Salutation #67

Therefore,

as a nation - when we forget,

it is worse than when we knew nothing.

For when we knew nothing,

there was nothing to forget.

But when we forget,

we are always divided against something.

Worse, it is always something

we should never have forgotten.

(Preconditions to the Peace Process)

Peace, I salute you.

This is for all our peacekeepers

on the ground of our Land of the Morning

- military as well as civilian -

Muslim, Christian, and Lumad

who are all Filipinos to the very last

and brothers and sisters of the Promise

who continue to hold on to the civic peace

as citizens and human beings, one to the other,

as well as to all our peacemakers

met from across all the sides

of the one common negotiating table -

Peace is prologue to national prosperity!

But there are preconditions to peace.

For peace without clear preconditions

in a conflict involving armed struggle is futile.

For the spirit of War must first be bound by law

and the evil of war formally recognized by all concerned

- in order to strengthen the peace process -

and to effectively break these seemingly endless cycles

of violence and retaliation.

First of all,

there should be no question

about the legitimacy of our one Republic of the Philippines.

To question this is to question the necessity of the entire peace process.

It undoes the ground - upon which -

the parties to the one peace process

are working to build, through all adversity,

an enduring monument to the triumph of our nation.

These are preconditions to the peace process

of which there must never be any doubt.

It is therefore,

the initiative of the lawful government

of the one Filipino nation to pursue or not to pursue negotiations

according to common good of the sovereign Filipino people.

The GPH is not an equal party to the process.

It is the initiating party and let us always remember this:

The GPH is the significant party - the most responsible party -

without which this conflict shall continue unabated.

Foreign mediation is only supplementary and not central to the process.

Our peace process is therefore,

something that is begun by the incumbent Chief Executive

as a rightful exercise of the mandate accorded to his (or her) Office

by the electorate of the nation.

It is therefore,

the prime responsibility of the GPH

to set clear goals and common expectations - as well as -

to be unyielding in the implementation of the mechanisms

that will ensure that every goal is sufficiently met

and every expectation well-founded

and ultimately proven.

There should be adherence to the singular vision of peace.

There should be justice in its approach - in spirit as well as in form.

There should be an ever growing reciprocity of trust.

Indeed,

there should be absoluteness of intent

- to succeed in the attempt -

as well as an unyielding sincerity

- being one without guile or mental reservation -

among the sides from across the one negotiating table

who represent broader interests from among their constituency

as well as carry the common appeal of the one Filipino nation.

There should be continuity and solemn remembrance...

It is the spirit of War - first and foremost -

that must be identified, weakened, rejected, and removed

prior to the obtaining of the vision of the political peace.

There should be universal acceptance

of the foreign nature of the spirit of War

and a common rejection of the manifold evils

it both inflicts and inspires in the nation;

evils made plain and manifest

to our common witnesses

by these unending cycles of pain and loss,

endless battle, poverty and exhaustion -

a sure lineage of ignominy and defeat - for any nation.

There should be a broader understanding of the national peace...

Indeed,

there should be citizenship with fidelity;

a faith among each ourselves that in the end,

the bottom line is that we are all Filipinos to the end

each being individually gifted by God

with one particular nationhood

- the grace to belong -

to a nation that is our nation whatever the name.

Therefore,

there should be a proper well-regard

for the crying needs of our common peoples

and a just and abiding recognition - in all of us -

of the value of the life of our nation.

There should be purity of arms...

- selah -

Now,

particularly speaking

- in the aftermath of recent events -

I think our President Noy

who is our legitimate Chief Executive

and elect by a quorum of the electorate of the nation

has sacrificed enough personal credibility,

spent enough political capital,

and has shown enough good will and good faith

to merit a show of reciprocity from the MILF:

They should surrender the murderers of our troops.

- selah -

And o

ur AFP

should be just as fearless

in launching a formal review

of the lapses

that has led to the incident at al-Barka.

19 is too much...

---<--@

This is my personal appeal to you -

My brothers and sisters of the Promise,

Let us not allow this recent outbreak of violence to shatter our hard fought good will as Filipinos and human beings, one to another, nor steal from us the bright future we all aspire for and truly deserve - the politics of division, once it has exhausted itself, shall look to us for help and consolation.

When that time comes, if we too have lost our guidance - what then?

If we do not hold our ground against the rising of the tide, whither shall our Country be found at the flowing of the tide, when the darkness recedes once again?

If the stars themselves become lost in the midst of the night - what then?

We shall truly be lost.

Salutation #61

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20111025

To my Philippines -

Peace is the responsibility of all!

O my nation, if this conflict were anything else but a war among Filipinos, it would have been a foregone conclusion. The "all-out war" option would have been an easy choice.

In this particular conflict, however, our truest enemy is within. For the greatest threat to the peace of our one Republic are the divisions that keep our nation down.

(Mind you, O listening heart, not the sides themselves but the divisions that keep us apart!)

For it is these divisions that keep our Country weak and unfashioned; a mere shadow of the real glory of the Republic hoped for by all those generations past; that Land of the Morning of whose vision is the singular intention of all their labors, all their tears, all their sacrifices.

This War has prevented the appearance of that Republic, for we are at present living in a place in time that is increasingly not our own; a mere shadow of the hopes of the generations of Filipinos past, a mere fraction of their glorious dreaming.

(If we are being warned, it is because we are at a decisive juncture in the life of our nation.)

My honorable Filipino compatriots, this War in the heart of Man will prevent us from achieving the vision of the national destiny and work to deny our peoples through all our generations the realization of all our dreaming together.

It will seek to further dilute the concentrated strength of the spirit of our nationhood, preclude the promise of many, and consume the life of all. For the spirit of War is a devourer of peoples.

It is within each of us.

(Before the end of days, this beast shall be among the nations for the undoing of all nations.)

Therefore, in the midst of all of this passion, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, in the aftermath of what might have been the worst blow to the peace process we have had to endure as one nation thus far, I am not going to advise anyone of us to choose anything at this point in time.

I want us to rest and reflect. Let us afford our fallen the dignity of a calm worthy of their peace and reflect upon the things they have given their all to afford us.

Let us remember them all in this way, seeking not to add to the price this nation has to pay to obtain from God above the unity which is ours by honor and blood.

Let us listen to our President. Let us invest our trust in the power of his Office. Let us believe in his sincerity. Above all, let us believe in ours.

I personally believe in the sincerity of our President Noy. He may say it differently, do things his own way but I am absolutely convinced that he means to do exactly the same thing - restore our Republic and our generations to our rightful place in time.

Furthermore, let me say this to our national media corps -

Please be aware that all the media hype about this may also have unforeseen and unintended consequences. It might serve to inflame already deeply held passions and further alienate the bar of public opinion from the true merits of the peace process. Therefore, I would like to also ask our press people not to cut the branch we are all sitting on.

I would advise you to listen to the voices of the families of the fallen; to the voices of the common folk who live in the direct path of this conflict, decent Filipinos who did not intend for themselves to become victims of a struggle that is not theirs.

I would advise our national press as a whole not to make accusations that fly in the face of reason and impugn their investigative integrity.

For in a great democracy such as ours, the power of the free press comes from an understanding of its inalienable responsibility to the nation - one values the other. For press freedom protects its nation from ignorance of itself and an enlightened nation protects the freedom of its press.

Media serves the truth. The truth serves the people.

To sum, to all my brothers and sisters of the Promise, all us Filipinos to the last, from the noblest to the least responsible in the nation, from our President and across our wings to the very littlest Filipino, all you with listening hearts -

Let us not make any hasty decisions at this point in time. We do not have to.

Let us rest apart from our troubles and reflect - together this time.

Indeed, let us as one nation solemnly pause - observe a moment of deep and meaningful remembrance - at least till next week or at the very least, till after we have buried our dead.

Let Peace be our common salutation.

---<--@

Harbinger

Then the LORD God said: "See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever."

The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken.

When he expelled the man, he settled him east of the garden of Eden; and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

- Genesis 3: 22-24

---<--@

Prayers for our kindred Republic of Turkey -

Let us also pause for a moment and pray for all of those who were lost in the recent magnitude 7.2 earthquake in eastern Turkey.

As a nation who is not unfamiliar to the tragedy of earthquakes such as these, let us grieve with our brother and sister human beings in Turkey and in hoping with their hopes, send all our kindred concerns to the one God of all human beings - the God Who is - the LORD, my people, He is God!

To all my Roman Catholic brother and sister Filipinos, let us especially take these prayers as well as our prayers for the peace of our Country to God, the Father of our Holy Redeemer, at Holy Mass - tomorrow and every Wednesdays with our Lady of Perpetual Help, on Fridays through the Sacred Heart of Jesus, at sundry times from feast to feast, but above all on Sundays through Jesus Christ and all Christians in Jesus Christ, alleluia.

---<--@

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The War in Heaven is in the Heart -

Revelation 12: 7-9

A Prayer to the King

20111021

Reflections on the 20111018 Encounter in Basilan -

I am reading the statements and hearing the news about the recent clash in Basilan and it hurts me to think that all these political correctness seems to have so quickly overlooked the fact that we have lost good people over there - real people with real families and real friends, with real hopes and dreams and a real potential to realize in our nation.

We can never bring them back nor recoup what promise they once stood for in our behalf but we most certainly must never lose sight of their remembrance.

If we can not honorably accept the hope they have left for us in death, how can we say we have ever really, as citizens of this great and noble Republic, truly valued them in life?

For every soldier's death belongs not to him or her but to "we, the people". It is to us, the people, across all our generations, for whom they now offer their eternal sacrifice before the assembly of the nations before the LORD; to us, the nation he or she served in life; to our nation, to this one, great Filipino nation - who by any other name on earth - remains its true meaning and value in our heart of hearts.

So as regards our fallen soldiers, let's just say it straight and not use euphemisms that only serve to further the hurt.

Let us also inherit their courage as well as their hopes.

(Lt. JD Khe - one of the 19 soldiers who fell last Tuesday - via con Dios.)

For there is no such thing as an accidental clash or a misencounter - every death received, every wound inflicted, every drop of blood shed for the cause of the peace of our one Republic endeavor is real. Indeed, all the love that is everyday shed for God and Country is more real than the money we hold with our hands. For virtue is currency.

Therefore, I respectfully, completely and decisively disagree with the usage of words like "accidental clash" or "misencounter" that serve only to indicate to me that the position we are endorsing is weak. It is weak because its remembrance upon which it must draw its truest and most reliable strength is found lacking.

I am an ardent supporter of the Office of the Presidential Adviser for the Peace Process and so I shall not inflict upon this Office a great disservice by choosing to stay quiet about what I feel needs looking into at this point in time. For I value this Office and all it stands for too much to withhold my loyalty at this decisive juncture of our common mission. I know of how hard this Office works, the sincerity of its people, the vitality and requisite nobility of its mandate, and how difficult the task set by God and our nation before it.

However, we can not as one Republic whole appease criminals - especially war criminals - in times of greatest trouble and in times of deepest calm - either within the ranks of the MILF or the NPA but above all, within our own ranks.

Appeasement of transgressors never serves the purposes of meaningful peace for appeasement is not the forgiveness we seek when we speak about reconciliation.

Most certainly, there can and there should be reconciliation within the nation, among our common peoples - but there can never be reconciliation with War: Those who in their hearts have slept with War and means to repent not of their adultery will always face the Angel of our Remembrance sword first.

I am for peace. But I am for a disciplined observance of it and I realize it will not come cheap.

I realize that this peace will and must involve Justice for all and that this Justice itself demands sacrifice.

For we can never atone for the loss this conflict has inflicted on our people as a whole. Human promise once lost to War is lost forever.

We may only seek to accept the impoverished realities dealt to us by the presence of War in our midst, learn from the depth of our privations, sincerely seek the Peace within ourselves and reconnect with each other as one nation - together this time - under the aegis of Almighty God - through the peace process.

The peace which is our right by honor and blood can never be built on differences nor does it seek to banish the diversity which is our strength.

It is to be built on the steadfastness and potency of those agreements crafted in the spirit of truths about ourselves that ascend higher than the divisions that presently plague our nation, sapping the marrow from our bones, eating up the material as well as spiritual riches of our Country like so much unseen and unwelcome locusts.

Truly, it is not the loss of our soldiers that somehow inclines me to think that the peace process is presently under assault, it is fear of the truth.

The mechanisms of this peace process must first of all involve agreements that limit and control engagements such as these. I have many questions in my mind about last Tuesday's incident in Basilan which is why I am actively seeking to become more informed about it.

But let me tell you this, I will never stand for civilian casualties - AT ALL - the peace process must first and foremost be implemented to protect our non-combatant civilians - Filipinos to the last, especially the very least - the littlest Filipino - and work to establish the norms that seek to treat the common people with the utmost respect as human beings and fellow citizens, brothers and sisters of the Promise, equally engaged in our Republic endeavor without which this peace is worthless.

Both sides when entering into the threshold of the Republic peace from where we must all begin in negotiations must agree to share in the responsibility to protect what we all deem to be worth protecting - the life of our nation - without which this peace is worthless.

When it comes to cases of legitimate military engagements I will never stand for war crimes. But while cases of civilian deaths must proceed through our justice system with the utmost diligence and haste, the losses that our military absorbs while also requiring the application of Justice, must never take precedence over the strategic mission of winning the peace for all Filipinos.

This concession is part and parcel of the sacrifice our national military undertakes to carry upon itself; an essential character of the profession of arms that underlines the value of our military remembrances. And I also expect the same professionalism and determination from the side of the MILF as well as the NPA - especially from their leadership corps.

Verily, we can not seek to merely exhaust ourselves in endless battle without a cause and also claim the dignity of a soul that is rightfully human or the honor of a purpose that is worth all this grief.

We must be just as determined as the spirit of War in our perseverance in the cause of our one Republic peace and as vigilant as War is reckless.

- selah -

My beloved people, let me speak to you for a moment from a place without divisions. Let me speak to you now from a standpoint that care not which camp or faction or side you profess to belong within our one Filipino nation:

We have been harboring what the nations of the world now almost unanimously consider to be the longest running internecine conflict in Asia. If one considers also the extent of the troubles of our Asia, it might perhaps be also right for us to say we have been nurturing in ourselves as a nation, this great and abominable internal division that for the longest time have caused the one Filipino heart to be eclipsed and left wanting in itself; our one Republic skies left as shattered and darkened like the undecipherable confusion that the everyday Filipino is ordinarily subjected unto on top of our daily economic struggles.

These conflicts that divide us reflect the divisions that prevent us from prospering as a nation and these in turn feed into those hidden cycles that spiral down into the void of things that have failed to ascend with the ascent of the truth into the Truth - all that never was - oblivion itself seen from outside of itself.

Indeed, there is a darkness ruling in our midst that is like a tyranny without a tyrant.

I realize I sometimes speak with words that are difficult to grasp - even for myself - (as I might be doing right now) but let me put it this way for us:

Let us please remember, my brothers and sisters of the Promise - for the sake of all we have lost - and strive to validate this truth within each ourselves today, through watchful observance, through unfailing prayer and sincere repentance, that a nation is happy first before becoming materially rich and this happiness will never come by way of the darkness that scatters but by way of the light that gathers.

If not today, when?

Peace, I salute you all.

---<--@

And so, as we enter the end of another week and the nation pauses to reflect upon the significant happenings of the past week, I sincerely hope to have been of help to each of you.

Let us all have a meaningful and relaxing weekend.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The one Code

REMAIN TRUE -
to our peerless LORD
to the one God
of our Father Abraham,
the one common Creator
of all common creation,
seen and unseen.

To your own sacred remembrances
and the memory of your peace
with God and with each other.

To the overcoming of your War
and the advent of your hope
at the dawn of our new dreaming
as nations together.

To thy own universe within
and to the riches therewith
those treasures that
neither thief nor tyrant
can deprive.

To thy own calling
to serve in the way
of virtue and of peace
and to thy own ascent
upon the one mountain path
whereupon all good things
find their meaning and merit
in the prayer of the heart.

To thy own labors
upon this necessary life
and to the hardships also
that this inhabited earth brings -
May you be satisfied
knowing in your heart
what you truly strive for.

To thy own endeavor of Country
and to the trust of thy own nation
may you embrace with your embracing
these wholes upon wholes
as far and as wide as you could
and with courage
and steadfast persistence
bring all your love
as near as it takes you
to the one Love
that unifies us all
with the one LORD of All.

To our Lord's poor
and to each other
as keeper and as friend -

May we all remain faithful
from always to always
until the final gathering
at the end of days
and the beginning
of all things new.
---<--@

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

20111020

Salutation #60

Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness.

- Genesis 1: 3-4

(Objectivity and Justice)

It is not in the present nature of the earth to be neutral.

The unknown earth - in and of itself -

is greater than our natural powers to subdue and perfect

and bring into the dominion of God.

This dominion of earth,

selected for the stewardship of our one family of nations,

being the visible universe entire and particularly this one home world

upon which our humanity and all its generations is planted

as seeds by the will of Providence Divine,

is a barren and hostile realm.

It is a realm of exiles.

We exist as transients in a realm of imbalances, fickle and fleeting.

Absolutely speaking,

objectivity can never freely exist - unbound and unlimited -

in a realm that is as strange and unwelcoming to Mankind as the unknown earth

for if it did, Law and its derivative forms would become unnecessary

and the peace of our nations forever undone!

- selah -

All human constructs inherit from our own humanity,

our own human characteristics, including our own weaknesses.

Collective experiences of a common reality is subjective as a whole

because this same subjectivity also applies

to each individual experience of a particular reality.

Our collective experience of reality

- as a nation among nations -

can be said to be like an all-embracing sea

of whose invisible waters are constantly - refreshed and replenished -

from the culmination of individual choices that flow out as a river

- from every past to every present time -

from each our own individual experience of a particular reality

and this germ of national consciousness

- that every present generation inherits as a whole -

may be said to be naturally predisposed to the intrinsic subjectivity

that is native to each our own particular experiences.

The greater these remembrances,

the stronger the inclination exists to remove ourselves

from the pain of an original ignorance

we can no longer enjoy.

It is therefore, difficult - the greater the view of reality -

to even begin to establish a common foundation

upon which a sense of judicial objectivity

may be said to be ascertained.

Objectivity,

as far as our experience of reality goes,

may only be guaranteed to be certain as far as it is viewed

from within the confines of a controlled environment.

Objectivity in Law

draws from the letter of the law

which at times leave no room of the interpretation of Justice.

For Law as itself is objective only insofar as it is unapplied -

in this sense, law is neutral;

its potential locked until such a time as it is interpreted and applied

by the right juridical authority.

Justice is not objective.

Anywhere that Justice is said to be impartial, it is only to persons.

For Justice by its virtue deals with the restoration of the Truth.

It is therefore, by its own nature partial always to the good.

- selah -

Justice and its application in time, I personally believe,

in its widest sense, must depend not by complete objectivity in interpretation

but by complete impartiality in judgment.

Law is a constraint meant to restrict

what harms the public order and impugns the civil peace

but Justice is not a constraint - it is an act -

meant to restore and preserve the good, the common good, and the absolute good.

It uses the constraint of law in order to preserve

and the virtue of its nature in order to restore.

Since Justice is never inherently objective and Law is never freely subjective,

objectivity where juridical interpretation is concerned, I personally believe,

must draw its common foundation from ethics and the moral sciences.

---<--@

A Soldier's Heart -

No matter the politics - No matter the differences - No matter the cause - When it comes down to it - When the thunder and the confusion sets in and the killing and the dying begins and the whole world seems to shrink - Soldiers fight only for each other and this picture says it all...

NEVER FORGET - go team AFP - go Army.

(Farewell to Promise)

I believe the greatest protection from the psychological and spiritual trauma of the battlefield is the peace of knowing you are fighting for something you personally love; something near to your heart and mind - something you can connect to everything you hold dear and connects you to everything you hold dear.

A love that is a constant assurance to your soldier's heart that you are not fighting in the blind; that you are not fighting just for the sake of fighting alone; that your individual actions are never inspired by mere hatred of the enemy but by a personal commitment to duty, honor and a glorious adherence to the martial virtues.

---<--@

A Call to Memory -

O my Philippines, ALL you brothers and sisters of the Promise, we can not allow the future to be derailed by those who seek to pull us back into the gravity of the last great age of War!

We can not be the enemy we claim to fight - the peace process must draw its lessons from this last encounter, define itself more closely, include and involve all our communities more broadly, and proceed fortified and not weakened by the nobility of our soldiers and the sacrifice of those whom we lost yesterday in Basilan - from both sides of the one side of the one Filipino nation.

Verily, it is the spirit of War against whom we ultimately struggle against before whom we are all, as nations of Mankind, enemies to the last of our generations!

---<--@

It is human to fight for right causes. It is not human to fight against Justice.

It is human to know when to stop fighting. It is not human to forsake the cause of Peace.

It is human to hope for self and for others. It is not human to despair of either self or of others.

It is human to fight for love. It is not human to fight for hate. For when we fight for love, we defend. When we fight for hate, we only fight.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Brokenness

Promise of Old