I hate it that the BBL issue is getting helplessly conflicting. One can not despair though. When things get this way, I think it is becoming more and more a leadership crisis than a legislative one. And when we talk of leadership we look to Malacanang... or to each ourselves...
I use this blog to store my thoughts and read back to them when I can... So about the BBL, another thing I haven't really written about is the "expansion" clause. It should be removed. Even if the Philippine Republic does federalize... (maybe we will, maybe we won't), it introduces into the national thinking, a kind of competition that is unsuited to the keeping of the broader peace. What if every province had the ability to eat each other up? If Congress hasn't already done so, they should rethink this clause.
I can not fully oppose the BBL like I fully oppose separatism and armed insurrection. The BBL for all its controversy represents a significant investment in peace reform - whether it prospers or not is another question altogether. I can not however, overlook how much effort, funds, and futures have been put into the crafting of the draft law. It has to be given a chance.
---<--@
The Rohingya people might themselves possess a history of conflict we presently have little to no understanding of... We have to make sure this history of conflict does not come into our shores unresolved.
Unresolved if not by them - by us - this nation we know as our own. We have nothing to do with the baggage of their past - from Bangladesh, to Myanmar, or with the Rakhine - though we can represent something of their future...
I think we as a nation have a moral and spiritual obligation to help human beings in need, especially those who are under threat of being unjustly and summarily relieved of their lives and liberty.
We as Filipinos must always remember we started out as people in the shadow of death. Both Islam and Christianity as our major religions are familiar with the plight of the human minority - all three Abrahamic faiths started out as exceptions and as contradictions before the face of the world.
I do not know how we as Christians, Muslims, and Jews got to be so fully assimilated to the rule of war... I recognize our beginnings and know through my own remembrance that what we do to each other can sometimes be so terribly incompatible with the memory...
We as Filipinos must always remember we started out as people in the shadow of death. Both Islam and Christianity as our major religions are familiar with the plight of the human minority - all three Abrahamic faiths started out as exceptions and as contradictions before the face of the world.
I do not know how we as Christians, Muslims, and Jews got to be so fully assimilated to the rule of war... I recognize our beginnings and know through my own remembrance that what we do to each other can sometimes be so terribly incompatible with the memory...
Anyway, since we are in truth obliged to help them - we have to also make it clear that our helping them does not mean that we favor them over their enemies nor grant symbolic asylum to hatreds of any kind. As we too have an obligation to Justice and to do justice - it is the plight of their common humanity more than anything else that we must immediately recognize.
In any case, we are now also obliged to help ourselves understand the plight of the Rohingya people. If ASEAN has a capability of declaring and acting upon a region-wide humanitarian crisis, this would be a good example of one of those, I think.
In any case, we are now also obliged to help ourselves understand the plight of the Rohingya people. If ASEAN has a capability of declaring and acting upon a region-wide humanitarian crisis, this would be a good example of one of those, I think.
---<--@
Ayayay... para bagang ganito:
