A Reprieve for Mary Jane

We have won a reprieve for our Mary Jane. Let's make it count.

Kudos to our President BSAIII and his Indonesian counterpart, President Joko Widodo, to our DOJ, DFA and its Indonesian counterparts, to civil society from both our nations, and to the God of all nations.

Everything led to everything in the right way because of everybody who cared and prayed and labored to bring about this opportunity... the important thing now is to make it count.

Let us keep in mind there is still work to be done to obtain for Mary Jane that hoped for commutation of sentence. Other things may happen from there. But we have to get there first.

We have to continue to watch and pray and help in our own ways.

Let us also pray for the eternal repose of those eight who were executed early Wednesday morning. Let us remember their grieving relatives... and let us be humbled.

But for the grace of God go we, my brothers and sisters... Let's give thanks and make it count...

Salamat po sa Diyos at salamat sa ating laht!
---<--@

Update 20150505tue: My thoughts still return to the 8 who were executed Wednesday morning last week. Let us please pray for their souls. Learning about the stories of some of the ones besides our Mary Jane was as hard as it was sobering. I think a few more should have been spared. 

There really is no right way of killing a person.

Even through human institution, taking a human life is always an evil. Perhaps an evil weighed against a greater evil but an evil still... There truly is nothing good about it. If not for the safety it stands to gain for the community, capital punishment would have been an outright sin.

Perhaps capital punishment has lived out its usefulness in our days, perhaps not. One thing is for sure though, a person once dead can not be wished back to life again.

A prayer for Mary Jane and her companions

Heavenly Father, please do not forsake Mary Jane Veloso and her companions in their hour of need. As in Gethsemane You sent Your Holy Angel to comfort Your Son before His Passion, be there for them in their anguish also. Hear their prayers.

Comfort them. Comfort their families. Give them gentle counsel, O most merciful God. The forgiveness of their sins. Give them strength and courage to believe in the grace of Thy deliverance.

For Thou art God, able to produce good from any evil, and make the wild flowers grow from fields barren and accustomed to death; Who forsakes not and produces in each of us despite ourselves, the fruits of Thy ultimate and everlasting purposes, we shall pray to Thee and thank Thee for our prayers.

If today, O good and gracious LORD, Thou willed to receive them, deliver them swiftly. If today, dearest God, Thou willed to allow them to remain living here on earth with us, deliver them swiftly.

Let Thy will be done.

Amen.
---<--@

Personal Reflection:

I am fully convinced now that Mary Jane Veloso is a victim of circumstance.

A concatenation of adverse events to which she had little to no power to reverse has her now in thrall. My hope is that sharper minds and nobler hearts can unravel the truth before it's too late.

Hope still remains that Mary Jane will not be executed... Whatever happens though - we must move to make things better over here so as not to multiply victims like Mary Jane.

20150427mon: Whether we believe in the death penalty or not, as a Country, we have an obligation to ourselves as citizens to see to it that our rights to both life and liberty receive adequate legal protection - here or anywhere in the world.

The dignity of the human person in every Filipino citizen and the prestige of the entire Philippine State are goods reciprocal: To recognize one is to recognize the other, to respect one is to respect the other.

If one believes this as I do, one should likewise realize how we contradict ourselves whenever we choose to protect one and not the other. Both bases must be covered.

We can not dictate policy for other States but we can certainly accommodate for better here at home... Some improvements will be structural to the Republic and will be gradual but the most immediate ones I can suggest are these:

Screening for high-risk OFWs - criteria to be based on Country of destination, age, gender, level of education, average overseas experience and any adverse social conditions relevant and applicable.

The screening itself will either be in questionnaire form or through an interview. This will be done before the departure date and a clearance will be required by customs at the airport.

Voluntary for all Filipinos travelling overseas - either as OFWs or tourists. Mandatory for those who are travelling to particular Countries identified in the criteria.

Set up a Citizens Defense Fund. This fund is to be drawn from sources of income already being drawn by the State - sourcing it from relevant centers of revenue - and must not be passed on to the backs of those particular class of citizens it is intended to protect - to protect the prestige of the State.

The CDF will provide the financial capacity to sustain and carry out programs and information initiatives meant to shield and empower professions identified as vulnerable or high risk - OFWs and Journalists are two that I would like identified. This until such a time as statistics change and those categories have entered levels of risk considered to be nominal or other categories have been identified and included.

As these ideas are still in their formative stages... certainly, they can be improved on in due time.

Man and Woman as a New Creation

In this day, precious Starshine, the women of this Country possess a high degree of freedom. And it gave our national thinking a kind of soul.

Prostitution they say, is the most ancient profession.

Truth is, prostitution is only as ancient as it endures in the life of our communities today.



It has been such a persistent truth over the ages that prostitution is a womanly profession that perhaps, a greater part of our humanity may have somehow come to believe it were an honorable and ancient trade - disgracing and abusing Woman and her children.

Let me say that it is not.

Woman too was a victim in the beginning.

She and Man suffered equally the consequences of our temporal banishment from the everlasting freedom of our our original innocence.

Prostitution, dear Starshine, is a failure to protect. It becomes a profession only as a result of this evil.

And by a failure to recognize and to craft effective laws that ensure the dignity of the person of Woman is to be preserved equally right alongside Man, we inadvertently sway in support of this lie, that somehow the sex trade in Women and children is in fact, "a trade".

Where this is the fault of Man, it brutalizes the image of Man because of who Woman is to Man, not despite of her.

Where this is the fault of our nations, we perpetuate the victimization of the inherent dignity of Woman (at our expense) and as a labor of Country the necessary success of our common ascent is held back by our lack of remembrance.

Man and Woman as a union is one.
Truly, both were meant "to be".

If Man is mind.
Then Woman is heart.

So that together
Man and Woman
may become
one soul.

They are qualities equal
but not the same.

If Man is pilot.
Then Woman is navigator.

Theirs is a journey that must proceed
from the freedom of their giving,
lest the family lose its power
to shelter and to raise you,
dear little ones.

Unity of family
proceed from Man and Woman
establishing both their faith and authority
over each other, lovingly and wisely,
that a proper dominion may be established
over the generations of Mankind.

This authority in Man and in Woman
to place upon the earth their common tent
in sight of the LORD is not an authority
to establish a permanent dominion
over one - or - the other.

For their union
of bearing and strength

is one complementary equality 

intended for the renewal of creation
being itself a unity - constantly new and ever new
upon the earth - to live, love, and to set each other free

and in doing so, in between their pains giving birth
to the transformation of the life of the earth.

---<--@

Beauty is timeless.

Beauty is ageless.

Beauty is always in season...
And is forever known to be so.

What is most beautiful is fleeting, all that is worth remembering is what is most beautiful...

Do you remember?

Salutation #192

All human labor (and its rewards)

profitable to Man is intended by God 

as a just means to obtain our better means. 

This means we all work for a living, 

my brothers and sisters of the Promise. 

We all work for a living - in that - 

we all live and breathe - for the becoming. 

(The Labor of the Truth)

Happiness is the object of our work.

For happiness - in each - 

   shining like a precious and unique jewel 

   held so intimately and lovingly close 

   to each our heart of hearts

which is the perfection of the Beauty - in All - 

   glorious like the crown of the Nations

   ablaze with the gold of a million shining Suns

   reflecting the glory of God in All Creation

is the object of all human labor. 

- selah -

In simpler times, before the Fall of our First Parents, 

the LORD commanded that the work of perfecting the Earth 

be the common mission of the lineages of Mankind.

This building up of the Peace of the Earth - is -

still our mission these days as individual Nations,

still our commission these days as the one Family 

of the Nations of the Children of Mankind.

None has changed save each our natural vision 

of what "this human happiness" must truly consist of.

   For what is happiness?

For our hearts - after the Fall of our First Parents -

may no longer see into the Truth - to find itself -

without the assistance of God and Heaven.

   For what is Truth?

- selah -

Starshine,

the wages of an honest life 

shall always outlast the riches 

of a corrupt one.

Never look down
upon the laborer on the Earth, 

for we are all such as these,
under God and Heaven.

From the lowliest of human labors to the labors of the Angels,

there exists a universal kind of equal dignity - in that - 

we are All - in this Work - of building up the New
- together - or not at all.

Work is for Man. Not Man for the Work.
Resist modern forms of slavery. Uphold the dignity of human work.

Let us look after one another

as fellow human workers and human citizens,

among our Nations - dreaming together this time.

---<--@

A Crime Against All Nations

Is it right to unjustly take from a man his liberty and to threaten his own family with his own life?

At any time and at any place, this crime is an evil which no nation can tolerate - let alone ours, let alone if this man is a guest of our Republic!

Our national prestige and the individual honor of our entire citizenry is burdened (again) by this crisis.

Is it right to unjustly take from a man his liberty and to threaten his own family with his own life?

This is what is happening right now to this man - Warren Richard Rodwell - and the nations of the world, friends - both familiar as well as unfamiliar alike, are watching and remembering it.

What happens here is important - how much value we place upon this issue is determined by how important we generally perceive this unfolding crisis to really and truly be.

Let us dwell with open hearts upon the plight of this guest of ours - selah.

Because what we do here is important - all of us are somehow involved in this - because there is no other Philippines with which other nations shall seek to know us than this one.

I implore all who are directly involved to concentrate and employ all available means to secure justice for this man, working toward his soonest and safest release, and to bind the evil that had perpetrated this crime in our midst with all our might as one Republic whole.

I want us to bear always in mind - kidnappers are bound with the same gaggle of criminals as slavers and human traffickers - theirs is but one spirit - an enemy of Mankind - hostis humani generis.

This is a crime against all nations.

And as we are a nation of Mankind - we can not tolerate this here.

My prayers go with Wocca, his family, and to Australia - may God see us all safely through this unwanted and unwelcome ordeal.

UPDATE: As of 20130323, Saturday, I came across an article in the news that Wocca has been freed by his captors. Bless the LORD for this day!

This is welcome news but still, the safe release of Mr. Rodwell doesn't override the fact that this criminal act should never have been done to him in the first place.

There never should have been a break in the liberty of his person nor threats issued against his God-given right to his own life.

At this time, Mr. Rodwell should immediately report to his embassy. If I know Australia, I know that whole nation is anxious to know that he is safe and sound.

I believe there are still hostages being held against their will - in this Country - by threats, criminal in their nature, that directly violate both their dignity and their rights and so the work continues... for it must.

---<--@

Go now and do what War does not expect;

in a million forms, in a million ways, serve -

Love your own and others like your own.

20110311

The Frequency of Earthquakes

It seems these days we hear much about many things - earthquakes, natural disasters, wars, rumors of wars... Not that the earth has changed, mind you. Nor has our human nature attained to the perfection that the LORD, our God, continue to desire for each of us.

If today you hear about them, it is primarily because of the shape of our technology - we are now living in that age where we are truly becoming a highly globalized community.

So we hear about these things from around our world through the lightning fast media of social communication and we worry about the perilous state of our nations. And rightly so. We attempt to relate these events to the signs of the times as we ought who are vigilant. But still we fail to locate in ourselves a personal sense of responsibility for these events - these are indeed signs of our times.

You see, my friends, we have an innate tendency to view and interpret these disasters as largely natural, completely apart or even wholly divine. So far as these earthquakes, violent weather, wars and rumors of wars are concerned, it is the earth all around ourselves that is changing or that it is God alone Who is causing all these evil.

But the painful and honest truth of the matter is that they all have man-made roots as well. The world is indeed taking its natural course - but that is because we are letting it happen, we who are not of this world yet who are still in the world, have forgotten our most basic call - that of an authentic human citizenship to all of creation.

Nobody but God knows the hour of the end. But the seasons of the skies above our souls are ever always ours to perceive. These inward seasons correctly perceived allows us to sense and to understand the approach of those things that lead us unto the breaking of the dawn.

And all things towards that great and final Day of the LORD when all true things will receive once again their original beginnings.

For the LORD indeed permits a certain amount of evil in our lives and in our world but only for causes that are consistent with His unchanging nature. When God allows evil, it is only to extract from it a greater, brighter, nobler good.

It should move us to act and overcome inaction.

---<--@

A Personal Commentary on Recent Events

I do not understand the needless clamor that was recently raised about Mar Roxas accompanying PNoy to Indonesia and Singapore. Kuya Mar is a Filipino citizen and has an equal obligation to help prosper our national interests - especially in concert with the efforts of our Responsible State i.e. the current administration of our President Noy.

He should be praised for his enthusiasm and effort. He even paid for his own way, mind you.

I commend our Vice President, Jojo Binay, for his great and abiding sense of national community. He has recently manifested a willingness to work with Mar Roxas on some pressing issues of national concern. His manifest willingness to work across political lines leaves a warm smile in my heart of hearts.

I support the efforts of our new AFP Chief, Lt. Gen. Eduardo Oban, Jr. A lot of commentators do not perceive the potential of his term. They also neglect to understand that the military victory is a lineage. The AFP vision follows this lineage - Nine months is plenty of time to re-constitute a decisive sense of moral clarity and a culture of victory in our profession of arms. It was already ours to begin with.

It is clear to me that PNoy chose Gen. Oban because of the right things - I trust our C-in-C just as I trust his father before him whose legacy gives me strength.

In contrast with mockers and detractors, I know and I trust that our new AFP Chief will be able to add valuable momentum into our efforts to strengthen and evolve our AFP institution into a 21st Century national military force.

I support the civilian commission of Lt. Gen. Ricardo David as head of our Immigration Bureau. The crime of Human Trafficking is especially abominable. It preys on the authentic hopes of our fellow Filipino compatriots. It is one of the things that keep me up at night. I am glad that a true patriot is on the watch.

---<--@

Let us continue to pray for peace in Libya.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.