20111025

To my Philippines -

Peace is the responsibility of all!

O my nation, if this conflict were anything else but a war among Filipinos, it would have been a foregone conclusion. The "all-out war" option would have been an easy choice.

In this particular conflict, however, our truest enemy is within. For the greatest threat to the peace of our one Republic are the divisions that keep our nation down.

(Mind you, O listening heart, not the sides themselves but the divisions that keep us apart!)

For it is these divisions that keep our Country weak and unfashioned; a mere shadow of the real glory of the Republic hoped for by all those generations past; that Land of the Morning of whose vision is the singular intention of all their labors, all their tears, all their sacrifices.

This War has prevented the appearance of that Republic, for we are at present living in a place in time that is increasingly not our own; a mere shadow of the hopes of the generations of Filipinos past, a mere fraction of their glorious dreaming.

(If we are being warned, it is because we are at a decisive juncture in the life of our nation.)

My honorable Filipino compatriots, this War in the heart of Man will prevent us from achieving the vision of the national destiny and work to deny our peoples through all our generations the realization of all our dreaming together.

It will seek to further dilute the concentrated strength of the spirit of our nationhood, preclude the promise of many, and consume the life of all. For the spirit of War is a devourer of peoples.

It is within each of us.

(Before the end of days, this beast shall be among the nations for the undoing of all nations.)

Therefore, in the midst of all of this passion, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, in the aftermath of what might have been the worst blow to the peace process we have had to endure as one nation thus far, I am not going to advise anyone of us to choose anything at this point in time.

I want us to rest and reflect. Let us afford our fallen the dignity of a calm worthy of their peace and reflect upon the things they have given their all to afford us.

Let us remember them all in this way, seeking not to add to the price this nation has to pay to obtain from God above the unity which is ours by honor and blood.

Let us listen to our President. Let us invest our trust in the power of his Office. Let us believe in his sincerity. Above all, let us believe in ours.

I personally believe in the sincerity of our President Noy. He may say it differently, do things his own way but I am absolutely convinced that he means to do exactly the same thing - restore our Republic and our generations to our rightful place in time.

Furthermore, let me say this to our national media corps -

Please be aware that all the media hype about this may also have unforeseen and unintended consequences. It might serve to inflame already deeply held passions and further alienate the bar of public opinion from the true merits of the peace process. Therefore, I would like to also ask our press people not to cut the branch we are all sitting on.

I would advise you to listen to the voices of the families of the fallen; to the voices of the common folk who live in the direct path of this conflict, decent Filipinos who did not intend for themselves to become victims of a struggle that is not theirs.

I would advise our national press as a whole not to make accusations that fly in the face of reason and impugn their investigative integrity.

For in a great democracy such as ours, the power of the free press comes from an understanding of its inalienable responsibility to the nation - one values the other. For press freedom protects its nation from ignorance of itself and an enlightened nation protects the freedom of its press.

Media serves the truth. The truth serves the people.

To sum, to all my brothers and sisters of the Promise, all us Filipinos to the last, from the noblest to the least responsible in the nation, from our President and across our wings to the very littlest Filipino, all you with listening hearts -

Let us not make any hasty decisions at this point in time. We do not have to.

Let us rest apart from our troubles and reflect - together this time.

Indeed, let us as one nation solemnly pause - observe a moment of deep and meaningful remembrance - at least till next week or at the very least, till after we have buried our dead.

Let Peace be our common salutation.

---<--@

Harbinger

Then the LORD God said: "See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever."

The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken.

When he expelled the man, he settled him east of the garden of Eden; and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

- Genesis 3: 22-24

---<--@

Prayers for our kindred Republic of Turkey -

Let us also pause for a moment and pray for all of those who were lost in the recent magnitude 7.2 earthquake in eastern Turkey.

As a nation who is not unfamiliar to the tragedy of earthquakes such as these, let us grieve with our brother and sister human beings in Turkey and in hoping with their hopes, send all our kindred concerns to the one God of all human beings - the God Who is - the LORD, my people, He is God!

To all my Roman Catholic brother and sister Filipinos, let us especially take these prayers as well as our prayers for the peace of our Country to God, the Father of our Holy Redeemer, at Holy Mass - tomorrow and every Wednesdays with our Lady of Perpetual Help, on Fridays through the Sacred Heart of Jesus, at sundry times from feast to feast, but above all on Sundays through Jesus Christ and all Christians in Jesus Christ, alleluia.

---<--@

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The War in Heaven is in the Heart -

Revelation 12: 7-9

A Prayer to the King

20110611

The Lion of the Sea

I saw a city,

a city by the bay

and the throne of a Lion -

the Lion of the Sea.

I saw you, O city,

all covered in grime

like a widow weeping

the victim of a crime.

Return again, O Lion,

thou great lover of brav'ry,

reclaim again thy city

let thy justice roam free.

- selah -

I saw a nation,

a nation by the sea -

a poor and forlorn people

awaiting for thee.

O saw you, O nation,

despairing in the darkness

like an orphaned son -

alone amidst the madness.

Awaken then, O Lion,

O ruler of the free -

reclaim again thy spirit

and let thy glory be!

---<--@

The Lion of the Sea is the Office of the President of the one Republic of the Philippines.

The spirit of the Lion is its one whole lineage spread across persons, individual and unique, freely elected by a democratic quorum of the people and therefore by the LORD, the one Sovereign of our nation, across our generations to the last of our generations.

The Throne of the Lion is the Seat of the Office of the President of the one Republic of the Philippines.

The city by the bay is Manila - Premier City of the one Filipino nation, the home of the Lion as Defender of the one Filipino people, and the Capital City of the one Republic of the Philippines.

The nation, of course is - we, the one Filipino people - arrayed according to our generations in time and ordered according to our families, tribes and national communities across dimensional space.

We, the people, united in heart and will as citizens to each other and maintained in our individualities and human distinctions by the choice traditions of our liberal democracy, our dignity preserved by rule of Law and the spirit of Liberty, our promise sustained by the Justice of our Peace, and our common hopes rightfully represented in the forums of our Republic undertaking of Country by our elected peers in the nation and before the Throne of the Eternal God by the living Memory of our generations.

As the enduring strength of the Lion is founded in the presence of its truth in the heart, the roots of Manila is likewise perennially founded in the sea because, we are a maritime nation.

Our destiny is intimately linked to the sea.

And as all of these are part of the Filipino identity as a whole, our one Republic to become nearer to its original lineage must therefore reflect all these in itself that the peace of our people may be better served by it.

For this Lion is for the lambs... a shepherd true and true.

Let this nation therefore, be blessed with many lions (and lionesses).

*Shipbuilding as a heavy industry (recently brought up by PNoy) is something I have also been thinking of for some time now.

This is only possible however, after a durable, meaningful, sustainable peace is obtained as well as absorbed in Mindanao and consequently all across our one Republic whole. A space port is another thing.

These heavy industries are to be strategically built from a tier of pre-requisite industries. But all of these must be built from a sound local agricultural base to make it less vulnerable to undesirable market forces.

This is impossible to begin if we remain unemerged - stillborn, as it were - as a Country in our ages in time.

---<--@

Carry On, President Noy

The Catholic bishop of Butuan was reported in a major newspaper today to have called for the resignation of President Noy. While I must submit myself to the rightful authority of my Holy Mother Church, I must also respectfully disagree with him.

I think it is very irresponsible and reckless to call on our President to resign for any reason other than having openly and irreconcilably turned hostile against his own people - against the very Nation served by the Responsible State. But our PNoy is not a Quadaffi by a long shot.

We can not demand perfection from the State anymore than God can demand perfection from ourselves without His aid and His authority.

The life of the State is derived from the life of Nation.

Its authority is a divine authority granted by will of Providence out of the necessity of the people themselves to be governed either by the original line of their kings and rulers (as in a Monarchy) or by their peers (as in a Republic).

It is therefore, composed of human beings - no more, no less. The real power of the Responsible State lies in its ability to unify its peace with the peace of its own Nation - this synergy builds up the Common Market, preserves the peace of civil society, prospers the people and blesses the generations of the people.

This is the labor of our own particular Republic undertaking of Country and is something we must gradually learn from our own common experience as a people united in time and in eternity under the peace of our Republic vision.

It is something that we gradually grow into like a tree growing under the Light of the LORD, our God, and one Sovereign; Almighty God Whose pruning and guidance we must also pay close attention to as a nation entire.

Furthermore, before the promised time of the LORD, it is an imperfect peace and keeps every nation of our one family of the nations of Mankind walking in humility before God always - and for our own good.

There may be many undertakings of Country upon this earth but there is no one undertaking of Country like our own. Neither can this Country be built by any nation other than ourselves.

Hence short of a mature tyranny, it serves not one of us, my father bishop included, to try and subvert the very laws and processes that hold our Republic undertaking together.

Indeed, I was really shocked about this particular headline about a bishop of the Church no less. It makes me sad just to think about it. I would have expected more from our Catholic leadership especially at this crucial time - when unity above all is wanting in our beloved, suffering nation.

It would not have been a headline worthy article to me, by the way, in the first instance. My own opinion is that it is simply too sensationalist and therefore, counter-intuitive to have allowed this to print as is.

With August coming up, I think it only right for us common folk to expect that tabloid-mentality like this would soon be on the wane especially with our major newspapers like the Manila Times.

With all the other things happening in and around our Country at this particular point in the life of our nation, quite frankly, I would have expected (and with good reason) for more productive material to dominate our national conversation - like the peace process, for one.

---<--@

DOTC

Congratulations to our new DOTC Secretary, Mar Roxas. This vital department is made even more crucial in this present age. To be honest, transportation and communication together seems to me awfully broad for a single department. But then again, maybe not.

Don't be jaded by rumors, Kuya Mar. In the long run, it's not position that counts, it's what you do with it - lateral hierarchy is all about function and precedes horizontal authority: Command can not be demanded, it must be earned.

---<--@

Education as a Source of Prosperity

Of the root sources of poverty in our Country, I have mentioned four - corruption, geography, division, ecological depletion. Some might ask - what about education?

Education, even the most rudimentary of forms, is never a source of poverty - according to how efficiently we develop our own system of education in this Country, we only stand to gain from our efforts.

Learning is a thing that is like starlight, received and therefore, a system of education - properly dedicated - facilitates learning.

There is much to improve on in the realm of learning... always. Because truth be told, learning is forever.

But as regards to those root sources of poverty, all of them have at their heart, a corruption of first principles. This corruption is like a truth which is being obscured - eclipsed as it were, by a darkness that lingers to keep us in confusion.

From this darkness, we must emerge.

My honorable compatriots, let us pause to think and to pray about these things this 113th year of our independence bearing always in mind and heart today that the ages of Country in time are a measure not of the length of intervening years but of the brightness of our remembrance.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Republika ng Pilipinas at mabuhay ring nawa ang ating mahal na Pangulo at Pangalawang Pangulo! May God bless all Filipinos with a peaceful, meaningful, and blessed 113th Independence Day.

Excalibur and the Paradox of Power