Thoughts on Peace and Anti-Semitism

A good sense of history seeks to address
the question of "where" more than "when"

History they say is written by the victors. But memory (national) is not. Remembrance is right that recalls the human cost (in all the names of those who fell along our journey of return) and makes a just and human account in the heart before God of all the things history seldom mentions... a present and living account. 

I used to study history but it was impersonal. I failed to impress upon myself that history is much more than pages of a book. The aim of history is to acquire a "sense of history". Not become all too familiar with the past but discern from a good knowledge of it, a clearer understanding of the living present. 

In this way, books become more valuable than just paper and ink. And what our teachers impart to us about history becomes for us a form of art than just ancient knowledge. We begin to have an appreciation... that history is not just a long tale of woe.

Anti-Semitism too is historical. Here is what I presently understand about it:

The Star of David corrupted into an anti-semitic label.
These labels are all of them devices intended
to dehumanize its victim.

First of all, anti-Semitism is easy. Maybe that's why small-minded people like it. Because it fits.

A says its better than Z to feel itself "the letter A".

A then proceeds to prove to the alphabetical realm that what A says is true, that Z is only half-a-letter. A then begins to persecute Z because A is "A" and A says so. Ludicrous!

The next in line for A after Z is laid low would be Y. Meaning after the Jews, the Gypsies... then the Blacks, Reds, Yellows, Whites, Browns, Grays, Blues, Muslims, Christians, Catholics - everything that doesn't conform to the "A"s own version of the alphabet right up to A's closest buddy, B.

In spirit, the relentless hatred that dwells behind all things anti-human shall only thrive on the victimization of our humanity - where ever and whenever we may allow it. This is the spirit that feeds on anti-semitism. Evil.

A's own version of the alphabet? A, A, A, A, A... get my drift? 

When everything is A, there will be peace. And it will make no sense. 

To A however, it really doesn't matter that in A's version of the alphabet, one can not even spell "peace". It is a paradox that will be rammed down every other letter's conception of itself.

I am not saying that the letter Z is better than A. 

What I'm saying is everybody is different and we should be knowledgeable enough of ourselves now (after enough of a span of time) to accept the fact that we can only be meaningful as letters (as nations) as we are and as a whole. That way we can spell anything (truthfully, meaningfully, and profitably).

The fuse that A needs to light that will cause the subsequent implosion of the synergistic diversity that is the real alphabet, of course, is Z.

That to me is Anti-Semitism.

Allow it into the soul of your nation and it will fester into all those other "isms" that a free and human people ought to always guard against.

Certainly it was never a part of our peace here in the Philippines and if I can help it, shall never prosper in the soul of this Nation.

Not just because of my memory of Anne Frank and her times but because the memory of the last 2000 years is full of destructively inhuman divisions like these... too many, too much. We are confronted with numbers so large and so terrible, it intimates to each our remembrances that we shall not even be enough to render unto the living God, an adequate account...


Go past 2000 years and we get more of the same... but 2000 years is all it takes.

Indeed, the last century as the culmination of the last 1900 years is a foretelling enough to understand that if we remain adamant in our clinging to old molds that need breaking, the momentum of the past shall sweep us into perhaps another century of more of the last age... if we can not account for that century then another one more terrible than the last shall be poured as fire down upon our heads.

Until everything is parched dry. Until the spirit of humanity is diminished enough and darkness overwhelm all nations utterly with the madness of war.

I do not want that... a world overrun by sin and war, dark and indistinct from the darkness of the void. In contrast, I choose another vision of peace. (As it were, one that spells p-e-a-c-e.)

The peace I want is the opposite, obtained through the opening of a new path into the morrow. One that leads to a vision apart from the one whose fruits (the bitterest of which is genocide and an absent sense of truth) we have experienced in the last century; a vision obtained through the closing of the door of the present - as completely as possible - from the evils of the past age.

Peace can be complicated at times, I agree.

We are being confused by so many truths about it even now, here in our Philippines. But if we stay on the path (knowing the firmness of its first principles) and keep our hearts focused on a shared vision of "something new and wonderful", I know determination and faith will take us to places in time we've never been as a Country... better places.

Together, only together. Without those ruinous "isms"... extremism, terrorism, racism, sexism, ageism, shapeism, etc. More wheat, less tares.

The peace of our times will never be a perfect peace, I definitely agree.

The national peace shall always be an unfolding work in time and will always mirror the truths about our common humanity. Knowing its foundation and its vision should be enough... for it is both location and destination, plus a compass of identity and memory to carry us through.

And vigilant trust; an agility to react and to innovate (ideals, principles and vision) properly. For we are as a nation still learning a new landscape and have yet to reach a safe distance down along the path to our new morning... a new dawn para sa lahat ng Pilipino (para na rin siguro sa lahat sa mundo).

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. 

Let us continue to work and pray for peace in our time, here in our Philippines and in our world...

Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

JFK in a letter requesting his Secretary of Labor to deliver 
a wreath in their nation's behalf to the Anne Frank House wrote... 
"the hopeful and the gentle are the true makers of history".

On the National Conversation

Trying times bring out the best and the worst in people and these are trying times indeed...

One should always presuppose something human about the State and the Philippine State being what it is, democratic, a healthy clash of opinions is a good sign.

I agree with those who disagree with me in that they like myself are free to express their thoughts on matters concerning the life of our State.

One should not be the judge of opinions other than one's own.

If your stand is stood on principles, then your opinions as a reflection of your convictions should outlast the opinions of the hasty and the reckless. 

However, when we start turning on each other as judges of each other's belief, things start to turn from sour to bitter. Because this makes it political. 

Let the facts shape our belief. Let the truth dictate our vision.

I believe our civics or basically the art of how we treat each other as citizens is grounded on the truths of our nationhood. Therefore, "our" national conversation should be generally conducted in the spirit of our civics.

We as a people talk all the time. 

We are free to do so by a freedom that is our right and responsibility - "free expression", it is called. Free expression as a form of participation in the life of our nation (and ultimately in the politics of our State) is what I refer to as our national conversation.

The Filipino media, our free press, are our gatekeepers as regards the national conversation which is why to impinge upon press freedoms is the beginning of the end of free expression in the nation.

Our government and its institutions are formally represented to the Filipino public by each its own public affairs representatives. Our press is the popular equivalent. This is important.

One who believes in free expression should also make the connection in his mind that press freedom is just as important and in his heart understand the reciprocity of its good.

It has been said that a state that begins burning its books ends up burning its own people.

In much the same fashion, any democratic government or for that matter, any free people not outraged at attacks on its own free press do not understand how free expression works and place themselves in peril of ultimately losing it. Indeed, we ought by knowledge of this be forewarned about the twin values of press freedom and free expression and live our freedoms accordingly.

Brother and sister Filipinos, we should care about the quality of the conversation we are having as a nation. 

To this end, I should laud our media people who are working hard to make all this talk a worthwhile thing to have for all of us.

I too believe the talk we should be having, for our national conversation to bear us good fruit, should be focused on quality. Our conversations about issues that matter should always honorably reflect, in spite of the sobering reality of so many woes, our highest ideals and beliefs.

Our national conversation serves the quest for truth, and truth in service of the people.

I think we should mostly be concerned with solutions to our problems and not on identifying problems we already have but fear to own... maybe because what once was a molehill has now turned into a granite mountain seemingly right before our minds.

When I say this conversation becomes political, I mean it in the sense of the politics that is exercised by our politicians in the formal government of our State.

We are not all politicians after all nor should we all desire to be. We are all citizens though and as not all of us are elected (by us) and set apart by popular mandate into those formal positions of public service within our Republic, our politics are basically expressed through the national conversation in support of the politics of our representative leadership in the formal government of our State.

If one would and takes this all a step further, one writes or contacts directly, his or her representations in the formal government of the State in the Executive, Legislative or Judiciary branches.

Politics are important and because it is, public participation in the political life of our Republic is vital.

All things political to our nation arises within the State from the soul and into soil of our nationhood... its science shaped and empowered by the art of our civics.

Not all of us are politicians, brothers and sisters, but all our politicians are citizens and to the extent that they are, all our politicians should be statesmen and stateswomen.

And those of us who should freely submit ourselves to their leadership ought duly and willingly participate in the national conversation.

In a democracy, we are all leaders.

As all good leaders know, all leaders learn the art of their leadership as followers. In a democracy, all of us too are basically led by the light of our own truth. Hence, leadership in the sense that it is democratic should know and understand that to lead and to follow are one and the same responsibility.

If we know and understand this, and if we trust in the decisiveness and clarity of our vision, all our talking will lead to the one walk - along the way of ascent that will lead us to the eventual and true awakening of all our national dreaming...

All our words should lead us (again and again) to the realization of the promised truths of our peace.

Because truth is truth and at the summit of our Republic Sky lay for all our hearts, the ideals drawn from our highest truths - of proven principles that enable us to conceive together a vision of the State that is always comprehensible to the Filipino soul no matter how different our opinions on the ground may be...

Actual proof of this is our written Constitution, this national document being a distillation of the Filipino spirit handed down to us in physical form. (Have we ever wondered why from one proceed the many and how from the many, one? Have we truly taken to heart its Preamble?)

I trust that leaders be responsible for their own truths and for speaking it out with respect of their own dignity and the dignity of other citizens not unlike them - being honorable Filipinos. 

And so we begin... again and again... while time is time. Till every question and answer become unto us all simultaneously one and the same thing...

Let us have a conversation as a nation... and let our free expression propel our democracy forward to the good of our Republic as a service to our nation and therefore, to the benefit of each and of all.

God bless the Philippines. Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

Freedom for Sale

Corruption is not inspiration.
Corruption is trouble and ruin.

Do not give in to corruption!

Citizen, who you are is why you work.

So just be the best you can be... 

And it will be well for all in the world.
---<--@

Is your freedom for sale?

Do not sell your vote. 

Those who would buy your vote
would buy your rights and your freedom too
if they could...

So don't sell yourself out, Citizen - reserve the vote.

If you can't vote or if you feel disinclined to vote,
for any reason you may think compels you, abstain. 

Reserve your vote.

Vote only when you are convinced of the power of the vote.

- selah -

Your vote counts. 

So vote to win!

A single vote might seem to you insignificant
and should tomorrow you came to believe this true, Citizen,
then tomorrow our democracy too might perish.

Consider the reliance of the stars,
how entire stars rely on the action of their most fundamental elements
to complete their life cycles.

Can we not shine bright as those stars, Citizen,
through the Three Foundation Stars of our Country?

Therefore,
whoever one may choose to elect by way of the ballot,
understand that when we, the people, vote...

we vote to win.
---<--@

Some Thoughts on RH

Abortion is evil.
Life begins at conception.

True.

In my view however, these are not the real issues regarding our RH conversation.

It is freedom of choice. Choice, of course, not in the sense that one is free to define one's freedoms.

After all, we owe our personal freedoms to the certainty of our common commitments to Democracy as well as human morality and as a Country held responsible for them by the Life and Liberty of our Nation.

Therefore, I think the better question to be asked as regards choice in the context of RH for us Catholics is - how may these freedoms be unleashed - in the spirit of Humana Vitae - to serve the individual as well as the common good of Woman, Mother, Child, Family and Greater Society?

And this question where it pertains to Family and Greater Society directed not only to Woman but to both Man and Woman together as one soul and not just in the Catholic Church.

It has always been the negative choice "not to have a child" in scrutiny.

As such contraception is so aptly named - in the negative sense.

Now, let us examine the affirmative choice "to have a child". Because when it comes to its moral weight as regards the vital exercise of free will, this is the greater of the two choices.

There are actually two choices involved here. The negative choice "not to have a child" and the positive choice "to have a child".

The negative choice is a passive choice.

It actually goes against the natural intention of every sexual act.

It might look like an active choice but where ever and whenever this choice "not to have a child" has failed, so does the potent belief in a sovereign free will diminish itself in the human exercise.

In the souls of the people concerned, when this choice have failed them so many times "not to have a child", in most cases, human responsibility for the fruits of conjugal love slides back to being a random thing. Children are begot in our society without a clear parental vision of a definitive future for them

The failure of passive choice "not to have a child" having failed those people, most of whom are already struggling against other more immediate evils such as hunger and human security, in my view is the root
of this epidemic of helplessness is the center of the issue as regards contraception.

And is further complicated by larger structures of poverty and other adverse social conditions that besiege and surround the family unit, leading most to passivity and complacency as regards to the transmission of life as a free and human choice.

On the other hand, the positive choice "to have a child" is an active choice.

It is an act that empowers the free will. For all thing the mind conceives begin from the heart and all things the understanding illuminates are all things we may actively pursue by the innate power of our individual free will - as free and human choices.

Choices that arise from reasoned and prepared thought and reasoned and prepared thought that arise from a heart that knows it is a heart of love are never passive choices.

The choice "to have a child" therefore, goes along the natural grain of every sexual act because it involves both husband and wife envisioning family and duty to family and conversing about furthering and prospering their future, deepening the quality of their conjugal love.

If couples are taught and empowered to prepare for the active choice "to have a child" and are fully informed in their hearts and minds as to what this choice must entail - they would be inclined to think more about their choices. Planning is planning, after all.

Legislation may help curb the helplessness wrought by lack of an empowered choice. But only education can truly turn things around as regards to teaching the right choices and undoing the lingering effects of the wrong ones.

Social betterment in our nation must move not just along the limits of the law but by the free dictate of well-formed and soundly informed individual consciences. We are a Democracy after all.

This is where the locus of Catholic education should be.

Poverty is an integral part of the RH debate and we can not as a Church fully address the question without addressing poverty.

In my opinion, the questions arising from poverty takes priority. If we can curb the complications that make the equation as regards RH more simpler, perhaps the tide may one day turn.

If we slowly but surely address poverty, we might more sooner than later find ourselves perched upon a better vantaged position to effectively and democratically address the RH issue along the spiritual lines of the Church.

Because you can not teach a hungry family how to plan or how to even think ahead of their next choices to eat and to drink.

The positive choice may always escape them and the negative choice confound and weaken them - this is the conundrum. It is a Gordian knot that we may only undo by getting the poor to the middle class first.

Thus, it is important that we all must solve for hunger first.

And in this most obvious of social justice causes, I believe we can work with the politics of RH whatever side it may be, because its main concern I believe and trust is to provide a better quality of life for our less fortunate brothers and sisters in the Nation.

All the while, we shall move to better our moral and spiritual positions to correctly address the RH issue by Catholic education. In this RH conversation, we could lose to a single battle but if we do it right, we may find, we are fighting along the same lines as those who are presently pressing against us.

Let us not forget that hunger and poverty makes us poorer and poorer in spirit NOT in the sense that our beloved Savior Jesus Christ did teach us upon the mount.

Where we are poor in spirit because we are diminished in the light that makes us one, we become truly poor - being without the light that makes us a simple and single-hearted nation.

This kind of poverty make us all forget that this Nation is one.

Also, we are a Democracy, let us not act as if we are not. Too, this is a Republic, let us live up to its trust believing indeed every good thing under Heaven has a time and place here in our Land of Promise.
---<--@

I became the wind

Life is
in all things living and being
and goes whithersoever it goes.

When the wind gave breath to the trees, the wind became a tree.
When the wind gave breath to the fishes, the wind became a fish.
When the wind gave breath to the birds, the wind became a bird.
When the wind gave breath to the wolf, the wind became a wolf.
When the wind gave breath to Man, the wind became a Man.
When the wind gave breath to Woman, the wind became a Woman.
When the wind gave breath to Children, the wind became a Child.
When the wind gave breath to Homosexuals, the wind became a Homosexual.
When the wind gave breath to that Nation, the wind became that Nation.
When the wind gave breath to Christians, the wind became a Christian.
When the wind gave breath to Muslims, the wind became a Muslim.
When the wind gave breath to Jews, the wind became a Jew.
When the wind gave breath to Buddhists, the wind became a Buddhist.
When the wind gave breath to Hindus, the wind became a Hindu.
When the wind gave breath to Sikhs, the wind became a Sikh.
When the wind gave breath to Atheists, the wind became an Atheist.
When the wind gave breath to Capitalists, the wind became a Capitalist.
When the wind gave breath to Communists, the wind became a Communist.
When the wind gave breath to the poor, the wind became poor.
When the wind gave breath to the rich, the wind became rich.
Whithersoever the formless gave breath to form, we became.

When the wind gave breath to me, I became the wind.

---<--@

Affirm freedom, affirm life.
Affirm life, affirm freedom.

No to Homophobia

"Some of the bravest people I know of are homosexuals." I stand by that personal anecdote.

I embrace our gay community. 

I am proud of their quiet contributions to this Republic. They pay their taxes, observe and obey our laws, and add to the richness of our diversity. I recognize the contribution of their community to the well-being of our sovereign freedoms.

They should have a voice - and they do. The same with all minorities in our Nation.

My politics regarding this matter is simple:

I shall not endorse the homosexual act as a legitimate act of conjugal love. I am not for gay marriage in the Catholic Church. I will defend the fundamental integrity of the Filipino family as a social institution in this Republic and preserve marriage as a sacred union before God between man and woman.

But that is all. 

From this point, it is all civics.

I am totally and utterly against homophobia and the misrepresentations that have led to or sustains the spirit and form of the persecutions pitted as an evil against the common humanity of the gay person in our society or in any human society.

I will recognize and uphold their humanity, their rights, and their intrinsic value.

Their adequacy as citizens is equal to all others in this Country.

I am for preserving and protecting their property rights (and its legal transmission), as citizens equally engaged in this Republic undertaking of Country, through specific life contracts in the civil sphere.

I am largely inclined to recognize their ability either to responsibly adopt or provide adequate foster care to orphaned, dispossessed, and underprivileged children and babies in this Country.

I am a believer in free will. As such, I recognize it as proper to the dignity of the human person to seek, to know and to choose for him or herself freely what is human and good - in the true self.

I do not think of homosexuality as a social disease. It is simply a crisis of person. As such, homosexuality per se has no negative social dimension whatsoever from my perspective.

Insofar as it is a crisis of individuals, homosexuality per se has no ability whatsoever to corrupt or negate the free will of others in the human domain.

Homophobia on the other hand is an adverse (misanthrophic) social reaction to a purely individuated crises of persons. I will see it for what it is - a social evil.

When people argue that homosexuality is a sin of being, we forget that being simply is. The real sin here is the sin of denial and so we can see - it is precisely these types of denials that breeds those cultures of division and misanthropy that places us ever in the dark with each other.

Not our differences.

I am for prosecuting hate crimes in this Country. I am prosecuting war crimes in this Country.

I never allow this Republic to retrograde in its ages in time back into barbarisms of the past age. We will live in a civilized society held together by a peace worthy of the quality of our present times born of the maturity of our living remembrances - no more, no less.

I will recognize and uphold the value of human life in all our citizens.
---<--@

Differences make us the same

Thoughts on Democracy

If we get this right, it will really be right for us.

Democracy is not a rule of State. The Republic is our system of rule.

Democracy is our way of nurture. It has everything to do with the peace that lives in the heart of our people. A people at peace with their freedoms is a people strong and steadfast, fully capable of building up the earth and of bettering their society.

Democracy is freedom kindled by the unfailing light of reason. Liberty is its sheltering burden. The rule of the State is thus received freely by the nation and popular government is enlightened by it.

Democracy is received by the soul of a people. It may only be sown by its own citizens and grown from out of the soil of its own nation. It must be received by the sovereign State. It is an unfolding of itself in time. It must therefore be directly experienced by the people.

It may be helped along in good will by learning of the shared successes and failures of Countries similarly nurtured by its guiding ideals - through reforms. It can not be safely transferred intact and complete from Country to Country.

Elections are not it's measure. What lasting wealth it establishes in the community of the nation and the fruits of it in the people are its true measure. Justice, Equality, Liberty, Humanity are some of its common ideals.

The way of amity among nations. The right of family with the nations. The duty of common defense and the ideal of dedicated arms. Sovereignty emanating from the unity of the people. Citizenship established through faith in God and faith in each other. Sufficiency through reliance with Providence as the highest Reliance.

Enlightened liberties as primary guarantor of justice and domestic tranquility. The dignity of the human being and the unleashing of the human potential. Human development led national development.

Human citizenship. Common rights and human responsibilities. Free expression. Rule of law. Equal protection under the law and equal justice before the law. The protection of minorities and representation of the dissenting voice.

Belief in human enterprise. Belief in an enterprise economy driven by capitalism. Economic cooperation in a free market structure driven by initiative, daring, entrepreneurship, opportunity, and competition. The pursuit of happiness. The multiplication of capital, the improvement of means. The alleviation of the humiliation and poverty of the human condition in the nation and also among the nations.

Love of the Flag and the symbols of Country. Deep regard for and recognition of civic virtues. Respect and appreciation for the power and glory of the human spirit. Pride and participation in the living communities of the people. Global sense, local presence.

Plurality of religion without hypocrisy or syncretism. Freedom from war. Civilian superiority over the military. Freedom of the national press. Freedom of academic thought. The establishment of National and Civic Endowments for the sciences and scientific research, technologies, arts, sports, humanities, and life values.

Reciprocity of the good both common and individual. The integrity of the family. The integrity of the national ecology and the preservation of indigenous flora and fauna. The conservation of the national will and culture through interdependent, plural and harmonious community.

The conservation of the national wealth through proper stewardship of resources. The common trust of the generations. Posterity as a living and spiritual economy.

Equal Taxation and responsible use of public funds through due representation in the formal affairs of State. The prudent preservation (through necessary transformation) of national institutions, laws, and infrastructures of State to guide the national progress and support the vision of the national success through changing times.

Food, water, power, human mobility (transportation and communication), and human safety (public health and public hygiene, medical emergency and healthcare access) as principal elements of human and national security. Physical elements of human and national security being only secondary.

Historical sensibility and a sense of sacred remembrance of the living and eternal memory of the nation. An understanding of the place and purpose of the nation among a family of nations. Love of friendship.

These are all principles of a free State. If we, the people, desire democracy we have to be willing to carry its burden with vigilance. Much depend on the spirit of our citizenship. And how steadfastly we identify truthfully with our labors, failures and successes.

There is no perfect democracy. It shall always be a work in progress while time is time...

Every generation shall be challenged by evils sufficient for their own days.

The LORD shall require a harvest of the fruits of these enlightened freedoms every season. He shall from every generation demand His portion of the life of our nation, according to the whole of each His intended good for each our generation.

Through covenant decreed by the Almighty from eternity, His Providence shall not increase or decrease His portion for each human life.

How it is we shall succeed depends much on our meeting the challenges of each present time as a lineage of human generations embraced and sheltered by our nation, represented and guided by our State, and fostered and served by our Country.

Thus, we shall never be able to triumph or fare well enough to raise the dignity and promise of our common humanity without abiding in a peace that does abide and prevail in us. For without peace we place ourselves under the dominion of war and it shall our troubles and woes multiply exceedingly with tears that make bitter the earth. We shall have no defense against the despoliation of the sword that wanders the earth as a restless spirit. It shall with violence and blood lust consume our people and destroy us from within.

Neither sky nor earth, night or day shall come to our aid until we remember in ourselves no more: That life is sacred. That each human life is to be cherished. That these are our values. That our society is in the service of man and woman as living souls made to shine for the earth, in behalf of the life of the earth; a little less than the stars in heaven but precious to God above all.

Adversity shall come against our democracy. It shall as a violent storm crash against our foundations and hurl itself against our labor of Country. Time and time again it shall test our generations - how deep are its roots? How much watered by the soul of our citizenship is our peace? How right are our freedoms? How sovereign our Liberty?

We will endure the test and leave things as they were, we will fall short and lose length to our days and light to our years, or we will together prevail over it, prosper our people in glorious triumph and add to age of our Country in time, the memory and sacrifice of our own life and times.

In our civics, unlike our politics, little things matter... small things count. From the exercise of little things - for ill or good - arise the magnificence of our values. Democracy is a way of awakening and of nurturing the seeds of these values.

That we become in time, surely as we must. 

If we get our democracy right, it will be really right for us.

If we get it wrong, we are always free to make it right.

Vigilant trust. Self-determined destiny.
---<--@

My Centrism

I am center-right.
I reach out to the left who reaches out to me.
It is this reaching out that defines my centrism.
Not just my moderate conservatism.

I am a democratic expression
of those finest beliefs - firmest in myself -
within a spectrum broader than my conviction.

Therefore -

In all things political,
I shall be strongly inclined to begin and end,
right of center - every time, all the time.

In America, this means I am either
a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat
but can't seem to decide on which because...

I am devoted to a necessary unity
and seek to serve my devotion
through meaningful peace.

Partisanship is only secondary to citizenship in my eyes.
And in my heart, Country is always to be honored and served over party.
---<--@

Vigilant Trust

Second Class Citizen

I am a second class citizen,
living in a second class Country,
in a dead-end corner of the earth,
three worlds away from the memory.

My struggle is not for Liberty,
my dream does not reach that far,
I only want something to fill my belly,
and a safe bed to dream in under a star.
---<--@

Thoughts on Pork

Greed is the real dirt.

The Creative Ideal is this -
to know truth, and apply it -
to love thy neighbor, and do it -
to know the Word, and live it.
---

The story of Pork is all about personal accountability to a very public responsibility. Take note, personal and not political accountability is the central theme of the issue.

(Political accountability takes into consideration the good of the Party as a lens to perceive what good there is but personal accountability regards its ethics directly as truth before God and the Nation/s.)

In my opinion, the allotment of Pork enables in the government, a certain degree of responsiveness to any unexpected but necessary shifts or shortfalls as regards material demands (take note, demands not needs - needs can be planned but demands are determined not by any plan but by their outcomes, good or bad) being claimed by the national community as urgent - in real time - in the context of the Republic Vision.

Simply put, in its own context, Pork is a means to deliver a timely and specified response.

These material demands are usually sorted out by their urgency and entrusted to the better judgment of those persons to whom the Pork is yearly entrusted.

And presupposes a fundamental grounding in personal integrity, honesty, and simple human decency (which means a modicum of wisdom generously mixed in with a sense of professionalism that is earned on the job).

Pork therefore, is not political. It is necessarily consumed to make equitable adjustments on the fly in order to make better sense of the greater Economic Vision of its present administration (or any of its major points of consideration) and allows government to keep a certain degree of monetary flexibility in order to serve the public good as it unfolds in reality.

Because budgets are usually prepared in advance of what is to come... that's where Pork comes in.

Pork is a good thing for as long as it is kept away from politics. The Economic Vision of the Republic and its Political Vision are two distinct things that though they constantly produce and re-produce each other and give each other purpose and meaning are like two parallel lines that never meets - they only agree on a direction to take.

The issue we have about Pork now is because the presuppositions that were supposed to preclude this issue we're now having have been either ignored, taken for granted, or basically subverted so that only the external appearances of these things remain. Pork has become political.

When one is entrusted with the welfare of another, it is not entrusted to one because one is a politician - it is entrusted to one because there is realistically expected from within the Nation to be a multitude of these requirements to respond to - with urgent and unexpected requests (that can not be anticipated in formal planning) cropping up from the people everywhere. (This reminds me of the discretionary funds of senior commanders in the military - they serve the same purpose - but this one however, is in support of the mission entrusted to the AFP.)

Plans are good until it meets with reality - to be real, we have to plan to also not have a plan.

Again, let me say that Pork is not political. It is not intended to win political victories but hasten the triumph of economic ones - all in the name of the one Filipino people. Public funds shall always be, no matter who disburses it, public funds.

A servant of the people should find it joyous to be able to so freely and so generously uplift one's poorer compatriots - within or without one's constituency - and be constantly rejuvenated in his or her politics in this way without mixing the two.

After all, politics in its simplest form is the art of accommodating human hope; it is the science of government the expression of which is an art not a science - and fulfills itself when these hopes are realized in reality of the Nation - the noblest good (particular, common, and absolute) of which is the highest expression of our politics. It is basically a dialogue with reality wherein we speak to the Truth about our dreams together.

There are no bad politicians, there are only those who are not versed in politics - as a calling to serve the Nation. Certainly, there is no such thing as dirty politics only pretenders who use empty words and dirty, below the belt tricks (unbecoming of our citizenship together) to thwart (for the very narrowest of reasons) the vital dialogue that we as a free people upon this world must constantly dare undertake to have with ourselves as a Republic and with God as a Nation.

Hence, to return us again to the topic of Pork - public funds shall always be, no matter who disburses it, public funds.

The Filipino public - who are wiser than we give ourselves credit for (after all, we have been a Nation many centuries longer than we have been a Republic) will recognize virtue, for as long as that person and his or her politics remains true to the people, and consequently shall become convinced that the politics of that person is just - and this will most certainly redound to the political good of that person who shall gain more political capital to spend - moving in the same direction as the Economic Vision of the State - without violating it.

The problem with this is that when the internal supports of just about anything under the sun are ignored, taken for granted, or undermined, the entire structure itself becomes unstable.

So now it has all collapsed right before our eyes into one big heap.

The bigger problem is, we're under it - we, the people, especially those of us who still need a clue - suffer in the rubble. Who caused it?

Actually, let us rewind a bit. Because truth be told, the structure of Pork has not yet collapsed.

It has just been recently declared condemned. It was indeed deemed unsound by fear of those who are most in danger of its collapse i.e. we, the Filipino Nation - across all our generations - past, present, and forever - along with those who have chosen to represent us in the government of the Republic State who likewise fear they are the cause of all this fright, legitimately or illegitimately.

I sympathize with some our politicians who genuinely think they have done no evil who after realizing that they have - mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa - repent of it and return, humbled and fortified, to their loyal service to the Nation. Who among us is perfect anyway? Politics doesn't make one perfect, it doesn't even make one powerful (unless it is aligned with the authority of the Responsible State) - but it always makes one responsible. Perhaps, a little bit more so than the average Juan dela Cruz.

Because the first problem with Pork is that it - mayhaps - have become a thing misunderstood. This is the first and the only presupposition to the Pork Barrel Scam that I shall take.

This means I sympathize with those politicians who think they are being tried by publicity.

They deserve a fair shake and the due processes of our Republic likewise deserve a decent go at them and without the undue duress of having to witness their political life being torn to shreds before the bar of public opinion.

After all, it takes work and effort to build one's political reputation and any of our politicians, of any stripe, being citizens like ourselves, too deserve to be seen as innocent unless proven guilty.

The most popular (this is not necessarily to say that any quorum of our electorate approve of their politics but in the sense that people know them best as being famous) of our politicians are the most vulnerable in this particular regard - Senators Enrile, Estrada, and Revilla - for example.

Because for all it's salutary goodness - the bar of public opinion shall always be ruled by emotion more than reason and truth be told, the passion of the people can not always be trusted - just look at opinion polls and how they can be manipulated by external forces (i.e. from the way questions are framed to just plain lack of context of the subject matter being assessed to outright maliciousness).

I'm not saying opinion polls are useless - they are, according to the value of the work that is put into them, a good way to get a general feel on things but do not (and should not) by any means constitute the final word on anybody's political belief. Because they are imperfect.

One has got to be able to make up his or her own mind about things that matter - and believe in one's own politics; in a vision of the national success, however different or difficult or small it may be, that is agreeable to thy own good sense of common humanity and civic righteousness. And in the midst of the maelstrom of public opinions be able to express this view as well as amend it where necessary without deviating from it.

But not all of us are like this, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, some of us are kept by the virtue of others, while some of us are the keepers of others' vulnerabilities - (and all of us, each according to the development of our freedoms, kept by God) - sufficiency through reliance.

It's this vulnerability that makes us officially elect representatives to stand in our collective place in two of the three great Republic forums - Executive and Legislative.

The Judiciary is not for us to elect. For our Judges and Justices do not represent us as an Electorate. They are, in their Courts of Law and in their Chambers Judiciary, the ultimate recourse of our common grievances as human beings and citizens to each other - there, where all else fails - is represented the Ideal of our Justice which we can not elect for it has always been there even before we were a people.

To our Executive is entrusted, the Republic Vision, to carry our hopes through. To our Legislative, the Law of our Nation, to make safe our way ahead. Our Juridical system exists to make our Justice more perfect, to more intimately bind for our national consciousness, both heaven and earth - and preserve for the life of our generations both the order of their times and their own forbearance in time.

This is why we are a representative democracy - because reason is always more important than emotion and the passion of the public needs strong hands to rein it in - and channel it into a unity and strength to overcome what presently needs overcoming so that the common good (perceived only at a distance with the heart) may always prevail.

The former (the public) will find their focus and get angry, the latter (our politicians) will scatter and play for time to regroup. But of the latter who genuinely serve those who are angry - they will channel this into focus to help guide and create needed change for all - these are our lions and lionesses and God bless them always.

The first and most salutary recourse is, of course, to attend to the rebuilding of the internal supports.

But then again - because of our personal commitments to sacred remembrances, there may be those - and this only because of the monumental evil of the thing - 10 thousand million pesos heavy - who have so conditioned their personal freedoms to sink into the maddening depths so much that this feat would be like raising the Titanic.

They, by their existence alone - proven or unproven, would render this solution of solutions moot and the believers of it, by no fault of our own, be made to look incredibly stupid or naive or totally inane.

Until we are a Nation enlightened enough in our Liberty to be served by our Justice in a way that neither interferes with nor requires the application of Law nor its sanctions, scratch that for now. We will know when we become.

The second, and the opposite extreme of the first, is to go Halal or Kosher - evacuate everybody, as it were, from the condemned structure of Pork and just straight away demolish Pork and raze it's entire concept to the ground.

Pork however, has it's merits as I have beforehand opined. We should know to expect that our system is not dumb - let us not be a people conditioned to always assume inferiority - its main defect (and also its greatest safeguard) is its perfect reliance on human interface.

In short, our government to be effective relies on Pork and Pork to be effective relies on our government - the problem is government (the material side anyway) is always made up of imperfect persons.

Therefore, the effectiveness of this human interface as regards Pork with the government of the people depends genuinely on the sincere, knowing, and willing support of each other - personal accountability on behalf of the persons, and institutional transparency (constant audit readiness) on behalf of systems like Pork - each remaining separate conditions - the person for the effective dispersal of its intended effect - the Pork as an aid to the greater material prosperity (and individual happiness) of the Nation.

When system and person is confused and the person himself or herself ceases to be a part of a system and the system ceases to be separate from the person - as it is evident when government authority and persons serving in their capacity become mind melded (by alien Vulcan means, perhaps) into a single narcissistic entity, the proverbial iceberg and ship shall have now met with predictable results, of course.

Person and Office, Power and Authority, can never be one in their being - just as the Flag is not the People - one may only proceed from the other and also be served and survived by the other.

The benefits of Pork however, shall not - and should not - be sacrificed because there exists disloyal servants - in the Catholic sense, Peter should never be abandoned because there is a Judas.

Just because there is evil in our midst, doesn't mean everything and everyone else among us is evil - let us bear in mind that night always leads to morning and hurts to healing - and Pork to Lechon.

We must as a Nation always endeavor to survive, preserve, and prosper the good (particular, common, and absolute) especially during evil times by strengthening it, not by abandoning it.

Indeed, this holds true with the concept of Pork. And so we must endeavor to rationally understand the problem of Pork by recognizing Pork for what it is, both good and bad.

And also we must also remember to address the problem without creating a self-defeating bureaucracy around it, as Republics sheltering truly democratic societies are naturally wont to do.

Perhaps this is because of the law of human gravity that inclines both humans and human constructs to unconsciously choose the path of least resistance. But certainly this happens when freedoms sleep and Liberty is complacent - democracy becomes an easy thing to hopelessly complicate.

More often than not, the solutions to problems that involve the subject of personal freedoms are always reached - and adequately so - by a process of subtraction not by addition.

Pork must be simplified (not in its totality removed or made even more complicated).

So we come to the third solution: We can frame it all in the Christian sense of eating Pork - it must be made to go the shortest distance from hand to mouth - by a responsible hand - and a willing mouth - all of whom are accountable to a hungry stomach which the mind can always verify by an internal audit of one's state of hungriness.

And it must be done in the right spirit - so that the Christian soul, or in this case, the very human Soul of our national community within our Republic whole, can proceed to continually function to work to fulfill its vital raison d'etre.

What of the bacon that was already taken from us?

We will consider it officially sold - at a price determined by the Justice of our Courts, each in their due deliberations on our good behalf and collect the payment in terms of reparation in trust misplaced and time lost - with profit - written qualitatively in sums of pesos and quantitatively in length of prison time - in big, bold amounts and even larger span of years.

We have to let Law form and inform our Courts of Justice in its Chambers and let it take its due course in the Soul of our Nation that truth may prevail to serve our people.

And we will learn from this evil to defeat and preclude the next one.

Because, you are - whoever you are - the weakest link, good bye! Game over.
---<--@



What I would like to personally ask of everybody involved in this is to place our Nationhood first before everything and all throughout this issue keep ourselves honest, decent, patient, and compassionate in our care for each other's being and welfare - as citizens to each other.

For whether one has done wrong or not - the point is, that there is no "I" in "We" (the I, in the absolutest sense, is an attribute that only God can assume upon Himself - God is the great I AM).

You can be sure this Truth shall outlast...

Let us pray that this issue along with the Zamboanga one makes us stronger not weaker, better not less, and therefore, a people more determined to more faithfully and more fully recognize, receive and profess the nationhood in each ourselves... and work the work of being human beings and citizens to each other, a little more joyfully this time perhaps...

So let us be humbled by His Providence and always consider the, "we" - in our nationhood - that we may together individually prevail in the labor of bettering our Republic in its task of prevailing - for the all of us (the "we forever").

Mabuhay po tayong lahat.

Thank You, LORD God, for the labor of the Earth, honest work that brings the light of virtue to the life of our world and value to the dignity of Man.

The Separation of Powers

Tyranny (in all it's forms) which is a betrayal of sacred trust is the evil against which the Power of human and popular government  must constantly preserve itself from - that the authority of the State remain faithful in the service of the Nation.

Power is a function of authority which in the Republic resides in all its Offices of State - their Flags, Titles, and Symbols - that comprise the visible standards of a permanent lineage of government.

These Offices being established by a free people from among themselves embody the universal Ideals and particular Traditions of a single and united Nationhood universally enshrined in a writ Constitution bear by virtue of the life of all their generations, from first to last, in good will of their living Memory, at all times and places, the collective burden of responsible and effective governance.

This lineage of government (of the people, by the people, and for the people) shall be embodied in and by their persons variously raised by the enlightened will of the Electorate from among themselves in their due and appointed seasons through popular Elections and the responsible exercise of Suffrage rights.

The exercise of Power in government is the function of Public Service and the individual persons who duly and freely undertake the vital calling to serve their fellow citizens through the meritorious and compassionate administration of the duties variously established within all Institutions that serve the Offices of State - through authorities enacted by the Republic to willingly carry out, at all times and places, the Nation's mandate for a responsible and effective government - honorably to govern with the freedom of those who allow themselves to be governed by the freedom of their peers - humbly, ably, and faithfully.

Power in the Republic is the ability to recognize and preserve the sacred trust that binds together the souls of our citizenry in the freedom and strength of Nationhood - and in so doing prosper and persevere in good will of the Peace that endows with Truth, our sovereignty.

Power in the Nation is the action of Nationhood - fidelity to Truth and the Creative Ideal, awareness of the Human Condition and the First Principles of Nationhood, Stewardship of the Peace and the Public Trust, Love of God, Country and Common Humanity - and is the common exercise of every citizenship.

Criminals in desiring more freedom subvert freedom and corrupt their citizenship for the sake of their chains.

Tyrants in desiring more authority transgress authority and Power (in the Responsible State) is made futile and impotent by their betrayal.

A Tyrant is oppressive not because tyrants wield the Power of State but because they are bereft of it - hence, just as evil is a departure from good - tyrannies are likewise a departure from good governance.

Tyrants are vanquished but every Nation's permanent lineage of victory, and every labor of Country's singular right of ascent, and the Power that both forms and informs the Responsible State can neither be lost nor stolen nor the vision of these triumphs diminished through unjust and undeserving service of pretenders, murderers, and thieves.

A Republic is the chief consequence of the evils of Tyranny. It is a jealous Guardian of betrayed and wounded peoples - without Kings and Princes, without Peasants and Slaves, every Republic is sheltering wings to a Nation of citizens - a Country to an orphaned people - a human work called by the LORD and kept by the Providence of God in the safety of His Peace through a remembrance of the Truth.

There is no difference between Old Countries who survived their ancient lineages of eternal government in the Institutions of human Monarchies and the Republic - each face similar dangers, one the result of another danger - for each Republic is a continuation of the Old Country, reconstituting the advantages of constancy and continuity of a permanent lineage of victory by shifting Power from Crown to Office, not by human will or advantage but as a result of the Human Condition and the War against which all Nation's find a common and implacable enemy of their life and their every life's pursuits - all are allied against this danger - all aware of their principle endowment of building up the Inhabited Earth.

All tyrannies begin small as one act, one inscrutable motion of the human will, one choice made in the heart - quiet as a whisper that with the passage of time, under it's own season, mature into a deafening crescendo of evils - with the permission of the people.

A tyrant is the result of a preponderance of ignorance, complacency, and indifference in the people - the rise of a mature tyranny is made possible only with the complicity of Nations - certainly no people desire to be burdened with the unbearable burden of tyranny but those who know of this exercise a necessary vigilance.

Every tyrant once vanquished, leaves behind a dark, distorted, and deleterious web of invisible supports capable of propagating it's own evils - an under culture of malice and corruption whose sins have caused various falsities and distortions to emerge as tares from the enriching soil of our culture of Country, the collective richness of our diversity and freedoms challenged - and the reality of our own sense of truth questioned by the lingering presence of this burden of Justice - this is why the Nation itself must be restored to the Truth - that we may know ourselves as ourselves - that the legacy of tyrants may wane with the returning of sacred remembrance that a free people's triumph over tyranny may always and ever be final and complete.

The Separation of Powers - Executive - Legislative - Judiciary - in a Republic is primarily purposed by it's establishment in the Constitution of the Nation as principal safeguard against the disruption of tyrants and the evils of their tyranny.

It is essential that we know the order and the purpose of their Separation as a harmonious, synergistic, and necessary truth in the life of our Republic - that they are Powers separated to safeguard a singular lineage of victory, and that they all owe their ascent (unto realization) to only one Truth, nor are they at war with each other but exist to repel the very divisions that have produced their Separation.
---<--@

The Positive Freedoms - "freedom of"

Expression
Participation
Dissent or Non-Participation
Press and Academic
Suffrage

The Negative Freedoms - "freedom from"

War
Inordinate Want
Mortal Fear
Ignorance
Oppression

Three Facets of Human Equality in a Just Society

Political
Economic
Social
---<--@

Ahimsa

Man while upon the earth weeps
and cries out to God for His Justice!

To the Nations of the LORD, we fly
for redress of this awful plight,
for Man's plight is suffering.

Man suffers evil upon the earth
because he is Man...

Because Man is by first principle a victim.

I never understood the power of non-violence until I read a short essay about it in "War Talk" by Arundhati Roy.

I never understood what I now understand because I never was able to fully apprehend the profound connection it had with violent resistance.

Non-violence is actually the purest form of dissent and when it is given ear, speaks its message clearly and simply - even gently, resounding like a bell.

When it is given ear... for Ahimsa always needs a partner to the dance.

The thing is, when non-violence, especially in a democracy (particularly in an emerging Country like ours - still awakening to the growing strength of its wood), becomes itself a prisoner to popular indifference, we unwittingly abandon a necessary part of our political process by default to violent resistance.

And who wants to dance with that?

Dissent and overcoming dissent is an integral part of the national dialogue. We are free to express our disagreements to a government who is also free to express its disagreements.

How skillful the dancers are define how graceful the dance of the politics of those and every time besides and in a democracy, we have to dance - else, we would reap no results and the nation will grow hungry for the truth. And so we are in constant need of these partnerships - to hope to fully realize each dream within everybody's dreaming, that our forever may be full.

I believe an integral part of our civic freedoms is to adequately understand what constitutes "peaceful protest" - small or large - and I put forward to you, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, that this is Ahimsa.

People Power was also Ahimsa... 

Yes, we know this dance, we just have to recognize that we do.

And should always give preference to it.
---<--@

Human Nations

To be human or not be human? That is the question for the nations of this age.



Into this age, we shall not fight over distinctions in ideologies or religions or ideals or culture or race... No, the times will require us to produce the common fruits of all of these...

For we shall be tested by the challenges of this age by our ability to remain human beings to each other, not only as individuals but as individual nations - able to persevere in the strength of the human spirit and prosper in the one peace of our sacred remembrances.

We shall be tempered and refined by the obvious practicalities of these unfolding times through evils that only we, together as the one Family of the Nations (of the Children of Mankind), can hope to surpass.

The Advent of War

The first time Man saw in himself the image of the adversary of All Nations was when Cain killed his brother, Abel. It was not coincidental that the killing of the first innocent human life upon our world also inaugurated the Advent of War upon the earth.

Now is the time to see through the illusion of the Adversary to find in the reflections of the Evil in all evil things, a way to make peace with ourselves in our world - for this is our world (redeemed by Christ and preserved by our Nations) - and in finding our peace with each other, an understanding of the truth worth defending together - in each other with each other...

...the truth of our common humanity.

Freedom's Common Pursuit

Democracy is like a tree, and so like all things that grow and live and breath, must begin from the roots. It is a natural system of living life born of the seeds of remembrances that must grow where it is sown.

No one tree is the same in the Garden of our world... each of our nations grow at different paces, is found at different ages, yet all are born for purposes that are both fully human and fully divine.

We bear different fruits - each edible and good for the sustenance of All - and all worthy and lasting in the eyes of our LORD, everlasting fruits born from timeless works that glorify with seeds that share - knitting together with the fabric of visible creation, the truth that will prevail at the consummation of time.

We learn from each other not by making each other the same but by seeing in each other what is familiar in All - trusting in our differences, and sharing in our strengths - so that, in choosing to believe in our diversity, together find, in the familiarity of our unity, the peace which is shelter to all mankind; the one Peace of the one LORD.

If thy Peace is God's then know ye it belongs to All Mankind.
---<--@

A Perfect Democracy?

No Perfection Without God



A perfect democracy can not exist in this world, as it is.

All we can hope for is
to achieve an optimal tension.
One that ensures within our society
- under the eternal vigilance of Almighty God -
that the responsible side of our freedom
- those authentic human freedoms -
are always - ALWAYS - well on their way
to winning the conflict - against their false and evil side:
That the truth is ever over untruth, light is ever over darkness,
good is ever over evil, spirit over matter, and Peace over War...

Thus, preserving the Creative Ideal - in every generation 

for All our generations to the very last generation.

For -

Freedom is to know freedom.
Democracy is to love it.
Liberty is to be guided by it
and Happiness is to be able to live it
- alone or with others -
under the eternal vigilance of God,
imperfectly in this world
and perfectly in the Next.
---<--@

Our slavery is a bond.
But our freedom too is a bond.
The former, of death and oppression.
The latter, of life and liberation.
One is a betrayal.
The other, a vindication of the betrayed.

II. The Republic

To Old Glory, an ode - 

Thou, 

at thy Birthing art forever conceived -

the home of the free, for the free, by the free

ensuring a government for the people, and by the people

carrying aloft the will and the mandate of all thy generations!

The vision of thy conception thus enshrined 

and the ideals of thy belonging thus conserved

through the economy of thy generations preserved

that Thou, that Dream - orphaned to thy own world, 

in spirit borne unto shores, distant and new, by pilgrim wings, 

to become a peculiar appearance upon the earth, a peculiar people -

art One - reborn into a unity of many, embracing a nation that is free 

and forever now endowed with thy own Spirit, faithful and true

vigilant in thy defense, and kept by God forever true to thy memory -

a nascent labor of Country, gained in Him, and through His grace

constantly achieved by thy own faith in His Providential trust.

Thou, 

at the Crossroads of Independence -

refused to be a nation in thy Spirit suppressed

by any power of hell or human dominion spread upon earth

nor enslaved by whim of tyrants with freedoms, evil and strange,  

than THIS, the dominion thou hast at thy Birthing established
in Covenant with God, and before all thy kindred nations in Eternity,

for Thou art fully invested in thy becoming, as a work of His hands,  

stronger for each thy hope in each thy present generations arising 

brighter for each thy days lived in memory of every generations past,

thou art like a song that in the stillness of thy heart gets better and better 

with every music that begins to play for all thy generations left unsung.
   

Thou wert a labor of the LORD, forever unworthy of another!
For the freedom of God shall be the inheritance of thy nationhood

and its principles thou hast with all thy heart resolved to keep forever.

Indeed, this is thy Liberty and well suited to thy love and allegiance  

and Thou art today for shame if thy own freedoms are not wholly thine

and that Thou art for naught today if thy own honor thou shalt desert

for truly Thou art in courage better served - always - than in fear

and so Thou called forth thy own Great Defender to thy common defense
(for Thou art His, the LORD's, and may this be of thy conviction forevermore)

and an army rallied to the first thy great and noble Fathers, George the free,

for as a nation thou resolved to be led - even unto war and its attendant evils.

Thus in thy will of love and fraternal sacrifice,
even unto the shedding of thy blood and thy tears
Thou - through the travails and terrors of battle enduring and persevering -

did come to recognize in the ensuing clarity, the quiet dignity of Thy peoplehood;
of what formlessness has made Thee as a form upon the earth - 

of what Spirit truly made thy citizenship utterly and completely thine.

And 

dedicated to the Principles Thou undertook at thy Birth
thou forsook the old in order to become the new 

and took on the name, America, the United.

And in thy bravery and in thy self-reliance 

and with all thy imperfections glaring, 

and with all thy hopes still shining

thou went to be thy Republic - 

From the fires of Yorktown

arose thy eagle wings!
---<--@



Guard thee thy remembrances well and in this faith persevere...
Lest we forget, lest we forget: This we'll defend: This Memorial Day 2013.

A Letter of Protest

To one Chinese nation: I salute you, China, ancient and wise nation of old and Taiwan (ROC) in particular - peace be with you and all your generations:



I condemn in the strongest way possible the continuing violence against my compatriots in your territory. I do not think I can watch idly by while my countrymen and women are presently subjected to the pain and duress of this unjust threat that looms over their citizenship with me.

They have absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand and do not deserve to suffer for its evil - an evil we can only together attempt to address that it may withdraw its foul presence from the peace of our region, sooner than later.

These are our citizens, human beings who have sought in good faith to apply for and to work an honest job within your economy under your nation's patronage and your government's protection.

Rest assured we will honor our obligations to shelter and protect your citizens or any other citizens from any nation who came in peace to the shelter of our Republic, and uphold their human rights within our territory not because it is expedient or "politically correct" to do so right now but because it is only the natural way of things for this nation and so it shall be this way for my Country till the end of time - peace embraced with peace: It is only right and just.

Are we not a democracy? Both of us know the strengths and weaknesses of our chosen system. Right now, the effects of your lack of action to shelter the innocent in your care and protection is weakening what reason now prevails, both in the popular and in the political domain, that preserve those courses of action that will allow us to peaceably and responsibly resolve this unwanted and unneeded sea row, an issue now necessary and vital to our mutual national concerns and freely determining from what is true and what is not, how to effectively proceed.

I do not know the source of your belligerence and am admittedly still confounded by it. I hold no memory in my remembrance of our history of a division like this ever plaguing our peoples.

Yet as I seek to be prudent with what is weak in our systems, I trust also in the strengths of democracy as I must and so should advise you now most urgently that your failure to address the safety concerns of my compatriots in your care is stymieing the process instead of helping it.

None of us can resolve this issue on our own, only together - empowered in our will by the good will of both our peoples - can we run the gauntlet that will bring our Countries back into the fold of the peace our peoples have always steadily and quietly enjoyed.

Let us return again to the root of your passionate protests and know that we are just as passionate a people as you are in loving and protecting our own. I know that in this regard we both agree, we must truly love our peoples. And do so because both our nationhood hold to the truth that all human life, with all its foibles and vulnerabilities is of precious value and unlimited potential, each endowed equally and individually with natural rights and that this is the reason we are both a work of freedom; a democracy - to unleash in our citizenry the creativity, greatness, and nobility of the human potential and to protect and preserve their life and dignity.

I believe if we reflect upon this thinking more deeply, we will understand each other. We will understand as I do now hope we understand - that each human life to us is sacred - that you may feel how we too value our own and so understand the reason I must appeal in this protest to your reciprocal sense of civic solidarity:

Please extend to my people under the shelter of your care, the safety and the respect they deserve.

I am truly sorry for your loss, I truly am. Please, I humbly implore you - let us work now to reverse the tide.
I am just as eager for justice to give adequate redress to your sense of loss - to unveil the truth, properly compensate Hung Shih-cheng's next of kin, and pay the debt of remembrance both our nations now owe your deceased compatriot by recognizing in the living memory of his hope and the pain of his family and friends the present need to strengthen the mechanisms and institutions that work to help prevent similar tragedies from reoccurring, safeguard the integrity and completeness of the laws that serve to govern, protect, and conserve our seas and its riches, and affirm the peace both our sovereign peoples have always enjoyed together.

I believe agreements may only be made from seeds born from common understandings. Furthermore, I believe we are able to reach these understandings because we are simply born from the same spirit and that this seeking to freely allow truth itself to prevail - because truth ultimately will - is simply part of our strength as a democracy. For I do believe in us and desire for both our nations along with all our kindred nations, a future worthy of our common humanity.

Thank you so much for your patience. I am hopeful you will receive with reason and compassion, my most sincere and humble letter. God bless us all.

Mabuhay!
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UPDATE 20130527: Thank you, Mayor Hau Lung-pin - for being one of the first who stood up for peace and sanity between our peoples - peace be with you - Mabuhay, Taipei!