Generation X

Generation Choice

TO ALL MY PEERS,
Salutations of Christian peace

and common good will
to our Generation X.

It seemed as if it would never come

But now the world awaits

What virtue we shall impart

To the nations of whose hopes

We shall soon inherit.

O my generation!

What distinguishes us

from the past?

Is it the hurt,

Is it the lack,

Is it the want of heroes' fire?

Who are we

and what defines us

as a generation?

We are here.

We are here now.

What shall soon define us

is not our past.

What shall soon define us

is not in the future.

What shall soon define us

in the eyes of heaven and earth

is our being here now

our being here in the moment

our being present for the peace.

O my kindred spirits,

O my generation be aware

of the wide, awakening twilight

of the time, times and a choice

at this void at the threshold

of the third Christian millennium

a space between our common human hopes

for peace and a better world

caught between tears and shadow

and God's infinite ocean of mercy.

The reality of our times exist

between the autumnal dusk of faded Eden,

this midnight world of war,

and the springtime thawing

of the new dawn from on high,

that bright new morning of peace,

before the noontime reign of Christ,

the Splendor of the Truth

and the Sun of Righteousness,

arising here in the wintering of our times

in the glory of God the Father,

the one common Creator of all mankind

on behalf of suffering humanity

and our poor world.

We must begin today
what no other generation can.

We must quicken to truths
that no lie can ever deny.

We must open doors
that lead to new horizons.

And we must shut the gates
so that no one may be left behind.

This is our time.

---<--@

(Produced 20080420)

Allied Generations

20110706

The School of Divine Providence

ONCE AGAIN PLEASE, my honorable compatriots -

There is a way to effect change but never must it go against the will that establish for all Mankind the shape of present things, all that is present to our humanity must be all that is accepted, first and foremost, without condition -

this is the first requirement of faith in Divine Providence - willing acceptance.

- selah -

If we are seeking for good things, we must also establish our seeking upon grounds that are good - for good things lead to good things and evil things lead to evil things.

Never can the good be sought from means that are evil, human weakness excepted. For the spirit of the Adversary being the evil in all evil things (as indicated by the presence of malice) is the exact opposite of the beneficence of God.

Any undertaking of Country upon our world can not truly obtain a lasting peace for itself by contending in war for peace may only be truly obtained through knowing acceptance of peace itself.

War leads to more war unless Mankind seeks peace and seeks Peace completely.

And this seeking in our nations is sought only upon paths of sacred remembrance.

For a good tree can not but bear good fruit and a bad tree can not but bear bad fruit - but a young tree is neither of the two and therefore, must allow itself to be formed.

We human nations are like those trees that are ever young and in constant need of formation in maturity and it is the will of Divine Providence that we must allow in ourselves to form us into good trees bearing good fruit - fruit that is edible to all nations and lasting for all Mankind.

For the will of God is Peace for all our nations and good will to all men and women of peace. But the will of War opposes the will of the LORD.

This is how surrender is discerned and it is this discerning surrender which is the second and last requirement of faith in Divine Providence.

Surrender to the good leads to growth and transformation in virtue and truth.

Surrender to evil deviates from the good and leads to poverty and annihilation.

---<--@

Salutation #30

(A Responsibility to Remember)

To the numberless stars of the one firmament
and to all persons of good will -

Entrusted to our keeping
by our precious Starshine,
the youth of our nations,
most especially those
who suffer much affliction
being in their hearts oppressed
by the curse of War
is an account of their souls,
an unfolding record of their life,
their "Arcs in the Sky".

This they entrust
with faith and confidence
in the unity of our peace
that we may from their voices
perceive what hope there is
and learn from each their life
to deepen our sense of remembrance
that we may better serve
together in our labors
to advance the cause of our hope
towards the promise of peace
and the prosperity of the peace
for every nation of our one family
of the nations of Mankind
that promise of old unto which
we each in our times
chose to forever belong
for God and Country
in time and in eternity.

Know to keep it now,
my beloved friends and companions,
and in our faithful keeping
may we be blessed by the LORD
with an abiding awareness
of the near-infinite potential
of each individual human life
above all our beloved Starshine
who deserve in their own time
a better place in which
to play, to laugh, to learn
to grow, make friends, and to live
that freedom which is their right
as the young and as the youth
far away from war
and the darkness of War.

That awareness which is written
in our sacred wisdoms
that whoever saves one life
saves the world entire -
let also it be, my dear friends,

beloved brothers and sisters of the Promise,

an awareness shining though

in our heart of hearts
for our precious Starshine.
---<--@

Evil is a cause for vigilance; good, for remembrance.

While at times it may be excusable for human beings to forget, for human nations there is no excuse.

For it is vigilance that guards the way of our liberty as citizens to each other and remembrance our peace as human beings, one to another, before Almighty God.

Without vigilance holding timeless vigil over our nations, we stand to lose the strength of our civil society; without remembrance, our own humanity.
---<--@

Excerpted from Salutation #4 -

"Verily, as our faith sets us apart,
our hopes join us together,
indeed, this is what makes us truly human -
our need for God and for each other -
and so in our belonging together in God
we must come together to build
through these, the generations of life,
those truly human communities
where all roads constantly lead to the dawn
towards the morning that return Mankind
to the one Love that has forever kept
all of our nations close to Its own bosom.

A society of need is a human society.
It is a society that goes hand in hand
with a government of gratitude.
Therefore, we must profess
a politics of thankfulness,
being a people of hope,
and work to enable a culture of peace
of which truth must be begun
in the darkness of exile time
by the first of the generations of life,
which is this, our generation
as well as those members of the elder generations
who are similarly called by our one LORD
and whose wise and steadfast companionship
our good God has so generously blessed us with,
ennobling us by the substance of their experiences
and the strength of their years."

Allied Generations

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.

20101117

Generation Choice

TO ALL MY PEERS,

Salutations of Christian peace

and common good will
to our Generation X.

It seemed as if it would never come
But now the world awaits
What virtue we shall impart
To the nations of whose hopes
We shall soon inherit.

O my generation!
What distinguishes us
from the past?
Is it the hurt,
Is it the lack,
Is it the want of heroes' fire?
Who are we
and what defines us
as a generation?

We are here.
We are here now.
What shall soon define us
is not our past.
What shall soon define us
is not in the future.
What shall soon define us
in the eyes of heaven and earth
is our being here now
our being here in the moment
our being present for the peace.

O my kindred spirits,
O my generation be aware
of the wide, awakening twilight
of the time, times and a choice
at this void at the threshold
of the third Christian millennium
a space between our common human hopes
for peace and a better world
caught between tears and shadow
and God's infinite ocean of mercy.

The reality of our times exist
between the autumnal dusk of faded Eden,
this midnight world of war,
and the springtime thawing
of the new dawn from on high,
that bright new morning of peace,
before the noontime reign of Christ,
the Splendor of the Truth
and the Sun of Righteousness,
arising here in the wintering of our times
in the glory of God the Father,
the one common Creator of all mankind
on behalf of suffering humanity
and our poor world.

We must begin today
what no other generation can.
We must quicken to truths
that no lie can ever deny.
We must open doors
that lead to new horizons.
And we must shut the gates
so that no one may be left behind.

This is our time.
---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.


...from star to star, one whole sky.


Human Nation

20101013

"A smile that is missing is a smile that is lost forever. If you have caused this, O Man, how shall you account for it in eternity?"

The IIRC Review

It is the first prerogative of Justice to restore dignity to the human person and this is most especially true in cases of murder.

We do not live in an ideal world. In this world, sickness, deterioration, and war, relentlessly drive against the striving of Man to build and advance the cause of human civilization. And this is true both in the temporal and the spiritual sense.

The hostage-taking incident last August 23 claimed the lives of eight Hong Kong tourists the youngest of whom is Jessie Leung Song-yi. She was only 14.





It's tragedy stems from the fact that we can never bring them back. From their families, friends, to their nation and their generations, to ours, their promise has now been forever withheld from the totality of all human community - at this time.

The just equality of all human beings under God is a chief concern of spiritual Justice. And this equality is built upon two foundations: Human Dignity (who we are) and Human Promise or potential for good (what we are). From this equality we all must begin and unto this equality we all must return. A society that is just will intrinsically recognize and uphold a just equality and her temporal Justice will stand in defense of this good. She will be thus guided.

It must now also be noted that the effects of the tragedy, centered on the deaths that resulted from the murder of the eight Hong Kong tourists, is now poised to claim the lives of other people but not in the same sense. We must be careful not to further damage what good there is that must be for our own sake's preserved. It is from this underlying consideration that I believe the IIRC review findings drew its principal mitigating logic.

Because what proceeds from the first prerogative of Justice is the preservation of the human promise. Notably not as a diminution of its first task but as a co-equal task.

It is a fact of this tragedy that the perpetrator of this crime has himself become a victim of his own evil intention.

It is also a fact of this tragedy that institutional weaknesses played a significant role in the undesired outcome of the rescue effort.

It is also a fact of this tragedy that anger and other unrelated motives still threaten the climate of objectivity in the bar of public opinion.

Evil must not be re-payed with evil. It must be repelled from the life of our common community. It must be deliberately excluded from our public peace.

And to do this, what good there is must be recognized, preserved and if necessary restored by the court of Justice, temporal and spiritual. And in this nation, this is the function of the juridical processes established across all the three independent branches of the Republic government - the executive, legislative and judiciary.

Therefore, that we all agree in quorum is crucial. Because it is very important for this Country of ours, my fellow Filipino compatriots, to move forward.



Personally speaking, and in defense of Mayor Lim, it must also be taken into consideration that the Mayor is an ex-cop and his service meritorious. He has accomplished a lot for the City of Manila as a member of the MPD. He has accomplished a lot more as Mayor.

That his sensitivity to the outfit and to the uniform might have reactively influenced his strategy can not be ruled out because the hostage-taker himself was an ex-cop albeit dishonorably discharged. If this is true, this weakness that in retrospect appear to be so might have appeared to many before the fact to be a strength.

Again, it must be pointed out that the effect of the person of Mayor Lim on the undesired outcome of the operation was only exacerbated by institutional failings that have been the cumulative effect of years of national decline.

The best way to reverse this is to move forward on all fronts. And I believe this is what the present Aquino administration is trying to get us all to do - and by example.

As regards to this tragedy in particular, I believe the best way to move forward is to learn from it and to become better prepared to defend the common good specifically in the effective rescue of hostages and to do this on behalf of all those innocents whose promise we are now left without.

We shall honor their deaths by restoring the dignity of their lives.

Because to remember them well, we should work to become better for their loss and not worse and work to preserve the memory of their promise for our own good sake in remembrance of their lives.
---<--@

People Power and Proclamation 50

I am carrying this post over from All to my All -

REVOLUTION, how must we understand it, O my nation?

LET US FIRST SEEK to know what revolution is not: Certain.

Time itself being so much fraught with uncertainty, like a chasm the depth of which no one knows, revolution yawns beneath the feet of those who seek to be defined by it.

It is like a throw of dice, entered only when the need is such that one must by destiny heed the call of random chance. And this need must be such great a need as to be placed upon its time by purposes that must transcend it, lest the will of the fight soon falter and fail, the faith of the people must burn that brightly, to set itself completely against the test.

This is why the People Power revolution of 1986 was such a great wonder.

It is a miracle of grace; our timeless pulling together for God and Country, and the measure of the quality of our people.

So let us remember People Power not as a falling apart but as a gathering together, in our hearts, in our lives, and in our times together as a one whole Filipino nation.

Let us not forget, my honorable compatriots, that to willingly surrender to chance is to court the Devil that we may from People Power learn to remember always the measure of our resolve to advance the cause of our one Republic, and to tempt never the Providence of the one Divine under Whose singular Standard of Truth the oppressed is liberated.
---<--@



I support Proclamation 50. I support this Amnesty because I am of a firm belief that we stand to become better unified as a Country through it.

I have always thought that the Magdalo group had in its heart the betterment of the nation specifically, the Filipino soldiery and the nobility of the Philippine profession of arms.

But not unlike our current Secretary of National Defense, Voltaire Gazmin, I am more personally inclined to err on the side of loyalty and disagree only with their method. I do not and never will support instability in all its forms including military adventurism.

In view of this, I believe we can all commonly draw our lessons from EDSA 1986, shed away the past, and become better as a nation for our coming together this time.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.



We must begin today
what no other generation can.
We must quicken to truths
that no lie can ever deny.
We must open doors
that lead to new horizons.
And we must shut the gates
so that no one may be left behind.