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.
---<--@

The Power of Party Politics

Sometimes you have to be on the right side and lose.



Party Politics in a representative democracy is healthy.

It is a fact of present-day Republic life that our elected representatives need to be themselves effectively represented from within their own House/s to bring order and structure within the Legislative branch.

Platforms are vessels that convey Party principles and primarily consists of a set of Ideals, changeless and unyielding - and rooted in the National character.

While the Party as itself seeks - at every age - to make and re-make through these Party principles, the relevant politics of their own times.

This means Party politics must and do change to remain relevant but their foundations do not and must not change else, the credibility of the Platform itself comes into question.

And a Party can not be without a Platform and remain substantially united as a potent political force.

More so than as an effective aid to obtaining election victories, political Parties are primarily conceived as a dependable and robust source of mature legislation and of mature legislators.
---

I do not understand why Party Politics must extend itself to the Executive branch but it does.

Maybe because the Executive needs the Legislative to be decisive in implementing the legal framework of the national goals embedded in its particular vision for the Country - more so than as an effective aid to obtaining election victories.

But this can only be so if the communities, particularly the elders from their respective Electorates, within the Constituencies of the Legislative branch are not effectively communicating their political concerns as regards their own particular visions of Country to their respective Members of Congress - the members of the House (for Local) and the Senators (for State).

Because it is this continuing Dialogue between the Nation and the Responsible State that the Executive branch (all throughout each and every one of its necessary transfers of vitality and transformations of authority) relies on to be able to faithfully conform and accordingly amend its own popular contributions to the unfolding of the greater Republic Vision - for the people and for the generations of the people.

Indeed, every particular vision of the Executive branch, to be truly reflective of the greater reality of the times, must constantly be stirred up and refined by this Dialogue within the Nation.

For Wisdom is in the people (not in the Parties).

Now, there is always - within the National Dialogue - a certain degree of political noise but lest it deafens one, one must know to stand quietly on the party Platform and discern - the meaningful from the empty, agreements from disagreements, compromises, concessions, improvements...

Good legislators know this and speak out to defeat the noise. Good leaders know this and listen to discern the truth. But a good President should know how to both speak out and listen.

For the vital discernment of the popular Wisdom in every age must always come from the Offices of the Executive branch, from the ground upward, being duly interpreted and skillfully articulated especially at the level of the Office of the President, at the very center of the peace that forms the Sheltering Wings of the Republic State.

Executive vision determines Legislative focus and Legislative focus determines Juridical reach which in turn informs Executive vision.

This kind of optimum politics (pulled upward) represents the highest expression of the National aspiration - tempered and refined (by the larger view enjoyed by the Executive branch) in order to adequately meet with the challenges of a changing reality at every present time.

From this politics is derived policy and from this policy is derived the foundation economics necessary for the efficient structuring of the Republic government and the greater Economy in the Nation and of the Nation (being of both matter and spirit) that must proceed from this - utterly depends on it.

Indeed, both Market Confidence and Consumer Trust (at all levels - both local and international) utterly depends on it.
---

Why the shutdown?



In my own opinion, either the aforementioned Dialogue has lost its sense of vitality or the necessary movement of the national politics from the ground upward - into the Vision and Unity of the Executive branch - has lost its way - and has been superseded by something else.

What if as it were, the Power of the Party Politics of the Nation is reduced to the mere Politics of Partisan Power of the Parties - as an aid to obtaining election victories before anything else?

What if Power and Authority has become estranged in the Republic and Love and Justice in the Nation will no longer agree to kiss the kiss of peace?

George Washington himself warned the Nation about this fragmentation of the Unity that bind together the Separation of Powers into the freedom of a Republic and the pitfalls of Party Politics as "fractious agencies subversive of domestic tranquility".

Because the greatest sin that Party Politics can inflict upon its Nation is failure to agree on who or what to serve. Herein, the Power of Party Politics loses its original will and true ability to constantly transform the Earth and subdue it - for the one American Nation.

It forgets and forsakes the larger Unity and the Eternal Principles that bind together the Many States into the one Republic whole -

Not in behalf of the will of the Electorate nor for the sake of the Mandate that thy Union received from a free and sovereign Nation upon the Earth -

But for short term, narrow-minded, and near-sighted gains set forth by small minded thinking - of things that may inevitably only serve to propagate the necessary fragmentation that keeps its will of aberration hidden and secret from the illuminating Wisdom of the people.
---

This thy First President foresaw: You are, America, a work of Unity, the fire in thy Soul kindled by a love of thy own freedoms professed and a greater love hath always led thee onward!

Despite all thy sins, for indeed - all Nations have sinned, thou art a Nation possessed with a Freedom to redeem thyself from the grip of past things.

You are - as a national community - one of the major lights of this world. You can not allow yourself to be defeated before the Nations in this most desperate of times upon our failing world by a prevailing lack of unity and agreement from within yourselves.

Only the Adversary of thy own lineage of Victory who is also the Enemy of every form of good that your own particular Nationhood stands for - shall gain from seeing thee weak and in disarray.

Indeed, does this not go against the very grain of everything you are and of everything you stand for so that even the stones and the trees and the skies shall remind you and speak to you that this disunity and this discordant state of present affairs is a thing not becoming of thyself as thyself?

What is wrong with healthcare? Are its provisions so poisonous that you would allow your Nation to tread a path unpaved and unscouted and unknown?

Will your princes from among thy own people not send scouts forward first in a strange land? For this is what this failure to agree is doing - no one is standing watch over the horizons of the morrow.

As a Republic, we are, by each our great motions in the heavens, led from love to love - can we not agree on what we love? For what we love inspires the Truth of what we serve.

Hate portrays but an illusion of love and therefore, is a servant of nothing. 

Division is good if it sows order and purpose to our world and defines reach and not limits. Other than this, division may only conspire to sow discord - confuse, weaken and dilute.

Let me tell you now, the America I know is better than this - much, much better than this...

It is a bit disheartening to see you like this, America, this but nevertheless - we are - as all Nations are, in this long march together as one covenant Family - we are - because there is always hope so that none of us can leave the other alone in the Night without abandoning itself to the Darkness.

You need to snap out of it, Old Glory, and take your position forward in the march.
---<--@


Tah-dah! Success...?

Meeting in the Middle in a Post-RH Philippines

There must be a time
in every political dialogue
that we must as - one nation - step back
and allow for the necessary choices to be made, for good or ill,
and for the changes to implement themselves.

We have to trust in our democracy.

We have to trust in our ability as a Republic
to make either the wrong or the right decisions
and to profit from them both.

Our collective freedoms of self-expression in the Republic forum
must naturally be complemented by an abiding respect
for our individual rights to choose freely -
without fear of final judgement (of our peers).

The foundation of our electoral culture
which raises from among our midst,
at appointed times in the life of our Republic,
a government of the people, for the people,
and at-one with the people,
relies on our ability
to both freely express as well as
to responsibly defend our common freedoms.

One of our inherent strength as a liberal democracy
is our ability to self-reflect as a Republic whole;
we are a people capable of following old and proven paths,
of creating new ones, or of forsaking the wrong ones.

All of this is threatened by
a partisanship in our political life
- that - when it is allowed to endure,
becomes a thing above the liberty of our nation
and a hindrance to the freedom of the individual citizen,
most especially the very least of us all -
whose needs are the most urgent
but whose voices are
weakest of all.
---<--@



I have always thought that the RH issue is all about the empowerment of the right choices; that these right choices must be enabled through education to bend to the will of the God of life.

And that there can be no clear cut answers that will fit every situation.

Every incidence may only be judged by their individual realities.

Central to the argument of contraception is the fact that contraception denies from the intimacy of conjugal love, the ability to be open to the transmission of human life.

It is a choice to NOT be open to the choice of having children brought into this world through the marriage covenant before God.

BUT central to the argument of poverty is the choice itself to be open to the transmission of human life; that the poor, consumed and weakened by the evils of their condition, CAN NOT make the choice to be open to the transmission of human life.

A young mother in the depths of poverty who vows that her 12th or 14th child will be the last one if she has her way is a person who CAN NOT make the choice to be open to the transmission of human life.

The argument in Humanae Vitae about the lesser evil of rendering non-fecund acts permissible within the greater ensemble of fecund acts within the marriage covenant can not apply if the choice itself to be open to the transmission of life is a choice one is unable to freely and responsibly make (else long-term provisions for the arrival of the newborn are also made alongside that choice).

This leaves us with the normal argument of the lesser and the greater evil as well as a better appreciation of the bravery of our women and the resilience and character of our poorer folk (materially speaking).

Pope Benedict XVI admitted it may be permissible to allow the use of condoms to limit the transmission of AIDS (as a temporary condition that is understood a priori to be allowed only until such a time as the work of the rehabilitation of free human choice through Catholic education and eradication of the existing evils of poverty has become sufficient in itself to overcome it).

The condition of the incidence of poverty, like the condition of the spread of AIDS, is - if we as citizens to each other can help it - only temporary and for as long as this condition exists (as a threat to the greater wholes), a compromise that will allow us to more effectively battle to reverse its trends may be in order.

IF we, though well-meaning, so thoughtlessly surrender those who can not rightly choose for themselves to the evil of randomness and chance, do we heap upon ourselves as a nation, a greater or a lesser evil than by a temporary compromise made to allow for forms of contraception that are proscribed by our faith? 

We must be mindful of that fatalism that is already ingrained in our culture. For it might indeed be an evil that is already encouraging the incidence and the depth of the poverty that both the pro-life and the pro-choice camps are battling to reverse that we might all together be a better and a more freer people.

As law has its limits, it also presupposes a purpose.

As regards the RH law and its implementation, we must always consider -

Choice: Does it encourage the right choices?

Abortion: Is it a danger to the unborn?

Contraception: Does it promote a disposable view of human sexuality?

Sexual Education: Does it permit or promote sexual immorality or sexual amorality?

Maternal Health: Is it a danger to the institution of motherhood?

Women's Rights: Is it a danger to women, especially mothers?

Burden of Taxation: Does it open public funds to corruption or waste?

The Institution of the Family: Is it a danger to the institution of the family?

The National Culture: Will it permit our nationhood to further enable our Country to advance in its ages in time?
---<--@

Let us be vigilant and continue on. For the only way to go is forward!

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Salutation #36

(Exhortation to America for National Unity)

You are either American by birth or by deliverance -

either way, shouldn't you be grateful that you are?

When you came forth into your Country,

when the Providence of Almighty God

called you forth into citizenship with your Nation

you were either Democrat or Republican,

black, white, yellow, red or brown -

do your still remember this?

And does it matter to you now

whether you were born into America

or you were graciously adopted by her -

you were just a soul in great need

of the love and strength of human community.

You needed a place to grow up in.

You needed a place to shelter away from.

You needed a place you may build your dreams upon.

You needed a home away from Home - for you.

Now you have come this far only to forget

that with divisions you spurn her love.

If a Filipino like myself can have a feel

for your sense of Country, how much more you -

dear American soul, friend to my Friend,

and kindred to the peace of my own Nation?

I spent a little over 8 years

immersed in your undertaking of Country, America.

I was there with you at the close of the last century.

I felt your trepidation as we counted down the Y2K clock.

I felt the relief that came after.

I felt your insecurities at the start of the 21st century.

I saw it come to a head during the presidential elections of 2000.

I felt your growing distress at the confusion this election brought you.

I admired the strength of your loyalty to your Republic afterwards.

I was there with you during the 9/11 attacks.

I felt the initial haze and the awestruck disbelief.

I felt the growing anger.

I felt the anxiety and the uncertainty.

I felt your cries for justice and I yearned for it as well.

I feared for you, America,

for the consequences of this new war on terror.

For it seemed to me a war with no clear conclusions.

I saw you went to war in Afghanistan.

I saw you went to war in Iraq.

I experienced with you the savagery

of all those videotaped terror attacks on individual civilians.

I felt the thrill of your small victories.

I experienced with you

the bittersweet story of Pat Tillman

and Jessica Lynch.

I felt the pain of your mounting losses.

I mourned with you the loss of Columbia and its brave crew

and felt your helplessness when Katrina hit New Orleans.

I felt your concerns

for the well-being of your citizenry,

even your celebrities - their exploits and scandals,

but especially your unforgotten veterans

and the common folk.

I felt your social insecurities.

I felt your growing racial divides.

I felt the quiet class struggles within you

between the haves and the have-nots.

I felt the depth of the longing in your youth

and the resilient strength of their own dreaming as well.

I felt the frustration of those undocumented workers

who were all lumped into the singular term "illegal immigrant"

as if being a person is a crime.

I was one of them.

I felt the frustration of your traditional sources

of sober civic strength

in the dwindling middle classes

retreating either into walled isolation

or forced to retire far, far away from you.

I felt your own growing frustration,

O elder Republic.

And I grew afraid for you.

For I have long felt your inward fragmentation

long before War cast its shadow on you.

Above all, I felt this need,

this really deep-seated need for a faith

that will restore you to yourself -

the faith that was yours right from the start.

The faith you forgot.

I am grateful for the chance to experience you, America.

And I am thankful to God that I have kept my gratitude.

Therefore,

if there is anything I'd like to see, America -

it is your own faith restored.

You must awaken to new things!

Therefore,

you must work to liberate your soul

from too much materialism -

The Common Market exists to serve

and to prosper the Nation.

So too does the Responsible State exist

for the sake of the good of the Nation.

I promise you it will be difficult.

Indeed, it will be difficult for all of us

as the one family of the nations of Mankind.

But consummate with its hardships are its rewards.

And we are not without help, America,

- we have God and we have each other -

as nations dreaming together this time.

You must understand

in this new age, under this season of heaven -

we are all pioneers now.

-selah -

The spirit of War

- being conscious of itself -

will exert maximum effort

to prevent our entrance

into the door that leads us away

from its unfamiliar reign.

Hence,

it shall be natural for the spirit of War

to strategically pick its fights.

And America,

your own heart of hearts

is one of those choice battlegrounds

and you know it.

The major Countries,

the most developed,

those who are near its age of maturity,

the emerging ones,

the stronger ones,

as well as those decisive groupings of nations -

they shall all be placed against this common test.

We shall be pitted against each our own truths,

tempted to the point of breaking and despairing,

and even exposed to danger.

But through it all,

we shall either only surrender

to the gravity of War - or break away from it -

by our drawing nearer to God,

the LORD and Sovereign of all human nations

and first defender of thy Republic

(and of mine, and of all other orphaned nations).

So may God preserve us all, dear America,

from the evil of these present times.

---<--@

Substance and the American Dream

It is not material wealth that makes people happy, starshine.

Although I will not deny that material wealth greatly improves the lives of people, it is the needs of the people's hearts that must first be addressed to make a way for happiness.

For it is the heart that asks to be happy: It is the soul of Man that wills to contain the happiness he seeks and not the corporal body.

Now, the corporal body desires corporal pleasure and will not be happy by itself with a smile, or a loving touch, or any spiritual blessings wrought in graces or gifts.

What the body desires for itself must dwell only within the limits of its physicality but because it is the soul of Man (in the habitation of his or her heart) that asks to be happy, we all seek for an everlasting kind of happiness.

Ultimately, we realize, in the course of each our lives, that we have somehow fallen in love with the dreaming more than the dream itself, with the living more than the life, the Eternal more than the temporal.

Because the soul of Man, Beloved of God, endowed with the image and likeness of His Creator, is immortal.

This is why it will just not do to fashion the American Dream on material substance alone. The pursuit of happiness is a spiritual striving.

Is it? Can a nation ever really lose its dreaming?

Redefine the dream, I say, and it shall be yours once again.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Amerika at mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless all His nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

A Just Equality

20110708

Salutation #32

(One Heart, One People, One Destiny)

Peace be with you.

My fellow Filipino compatriots,

in the Final Accounting of all things,

it shall be shown and made known to to All

that

we are a nation distinct

but not apart from all our other kindred nations -

a human nation, allied to the kindred peace

of all the other nations of our one family of nations.

We are a nation,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise,

and so it is as a nation

that we shall be held responsible

by both heaven and earth before the God of all heaven and earth.

As a nation, O my people,

we are by our individualities, families, tribes, communities and generations

bound by one heart, one labor, and one destiny.

We are thus called, as citizens to each other,

according to our fidelity to the truths of our nationhood,

to make a shelter for our generations -

the shelter of Country - a home away from Home for all living beings.

As a nation,

we shall rise or fall upon the void of the unknown earth

according to the one peace of our peoples

and the one economy of our generations

to the very last of our generations.

As a nation,

we shall build upon this world,

the kindred peace of Country

to the glory of Almighty God in heaven,

and fill it with living lights

or lay it to waste

by our refusal to

subdue the darkness

in and amidst ourselves - the evil in all evil things.

As a nation without its peace, we shall fail -

a defeated Country, desolate and empty of promise,

of broken, shattered skies,

we shall remain in the dread embrace of this maddening darkness,

falling forever into the void.

As a nation in possession of our peace, we shall persevere.

Victory shall in its time be restored to each of us by God Himself

where w

e shall together with our own eyes

behold

the triumph of an unimaginable abundance.

As a nation,

we are called by weight of our history

and by the call of our destiny

to rise above our differences.

And to do so with courage and tenacity -

for h

ow else is peace to be defended?

Indeed, my honorable compatriots,

it matters most what unites us than what divides us.

Our differences are diverse

and the cause of many valid concerns,

but they are temporal.

Unity is eternal.

---<--@

There is no honor in PARTISAN POLITICS if it is utterly disloyal to the singular cause for which it exists.

Partisanship in politics is good but only if it encourages a unity of decision that promotes wisdom in legislation, and therefore, as a constant exercise in one's strength of political judgment.

But if it encourages indecision, paralysis, and reckless action in the Republic for which it is called to serve in responsible government, if it bestows upon its nation no sense of common guidance and unity - partisanship, it may be said, is not politics at all, it is simply plunder.

---<--@

The Nation and the Responsible State -

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 the 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.

Therefore, let us build like natives, live like pilgrims, and love like Christians.

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Healing Work

The Shattering