20110620

Salutation #17

(Common Identity, Common Destiny, and the Republic Vision)

If we succeed in our time

to achieve what in our own Day

is necessary for this generation to prevail,

we will have begun for our people

a new age for our Country.

The peace of these present times

require us to return to the timeless memory of ourselves as ourselves;

a Republic with a heart of peace

built upon the strength of a people with soul of submission

- that is -

a nation unified under Almighty God

being sheltered by the prospering peace

of the one Republic standing faithfully

in our defense forever.

Therefore,

if we remain true to the spirit of our undertaking of Country

and obtain to the strength at the heart of the nation in ourselves,

we will succeed in this labor of our times

for it is by the command of God that we are so arrayed

and by this same command we shall prosper.

As every nation is possessed of its own destiny -

a Republic undertaking of Country is led

by the vision of the national success.

This vision that must faithfully lead us

across the exile darkness of the unknown earth

as an undertaking of Country

and the hopes that

through common human needs

bind our generations together

is the soul that sustains our conviction

that we are

- as human beings and citizens to each other -

one nation entire.

More than anything,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise,

it is a remembrance of these things,

common identity and common destiny,

that must lead us ever onward

and forward against the darkness

to establish upon the unknown earth

the life of our national communities

like a multitude of living lights.

Its brightness in each ourselves

advances our cause of Country into its ages in time

for this vision is a thing written entirely in our hearts,

its outline is but a sketch in our Constitution -

it is spirit more than words, meaning more than form

being wrought more through action than inaction

for we must not only be Filipino by name or paper alone

we must work to become its actual merit in ourselves

by the virtues consistent to our common identity -

virtues preserved in the memory of our heroes

and in the bravery of our common peoples.

For how else can we become the citizen in ourselves,

my fellow Filipino compatriots,

than to know with conviction of heart

that we are who we ought to be

in time and in eternity?

How we appear, how we sound,

what we hold and possess in our hand today,

our family lines, our tribal affiliations,

all these things might influence our history

but it is remembrance that truly rules our destiny

as a nation distinct but not apart

from the one family of the nations of Mankind.

Mabuhay, let it be so.

---<--@

Sources of Prosperity

The LORD, our one Sovereign, will ask of you, O my nation - "Where now are thy treasures, O valiant Republic?"

"Where now are thy offerings to thy one, true and faithful God, thy most gracious King and stalwart Defender?"

"Do I not deserve thy love, thy allegiance and thy loyal tribute?"

"I, the LORD, speaks!"

Prosper therefore, abiding in thy common human hopes and rendering meaningful service, one to another - for the greatest treasure of this nation is its people.

As thus, the greatest accolade this Republic undertaking of Country may give to the LORD, our Holy Sustainer and Most Beneficent Provider is the spreading of its own sheltering wings of peace - the peace that prospers, O my people, the Peace that is over War!

Now, the nine common human needs, eternally protected by God and sanctified by our nation in time, are, in and of themselves, sources of prosperity.

These nine common human needs underpin as well as drive the prevailing reality that necessitates our gathering together into the divine endowment that is our nationhood.

They form the foundation of our industries.

Rightfully understood and individually expounded, these nine common human needs also co-relate to the UN MDG's which are a mirrored expression - observed in our behalf by our family of nations - of our particular national deficiencies in protecting and sanctifying these hopes in each ourselves as citizens to each other within the peace of our one Republic whole.

The catalyst for national prosperity, of course, is a strong national identity.

A strong national identity is like an electromagnet - it will necessarily reach out as mightily as it is enabled in itself to do so toward its own self-cognizant destiny.

And remembrance is its requisite expression - its electricity, as it were.

So let us remember, if we remain true to the nation in ourselves - time is on our side. Because however long this night might be, if we are who we ought, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, it can not last forever.

Have thou now forgotten

that promise long ago?

Return now to the wonder

and never let go.

---<--@

If in Rizal is our patriotic hope, then in Bonifacio is our patriotic daring - one completes the other, they should both be our national heroes.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Common Human Needs

20110520

Reviving the Middle East Peace Process

I was able to tune in last night to CNN in time to see President Obama's speech on the Arab Spring and the Middle East Peace Process.

I am no longer going to mince words about my convictions on the Middle East Peace Process.

There is a necessary shape that our family of nations must take in order for us to enter into the right door that will lead to the right future.

If our nations are presently conflicted, if America herself is presently conflicted, it is because this necessary shape is being presented to our hearts.

We know our common hope - we desire a better, brighter, kinder world for all men, women and children of all the nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

We desire peace, equality, freedom, justice, and prosperity enough to (at the very least) reach our own particular UN MDG's which are markers set in real terms to measure the growth of these ideals.

And now that the path that leads up to this hope is being presently revealed to our nations, we are becoming conflicted.

We are conflicted

and understandably so

because it is a path of peace - a road less traveled, as it were.

It is a heretofore unknown path - an ascendant, mountain way.

Because the necessary shape that must now permeate the prevailing order of the times (which is required as an adaptation to the new age) is simply

the shape of peace and peace as a paradigm whole.

We are now coming to the realization that our world must completely break away from the momentum of the last 2000 years and formally forsake the familiar but deadly gravity of

the last great age of War.

Lest we should not only get more of the same, it shall be dealt to us in magnitudes previously unknown to our remembrances.

My beloved friends, peace is the necessary shape. It is the one key that shall unlock the hidden promises of the new age before us.

If we are hesitating here today, this is good. B

ecause in this quest for a new age of peace, w

e are all pioneers.

This is why we are conflicted.

Now, I am of the conviction that the Middle East Peace Process is vital and must be concluded on paper under President Obama's watch.

Because a large part of this necessary shape depends on the Middle East Peace.

Indeed, the path that a mature America needs to take goes right through the Middle East Peace Process.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, this

too is our path.

As you know, our own Philippine Peace Process is part and parcel of a larger global movement which though complex, I have endeavored to present to you through this blog.

The whole world is shifting, not just us, and things are speeding up toward 2012.

(I have been trying to discern these things for years and have both Scriptural as well as empirical basis for most everything I am presenting here. Why I should do this is no longer a question I ask myself - it simply must be done.)

Our particularity as a nation distinct is entirely worth defending. But so too are our alliances with our friends just as equally worth fighting for.

We are to walk the way of peace and not only because we are allied to America (by irrevocable ties of blood and fire) but because we must remain true to the nation in ourselves: This we do by honoring our citizenships with each other as well as our covenant bonds with all the other nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind (represented in and by the United Nations institution).

And we must work out an understanding of this in ourselves: We must work out a conviction in our hearts that seeks to embrace all things in unity and in peace whether between ourselves as a community of citizens or between our nations as a a global community of wholes.

We live in a divided nation in a divided world but this external reality does not have to reflect the aspirations we should now maintain in our selves.

We are no longer part of the last great age of war.

This is why I have stressed the importance of keeping our mind and heart both on the goal of achieving the peace here locally as well as contributing to the larger peace processes specifically the one in the Middle East.

Because this particular perspective introduces us to our own potential as a nation distinct as well as to our own place as a contributing partner to the peace of other nations and breaks us out of our insular thinking within as well as without.

For we can no longer afford to be insular or xenophobic in a world of interdependent national communities.

We must be equally and openly committed to our nation as well as to our friends.

Or we should at least have informed opinions about the matter.

---<--@

My Concept on the Middle East Peace

I am naturally aligned with America on the Middle East Peace Process.

The only difference is that I am predisposed to deal more fairly with the Palestinian Cause.

I regard the Palestinians, by the sheer nobility and valor of their own adherence to their belongings to each other, as a nation endowed by God with all the inherent rights of nationhood.

I am putting my trust in the right things being motivated only by the good things I recognize and remember in both the nation of Israel and in the nation of Palestine.

I refuse to be by evil inspired.

I reject terrorism and the use of wasteful, needless violence on innocent civilians from any side, in any nation, at any time.

I reject illegal forms of waging war. I realize the evil of the spirit of war should be securely bound by laws national as well as international.

I am also naturally committed to the security of modern Israel as an undertaking of Country as well as to the nation of elder Israel as a whole.

I have sought to understand both their hopes. I have also sought to frame these hopes in the context of the times and in light of the prevailing climate of peace.

I regard the will of division itself as the enemy of both a secure Israel which I shall define here as an Israel at peace within and without herself and a young and resurgent Palestine, reintroduced anew to her own potentiality and promise as a Country entire.

I regard the relationship between Israel and Palestine as completely and utterly unique with no precedent in history and therefore am not bound by the limitations of the past in terms of finding solutions that contribute to a meaningful, sustainable, durable peace.

I will adhere to the 2009 Limit of the Times based on Daniel 12 and consider the entire time preceding 2009 as a one whole argument in favor of peace and peace as a paradigm whole.

I support -

1. A contiguous Palestinian National Territory built from 1967 borders w/ negotiated land swaps.
2. The Special Status of Jerusalem and the Concept of Secondary Capitals.
3. The Protection of the Jewish Majority status of Israel and the Recognition of the Rights of Minorities in both Israel and Palestine.
4. Provisions for the Care and Special Status of Palestinian Refugees.

And after the conclusion of the formal peace process on paper, I support -

1. A Two States, One Destiny Concept that works to preserve the uniqueness of the relationship between these two Countries on a Nation-First basis that puts their politics squarely in the service of each their respective nations.
2. The establishment of bilateral Nations-First agreements between Israel and Palestine on security, trade and knowledge exchanges.

---<--@

On the Arab Spring

It is the desire of the common people that have wrought for the region this moment.

The hopes of the least, so prone to become lost in the chase must be all the more perseveringly brought to both mind and heart at this time that it may remain present when the newness of things become established into the prevailing order of things.

My own Country is not new to mass movements of human hope.

May peace prevail in the region.

---<--@

Let us each continue to pray for peace according to the freedom of our faiths. And let us each continue to work for peace according to the freedom of our gifts.

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless all our nations.

Support Sanity in the Middle East.