My brother and sister Filipinos,
who are all my siblings in God and Country,
kindred to my soul through the blessing of Nationhood,
whose hearts long to dwell in the native spirit of our Peace
and whose spirits seek to mightily soar with soul of our Nation -
my word to each of you and your thoughts to mine, beloved Nation,
may all come by way of our friendship and arrive by way of the Truth
through our one common and national salutation,
peace and mabuhay!
Man is an extension of his human community.
They say, my brothers and sisters, that the proposition of a just society implies the existence of an unjust foundation; that the reason for Man through his Nations to establish Justice upon his world is Injustice.
And truly, such is the case.
Indeed, we recognize only what is good in this world because
evil preceded us in our going forth - in our tribes and lineages - unto the furthest reaches of the lands of this Earth.
Evil was forever bound to this world, however.
But we are not.
Our going forth is
an exile march and in our hearts, we know there is reserved, for all the children of our Mankind, a way of return to our Eden rebuilt.
There is a way that leads to the right places in time that is reserved for us.
Indeed, we expect to reach those places glimpsed by the hope that is common in all human hearts through the light of every faith precisely because we are expected to come along that way - to come along the great and inevitable circle of the totality and fullness of all human experience, unto a place where we may truly be - the promise and the life that the LORD, our God, did intend for each of us to be - before this time, before the onset of the pain and the poverty of our human exile.
How come then, if this way did indeed belongs to us, that we are met with so much trouble that at times we are completely overwhelmed along the way of our ascent? (You have to pardon my lingua franca, I mean all that is put down in this blog and I trust you to know it by now.)
Because we have to do it - as Nations dreaming together this time. We have to do it as a community that is in community with each other.
We have to succeed as a world and as a family of Mankind.
Lest we forget as a Nation, Man is by first principle, a victim; that innocence is maintained until such a time as guilt is established in a court of law.
Let us look again at the proposition of a just society. There is indeed, in this world, an unjust foundation that exists and exists so that a just society may seek to know and to find itself - but it is primarily social in nature.
The most evil structures of this world are social in nature. It is their scandal that accounts for so much of the trouble we experience along the way of our ascent as Country - into our proper ages in time. And all of them are
a slavery that consumes both the life of our souls and the souls of our societies.
Take corruption for example - an issue that stares our Nation in the face; and an evil that feels itself brave enough now to stand in the way of our Republic whole.
Its first principle cause is a crisis of Filipino identity.
Its effect is also a weakening of the Filipino identity.
And causes us confusion and doubt - undermines the life that lives in the society of our Nationhood and thus, propagates itself among us like a virus.
Its scandal furthers the ignorance that now infects with despair our ever deepening crisis of identity and makes that which is natural, unnatural. (For all societies must endure a never-ending search for itself to emerge, to prosper in time, and to eventually arrive unto the Truth -
for hope. Despair comes only with forgetfulness, confusion, and the descent into division and the oblivion of war. In my Catholic tradition, despair is a sin against the Holy Spirit.)
We accuse each other of its evil. When the Evil in the evil itself dwells from within the accusations we often mindlessly hurl against each other. We can never rid evil by pitting it with evil. Cancer cells will never heal if we inject ourselves with more cancer cells.
We have to return again to what is healthy in being Filipino.
I'm not saying here that no one is criminally complicit in the Pork Barrel scandal that set this Republic back decades. I have a fair idea of the totality of what we have lost through this sad and unwanted affair.
What I'm trying to say is we are all responsible for the cure that will allow this Nation to surpass this test.
After all, are we not a just society? Because if we are not now. Then, we can never be later.
It is important to strike down the actions of those who willfully and maliciously conspire with the social evil of corruption in their desire to reap the rewards of its many sins, this is true.
In view of the above, we are a people endowed with an established system of Courts in this Republic. And this Court system exists within a greater institutionalized system of Justice in our Nation that along with our laws help us to make provision to protect the vulnerable in our communities from the evil and the scandal of social structures
specifically unbecoming of our dignity and promise.
Therefore, it is just as important to also understand, that what makes us to become largely immune from the sins of corruption lies not in this Justice system alone but relies also in our capacity to resist the Evil of what is
not of us - in ourselves. Our Courts may only make us safe so long as we ourselves remain convinced in the merits of our better selves and in the goodness that is worth treasuring in the life of each citizen and every one of our national communities.
Man as an extension of human community; that we as citizens are never disconnected from each other's lives - for the Sun of our Flag shines upon all, seeks to equally guide all, and expects all to to see all and to know of all - being gathered by each other in the light of its Liberty.
A just society is all we envision ourselves to be - as a Nation, as communities in one common community. And so we must constantly bring it forth not in our yesterday, not in our tomorrow -
but today.
I do not have to further expound or elaborate on it. We know it and I know we know it. But let me say this, the greatest understanding of it may only be found when and where our unity is greatest.
The fruit of this Vision
in the reality of the Nation is -
the Maturity of Present and Living
Human and National Remembrances.
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The Creative Ideal is this -
know truth, and apply it -
to love thy neighbor, and do it -
to know the Word, and be it.
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| The Nine Common Human Needs |
