauty and grace - salamat sa iyo. 

Miss World 2013, Megan Young, is awesome.


This person ain't (hopefully, just temporarily).

We could be friends, you know. 

Your India, if you really are from there, is an ancient human Nation and a vastly beautiful culture. I am in love with her just as much as I love my own.

Each of our Nations have distinct vulnerabilities, particular to our sufferings, for I'm not claiming India or the Philippines to be perfect either.

But this I do know, we are all possessed of something wonderfully good that makes it all worthwhile.

Because no matter the evil in the midst, large and expansive is our inherent capacity to hope and dream of better days. This makes us beautiful - as Nations and as individuals both - nowhere in All creation may be found such a great concentration of near limitless possibilities than in every human heart.

If only you are able to see that we are all struggling to be free from the fetters that keep us earth-bound and impoverished and incapable of just being happy. Because it is a difficult battle, Devina, this life.

We are rich or poor not on account of what we do to effect our ultimate release from the bonds that keep us unhappy, but on who we decide we truly are - so that each of us may hope to become - all throughout our choices in life - who we truly must - and be who we are - as a creation of a great and good God.

For all human work - no matter how menial - is directed towards this one goal of human happiness - a state of ultimate rest, a condition of perfect peace - a focus without focusing, a being without effort - all religions promise it - all revealed works teach it - all Mankind yearn for it.

In my rich Catholic faith, it is a state of Beatific Vision - the forever being with the Being of God - without the veil of time and the fear of mortality - felicity in Christ! Certainly, I would clean toilets to achieve it - if only it were that easy (or simple) - as many bowls as I can. 

You know this deep in yourself - this longing to be happy - because you too are - just like the rest of us, a human being.

So please try to acknowledge and appreciate what is enriching in our diversity and have a good think about your recent actions here so that, even though they were evil, you may yet profit from them.

May it all add up to your benefit. For Nations are expected to assist each other in this fight.

I forgive you, Miss DeDiva, and God bless you.

Thank you for uniting us more strongly as a Nation.

Salutation #185

If you have been learning with me about politics,
you must now be able to agree
- with conviction - with me - and with each other
that our politics is an authentic human right
and therefore, a duty - expressed in our freedoms,
particular to each of us as citizens
integral to whose calling it is (within our Republic)
to be able to articulate and profess it
freely and accordingly.

(Politics and Violence)

The National Politics, our politics,
is not the rarefied domain of politicians.
We each, as citizens of this Republic of ours,
have a right and a duty to express our own politics.

Where politicians are our political thought leaders,
and very important to the vital workings of our Country -
they are only so because, we the people, must think politics.

And we must think politics to become convinced
- first and foremost, that they're truly ours -
more so than to convince others (that it's theirs).

Our politics must make us convinced citizens
and convinced citizens are citizens with conviction.

And these convictions
should make our politics clear - to each of us
for civic clarity and moral decisiveness are its first fruits.

- selah -

We do not as a Nation
possess in ourselves the National Politics
to argue endlessly about necessary matters
that involve the living life of our national communities
- at all levels across our fullest entirety, seen and unseen -
but to lend to these matters substance and popular weight

first and foremost - steadfastly, purposefully, and certainly

so that by sheer weight of our independent convictions alone

no matter how radically different they may naturally be

the Nation's priorities are accordingly and practically arranged
according to their constantly changing and dynamic realities -
from the ground (the very soil) of Country upward.

(And those of us who are formally called to be our politicians
by their vocations are the shepherds of these national priorities.)

For in politics,
we shall always have healthy disagreements
but we must - know and recognize - these disagreements
in the first place, by bearing the first fruits of our politics - first -
for these disagreements are like the natural bends in a river that flows,
futile without the water that must first agree on a direction forward.

Political disagreements are a natural consequence
of our common freedom of political thought and expression
and can not first exist without mechanisms of political agreement
for these disagreements are a consequence only of our much thinking
(of the things that the water seeks to avert and avoid at the river bends)
and are not by any means the fruit of meaningful political participation.

It is a strange feature of the realm of political thinking
that agreements - to responsibly own up to our Republic Vision -
must consequently lead to disagreements - but, brothers and sisters, they do -
for the strength of our will of politics must be constantly tempered and refined
by the disagreements that give itself sincerely as fuel that serve to fire the flames
of the vital national processes that lead to the betterment of our own convincing
so that in knowing where we stand across the political spectrum that define
the totality of the near infinite reach of our own Republic Vision -
we are reminded by our own freedoms - where we agree in principle -
and that our politics can only be strong - in as much as they shall agree
that within our Republic, under the sheltering skies of our Peace,
there is a season, a time, and a place for each and every good thing.
under heaven.

We who know our politics
know we implicitly agree on something -
that we are.

And that from these agreements must proceed,
even without resorting to any formal debating and/or open discussions
just by our standing still and embracing the reality of our citizenship together,
the challenge to further agree - over and above our disagreements -
because we must.

And therefore,
like Jacob and the Angel,
with every present generation,
come prepared for the necessary battle
of winning together from Providence, our Republic Vision.

- selah -

Citizens who know their politics never sell them out -
neither are their votes for sale nor do they vote on mere whim.

These are souls who walk the ground of Country with gravitas and purpose
and breathe from the very land and air and sea of our people, our sovereign spirit.

And so,
when, we the people, should think of - our politics -
we should not think that the National Politics is somehow dirty
or beyond the capacity of us lesser mortals to understand
(and give its intended victory without challenge
to the unversed, the uncouth and the pretentious)

we think - we are - and therefore, we must.

After all, my fellow Filipino compatriots,
are we not all commissioned by Providence Divine
to be citizens of this exact place in time?

- selah -

With an eye
toward the upcoming Barangay elections
this October 28, in the Blessed Year of our LORD, 2013
- in the Third Millennium of the Common Human Era -
I should like to be able to articulate another truth
about our politics - and one which proceeds
from the thoughts we have outlined above.

Violence (of the physical kind) and our politics
are like oil and water - tubig at langis.

They are two immiscible realities -
to mix them, my brothers and sisters of the Promise,
without stirring against the peace of our national communities
is impossible - one is a break from the other,
each takes different paths that lead to different outcomes.

It is said, my brothers and sisters,
that politics is a contact sport, this is true -
but it is not a sport of brutes - as brutes would like it to be -
the battle of our politics is played out in a human arena
and is a contest, because of the magnitude of its inherent good,
that must always and everywhere inspire the nobility of human beings;
spirit, virtue and truth are its ultimate measures -
and we enter into it because, we love.

Truly, political violence is ruinous to the Nation - to any Nation -
(we may feel this at present at the sad plight of the one Syrian Nation).

For as we are a labor of not a few - or even the many
but a labor of the millions across our generations - far into forever -
an inspired work of the citizenry - and a labor of enlightenment,
unto the very last of our generations - unto the Last Day,

we exist for the continuance and preservation of Sacred Life

as a Pledge not on behalf of Humankind's final defeat
but of the ultimate Triumph of our Cause to exist -
in the everlasting fullness of the Truth.

Violence - it's existence, outbreaks, and continuance -
and the harm it inflicts upon the dignity and promise of Man
- is - what our politics must always and everywhere together oppose
within our Nation and between the Nations within our Family of Nations.

The politics we must profess must unanimously consider violence as evil
unless in order to prevent its own demise, violence itself is deemed unavoidable

and thus, becomes a lesser evil undertaken to save the body politic.

This always holds true
in the case of those outbreaks of armed conflict
- that only becomes necessary -
when the existence of the Republic itself
comes into terrible and mortal danger of War
as an unavoidable duty of the Common Defense
and anywhere violent forces willfully breaks into our reality
against both our sovereign will and our deepest wishes -
as an integral part of our civic responsibility
to universally defend and preserve the National Peace;

a fact that was clearly recognizable just quite recently
by the crisis at our beloved City of Zamboanga.

(The craft of all nations is Peace - therefore,
not all wars must be fought - for not all of them can be just.)

Outside the manifestly ethical considerations expressed

in the duty of the Common Defense and the integrity of the National Peace -

All forms of political violence shall always be the sport and hidden recourse
of those adulterous brutes who have slept in their hearts with the Dragon of War
and shall always and forever - and everywhere - as far as our Nation is concerned
be considered for what it truly is - an abominable crime - a crime against all Nations.
---<--@

Fuel for Civic Thought

The question here is,
as we are cut from the same cloth as the American Republic -
(and can learn from their expression - if we are wise, God-helping,
to better express our own expression of Country):

Where and when will this revolution become an evolution?



This is not just a circle.

Let us not forget that this is also a spiral; an ascent
into the summit of our completion (or a descent).

For there are endless forms of Abundance
(once the material veil of these things
have been successfully breached by the national culture)
and all of these ultimately lead to absolute freedom
and ultimate forms of happiness.

BUT there are also - upon this world - endless forms of Bondage
(the existence of which is the exact reason why we are a Nation -
for we are meant to strive against it - not bow to it - or appease it).

Memorial of the Guardian Angels

Remember LORD, 
the unfailing faithfulness of thy Guardian Angels,
Who deigned through their vigilant and loving stewardship
to vouchsafe in the life of our souls,
the unfailing truth of Thy paternal love and solicitude
over our Everlasting safety.

We ask Thee Eternal Father
Thou bless us with a Remembrance of them -

Who stand invisibly to watch over our thoughts
and guard our memories against the spirit of evil;
who against the Devil and the desolation of the War
keep safe for us - the enabling reality of thy own Truth:

Our Angel Guardians, who keep for us a way of safe return
away from the Night - and the sin which hides in the darkness
unto Christ, our Light, and unto Thee, dear Father of our hearts,
unto Thy Sacraments, unto Penance, and the fruits of Repentance -
which is the fullness of each these Friendships - Thou hath ordained.

Which is Truth everlasting in the knowledge of the Father and the Son
on this day of their Eternal Memorial, O LORD, united in Thy Holy Spirit -
alleluia, alleluia, glory to one Most High God forever, alleluia - forever.

AMEN.
---<--@

The Power of Party Politics

Sometimes you have to be on the right side and lose.



Party Politics in a representative democracy is healthy.

It is a fact of present-day Republic life that our elected representatives need to be themselves effectively represented from within their own House/s to bring order and structure within the Legislative branch.

Platforms are vessels that convey Party principles and primarily consists of a set of Ideals, changeless and unyielding - and rooted in the National character.

While the Party as itself seeks - at every age - to make and re-make through these Party principles, the relevant politics of their own times.

This means Party politics must and do change to remain relevant but their foundations do not and must not change else, the credibility of the Platform itself comes into question.

And a Party can not be without a Platform and remain substantially united as a potent political force.

More so than as an effective aid to obtaining election victories, political Parties are primarily conceived as a dependable and robust source of mature legislation and of mature legislators.
---

I do not understand why Party Politics must extend itself to the Executive branch but it does.

Maybe because the Executive needs the Legislative to be decisive in implementing the legal framework of the national goals embedded in its particular vision for the Country - more so than as an effective aid to obtaining election victories.

But this can only be so if the communities, particularly the elders from their respective Electorates, within the Constituencies of the Legislative branch are not effectively communicating their political concerns as regards their own particular visions of Country to their respective Members of Congress - the members of the House (for Local) and the Senators (for State).

Because it is this continuing Dialogue between the Nation and the Responsible State that the Executive branch (all throughout each and every one of its necessary transfers of vitality and transformations of authority) relies on to be able to faithfully conform and accordingly amend its own popular contributions to the unfolding of the greater Republic Vision - for the people and for the generations of the people.

Indeed, every particular vision of the Executive branch, to be truly reflective of the greater reality of the times, must constantly be stirred up and refined by this Dialogue within the Nation.

For Wisdom is in the people (not in the Parties).

Now, there is always - within the National Dialogue - a certain degree of political noise but lest it deafens one, one must know to stand quietly on the party Platform and discern - the meaningful from the empty, agreements from disagreements, compromises, concessions, improvements...

Good legislators know this and speak out to defeat the noise. Good leaders know this and listen to discern the truth. But a good President should know how to both speak out and listen.

For the vital discernment of the popular Wisdom in every age must always come from the Offices of the Executive branch, from the ground upward, being duly interpreted and skillfully articulated especially at the level of the Office of the President, at the very center of the peace that forms the Sheltering Wings of the Republic State.

Executive vision determines Legislative focus and Legislative focus determines Juridical reach which in turn informs Executive vision.

This kind of optimum politics (pulled upward) represents the highest expression of the National aspiration - tempered and refined (by the larger view enjoyed by the Executive branch) in order to adequately meet with the challenges of a changing reality at every present time.

From this politics is derived policy and from this policy is derived the foundation economics necessary for the efficient structuring of the Republic government and the greater Economy in the Nation and of the Nation (being of both matter and spirit) that must proceed from this - utterly depends on it.

Indeed, both Market Confidence and Consumer Trust (at all levels - both local and international) utterly depends on it.
---

Why the shutdown?



In my own opinion, either the aforementioned Dialogue has lost its sense of vitality or the necessary movement of the national politics from the ground upward - into the Vision and Unity of the Executive branch - has lost its way - and has been superseded by something else.

What if as it were, the Power of the Party Politics of the Nation is reduced to the mere Politics of Partisan Power of the Parties - as an aid to obtaining election victories before anything else?

What if Power and Authority has become estranged in the Republic and Love and Justice in the Nation will no longer agree to kiss the kiss of peace?

George Washington himself warned the Nation about this fragmentation of the Unity that bind together the Separation of Powers into the freedom of a Republic and the pitfalls of Party Politics as "fractious agencies subversive of domestic tranquility".

Because the greatest sin that Party Politics can inflict upon its Nation is failure to agree on who or what to serve. Herein, the Power of Party Politics loses its original will and true ability to constantly transform the Earth and subdue it - for the one American Nation.

It forgets and forsakes the larger Unity and the Eternal Principles that bind together the Many States into the one Republic whole -

Not in behalf of the will of the Electorate nor for the sake of the Mandate that thy Union received from a free and sovereign Nation upon the Earth -

But for short term, narrow-minded, and near-sighted gains set forth by small minded thinking - of things that may inevitably only serve to propagate the necessary fragmentation that keeps its will of aberration hidden and secret from the illuminating Wisdom of the people.
---

This thy First President foresaw: You are, America, a work of Unity, the fire in thy Soul kindled by a love of thy own freedoms professed and a greater love hath always led thee onward!

Despite all thy sins, for indeed - all Nations have sinned, thou art a Nation possessed with a Freedom to redeem thyself from the grip of past things.

You are - as a national community - one of the major lights of this world. You can not allow yourself to be defeated before the Nations in this most desperate of times upon our failing world by a prevailing lack of unity and agreement from within yourselves.

Only the Adversary of thy own lineage of Victory who is also the Enemy of every form of good that your own particular Nationhood stands for - shall gain from seeing thee weak and in disarray.

Indeed, does this not go against the very grain of everything you are and of everything you stand for so that even the stones and the trees and the skies shall remind you and speak to you that this disunity and this discordant state of present affairs is a thing not becoming of thyself as thyself?

What is wrong with healthcare? Are its provisions so poisonous that you would allow your Nation to tread a path unpaved and unscouted and unknown?

Will your princes from among thy own people not send scouts forward first in a strange land? For this is what this failure to agree is doing - no one is standing watch over the horizons of the morrow.

As a Republic, we are, by each our great motions in the heavens, led from love to love - can we not agree on what we love? For what we love inspires the Truth of what we serve.

Hate portrays but an illusion of love and therefore, is a servant of nothing. 

Division is good if it sows order and purpose to our world and defines reach and not limits. Other than this, division may only conspire to sow discord - confuse, weaken and dilute.

Let me tell you now, the America I know is better than this - much, much better than this...

It is a bit disheartening to see you like this, America, this but nevertheless - we are - as all Nations are, in this long march together as one covenant Family - we are - because there is always hope so that none of us can leave the other alone in the Night without abandoning itself to the Darkness.

You need to snap out of it, Old Glory, and take your position forward in the march.
---<--@


Tah-dah! Success...?

Month of the Rosary

We can not build the right world with the wrong values.



October is the Month of the Rosary and October 7, the Feast Day of our Lady of the Rosary.

The history that runs parallel to the spirituality of the Rosary is one of hope, battle, and victory. It is a history that is - in itself - also in constant need of the transformative power of prayer!

For all of human history is in need of Redemption. Let us think about this when we look at the problems that beset our family of Nations in our present time. We need to make the past bury the past - a lot.

Our present time needs prayer, for where the present seem dark, it needs to be won through prayer - and an attitude of spirit and thought - one of holy communion and therefore, illumination. 

For the eye of the heart sees by shining outward not in. And so we perceive the present - spiritually - not as what it is but always by the light of what it should - hence, the blind can not lead the blind. 

Man must have recourse to prayer - as a common human need. And so let us know in our hearts today - all human hearts, for as long as they are human, must pray. And let us together universally develop an abiding respect of those who pray - for all prayer is battle.

Indeed, O Christian soul, we must together fight for these necessary things and the interior rewards they promise in the battle of prayer - joined with the common prayer of all Mankind.

That in our seeking for the LORD, our God, we may be found by Him in a posture that is truly becoming of our inward relationship with the Father of all our hearts, in a posture of freely giving (Christ-love) and therefore, of freely receiving (Christ-joy).

We win these things (and more) not in shallow waters - but by setting our souls forth into deep water - deeply immersing ourselves in our thoughts - nearer and nearer to our Lord, Jesus Christ, as Word of the Father, accompanied by our Lady of the Rosary - with hearts alive to the Love of the Holy Spirit -

Seeking to set the world on fire.

The month of the Rosary is a month dedicated to the battle of prayer - and the little victories that can be won through the Mother to the Son - unto the Final Victory no less of Peace over War -

And the realization of the hope of all human Nations - in the glory of God forever!

So let us together pray the Rosary this month for peace in our times... and peace around our world...
---<--@

I myself am not a perfect vessel to deliver to you these words, my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. My prayer life is quite lacking for I am a sinner in need of God's constant care and mercy.

But I never give up. I have always been stubborn like this... but God broke me and made me His. I fall and I fall and I fall but I simply can not be not Christ's.

And so, despite everything, we should also never give up on making ourselves better instruments of God - souls made straight and hearts made new - alight with the right values, loving spirits ready to raise up for the LORD, a braver, better world for our humanity - true to our common salutation, Peace.