An Incident in Tokyo

Early this week, there was this incident in Japan that caught my eye. Apparently, more than 300 copies of "A Diary of a Young Girl" was vandalized in public libraries across more than 3 different wards in Tokyo. These were Japanese translation of Anne's diary, much appreciated by the Japanese people.

I had personally tried to translate her diary in Filipino but found that it was beyond my competence to do so. I have not given up on trying to reserve its lessons for our youth though. What is vital in this work is not that its Jewish (although it is) but that it is human - very human, in fact - as we should learn.

To politicize her Diary is a flagrant crime, in my mind - because of the many motives for doing so, holding true to a right Remembrance of Anne and of her times is not one of them.

In my opinion, what happened in Japan is most probably a stunt.

However, it still begs to be investigated. There is a slight chance that this incident is an appearance (a symptom, if you will) of a deeper and more dangerous undercurrent.

Anti-semitism - along with other "isms" akin to it - is patently dangerous - to its victims as well as to the hearts and minds of those who feel the need to be empowered (as we all do - because - Man is a social creature) - it is supremely easy to be swept up in diverse forms of hatred instead of swimming against the current - as we all should do - who are alive and in the water - to the Nations, it is always in the weakest amongst ourselves where weakness enters into our Peace... and where tragedy soon follows.

If Anne is not a human being - as the pain of her history and a Remembrance of those dark and tragic times teaches our memory, then who is?

One who learns to hate must always find reasons to exercise this hatred. Therefore, if it is not the Jews, it is the Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Blacks, homosexuals, the disabled... you name it. 

Hatred will never and shall never empower us, my people - it shall enfeeble us.

<Recall now, Starshine - of the Four Faithful Causes, War will first subvert the Fourth Cause and work its way all the way up to the First Cause - to overthrow the sovereign will of the people and corrupt the sacred trust of the Nations - ALL THE TIME.>
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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.
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Say Peace to the River...

Imagine, if you will, a river that flows through your own heart - is it a nurturing river with waters refreshing to your soul? or is it a polluted river with waters stinking up your spirit?

Imagine all our rivers this way, flowing out in time from our hearts of life and living community - are we at peace with these waters that flow or not?

Any river that flows through the life of any of our community, if it doesn't flow through our hearts does not (and will not) answer to our voice.

How then do we say peace to our rivers, to our skies, and to our seas?

Darling Starshine -

A river flows out into the sea, into heaven, and around again - through you and through me.

How do you say peace to a river without setting it free?

And how do you set a river free without letting its waters come full circle...

from the mountains, through the earth, and to the salty sea - where every river ascends again - invisibly - into the heavens - through the clouds...

...and back again from above - from love to love - through you and through me?

How can you say peace to a river if you do not let it run through thy heart...

Can anything be set free without love?

Can any river long endure being chained? It will either go home to heaven, or exact a terrible revenge upon the human communities of our earth.

How do you say peace to a river?
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Hope Taking Wing

Personal reflection: The pollutants in our rivers are mostly sewage and non-industrial waste. This means, our rivers are mostly in good shape. We do not have to deal with toxic and radioactive pollutants and their expensive clean up costs. All it shall take is OWNERSHIP of our natural bodies of water and waterways.

If we take care of our rivers in this present time and learn to say peace to them - when we become a more mechanized and industrialized Republic, we will grow in a way that is friendly to the vital living ecology that surrounds and sustains our natural human habitat. We will become a more happier people.

Code of Cooperation

Can all the concerned parties agree that the implementation of a Code is -

(1) for purposes of stabilizing and demilitarizing the area of concern to pave the way for a diplomatic resolution of the points of conflict (which we shall work to discern from the area concern) -

(2) and the prevention of open hostilities upon that beleaguered sea around which all of us share a common shore?

As it is, the 9-dash line is diplomatically untenable and entirely unacceptable to my Republic and while this Code does not intend to resolve this issue, it seeks to create conditions that are better suited towards a resolution that will redound to the benefit of all parties, including the regional and the international community.

This Code of Cooperation recognizes two strategic premises -

(1) Uncertainty is our most immediate threat.

(2) War - as the agent of the last 2000 years - is our greatest enemy.

The two principal aims of this Code is - (1) to undo uncertainty and (2) to withstand War - that we may, as claimant parties together more effectively preserve the sovereign rights of our Nations and ensure freedom of navigation along the sea lanes leading in and out of the area concern.

Its primary directive is singularly and unequivocally Cooperation.

1. Distinguish economic interests and disentangle them from the political dialogue.

2. Preserve in the political dialogue a means to better express the parameters of a singularly economic concern (as distinguished from an existential demand.)

3. Observe again the SEA issue and identify these economic points of intersection (wherein the Code is preeminent and automatically applicable).

4. Identify all presently distinguishable economic points of intersection across the whole area of concern and number them systematically by count.

5. Prepare to pilot the most average issue. Agree to politically dignify regional economic cooperation where decisive national means exist - than to allow the crisis control over matters crucial to the future of our region.

6. Reach out in good will, and in smaller ways build a new consensus that is regional in scope - in behalf of the many and not in spite of them.

7. Observe and conserve the ends that favor peace over war.

8. Let us do this together in agreement and break the preponderance of conflict over the region.



In our EEZ's the primacy of decisions initial and fundamental to establishing shared responsibility and common reward for equal development will be retained by the GPH and the initiative of the Filipino people.

In return, know that we are equally and quite profoundly invested in resolutions that preclude conflicts (1) fought for lack of trust - that may have been bridged without exacting a great and terrible cost by diplomatic skill and a common, overriding focus - words spoken truthfully and sincerely always read better, and in the long-term, speak clearer to our memory than blood (2) or conflicts fought for fear of discovering what is truly human in the other - that preclude the knowledge of common ways and familiar needs by a belief that is not served in reward of learning but is nevertheless present and unconnected, floating as it were - conveniently over the reality of truths inconvenient.

For the Tao of War is deception - to undertake the resolution we desire in this Code require us to emerge from this Tao - and speak plainly - to make the circuitous straight - in the language of true things.

The Art of War constitutes victory over War - which is Peace over War - Peace as the craft of all human Nations. And the Tao of  Peace is the Truth - therefore, within this Code we shall speak sincerely only of true things - restrain and contain our politics within our borders and reach out to the other in the truth.






Some initial recommendations: Approach ASEAN partners first - Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei simultaneously. Consult with Thailand and Cambodia on the Preah Vihear issue and seek to understand their lessons learned. Offer advice and support to help Thailand obtain political stability - within the framework of ASEAN, according to the level of bilateral good will Thailand will accept. Then approach the PRC with the ROC together. Explore if applicable to the East China Sea issue.

Personal reflection: To be honest, it is very difficult for me to complete this Code. First of all, I do not have all the information I should like to know to be able to support my larger premises with factual evidence in their details. What I do have are entirely from open sources as well as my internal guidance which is profoundly inclined toward the prevention of any outbreaks of War in our region.

This Code therefore, is an extension of my larger efforts to promote Peace and Peace reform through this blog - in preparation for the next age of our world.

Finally, let this Code and its vision be a work in progress. Let us stop hating each other and start looking after each other, dreaming together as Nations this time.

God bless the PRC and the ROC, my Republic, our ASEAN, Japan, Korea, the Pacific-rim region, and all Countries involved in the task of re-building and re-balancing for Peace.

Mabuhay po tayong lahat!
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