20101130

Captain of the Common People

Today is Bonifacio Day.

Andres Bonifacio, my fellow Filipino compatriots, is a captain of the common people. And why is it worth remembering his legacy?

It is a well known fact that we are a patient people. But this patience is tempered by a daring that is jealous in its aspiration. For we are a people meant by the LORD, our God, for freedom and self-determination; a nation distinct but not apart from the one family of the nations of Mankind.

Indeed, this truth is written in the soul of every Filipino for all Filipinos instinctively know and understand that this freedom is our eternal right.

Therefore, as a nation, we know the limits of our patience. And this is so because bravery too is a virtue that is not lacking in our people.

This is a characteristic trait we often take for granted.

There is a tension that exists between our patience and our bravery, our hope and our daring, that continually calls us to our national destiny; a tension that we may only understand through our connections with our past, the shape of our present, and the purpose of our future.

As a matter of fact, we sometimes take this to excess and inflict against ourselves the zeal that is meant for our real enemies.

We can observe this in the narrative of our history. We can especially observe this in the life of Andres Bonifacio.

For as long as we have not yet in time matured in our ages as an undertaking of Country there must exist this tension in our lives and this tension is one that is meant for us to understand but only in the greater context of the order and the purpose of our generations; for this tension is a tension of justice.

Indeed, our hopes for a better Philippines is one that is justified under God - the Filipino dream, my fellow Filipino compatriots, is not a false dream neither is our dreaming dead: We know this to be true - we are a good people and meant for better things, much better things.

In fact, there is a requirement under heaven for this nation to succeed, we just need some time to remember ourselves as ourselves again. For only the Filipino can love and prosper the peace of this one Republic of the Filipino people - verily, no other nation can do this work for us.

So if in Jose Rizal is our national hope, then in Andres Bonifacio is our patriotic daring.

But in particular, to remember Kuya Andres is to remember the common people; that in a Republic such as ours, we are all - young or old, man or woman, rich or poor - but particularly those of us who are working our way to the middle classes - the common people; and that we must be ever brave and vigilant for each other.

After all, we are all but one work, one people, one destiny - mabuhay!

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Morong 43

In the same spirit of November 30, I must also take this opportunity to call on our President to reconsider the case of the Morong 43 and look upon their plight with as much equanimity and compassion as he did with the Magdalo soldiers whose reintegration to the life of our nation I also support.

Wouldn't it be really nice to see the Morong 43 enjoy this Christmas in freedom and with their families as well?

Yes, it would.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Nearness

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.
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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.