I. The Naming

The First language knew no words -
it came winged, freely to the heart
and spoke as Motion, and was truth;
understood in action, known to All.

To Old Defiant, an ode -



O Islands,
Who art Thou
but thy own Name!

Who art Thou
but that - the Name
within thy name.

For if Thine own Heart
is within each thine own heart -
Then Thou art a Spirit at-One with Thyself
and a Nation at-Peace among thy peoples!

Therefore -

Must it matter to Thee,
what vanity Thou art called
by a world that knows thee not?

Must it matter to Thee,
what fleeting judgments it spake
than the Truth that ever burns
brightly in Thy bosom?

- selah -

Thou art a Nation
born among the Nations
(of the children of Mankind)
descended from the inaugural lineage
of the Sons of the Holy Patriarch Noah
and so Thine too is the everlasting Covenant
which preserveth the life of the Inhabited Earth.

For Thou art a Nation
among a Family of Nations
each of us distinct yet all the same,
together commissioned by the LORD
at the East Gate of fallen and faded Eden
and together endowed by our God with
each our own purposes and times.

As a Tree among many trees
grown under heaven upon the earth,
We are arisen to bless this barren world
in behalf of the children of Mankind
for the forbearance of Memory,
the Life of the generations,
and the sustenance of
All living souls!

What must matter to Thee - is -
what must matter to the life and the labor
of our Nationhood and not what vanity there is!

For every tree is known by its fruit.

Thou art humanity with belonging.
Thou art sufficiency through reliance.
Thou art harmony and togetherness.

And Peace is Thy common Salutation.

Bravery and Faithfulness
are thy most ancient of names.
---<--@

Bangsamoro: A Dialogue of Unity

This does not mean the way ahead shall be easier for our nation, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, but it does mean we shall now have more of our own strength to overcome the difficulties that lie ahead of our peoples. Our unity does not make the straight path easier, it makes the journey safer... for all Filipinos.

For today we have resolved to walk the way of our nationhood - together this time - in the shelter of peace than in the shadow of war.



"Bangsamoro" shall be the dialogue of unity we shall now have with our Muslim brothers and sisters of the Promise within our one nation. It shall be a continuing dialogue - political, economic, cultural, and spiritual - but most of all, it shall be national. For within it we shall now endeavor to speak with one voice.

Within and between the nations there exists this vital dialogue (mostly invisible) composed of thought, time, discernment, and will - flowing like a river of whose tributaries lie at the heart of each of our citizens, a river that nourishes everything that is built and grows in our Republic. The freer the flow of this river, the mightier the reality of our peace together, the better our peace, the greater our prosperity - spiritual as well as material. 

(Material riches by themselves alone bring only misery and to claim to be spiritually rich without economic prosperity is a lie. To be truly rich, my nation, is to be rich indeed - in spirit and in time.)

Let us remember this, my brothers and sisters of the Promise - we who are raised from the diversity of the earth and joined by Providence Divine into one heart, one labor, one destiny:

We are a free people and so must continually exercise this liberty in order to temper it and make it strong, being very much aware of its costs and its inestimable value to the life of our Republic undertaking of Country.

Let us know that if we shall now choose to begin speaking with and to each other as citizens and human beings equally engaged in building a shelter of Country worthy of our common peace together as Filipinos...

If we shall now choose to become more than the words and become the essence of the nationhood inside of ourselves...

If we shall now choose to secede from the rule of War that have for so long denied from our generations (and from our world) the blessings of our own nationhood and enter into this new conversation of peace and national unity and human good will - together this time - we reclaim the hopes of the past...

And it shall serve us well, my people, for we too shall have been reclaimed by their memory. What we have lost in those terrible years of internecine conflict before this time would not have been in vain.

For we would have begun through this conversation to come alive to their enduring legacy.

No one falls back to the earth without uttering this one hope in the heart - a hope for better days, a hope for brighter times, a hope for kinder tomorrows... a hope for peace. Shall we, as a nation before God, abandon the remembrance of our dead to feed the hunger of War?

My people, my beloved people, the new age opens itself up only to those who are willing to enter into its embrace - my brothers and sisters of the Promise, and this - this seminal peace - is the way for our nation to enter into the new age.

Go and look at the darkness that we leave behind us - the depth and terribleness of it - and let us each ask ourselves today if there is any other way.

Let us reflect upon those tomorrows we, the people, commonly dream of - a future that is our right and our destiny - and let us seize the moment. Let us gather unto the gathering of our nation and heed the call of our peace - today is the day and now is the favorable season.

Let us allow ourselves to be joined together as one Country - being distinct in each person, family, and tribe, but never again distant in spirit - let us entrust ourselves to each other as citizens under the vigilance of Almighty God - let us work for this one outcome - that of unity - together this time

For our enduring compact is one of unity - in this compact we shall entrust to each other our everlasting good being called by Providence into one nation forever.

I have printed a copy of the Framework Agreement and shall be with you in prayer as well as in the labor to complete a comprehensive agreement by the end of this year, 2012.

Indeed, we have much work to do but I can see now that no longer - after this year - shall it be a labor of bitterest tears but a labor of hope.

My heartfelt thanks goes to the negotiating teams from the GPH and the MILF, the MNLF, and above all OPAPP and the Office of the President, as well as the tireless efforts of those nations - especially Malaysia - who have offered us the third element necessary in all peace processes - that of Peacemaker; a conqueror of heights.

May we all be blessed, may all be blessed by all - mabuhay po ang Bangsamoro at mabuhay po ang Pilipinas nating lahat: Shalom. Salaam. Peace - God bless us all.
---<--@

The brightness of thy Banner undiminished in triumph waves,

the glory of thy stars and sun are lights that shall never fade.

Ang kislap ng watawat mo'y tagumpay na nagniningning,
ang bituin at araw niya'y kailanpama'y di magdidilim.

Salutation #158

Citizenship is in the soul - 'tis a seeking in the self -
an integral part of the blossoming of every human life.
So you breath it in your spirit, and you live it in your life

- you seek it like the motion of a love learning to love -
you long for it in yourself - until you are full for the truth -
until your belonging is absolute and your joy is complete.



(The Simple Message of 2012)

Two futures,
one dark and one bright,
is presented before the nations
of the children of Mankind.

We accept one by forsaking the other.

- selah -

How do we understand this?

By completing our remembrances as nations.

Certainly,
the paradigm of the last great age of war
that have prevailed over and utterly eclipsed
the spirit of our nations must be overthrown
by our willing acceptance of the times.

What is a nation?

What for is nationhood?

Personal remembrances make us human.
But it is our national remembrances
that make us citizens.

All depends on the smallest of thoughts.
---<--@

Salutation #139

(Helping Hands)

My brother and sister Filipinos -

A nation who
has no remembrance of its own past
is like a man who
have lost the use of his legs.

A nation who
has no love of its own present
is like a man who
have lost the use of his heart.

A nation who
has no vision of its own future
is like a man who
have lost the use of his mind.

If we are this nation, 
what for are our hands?

What for are our hands, my people?

- selah -

What for the memory but the light?
What for the light but the life?
What for the life but the hope?
What for the hope but the love?
What for the love but the labor?
What for the labor but the peace?
What for the peace but the LORD?

And what for the LORD, our King,
but the victory of all these good things,
alleluia to God on high, my people! 

What for our independence if not our freedom?
What for our freedom if not our peace?
What for our peace if not each other?

What for are our hands, my people?

- selah -

Who has given us our nationhood but God?

Alleluia to God on high, my people!

Did any of us choose to be born with such a soul?

Who can take this spirit in our hearts away?

Alas! Only we, my people, you or I -
by our unremembrance, by our impenitence,
by our unpeaceful, and false ways.

So let us, as the stars,
in this time before the dawn,
awaken Now.
---<--@

Salutation to the Holy Angels

O Holy Michael,
by the power of God,
the dragon prevailed not!

O Heavenly Hosts,
by thy swift and powerful ascent
to the unity of the LORD,
Satan and all his fallen angels
lost their place in heaven.

War is vanquished forever!

I salute all the angels of God!

From the least to the greatest -
I salute all the angels of God!
From the highest of Seraphim
to the guardians of the souls of men.
I acknowledge your unseen presence
with due respect to the unseen reality
that hold back the assault of demons
in our poor world and in my poor life.

I salute all the angels of God!
To the angels of my enemies,
to the angels of my friends,
as well as those of my family,
above all to my guardian dear,
my own angel, faithful and true -
who have known me from eternity;
who came to this world at my birth;
who shall fly me away at my passing.
May God's grace see us through evil
with bonds strong against temptation.
May God bless and purify our friendship
into an union of love that will last forever.

I give thanks and adoration to God
For all the angelic hosts of the LORD.
For the battles they fight
and the victory they proclaim
under the banner of the Lamb,
the leadership of Michael,
and the Queenship of Mary,
by the power of God,
on behalf of suffering mankind.

To the most high and sovereign God
who rules all true things
seen and unseen
and turns all things to good
for those who love and fear Him
may glory, honor and praise belong
forever and ever.

AMEN.

---<--@

(produced 20080204)

The Defeat of War

Salutation #66

How long before we can bring them relief?

To many it shall be too late...

How shall we stand accountable

- for our gift of belonging to each other -

to the God of all heaven and earth?

How shall we explain

our claim to rightful citizenship?

(Identifying with the Peace)

I am for Peace.

I am passionate for the peace.

I will always be for peace.

But I am not for endless talk without fruit.

And the fruit I am seeking

is every form of good

- both in heaven and on the earth -

which is edible to our people

and eternally pleasing to the God of all peoples:

the LORD - our King - and one Sovereign of all nations;

fruit which is especially wholesome - for the littlest Filipino -

on the ground of our Land of the Morning.

I am the same as War - in that -

I do not discriminate between distinctions

that make a Filipino into his or her own unique person.

A hungry Filipino is a hungry Filipino

- no matter the differences -

that make us into Christians, Muslims, or Lumads;

male or female, young or old, better or worse, richer or poorer -

for we are one nation, my beloved people!

All our generations is entrusted by the LORD to the care of each other

and our singular consecration before the God in Eternity is to life;

unto the life of our nation is invested the hope of Sacred Life

all plant and all animal life, both great and small,

especially those who are native to our lands

- above all human life!

Peace is our common salutation.

---<--@

Fly Old Defiant:

Defy War. Defy Darkness. Defy Evil. Defy Corruption. Defy Poverty.

Prosper the Peace! Prosper the People!

Nameless

We know we are Filipino because our nation knows us - equally, individually, each by our own true names written in heaven.

Nameless.

Known only to God.
And faithful to God alone.
Both men and angels together.
Friendships meant to last forever.



Nameless.
Unknown and invisible.
Ordinary in the eyes of men.
Extraordinary in the eyes of God alone.
Beautiful for being beheld by Beauty Itself.



Nameless.
Who live in the heart of Christ.
And walk this world together alone.
Who brave the hard and narrow Way:
The spiritual sons and daughters of the One.



Nameless.
Born of the one firmament of stars.
Numberless lights spread across the sky.
Shining with forbearance, twinkling with hope.
The common patrimony of our Father Abraham.

---<--@

"You shall love the LORD thy God as one LORD alone".

"Make peace with the all of creation. Divide it not. Say peace to the river, to the sky, to the earth, to the animals (and the trees) of the earth and the fishes of the seas, to thy nations good will and to all thy fellow human beings, life and abundance. Do this if you love me."

Go and be a good citizen!

Salutation #63

When you say "yes" to Peace you can not say "yes" to War as well.

(New, Old Philippines)

Tell them -

The LORD has heard thee crying out from thy heart

- O my one Filipino nation -

in the weeping of thy widows,

and in thy orphans,

in thy poor and the needy,

in all the travails of thy sons and daughters

and from out of the blood of all thy unforsaken dead

- all thy salty tears -

- all thy crying out to God -

- all thy mourning has not gone unnoticed -

for the one God of all heaven and earth has heard thee

- the LORD is His Name!

Therefore,

God desires a new, old civilization of peace for our people.

A national community such as this world has not yet seen

being cognizant of its own truth and certain of its own humanity.

It shall rise out of the ashes of the last great age of War

- an endeavor of Country, old as time itself, yet new to our exiled earth -

a Republic in His Majesty's Service!

Yea, my people -

that thou may know in thy one heart of hearts

that the LORD, thy God, is the God of all true belonging

and of the hosts that stand in defense of faithful community

- the LORD Himself shall be our King.

And all these things shall fall into their proper places and times

before the countenance of our God;

our original culture of life reconstituted,

the labor of these times re-dedicated

- to the fostering of justice, truth, and equality for all -

and the life of our common peoples safeguarded

by her one, faithful Republic.

It shall be the triumph of the one Filipino nation

who from least to greatest, bound by the freedom of our gifts,

shall cleave as citizens and human beings to each other

unto one ascent, one lineage of hope, 7,107 islands strong.

And Peace shall be our common salutation.

- selah -

How can we know the triumph of our nation

if we can not hear the song of our victory?

And how can we hear the song of our victory

if we can not say "yes" to God today?

---<--@

‎"The hottest places in Hell is reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." (Dante Alighieri)

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! Shalom. Salaam. Peace. God bless us all.

A Prayer to the King

Service is a calling (not an ambition)

The Circular Relationship of the Four Causes

20110727

This is my initial reaction to the SONA 2011 -

My one Filipino nation, with the Peace of the LORD - I salute you.

What I noticed the most is the President's call for national transformation.

Let me explain:

Our Country seem insulated from tragedies such as that which recently befell brave Norway. This is so because most Filipinos are too busy trying to survive from day to day.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, if we as an emerging Republic get the workings of the foundations of our fledgling national culture right - here and now, when in time we become developed enough for our people to start confronting those problems developed Countries must presently confront at this time, we shall not find our nation as vulnerable to such crimes as those wrought by the terrorist intents of the likes of Mr Breivik (or Mr. McVeigh, or OBL on the other extreme for that matter).

A mature Republic is proof against War in the heart.

It is this gathering spirit dwelling in our culture that we are presently trying to awaken into here now today through all our Salutations and our conversations in this blog so that when time comes (and it will) and we are, God-willing, developed enough in our material prosperity as one Republic whole, my honorable compatriots, our present generations will also have had (as a gift from us) the spiritual maturity to seamlessly advance this Country of ours into its fourth and most fruitful age upon this earth.

(You have to excuse my language here and bear with me, I am expressing them in a form that is native to this blog alone. They shall be meaningful to you only if you have been following me in this conversation of ours.)

In a sense, I get President Aquino's speech about the wang-wang mentality. The transformation he is spearheading is a necessary thrust in the right direction away from the night that has long engulfed our Land of the Morning.

We must let go of the wang-wang mentality that says, "I will lord it over others." Jesus Christ the Lord Himself warned us about this mentality.

This is nothing more than the "them" and "us" mentality that flies in the face of our just equality as human beings and peers to each other before God and the law.

It is the elitist mentality of the so-called servant who does not actually will to respond to the Divine calling to serve the nation in the Republic but rather, seeks through selfish ambitions to possess the fruits of the virtue of others instead.

- selah -

My brothers and sisters of the Promise, you know as well as I do that this long night can not last forever. We are here now and step by faithful step, we shall lead each other away from the tired old ways of the past.

We shall break ourselves free from the gravity of the last 2000 years by the sheer brightness of our remembrances together, each to the other, a keeper and friend, all to the All, one whole sky.

No longer shall mindless division, political discord and a dissolute spirit confound, weaken and trouble our belongings to each other as citizens to this nation God has commissioned for a Country the LORD has commanded to prosper and prevail over the darkness of an unknown earth - allied to the peace of all our kindred nations.

We shall break new ground in our ways of thinking and belonging as a people, and of building, sharing, and enjoying through our labors together, this land and its fruits.

And we shall defend this endowment - continually being won for us by our people and eternally granted to us by our God - against all takers, foreign and domestic.

Indeed, we shall as citizens to each other advance this Country and its posterity into the dawn that is promised by the LORD to all those nations who love and fear Him as God to one and All, once and for all.

(So let us out of fear, dispense with thousands of years of rigid, formal introduction, Beloved of God, for there is but one God and one LORD alone: As you love God, you know Him.)

---<--@

Salutation #43

(Service)

Any undertaking of Country

- across its generations in time -

easily span the width and breadth

of human lives in their millions.

God is severe enough with sins against individuals

but to willfully sin against Country,

it is beyond my understanding what will happen to those souls

who knowingly and maliciously deprive an entire nation

and their generations their own God-given house,

which is their shelter and sanctuary against War in this world.

Indeed,

countless human lives have from different times and places

been taken from us before their time

only because they lack the shelter of Country.

Remember them today,

bring their hopes for a better world with thee...

and with forbearance, serve.

Starshine,

there are as many holy innocents in heaven

- pleading constantly to the LORD -

for an end to War and the breaking of this midnight world

as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth.

So remember the LORD today,

trust in the wisdom of God even in thy midst

- do not despair in the midst of all this darkness -

for the LORD allows rain to fall on the good and the evil alike

so be thou good - Beloved of God - shine for Him

and with forbearance, serve.

- selah -

Do not be scandalized by the tares in the wheat!

---<--@

Some Suggestions:

I agree with Senator Marcos - employing the poor in productive labor gives them a much better fighting chance to liberate themselves from the clutches of poverty.

Distribute the PPP projects by region.

Triage the entire Country by region, province, then city - determine civil defense readiness and necessary requirements per LGU. Establish a national standard of readiness and a centralized, unified incident command process.

---<--@

Just a Thought:

Is it so hard to take care of a nation? Heck, it practically takes care of itself.

A nation is like a seed; a labor endowed by God with the power to fulfill its own destiny.

It already has in itself everything it needs to grow and to succeed.

Now, the work of government is to just help it along its own way and - most importantly - avoid suffocating the life of the people.

---<--@

Let us continue to pray for the Kingdom of Norway and her people, for peace in our nation, the Middle East and in Asia.

Let us also pray for CGMA who is presently in hospital - despite everything that is happening - let us remember to her credit as well as ours that she did our nation a measure of good as well.

---<--@

Lastly, let me and my Miyang share this with you - Utak Wang-wang

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Service is a call (not an ambition)

One Nation

Breaking the Siege

20110630

The Calm in the Storm

Everything that is happening around us - especially the Spratly issue - is like a vicious typhoon.

You know as well as I do, my fellow Filipino compatriots, that each of us must find that calm in the storm to make sure that we are no longer part of the problem but part of the solution.

When everybody is railing around you in anger about China's aggressiveness, you can not stir in the spirit of that same stirring - you must find the center in the storm.

You know how strong these typhoons get. It is quite easy to be swept away by its howling winds. This is precisely what it does when we act out rashly, judge things with finality, believe falsely or too easily.

Or it may bring to us, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, so great an inundation that the crash of all these realities might unleash currents strong and swift enough to drive us all into inaction or worse, despair.

But if we hold on to the beliefs in our hearts, and if we practice these convictions in everyday life - we shall be secure in the storm.

If each of us makes a conscious effort to make these truths about ourselves as a nation stand out in our awareness strongly enough through daily practice that they form good, strong civic habits in ourselves as citizens to each other - we shall be secure in the storm indeed.

Because no matter how the Spratly issue plays itself out - the reality of it all is that what really, really, matters is how we react to it as a nation.

Defense is a reaction - absolutely speaking.

Therefore, we can not stir with the stirring of the outside world. We can not let external forces dictate our own internal desire for peace amongst ourselves and amongst other nations at any and at all costs.

I tell you now, the best adaptation in these uncertain times is unity and the more timeless the truths invested in this sense of unity, the better we shall be able to withstand those forces of division that seek to tear all nations apart.

Not the Chinese, not any other nation on earth can reach out to God for our own sense of national unity and belonging than we, the Filipino people.

And in a typhoon - let us always remember - a house divided will not last.

Therefore, when you hear those many voices railing against sides to this dispute (voices who do not even have the courage to own up to the perspectives they like to spout) go ahead and listen but always make sure you have presence enough in yourself to be able to make your own considerations about the matter as soundly and as closely to the one heart in each thy selves that you can get or ask those who you know and whose counsel you can trust.

Do not be so easily swayed or unhinged by opinion polls, popular clamor, or any extemporaneous outpourings of sentiments from faceless crowds but rather, always try to have one for yourself and always be open and honest enough to test the strength of your own opinions against these external forces.

Be committed to the truth and not to false pride.

Do not hold on to the darkness that must sink into the void at the passing of every moment lest it carry you down to your grave.

Ascend with the ascent of all true things to the unity of God, the LORD of All.

Represent the national good will in these times but especially in sundry times - in and amidst our national communities and among our kindred nations.

Do good things that are unknown and without fanfare. Love the act of doing good, yea - love the act itself - appreciate deeply in your heart what you receive by your giving away.

Preserve the national good will in sundry times but especially in times of adversity.

Especially, do not creates sides within our Republic whole that may not exist and discriminate against our own citizens of Chinese descent or any other citizen that does not appear common to you because not one of us has the right to do so who belong to this nation - citizenship is a call made by God and not by people (or by angels for that matter).

It is a particular bent in the human soul - a grace no human eye can see but is all too commonly felt in those whose hearts have awakened to their patriotic calling.

It is a splendor we witness by the beauty of those lives we as citizens desire to commonly imitate in our nation's heroes and in the heroes of all nations.

Above all, know and understand that this grace is made to dwell in the hearts of all citizens from every nation - that you may better identify with them in their humanity and better understand also that constant call for good will among our nations that despite the ferocity of our recent past is now being reiterated under this season of Peace, by the one Sovereign of all nations no less.

Let us pray for an equitable solution to the Spratly dispute.

And let us continue to be vigilant and deeply committed to the cause of peace in our nation, in our region, in our continent, and in our world so needful of the responsible and decisive exercise of our most basic of citizenships simply as human beings, one to another.

---<--@

The Angel of the Nations

All the Holy Angels of the LORD serve God and God alone.

Now, the Angel of the Nations beholds the face of the LORD, constantly giving worship to God.

Therefore, when the angel of the nations faces its own nation, it provides light to the generations of its people who in turn accept it.

Its sword is then turned away from its own nation in its defense.

When the people reject the peace of this unifying light, the face of the angel is turned away.

And the sword of the angel is then turned toward its own nation to fight against the darkness that keep it from its own remembrances.

As nations, we can only really either surrender to the peace of our belongings together or fight against the angel that guards the memory of our people from the darkness of War.

Remember this - nationhood is a spiritual endowment. It is therefore, a truth in the heart. You can not see it - it is not just a face, not just a sound, or anything purely material - it is wrought through a particular kind of grace, of peace and the love of the same (good will).

It is a labor, a mission, a vision and a destiny.

You feel it in your being, you know it in your heart because it is an unseen reality that calls out to you and all of your peers in the nation that you may be gathered into your own true belongings in time.

It is your gift of nationhood that fosters you according to the peace of your own citizenship - one to another - as a human being among human beings and as a nation among a family of nations.

It is not a work of War.

---<--@

If you still want to know the name of the Angel of the Philippines, it is this - "Go and be a good citizen".

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas at lahat ng mga bansa ng ating sangkatauhan! May God bless us and all His nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

To close, let me (and my Miyang) share this with you -

Country is a Verb

Blindness

20110409

Sources of Poverty

I have often meditated on the problem of poverty.

We are mistaken who should believe that the problem of widespread poverty in the Philippines is a purely material phenomenon.

We can not make the poor rich through purely external means. So those traditional economic indicators of a nation's wealth (or lack thereof) are only indicative of a part of the process and certainly not the whole.

We can not completely rely on what other economies think, well-meaning though they are, about our own economy because the roots of our national destiny is planted not on the soil of their land nor is the will of our nationhood established upon the soul of their experience as a people.

Surely, we can not look at a happy, smiling picture of another nation and say to ourselves it is our own without deceiving ourselves. For no nation upon the earth is the same.

Though we are all allied to each other by blood and covenant, each of us - each nation - is as distinct as individual human beings are unique.

The progress of any other nation is built upon the backs of its own sweat, blood, and tears.

Each their own journeys in time shaped by their own common experience of a love willingly and freely shed and therefore, shared from among its people across their generations; their peace a result of the reality they have crafted by grace of God from their own belonging together.

We are not any other nation, my fellow Filipino compatriots, we are this nation.

How we see ourselves as ourselves has a very direct as well as distinct bearing on our national destiny.

It might seem to fade in contrast to the obvious reality of the material but we must remember that the roots of our poverty goes deeper than the things of this world - and that is the truth.

And it matters not what name we should call ourselves - we are what we do.

If our understanding of the Angel of the Philippines (or the spirit of the one Filipino people) is wont to teach us anything, it is this:

We could choose to change the name of our nation (not that I am for it, mind you, I am completely against it) but it shall always remain for all our generations that we are who we are inside of ourselves more than what or how or by what name we appear (or make ourselves appear) from the outside.

We shall wear our Flag on the inside before anything else or not at all.

Because time is a flow and once it has gone out of the timeless within our hearts, once time has flowed out of the Sanctuary of the LORD in our every hearts, it is no longer time but consequence and is near impossible to change. (You may refer to the River in Ezekiel 47: 1-12.)

Only a miracle of God can change the course of consequence.

These miracles do happen but if we rely exclusively on them, we tempt the LORD.

For the small and hidden miracles that God works in the hearts of all men are plentiful indeed and more than enough to change the course of our history - we just need to pay attention and hear Him.

Verily, we can not rely purely on externals to solve our problems as a people.

The fact of the matter is poverty is a social justice issue here in the Philippines. It is therefore, a wrong that our society as a whole must make right.

We have to become willing to re-think ourselves again as ourselves - together this time.

People are poor who have accepted the reality of being poor. A nation is defeated who have come to accept its own defeat. No nation can so thoroughly deplete the spirit and exhaust the will of another nation as completely as it can its own self.

We are not a defeated people. We have spirit enough in ourselves to make it right. So we have to educate ourselves aright, above all our youth.

Our history writes that the Philippines was re-discovered in 1521 by a nation not its own.

Let it write further here today that in the third Christian millennium, the Philippines is re-discovered once again by its own nation; by a people wholly its own and a generation called to re-constitute once more our original culture of life and peace.

Carry on with determination, President Noy.

Do not let your faith waver nor the belief in your heart be weakened by those things that oppose your good will and spirit of Country.

Rather, let if flow out of yourself as a mighty river, continue to strive to be the change to inspire us and to work in the nation a remembrance of itself, mabuhay!

We are with you, sir - all the way.

Furthermore, please refer to 20110317, The Roots of the Problem - and consider these also as major sources of poverty.

---<--@

Araw ng Kagitingan

Today we commemorate "Araw ng Kagitingan" or Day of Valour. This day marks the surrender of Bataan and Corregidor during WWII.

Through it, we commemorate the universal spirit of the Filipino profession of arms in general and our friendship with the US Armed Forces in specific.

To do justice to the undying sacrifices of our soldiers and of all soldiers from every nation, we must always remember that there is no such thing as a "just" war, only just causes.

That it is the lives and the actions of just and virtuous military men and women of our nation and of every nation that we shall remember to honor this day, because, my honorable compatriots, in stark contrast to the atrocities of war and the dishonor of war criminals, it is these that redeem.

Military blood ties are permanent.

We ignore the counsel of our own military remembrances at our own peril.

Lest we forget. Lest we forget.

---<--@

A Tragedy in Brazil

I was shocked and saddened by the recent school shooting in Brazil. There are no words enough to express it. I stand in silent sympathy with them.

Let us pray for the victims of this tragedy, feel their hurt, and ask God above for healing for the Brazilian nation.

Let us say peace be upon Brazil, peace be upon the Brazilian people.

---<--@

Another Earthquake in Japan

Japan has done so much for the Philippines. In this time of great stress, let us continue to pray for Japan. May God bless the Japanese nation!

May their indomitable strength of spirit triumph against this test.

Please visit Asia For Japan.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

20110327

Gaps in the Line

There are gaps in the line of my Generation X -
the lonely spaces of missing lives,
the unfulfilled promises of those individuals
taken before their time...
the results of man's evil against man.

In those other generations before my time
these gaps were the unwanted effects of war and crime.
In my Generation X,
though war and crime still takes its toll
most of these gaps in the line
are the result of abortions.

It is no small wonder my Generation X is hurting - a lot.
---<--@

Let us now, for a moment, go back to the debate regarding the RH Bill:

As regards to our nation, there exists only one evil end that I should like to warn you about and this evil end is the abomination of the desolation of war - the one defeat that this nation and all of its present generations should be wary about. Because through many and diverse methods, it shall make a relentless sport of the life of our nation.

Against the will of this evil, we must be just as relentless in our vigilant desire to preserve our peace as a nation (distinct but not apart from the one family of the nations of Mankind).

Though abortion is not perceived to be the central issue as regards to the RH Bill. I shall not fail to make mention of it here. For the evil of abortion serve the same end as it must be obvious to many of us now.

Those missing gaps I have mentioned above constitute a lack in human promise. We are left all the more weaker in our generations when human promise is left wanting in the nation.

Indeed, our representative congress has a commitment to pass the right laws. What I hope to avoid for our nation is a weakening of its vitality through laws passed that are in reality anti-human and so instead of binding what evil there is bind what good there is.

There are nations in our world today who are suffering because of this lack in vitality so that we are not left wanting in those lessons we can not afford to learn ourselves.

I should like to point out to you, my honorable compatriots, that we are as a nation a pledge of the victory of Sacred Life. We exist to preserve both human dignity and human promise.

In my own view, the essence of the RH Bill is education. It is more than just simple choice. More than that, it is about fostering the right choices in our people.

It is about quality of life issues in this nation - how to improve it?

It is about poverty as a social justice issue in this Republic - how to diminish it?

It is about population demographics - how to utilize it in pursuit of the national good?

It is about traditional Filipino family values - how to preserve it?

It is about the order of our generations - how to obtain its completeness?

To wit, it is all about engendering a new sense of freedom in our people and therefore, the duties that must accompany it. So what are these duties?

The passing of any kind of RH law in this Republic will impact the way in which Filipino society as a national whole will perceive what kind of responsibility we shall as individual citizens attach to these questions, and therefore, how courageously and how consistently we shall apply ourselves to the constant demand for answers in the civic sphere.

All of these have a direct bearing on the national destiny. All of these are shaped by the

laws that must always be guided by a will to preserve this sense of a

responsible freedom in our people.

This debate is contentious. But let it also be guided by civility and a sense of loyalty to the nation. It can not descend into blindness. For if we are not vigilant in our freedom and allow ourselves to become so divided in our hearts about this debate, we shall still come to calamity.

The sheer weight of the division that this issue represents to us must not completely suffocate our burning desire to recognize what we are all trying to promote in common with each other through this debate. If we allow this to happen, it is the least of us Filipinos who shall suffer. It will add to the debt of Justice and multiply burdens.

Lastly, as regards to the evil of abortion, it is not the number of cells in a fetus that define our being human, it is how we treat each other.

Angel of the Nations

I would like us to think about this:

How we treat each other counts for much.

I've often asked in prayer to know the proper name of the Angel of the Philippines. It is never given to me. As much as I would like to tell you what it is, my fellow Filipino compatriots, I do not know. This is so because we are what we do.

The nation is present in ourselves when we do the things that are proper to our nationhood.

This is true

especially when it concerns the unmet needs of the very least of the children of God and Country, the poorest and the most defenseless of our brothers and sisters in the promise.

We are what we do.

---<--@

A Day of Days

To my brother and sister Christians, the world is so full of troubles indeed. If you are confused, do not be afraid. For this world is shrouded in a spiritual darkness. This confusion is a symptom of the times.

Darkness is but darkness that does not lead us to the light. So do not hold on to what must pass away with the ebb and flow tide of exile time. Time is an ascent of the truth and the Truth is not of the darkness. Fear the LORD, He is God!

Sunday is our day of worship and rest.

It is that day of days we are obliged by sacred duty to go to church and, for Catholics like myself, to celebrate Holy Mass. This day was made for you and me, dear Christian soul - for each of us.

This day of days, my fellow Filipino compatriots - those of us who are the sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church and all who invoke the name of Jesus Christ - the nation can wait. For today among all days we shall renew our commitment to peace and common humanity before God.

Today we shall rest our souls and refresh our spirits.

Let us know that we have our other brothers and sisters, honorable Filipino compatriots each and every one of them, especially those of the faith of our Father Abraham, who shall keep the fort for us this day as we must do for them on their days of obligatory worship to the one LORD and Sovereign of all nations.

Let none of us here say peace who live upon our lands without its meaning being first understood in the heart with a conviction of faith.

We shall be vigilant for each other.

The peace of our Philippines must no longer be vexed by the evil of religious wars; a perplexing feature of the last great age of war.

This mindset of division require a form of monolatry - each to his own one god. This is a form of idol worship. The curse of monolatry is a peril we can no longer ignore in this present age.

If it is truly our desire to obtain from heaven the peace that prospers, we must know that God is the God of all - God is and that is all. He is the LORD and there is no other like Him.

So let your mind dwell on God this day making certain that when you shall enter deeper into the inexhaustible mystery of our Christian faith - in personal prayer and above all, in community with other Christians, most especially at Holy Mass, you enter with all your heart and all your soul into the most profound depths of the Trinitarian mystery.

This will strengthen you - each one of us - for the work of peace-building that we are all as a nation (distinct but not apart from the one family of the nations of Mankind) presently tasked by God to do; that my generation and the generation after mine (X and Y) in particular have been commissioned by our Lord Christ to accomplish (X and Y for Z).

Go open wide the eyes of thy hearts to the Incarnate Word of God, thy True Light and let flee the darkness from within our poor selves. Pray so that the ears of your inward hearing may hear the eternal message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then let us go bathe our broken hearts in its everliving waters.

Let us Catholics receive fervently together the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the altar, and then let us serve. Let us serve with all those who invoke Christ as Savior and Lord, who share with us one common baptism. For serve we must. Let us repent of our past ways.

As the Muslims say, we shall compete in good works, my fellow Filipino compatriots, as citizens to each other - together this time.

This is our burden of expectation:

We shall break completely with the momentum of past two thousand years by breaking the rule of war in each our hearts. A difficult thing indeed, but not by God Who everyday fills for each of us and for each our nations what is impossible for Man to do in and of himself alone.

For the War in heaven is in the heart. We must remain vigilant. We must refuse the spirit of War entry into our world from a heart submitted to the truth, even to the peace of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer of all Mankind. To accept this truth is to refuse division a toehold on this nation.

In this world of ours, cast adrift in a void that is hostile upon hostile to all of life both body and soul (most especially to all human life which is hated above all by the evil and all evil things), the only other freedom that reaches out to the freedom of Man reaching out from that loneliness from within our heart is the freedom of God.

Both the void of space and the void of war lay eager to consume the life of both the body and the soul. To the heart of Man, its emptiness is maddening, and its oblivion is certain.

But the LORD, our God, is merciful to all those who love and fear Him. He knows our sufferings intimately. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we know that God is the Fullness of Compassion.

Brothers and sisters, for all the good things our God had worked for us, in our lives and in the life of our nation, the things we truly ought to be most thankful about are those we don't have any knowledge about, for of these things are the greatest of evils made, those evils from which God has chosen to deliver us. Because as Jesus Christ Himself taught, God indeed delivers from evil - each person, each family, each tribe, each nation, even the world entire.

Isn't this the purpose for which our Emmanuel came to our world - to deliver us, all of us?

Our God is indeed a good God, a very good God.

There is no reason God will not relent to deliver us now - in this darkness. If only we hear Him.

So today we shall remember the LORD:

That God is and that is all - That He is God - the LORD, our God, The God Who loves us all - the Father Who sent to us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ Who one with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns with the Father, One God forever.
---<--@

I LOVE YOU, my nation -

I love you, my people:
Our hustle and bustle life,
our noisy, chaotic streets
full of pedestrian colors
and the sweetness of
our nameless, honest labors.

O my Philippines, advance!
Into brighter, better days
where I know
our hearts belong.

O my Filipino compatriots,
companions of national destiny:
We are not a bad people
these are just bad times,
but let us fear not
for I have seen our hearts
and I know we have it in ourselves
to make it all right.

We are a people of the peace,
stalwart defenders of Sacred Life -
and worthy of each others sacred trust.

Let us remain who we are
to become our better selves:
One nation, strong for being faithful
with one, indivisible peace
under the eternal vigilance
of our one Almighty God
and valiant keepers
of each other's
human hope and good will.

These evils times will pass
and all will be well, my nation,
we shall outlast these evil days.

All will be well, peace -
my one people.

I love you,
We love you -
O eternal Philippines -
from always to always.
---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.