Foreign policy is a domestic issue.
If we were to obtain for ourselves from the Republic vision, an independent foreign policy, then we must bring this issue closer to home. We must be able to know and express our place in this world.
Rizal was a true citizen of the earth.
He exercised human citizenship as a foundation of his being Filipino He was not a xenophobe. His best friend was an Austrian, Ferdinand Blumentritt. And we all know his love life.
Our 1987 Constitution offers us guidance in the form of two things - renunciation of war (conferring the right of common defense) and amity among nations (conferring the right of family).
I perceive those to be two sides of the same foreign policy coin.
War to me is not a foreign policy.
Personally speaking, I believe in an independent, interdependent foreign policy, one that stresses the importance of an interdependent planetary community as an immovable constant in a changing world.
At its soul is love of friendship.
Its central concerns are human rights and national rights simply expressed as their basic human causes and these as goods reciprocal.
And these also expressed as sovereign need and sovereign trust in international relations.
And so - less stress on politics, more emphasis on clear and resolute choices.
No peace is perfect. But the decision to pursue peace must be one that is perfect enough. Truth is the first casualty of every nation's falling away from peace. Darkness sets in. War then takes its place. And so begins the death of human purpose and the corruption of human order.
If truth can not be resurrected by the choice to return to the path of peace, it is not a failure of peace but a failure of choice.
---<--@
If we were to obtain for ourselves from the Republic vision, an independent foreign policy, then we must bring this issue closer to home. We must be able to know and express our place in this world.
Rizal was a true citizen of the earth.
He exercised human citizenship as a foundation of his being Filipino He was not a xenophobe. His best friend was an Austrian, Ferdinand Blumentritt. And we all know his love life.
Our 1987 Constitution offers us guidance in the form of two things - renunciation of war (conferring the right of common defense) and amity among nations (conferring the right of family).
I perceive those to be two sides of the same foreign policy coin.
War to me is not a foreign policy.
Personally speaking, I believe in an independent, interdependent foreign policy, one that stresses the importance of an interdependent planetary community as an immovable constant in a changing world.
At its soul is love of friendship.
Its central concerns are human rights and national rights simply expressed as their basic human causes and these as goods reciprocal.
And these also expressed as sovereign need and sovereign trust in international relations.
And so - less stress on politics, more emphasis on clear and resolute choices.
No peace is perfect. But the decision to pursue peace must be one that is perfect enough. Truth is the first casualty of every nation's falling away from peace. Darkness sets in. War then takes its place. And so begins the death of human purpose and the corruption of human order.
If truth can not be resurrected by the choice to return to the path of peace, it is not a failure of peace but a failure of choice.
---<--@
