Salutation #191

Beloved of Country,
give thy heart ear, and listen -
let us come away from the noise of this world,
and in the calm, and in the quiet - let our thoughts be,
let it be a free flowing river, gently leading out,
to a calm, quiet sea... selah. 

(Keep ye first, Beloved)

Keep your people virtuous and good,
and thy Nation shall never be hungry.

Instill in them neighborliness,
give them order - a human accord,
allow them time - to unravel its quality,
sharing with them their own seasons,
living in the life of their community,
and remove them from uncertainty,
and your Country will never be poor.

What can be counted can be lost!

What things can be measured on earth
can all be undone...

Grow and nurture those riches
that spring from out of the love of thy people,
and with them build up wealth that will outlast the ages.

Wealth is a people satisfied.
Happiness is a Nation content.

Money and material goods are its residue:
Wealth and Posterity for thy people.
---<--@

Possession of material wealth alone 
is not the fullest measure of every life's pursuit 
in Liberty.

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

Yet we remember them in their incomplete portraits.

We remember the absence. We remember the distant greatness.

We remember the abruptness of his death. And its untimely nature did accept.

We remember the missing pieces of his life and times. Yet linger on - in knowledge bereft.

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed! 
To the National Memory - and the heritage of Mankind -
till the end of the Age, and the last fading away upon this World,
when the Firmament beginning again - comes full circle - for All.
   

Yet t'is a solemn Trust seemingly
most effectively expressed - in the Nation

   (as a memory of something - of something that is repressed -

   ever like the constant haze that surrounded his term in those times,

   so full of unknowing, and fearfully ignorant about its own uncertainties 

   born of unforgotten moments - that seem to have waned - in the distance

   retreating somehow - uncomfortably so - in the distance - just outside of reach)

as - its profound and quiet absence - of things mostly now hidden yet forever bright!

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - is - 

by his own greatness in the National Remembrance 

mostly remembered by the charisma of his Presidency.

Indeed there exists in the Nation these days,

- a prevailing nostalgia about this very charisma -

acutely felt - in the absence of an engaged civic spirit -

which was the enlightened contribution of his own personage, 

and the very soul of his own devotion to the sacred trust of the Nation:

Enlightenment of the National Spirit was the Vision of his Camelot.

Yet the summits of JFK's legacy 

seem perpetually founded on tumults;

his term established in the midst of War 

seems only remembered by its passing away;

the common remembrance of JFK - seemingly -

one to be embraced like his absence, in the silence...

- selah -

The dilemma is in the waiting.

For in the waiting, we await for nothing.

For a future of completeness - we can not envision -

either by their wholes or through their complementary parts

without accepting what we may at present comprehend 

about the horizons of that one tomorrow, today.

The 35th President has bequeathed to his Nation his legacy!

And it can not be more complete to God than the sacrifice he freely gave.

For though all was not perfect - all was given perfectly - for God and Country.

So may he and his times - under this season of Sky -

be remembered in the Light of the right Remembrance

and in the Spirit of the Nation unto whom JFK and his family 

dedicated each of their life's callings to serve and to love faithfully 

be no longer in our memory bound to the dilemma - of the longing 

and of the not holding on - of the having and the not knowing it.

And so the tragedy in the life of the 35th President 

should not permeate as a taint upon his solemn memory;

the misgivings and failings that surround the murder of his person

and the years that were fallen away from the Nation by its painful loss 

can not be held to account together - as if Justice and Memory were one -

for the certainty of the vindication of Justice is a realm that is separate and distinct 

from the necessary honoring of the Remembrances that God requires of All.

None of those failings were the failings of the 35th President.

And to confuse them with each other - is a failure to render account -

of a life that was taken before its promise was fully realized in the Nation -

that all Citizens exist for each other and each other for God and for Country

and that to give to Country what Country seeks is also to give to one's self

what happiness was ever so diligently promised as this Nation's pursuit.

It was his nearness to the common people that inspired his strength.

It is a nearness that lives on - in younger hopes that inspire new strength

that within each heart - is felt in the silence - as a warmth and a glow.

Let the nostalgia fade away into a fullness of national embrace!

And let our pining for the Camelot that once seemed lost - fully become -

like a prayer for better days - shining aright again with a newness of hope!

That ever like the undying Flame that with Vigilance stands over JFK's memory,
we may recognize what was lost to our observance - all this time... as the warmth of his life;
that the pain of its own longing in the Nation's hearts may no longer consume us with trepidation 

and no longer seek in our souls to consume our spirit with many concerns - beyond its brightness -
that we may let go of the past and look again to future things, with much love - here - now, today. 

Let us begin.

---<--@

I do not know who murdered JFK. What I know is that his life and legacy was cut short by its crime. And an entire Nation was upon its intricacies mislead by a false allure into a lingering grief, unable to make their peace with the Remembrance of a remarkable Presidency and far too long burdened by this debt.

Justice is not Remembrance and indeed, it must be said
- the Certainty of Justice and the Burden of Justice are two distinct principles,
the former is a Pledge undertaken by God, and the latter, a command issued by Him
for all Nations to make a living and present account of all human life - to the last hair on their heads - 
that we may work together to alleviate among ourselves this common Burden of Justice
by timely payments made before God and the Assembly of each and every Nation
standing before His Throne in Eternity - against this Debt of Remembrance.

Carry on, Sir

We stop not to argue
- in the shadows - about the Night
and the maddening depths of it.
Lest the Darkness overtake us
with madness.

We stop not
carrying on along the way
for our discourse is about the Morning
walking together as if with Christ
on the Road to Emmaus.

Carry on, sir. 

Remember always your promise (to yourself)
during your inauguration speech, that you are beholden
to the loving remembrance in your own heart - my kuya Noy -
of a memory both personal as well as national in their natures:
Use it to see clearly, and with steadfast faith in God
and diligent attention to His Providence,
continue to express through thy august Office,
the Executive vision that you want for our Country
to particularly possess - in your own time.

The vision of a Government
that is accountable to its own authority,
aware of its responsibility - to the mandate -
it has variously received from the one Nation
on whose life and promise, the Responsible State
derives from the Divine Providence of God,
it's powers to govern - with virtue and wisdom,
within the particular framework of a Republic undertaking of Country,
the greater wealth and the greater good, both spiritual as well as material,
of the common generations of our people - unto the last of our generations
- forever.

I pray your spirit be clear even when all things are not -
that you, dear Sir, in your own solitude may always, always have a recourse
to the Love of the LORD present and ever so near to thy own heart.
And so may God love thee and keep thee and bless thee forever.

May a living Remembrance of these times - kindle in thee, its own virtue -
that all things God may reveal to thee - come necessary to the account of thy heart
that thou in the Sanctuary of the love that you keep in your soul may reach out to the darkness
through a fire born of greater things, and a light forbearing in hope, be ever capable of the embrace
with which God embraces all individual realities - in the Spirit of His abundant Peace
- a seed of the ultimate experience of Country.

You are the center to which there can be no rising nor falling, the center unto which the powers of the Nation must derive their constant measure.

The wings that shelter our Country must continually form and re-form themselves, at the rise and fall of each and every moment, from thy Office. No where else may it rely upon for its life and life's purpose.

There could be no rising nor falling in your commitment to your Office - its lineage, virtue, and authority are all you have to bring down from God and heaven the necessary strength to power the flight of our Republic toward that promised Dawn - and verily, these are all you need.

May they humble you and in God, make you ever persevere.
---<--@

Personal Reflection -

A faithful President over a perfect one - always.

I do not always agree with our President Noy
but I implicitly know we walk in the same direction. 

He may seek to express within our Republic journey,
matters about our National Dialogue that are varied and distinct
or even, at times, seemingly antithetical to my politics, but never will I forget -
that the journey we all must take - under this season of sky - is but one, long march -
from the depths and the darkness of Exile unto the Light and the Promise of an Eden Rebuilt -
for our Nation and its own emergent Republic motion under heaven, and therefore, for all Nations.

Tyrants are not as fortunate to as be blessed with any prevailing sense of a National direction
let alone agree with anybody - with consistency on which way is forward and which way is back.

Thoughts on the Legislative System

Our Congress
may be likened to two lungs
- the Senate and the House of Representatives -
they both feature one function -
Respiration.

Now, as it were - in this metaphor,
each one whole act - of - each one whole lung
is the action of one system -
the Legislative.



IF within each lung
there were divisions that make it functionally stronger
then that is just a natural part of its physiology -
for these divisions assist and facilitate
in the efficient delivery of its vital function:
The meticulous crafting and maintenance
- in behalf of the National whole -
of a living system of law.

BUT if within either lung,
those divisions were to cause either one to weaken and fail -
shall the body ask which lung is giving it such distress?

Indeed,
within the Legislative System itself
- shall either lung - whether the Senate or the House -
reply to the organism, the one Republic of the one Filipino Nation
   (on whose a priori existence its own existence manifestly requires
   and unto whose well-being and safety, it is - as a whole - subordinated
   both in sovereign function - as well as - in sovereign authority),
"only a fraction of either one of us did it"?

NO, because in the first instance, the System itself - as a whole -
is directly answerable to both itself - and - the greater body of the people:
"The we forever" that this Congress exists to singularly serve
and on whose constant behalf must therefore,
diligently and sincerely maintain itself
ever toward that specific purpose
of popular service.

FOR however small the tumor
- just as much as the successful function of the System rely on its parts -
any failure of its parts to deliver is also a failure of the System entire.

This is (and should be)
the beginning and end of the measure
by which all the generations of the people
shall remember and acclaim - our Congress -
in its sessions and throughout its seasons, a Congress:
Never so by its parts but - always and ultimately -
according to its assemblies in their wholes.

Because for richer or poorer, in ill-health and in well times -
all elements that belong to the functions of the wholes within a Republic
are wed to the Systems unto which they serve
as parts to a synergy of wholes.

This is why,
in the way of understanding
our own particular Republic undertaking of Country,
one should never treat the Systems (and its Symbols) that comprise it - like its parts -
withholding one's convictions from bitterness and despair - for our own good,
and to reserve in thy civic spirit - a sacred space of patriotic belief -
where one may always seek to return to with honor.

And so
- in the case of this particular meditation -
one may likewise only exhort the legislative Offices
distinctly as their separate Houses - and/or - at their highest Collegial level,
exhort either august bodies to function FULLY together as a Congress -
and move independently of the stultifying spells of the politics
that this Republic may - even at sundry times obtain
from the persons of each their politicians.

- selah -

NOW
it is normal in the realm of politics to exist in opposition.
Therefore, Opposition parties do not choose to become Opposition parties
but are placed into their position by normal legislative circumstances prevailing in their day
and therefore DO have to perform a function
in particular with their specific calling
from within Congress.

Opposition parties
must oppose the intended legislative priorities of the Majority.
And this it does in order to give them pause - and - to remind them of the Opposition
or the Minority view that only by a twist of Providence, a circumstance of the Divine Wisdom,
the Majority could always have been - and could be - IF the Majority view fails
in their function to maintain the health of each lung, as it were - and coalesce
behind themselves the vital breath that bring new life to the living law.

The Minority view principally represents
the voice of the very, very fine smallness of random chance,
the nature of which the Legislative Body - as a whole -
must always be aware of - and - ever so be made to be aware of
for the System unto which they all as fellow legislators equally serve unto
once willingly given over to the realms of fate and of blind chance
- instead of being dedicated to the challenge of it -
loses control of itself completely and abruptly.

And so the Opposition must not be necessarily adversarial in nature
and should exist not to merely oppose but to "be in opposition" -
ever faithful to the Congressional whole - and - loyal to the Republic whole.
For the Minority in being aware of itself, lends its certain strength
to the Majority - and keeps the whole system sober
and functionally aware that it is.

Because in the end, within the embrace of our National peace,
everybody profits from knowing everybody belongs - to make things so -
and that politics and politicians - in and by their being, are transient by nature -
and this - their persons must always remember - that it is - and - that they are -
AND so realize that the ultimate vocation of all persons who in their souls
profess to belong to this one Republic whole - belongs -
to the right exercise of a common citizenship.

And that sometimes,
one has to be on the right side,
and lose - and carry on.
---<--@

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 Church and State

No perfection without God



God made Religions many but the Waters that nourish them, God made one.

The LORD when He gifted with Free Will, the First Man, deigned to multiply his freedom - and secure his happiness forever, but caused Adam to grow only upward - unto Him - that He may know of the freedom of God and that God is his Freedom.

This was disrupted by the Devil (but not without the foreknowledge of God) and now we are, for our own safety and the forbearance of all human hope, exiled from our own Eden in a long darkness that is dark because the Truth to each our hearts is now veiled. But we are not without help.

- selah -

Wars of religion and the Remembrance they have - at such a great and terrible cost - afforded all our present generations, are not conflicts that are of the ordinary sense known to our Nations, nor can these Wars be contained by the Power of our States - these Wars, when they are allowed to break into our world and impose its will on the Peace of our Nations, are automatically wars of utter annihilation - their lust for violence, one that  burdens our need of Justice to such an extent that entire peoples lose sight of the Debt we must owe to the Memory of the lost and the fallen, who are our kin forever and responsibility under God as free Nations upon the earth and as such, one that only an act of Heaven - one short of tempting the LORD Himself, can bring to an end.

Religion is a requisite of the life of Man, through religion Man does Justice to God and God deigns to bless with truth, the faith He has sown in the Soul of every Man - the fruits of this intimate encounters from within the Soul of Man brings him to an understanding of Peace and this knowledge nurtures wisdom and the spirit of our humanity is made bright by it - all in its natural course, every variety of Religion musts produce fruits that withstand the darkness of time and the corruption of evil things; their strength, a necessary element of Nationhood, and their natural functioning, integral to the Peace of every Country.

Heaven and Earth can not be one Power (before the Last Day): To preclude the appearance of Wars of religion (and save our posterity from their unbearable burden of Justice) and to preserve the freedom of our religions, in the individual as well as in their necessary corporate exercises in human community, and the blessings of each its noble fruits necessary to the health and well-being of the spirit of our great and honorable Republic, it musts be necessary that Church and State are made distinct in their purpose and power and that their functions especially from within the State remain clear and separate from each other always.
---<--@



No religion shall be the State religion of the Republic nor shall the government require religion as a standard among themselves, whether elected or appointed, nor shall religion be a measure of the excellence of public service nor favored over each other in matters of State or through affinities, formal or informal, with any of the Offices Executive, Houses Legislative, Chambers Judiciary, Commissions Constitutional, and each their necessary Institutions and as a whole or through each their individual representations be given to transgress their equality in particular with each other being apart from the Powers and Purposes of the Republic State.

The government of the Republic shall reserve religious freedom as a distinct freedom granted to the exercise of individual choice exclusively and forever prohibit any form of grant within the State and among the religions that prevents or distorts the plurality, the fullness, the harmony, and depth of religious expression in the national community, that together enriches distinctly the human spirit of a common people - each their ageless wisdom strengthening the inherent Truth embodied by our Liberty through a unity in diversity that strengthen the freedoms integral to the functioning of our democracy and necessary to the well-being and civic virtue of a free and enlightened citizenry.

Therefore, religious prejudice, religious hatred, and the carrying on of the dishonors of the divisions that have marked with untold death and terrible suffering the memory of the past in all religions shall be the right or the province of no one.

All places of Religion shall be protected and preserved, all forms of prayer shall be allowed at all times to endure and persevere as a personal recourse - in private and public places together, religious equality and plurality and harmony being recognized and upheld by the government of the State - with neither fear, nor favor, nor prejudice - of or against any and all religions to their fullest expressions granted - save those who endanger these same freedoms and empower the past against which this Separation of Church and State has been established for the safety and progress of the life of the Nation and the Peace of the Republic that stands in its defense forever.

Thus, a Christian is to govern by the fruits of his or her religion and enriched by the common experience of the national community, establish by the virtue of its truth, him or herself in Public Service by a calling to serve all souls without distinction particularly in the State.

As such, the same degree of respect and courtesy of Republic Ideal and Tradition shall be required of faith traditions and their religions when they are likewise called to respond to the same life vocation to serve in the government of the State - to be human beings and citizens to each other alike - without any religious syncretism or hypocrisy but in fullness of truth; a faithful keeper and a loyal servant - bound to each other in peace and kinship by the freedoms that bind us together through all our generations, past, present and future, unto one Nation distinct among one great family of Nations - under God, the LORD, our one Sovereign.

For this is intended the Separation of Church and State - not to cause more confusion but to end it, not to make us vulnerable to the sins of the past, but to repent of it and, God-willing, be ever spared from a recurrence of their insufferable evil in our times and in every present time, preserved by the strength of human community and defended at all times by our Republic, prevailing as citizens together.
---<--@

A Nation's Prayer for Good Public Servants

Public service is a calling not an ambition.

Therefore, if the calling is present and the person freely responds and God blesses his or her decision, no one loses out - everybody wins!

So must we always pray for God to raise among our people, good public servants - shepherds after His own heart!



May God inspire in our hearts
a discerning love of the true shepherds
of the common people -

May the LORD cause us
to exhort and support them,
to recognize and to love them,
and to appoint them, wherever necessary,
in free and peaceful elections -

May the generous and good God, our Father,
deign it acceptable to enrich our national communities
with their vigilant and beneficent stewardship
in all levels and across all distinctions
within our one nation.

AMEN.
---<--@



It is said that one only receives the love one thinks one deserves. As a nation, my people, what kind of love do and can we reasonably and realistically expect from government?

In a democratic society, these expectations matter. For these expectations of ours inadvertently shape the custom and the norms that help or hinder the rise and the success of those who are in government to serve or to be served.

Those who expect corruption when and where it suits them in the citizenry provide those who are corrupt in government a means to be corrupt.

Those who expect excellence and all manner of praiseworthy things from our public servants in the citizenry provide those who are true in our government a means to remain so.

Those who do not know what to expect will likewise reap the same uncertainty for their lukewarmness and timidity of spirit in public participation.

Liberty is an exercise, not an excuse.

Lateral responsibility precedes horizontal authority.

Godspeed, Jesse Robredo

We got you back from the sea, sir,
but God has already taken you away
into Himself...

The will of the LORD be done.

So must you rest now, Sec. Robredo.

We will continue
to fight the good fight
to bring our Republic forward
into the new age.

To your family,
and to your friends,
our deepest gratitude
and sincerest condolences.

May your good life be a shelter to us.
May your steadfast faith be a comfort to us.
May the Almighty God be our greatest consolation.

God keep you, sir.
We will remember you.
Be at peace.
---<--@

I did not personally know you, sir.
But I personally felt your passing away
very, very much... salamat po.


Jesse Manalastas Robredo (19580527-20120818) via con Dios.

We have not completely lost Jesse Robredo,
for we are now living in the dream that he helped us dream
and for as long as we are working together to awaken this dream,
his spirit will always be with our nation.

That's why I never bade him good bye.


To Captain Jessup Bahinting (who served our Country with honor)


and to Kshitiz Chand (who loved his native Nepal) via con Dios.  

Godspeed!

For they went in the way of our heroes -

And though we must now part
for as long as we are a nation
for as long as we remember
they shall never be apart.

Real Stars

Some stars are fake, some are real -

of the fake ones, the heart can feel,

because of the real ones,

when one can tell -

it's their nearness to our earth

that makes it sell.

Real stars shine with a warmth

that often reaches us

and are full of genuine concern

but fake ones really don't connect

as much as we would like,

their light is not as warm and comforting

as far as the heart can tell

they could be as far from our earth

as heaven is to hell.

---<--@

Salutation #59

Dakilang Liwanag,

halina't manahan sa aking kalooban.

Hubugin Mo kami upang maging debotong misyonero/a;

ang maging liwanag sa mundo,

ang maging ilaw sa aming kapwa.

- A Prayer from the Candle Chapel

at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Shrine in Baclaran

(That Point of Forgetfulness)

When in our prayers we forget, we proceed to remember.

- selah -

When in our seeking the LORD in prayer

- our efforts suddenly cease -

and for a moment - just for a moment -

all our thunderous longings, all our anxious needs, all our turbulent wants -

they dissipate like so much gray clouds

into the infinite embrace of God

and there is a calm in thyself

that moment is Peace.

God comes to us and just for a moment;

a mere instant in time - in a twinkling of an eye -

you are struck with the realization that God is and He is God

that moment is Peace.

It is as if one is sitting outside of time and of self,

detached from all thy human worries - in the quiet of thy heart -

when at the rising of thy heart and mind in prayer -

as thy freedom ascends to the freedom of God

every need, every care, every fear is vanquished from thought

and you lose sight of everything - everything but God -

that moment is Peace.

You will ask to stay in that one moment

- forever and for always - and forget everything but God -

immersed in a luminous sea of unconsciousness,

but just as soon as you are in it,

just as soon as you glimpse the limitless vistas of the timeless,

just as soon as you feel yourself wanting to stay -

you emerge back out of the unseen waters

into the dimness of consciousness.

These moments are like desert oases

meant to sustain thee in the wilderness of everyday living.

O my beloved Starshine,

so (just) be with Jesus in the quiet of thy prayer - walk with thy God -

especially at the pauses within Holy Mass, during Holy Communion, in the rosary,

in thy daily commune with thy Creator in His garden of waking dreams

and in thy every prayer of the heart open to wonder.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

And be gentle when you do. Be slow but certain in pace.

For practice makes one patient and patience makes one persevering.

And perseverance in prayer makes prayer perfect.

And not because there is a from of power in thy prayer

but because of the God Who hears all our prayers of the heart.

So persevere in thy prayer, my darling Starshine,

through the longing God plants in thy heart, persevere in thy prayer -

like the dream desires to become itself, persevere in thy prayer -

like the sapling hopes to become the oak, persevere in thy prayer -

like the stars strive for every journey's end, persevere in thy prayer -

like the Night seeks for the Day, like the love pines for the Lover -

shut yourself from the rest of the world and pray.

Remember the calm in the storm?

The Stillness is in the stillness - so be calm -

develop a constant awareness of the God in your life

- be gentle and be certain and be thoughtful -

for the Master is asleep in the vessel of thy heart.

If you feel out of place, if you feel undeserving,

so much more should you feel the need to understand -

- one must pray -

one must pray because one has a need

to pray and to pray well.

It is the needy who calls out and not the satisfied.

And ours is a God of infinite mercies!

---<--@

The Love of God in government is the safeguard that preserves the bond that must exist between the Nation and the Responsible State, without it our freedoms become troublesome.

---<--@

This is why Tibetan culture is precious -

Wisdom is timeless

who in the midst of darkness

illumines to the one heart of Man the way back into himself

that he may live complete.

"Practice. Practice. Practice."

- The Dalai Lama

---<--@

Glory to God the Father!

Adoration to Jesus Christ!

Alleluia, peace be unto our nation

and peace be unto all our nations;

good will to all men and women of Peace.