Poverty in the Nation

The poor of the earth has always remained upon the earth since ancient times. The Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 26:11, "the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me."

There is a kind of poverty inherent in the human condition.

We each came to our life in pain of death; the most feeble and vulnerable of all of God's creatures. For all men and women are born to this earth stripped of our original freedom.

As babes, none of us can even make the choice to live. Somebody had to make the choice for us. In this way, every human being upon this earth begins life poor.

This is the poverty of our human condition.

It is an evil impressed upon the memory of our beginnings as a characteristic of our exile.

At its roots, it is a physical and not a moral evil.

There is also a kind of poverty inherent in the human social condition.

The kind of poverty we must live through from our birth and the kind of poverty we live with in and among ourselves as we go through life though distinct proceed from each other.

Both of these are evils rooted in the physical characteristic of our exile and are therefore, in their basic forms - transient by nature.

In ideal national conditions, as each of us grows into bodily and spiritual maturity, we gain in wealth what we shed in poverty.

This is so because our Nationhood itself is intended for the purpose of providing adequate means for our humanity to transform the poverty of the human condition into the Wealth of Nations.

To think therefore, that somehow poor people causes poverty in the Nation is erroneous.

(Neither my citizenship inform me through my humanity nor my religious conviction inspire me through my faith that this is so...)

The poor is not the cause of poverty in the Nation.

To unravel the evil of poverty, we must begin again along the lines of a new thinking - and accept that there are poor people - millions of them - in this Country.

Accept that poverty is a moral problem that is national in scope.

And that the poor of this Nation neither caused this problem nor desire for this problem to persist.

Furthermore, if we are to perceive poverty in the Nation as ugly, then let us think it ugly not because of what many others see as repugnant in the physical evils abiding with the lives of our Lord's poor.

For these evils are but an indication of a deeper moral question rooted in the spiritual maturity of our culture. Indeed, more ugly and repugnant is not to address this issue.

So we pause for doubt.

There are poor people in the Philippines. Of course, there are!  

There is also crippling poverty in the Nation. So much so that the Republic itself finds it perplexing how difficult it is to move our poverty index up even a slight notch.

So much so that many in the Nation have seen and considered the widespread phenomenon of poverty in this Country to be a grave concern of State, able to affect matters of national security.

There is poverty and there is poor people in the Philippines.

The poverty is a large part of the problem. The poor people are not.

In fact, the poor are fundamentally part of the solution.

Poverty as a moral evil is a social justice issue. 

As with all issues concerning Justice, it is not the presence of evil that is the problem.

To fail to act on it is.

Poverty that persists in the way that it does in the Philippines nowadays feels unnatural. It is seems in no way an evil that is transient any longer but one that seeks to dwell with the people.

From the evil of poverty arise many other evils that cause more misery and suffering among our people, most especially in the least of our people...

Evils such as human trafficking and other criminal trades that exploit despair as well as violent forms of dissent that in turn cause more weakness, bitterness and discontent in the Nation.

This in itself breeds conditions not suitable for the larger successes Country must aim for.
---<--@

2015 is the Year of the Poor

Reflection on the current state of poverty in the Filipino nation

Every President of the Philippine Republic after the Commonwealth period from Roxas to BSAIII has been engaged in poverty reduction and national stabilization efforts.

To be fair on all of them, it must be said that each of them had worked to address the problem of poverty in the Country and contributed in varying degrees toward durable solutions meant to address the same.

While some Presidents were more successful than others, to honor them all as their lineage within our Republic will profit us most in this reflection.

If we were to look closely at the lineage of our Presidents from Roxas to BSAIII, it shall be worth our while to notice significant efforts have also been made by previous administrations toward national stabilization right alongside poverty alleviation.

This is so because our internal divisions directly coincide with our poverty rates. The more fragmentation we suffer as a Nation and as a Body Politic, the more persistent the poverty among us tends to become. And the longer this divided state of affairs persist, the worse off the plight of the poorest Filipinos tend to likewise become.

Our nationhood can endure a lot of ruin. In the sense that our capitalist economy, faithful to its original form, may absorb many failures in favor of even only a few successes in behalf of giving opportunity to all but war makes us poor indeed. This is what I have noticed.

Most of the present Aquino administration's efforts at curbing graft and corruption in the Republic are also efforts directly connected to poverty reduction. Kung wala ngang kurap, walang mahirap.

This platform is clearly laudable to a great extent of our people but not uncommon to the lineage of our Presidents, one in which President Noy has been modestly successful - if not for the current state of our politics.

The political atmosphere of the Philippine State is stormy and uncertain during most days. I will not blame the President alone for the current state of our formal politics in the State as he too is wont to endure this weather of our own making...

Our political culture is something I think we all are responsible for. But the burden of our politics must always fall upon the shoulders of all worthwhile political parties in the Nation who consider themselves loyal to Constitution and State - to lead the change for the better.

In the political sense, the work of climate change in 2016 here in our Philippines is to make the climate within our Republic Sky more certain of itself and less a reflection of the uncertain climate patterns that now persist in our external world - we all have a stake in it.

That the ball may be carried forward from this administration to the next with greater efficiency.
---<--@

I support the Bangsamoro

I support the Bangsamoro. 

By this, I mean all our brother and sister Filipino Muslims regardless of political faction or tribal distinction who desire for a better peace in the Philippines.

I am of the opinion that the BBL though an imperfect document fully represents in spirit the sincere desire shared by many Filipinos of a more perfect peace in Mindanao and that passage of the BBL will serve as a foundation toward the fulfillment of this hope.

I support the passage of a final form of the BBL with revisions in keeping with this spirit. 

The basic law is a means toward better means in the ARMM region. The BBL is not an end to itself. The passage of the BBL is not a guarantee of a perfect peace in Mindanao or elsewhere.

There is no such thing in this world as a perfect peace. 

Peace shall be something we as a nation must always strive for in every generation. Much more effort shall be needed on the part of our Republic after the passing of the BBL.

Therefore, preserving our unity as a Country for Filipinos and cohesion as a nation of Filipinos must be a part of the considerations being made in the current deliberations as regards the BBL.

One AFP and one PNP. We should insulate both military and law enforcement arms of the Republic from as much political considerations as much as possible.

Constitutional bodies must remain national in scope and accountability.

I think public education most especially in this new age where innovation as regards education is made necessary must at least be a concurrent power.

Funding must bear in mind the public nature of public funds. While I can see that the BPE is to be allowed a necessary head start, funding must eventually prove equitable and fair as a means toward better temporal ends for all provinces and regions across the Republic of the Philippines.

This is so as not to cause internal friction that might lead to destructive rivalries and popular discontent in and among our national communities and their representative, structural LGUs. To preserve that unity and cohesion necessary to carry forward, from strength to strength, into fruition the intentions and vision embedded in the BBL in consonance with the Republic vision founded on the 1987 Constitution.

That is all I can think of...

The earlier the BBL is passed, the better. The sooner its intended benefits reach our people closest to the soil of our earth - the bakwit or IDPs, the Badjao, the IPs, etc., the better.

What I submit through this post I intend as guidance. It is a personal expression of my own long-standing commitment to peace in the Philippines. My hope is to share them through this blog to the prudence and wisdom of our representations in Congress and all other Filipino souls interested in the bringing forth of a more perfect peace in our beloved Philippines; a peace for all Filipinos.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. May God bless us all.
---<--@

Friendship is the only real choice we can make in the night. We can not keep saying to each other in the night it is dark. And recognize each other not on account of the night.
---<--@

Beware of easy extremes: Absolutisms in a democracy are employed like demagoguery is employed in fascism. They stop people from thinking for themselves. For fascists, this is good. For a democracy, this is bad. Very bad indeed.

Ideas are a part of our lifeblood as a free people. 

Yaya Meals

Would you serve Kim Chiu a yaya meal?

Political correctness has a tendency to go overboard. Nagigi tuloy OA minsan - over asserted. Overacting.

One does not preach to the choir unless the choir itself has forgotten the song.

I think yaya meals are a novelty of pop culture. Essentially harmless. That is as far as it goes. We'd be fine if only our thoughts as a nation about the matter is not as shallow.

Kasambahays, katulongs, helpers, drivers... etc. These are all working class Filipinos. They each have and possess their own common dignity. Under our Republic they are already contributors to the common good. Each of them share equal citizenship with all Filipinos.

My sister and I had two dear yayas growing up. Yaya Delia who was from Cagayan up north and Yaya Cherry who was from Leyte. I can tell you, so many years after, that my love and appreciation for them can only grow in time. We ate what our yayas cooked and it was usually for everybody. So if each yaya meal included kiddie meals at a discount, you know, I think that would be a great.

There is nothing malicious about yaya meals, I don't think. Creative if maybe misinterpreted. It is another economic choice on offer. One we may all freely accept or decline.

However, if it becomes an imposition on our liberty rather than a free choice.

That's another story.
---<--@

Would you serve Emma a yaya meal on her birthday?

Capitalism is a national proposition. It is not a class predisposition.

It has everything to do with material liberation and human happiness. It is not either or. 

It is both supporting both.

It is human enterprise arising from the depths of the human condition; happiness as a personal pursuit in the context of a common national ambition.

It is capable of improving the spiritual condition of the human being in the citizen through economic progress and the advancement of temporal means inclusive to the common weal of the free State.

It is through Country a means toward better means and invincible ends.

Greed had nothing to do with it from beginning to end.

Thoughts on Peace and Anti-Semitism

A good sense of history seeks to address
the question of "where" more than "when"

History they say is written by the victors. But memory (national) is not. Remembrance is right that recalls the human cost (in all the names of those who fell along our journey of return) and makes a just and human account in the heart before God of all the things history seldom mentions... a present and living account. 

I used to study history but it was impersonal. I failed to impress upon myself that history is much more than pages of a book. The aim of history is to acquire a "sense of history". Not become all too familiar with the past but discern from a good knowledge of it, a clearer understanding of the living present. 

In this way, books become more valuable than just paper and ink. And what our teachers impart to us about history becomes for us a form of art than just ancient knowledge. We begin to have an appreciation... that history is not just a long tale of woe.

Anti-Semitism too is historical. Here is what I presently understand about it:

The Star of David corrupted into an anti-semitic label.
These labels are all of them devices intended
to dehumanize its victim.

First of all, anti-Semitism is easy. Maybe that's why small-minded people like it. Because it fits.

A says its better than Z to feel itself "the letter A".

A then proceeds to prove to the alphabetical realm that what A says is true, that Z is only half-a-letter. A then begins to persecute Z because A is "A" and A says so. Ludicrous!

The next in line for A after Z is laid low would be Y. Meaning after the Jews, the Gypsies... then the Blacks, Reds, Yellows, Whites, Browns, Grays, Blues, Muslims, Christians, Catholics - everything that doesn't conform to the "A"s own version of the alphabet right up to A's closest buddy, B.

In spirit, the relentless hatred that dwells behind all things anti-human shall only thrive on the victimization of our humanity - where ever and whenever we may allow it. This is the spirit that feeds on anti-semitism. Evil.

A's own version of the alphabet? A, A, A, A, A... get my drift? 

When everything is A, there will be peace. And it will make no sense. 

To A however, it really doesn't matter that in A's version of the alphabet, one can not even spell "peace". It is a paradox that will be rammed down every other letter's conception of itself.

I am not saying that the letter Z is better than A. 

What I'm saying is everybody is different and we should be knowledgeable enough of ourselves now (after enough of a span of time) to accept the fact that we can only be meaningful as letters (as nations) as we are and as a whole. That way we can spell anything (truthfully, meaningfully, and profitably).

The fuse that A needs to light that will cause the subsequent implosion of the synergistic diversity that is the real alphabet, of course, is Z.

That to me is Anti-Semitism.

Allow it into the soul of your nation and it will fester into all those other "isms" that a free and human people ought to always guard against.

Certainly it was never a part of our peace here in the Philippines and if I can help it, shall never prosper in the soul of this Nation.

Not just because of my memory of Anne Frank and her times but because the memory of the last 2000 years is full of destructively inhuman divisions like these... too many, too much. We are confronted with numbers so large and so terrible, it intimates to each our remembrances that we shall not even be enough to render unto the living God, an adequate account...


Go past 2000 years and we get more of the same... but 2000 years is all it takes.

Indeed, the last century as the culmination of the last 1900 years is a foretelling enough to understand that if we remain adamant in our clinging to old molds that need breaking, the momentum of the past shall sweep us into perhaps another century of more of the last age... if we can not account for that century then another one more terrible than the last shall be poured as fire down upon our heads.

Until everything is parched dry. Until the spirit of humanity is diminished enough and darkness overwhelm all nations utterly with the madness of war.

I do not want that... a world overrun by sin and war, dark and indistinct from the darkness of the void. In contrast, I choose another vision of peace. (As it were, one that spells p-e-a-c-e.)

The peace I want is the opposite, obtained through the opening of a new path into the morrow. One that leads to a vision apart from the one whose fruits (the bitterest of which is genocide and an absent sense of truth) we have experienced in the last century; a vision obtained through the closing of the door of the present - as completely as possible - from the evils of the past age.

Peace can be complicated at times, I agree.

We are being confused by so many truths about it even now, here in our Philippines. But if we stay on the path (knowing the firmness of its first principles) and keep our hearts focused on a shared vision of "something new and wonderful", I know determination and faith will take us to places in time we've never been as a Country... better places.

Together, only together. Without those ruinous "isms"... extremism, terrorism, racism, sexism, ageism, shapeism, etc. More wheat, less tares.

The peace of our times will never be a perfect peace, I definitely agree.

The national peace shall always be an unfolding work in time and will always mirror the truths about our common humanity. Knowing its foundation and its vision should be enough... for it is both location and destination, plus a compass of identity and memory to carry us through.

And vigilant trust; an agility to react and to innovate (ideals, principles and vision) properly. For we are as a nation still learning a new landscape and have yet to reach a safe distance down along the path to our new morning... a new dawn para sa lahat ng Pilipino (para na rin siguro sa lahat sa mundo).

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. 

Let us continue to work and pray for peace in our time, here in our Philippines and in our world...

Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

JFK in a letter requesting his Secretary of Labor to deliver 
a wreath in their nation's behalf to the Anne Frank House wrote... 
"the hopeful and the gentle are the true makers of history".

Peace be with you, sister

I too am for peace. It is my hope that peace shall one day be the rule in this Republic of ours rather than the exception. I believe that if we are patient, and we are a patient people, peace for all of us shall be inevitable. For now, let us not lose hope.

Reflections: 20150312, Thursday

Sea as a reflection of Sky. Sky as a meditation of Sea

Nakakalito ang panahon, mga kapatid. Muddy water... How long is it going to last? We have to wait till things settle down... ganun talaga ang tubig.

What is driving the confusion? I think it's politics. Saludo ako kay Walden Bello. I lean toward the right pero when it comes to principle - everybody should be drawn toward the center. It is politically gutsy what he did. He stood on principle, acted his convictions and resigned from his party. Bakit? Kasi nakakainis na talaga yung nangyayari sa taas.

All this blaming is weak. President Ramos was right when he said that the President is not being very Presidential right now. If insiders, our own citizens, can recognize it, what of outsiders. Both our friends and those who we have not yet won over to be our friends must be of their own opinions on the matter of Mamasapano, the Peace process, and the BBL. But as for me, what is of central importance right now is for this Republic to sort itself out. Muddy water must be made clear again. Ganun talaga ang buhay na tubig. Clarity. Truth (with love as the highest truth). Everything else will follow.

Think about PNoy's advisers and appointees. What the hell have they been up to. My attitude is they should at least consider the dignity of the Office of the President. Even when they should disagree with the prevailing politics of the person of the President, I think they must always be mindful of the prevailing reality of that intangible truth upon which he, the person of the President, as well as they, his political appointees, stand upon - in the seals, symbols and titles of our Republic.

Because these are the things that will outlast them. The Office will outlast the person of the President and the Office of the President shall outlast his or her appointees too. These seals, symbols and titles will outlast because they were meant to outlast. For the truths that live within them are as vessels that contain and serve to bear forward in spirit that sense of continuity (1) for our Country in ourselves, and (2) of our Country in time. Certainly, these truths will outlast the politics of any present time and deserve to retain their own honors distinct from their successors through a lineage that is intact.

I think about PNoy himself. I do not think it wise for him to resign. I do not think it wise for him to persist in absolving himself either. Sabi nga nila e. The buck stops there. If not accountability, take responsibility to ensure accountability, Mr President. The guilt you will bear if you were not to blame in any of this is not because something was done but because nothing was done. Or because something was done after the fact that falls short of what must be done. Do I still believe in our President? Yes I think so. Pero please sir, assure your people.

Also, why does it feel like there are too many secrets here. Cover up nga daw. Pero secrecy daw is not deceptive. It should not be. Because secrets serve the truth and the truth serves the people. The State is never served by believing in a lie: Kaya umamin siguro si Washington dun sa Cherry Tree. Sino ang pinagtatakluban kung meron. At nino? At bakit? Our striving for truth must always be mindful to preserve honor but not hide incompetence. US involvement? Side issue lang yan. Intelligence cooperation is essential in operations in the nature of Oplan Exodus. Lalo na at ang NICA natin ay hindi pa up to par. Hindi pa front-line agency.

Isa pa. Gripes go up not down. Kaya siguro nasasaktan si Napenas kasi sabihin na natin na may lapses siya. Perhaps, he expected some amount of amor propio to survive in the bearing of the burden of the Fallen 44. And I do not think it was unrealistic of him to expect it.

I have a term: Conservation of Citizenship. I think we all know this concept by heart but have not given it a name. We all want second and third and fourth chances at happiness. In fact, I believe in a Country where these chances are unlimited for those of us who honestly and humanly work at being happy.

Public servants who serve at the Nation's behest up and down our Republic do the vital job of facilitating the awakening of these dreams of personal happiness within our larger awakening Dream of Country (or what I call "Republic Vision"). When these individual dreams awaken, they become real ha... Hindi po tayo parang tulog na nananaginip lang ha. The Republic Vision is a waking dream... it is like something in the horizon we have to return to, something real. Something awesome. We do not fall asleep into this Dream, we live in it. And because we do, most of us implicitly understand we can not fully "be" all of this while war is in our midst. That a house divided will not long endure.

Our dreams are reflections of each other. They only become real because they are reflections of each other. The larger Dream of Country is a fabric of a forever woven from all of these awakened dreams. In a real sense, we owe each other something because of each other's dreaming. Consider along the line of this thought, the water we drink, how we should be thankful. We should recognize in this, our "intrinsic value". Nationhood teaches us to accept, appreciate and to ultimately love the human being because he or she is a human being. Hindi dahil ang taong ito ay may silbi (dahil nga tayong lahat dito sa ating bansa ay may kanya-kanyang silbi) kundi dahil ang tao ay tao. Love the player. Change with the game. 

Not one of us expects their virtue and their worth in this Republic of ours to be wiped out by a single mistake. For as long as these mistake are human, they should stand the scrutiny of our civics. Ewan ko lang kung pinulitika na ha. Politics nga exist at the level of the State and is wholly subsumed by it. It is however, always underpinned by the spirit and strength of our civics.

Human morality, our right remembrances, and the fruits of a good religion in turn inform, empower, and enlighten our civics. Kaya nga I believe a good religion should speak to us as a human nation not so much through our politics but through the art of our citizenship and help us - teach us - to build a culture of light and a dominion of life.

Since a lot of us talk at the same time in the National Conversation and policy being an expression of the present will and vision of the Chief Executive of the Filipino State. Magulo talaga ang pulitika, pero lagi dapat maka-bansa't - makatotohanan at makatao. Politics exist to make things clear. Pero nga bad politicians use politics to muddy up the water. Wala namang bad politics. Bad policy oo kasi nga there are bad politicians - by calling talaga or by accident lamang. Pero ang pang balance po natin dito ay ang ating free expression. Kaya importante ang Free Press. Kaya madalas ako kay Ted Failon sa umaga. At hindi lamang dahil nandun si Tina Marasigan sa medyo huli... yung cat.

Kaya nga bilib din ako sa speech ni Senator Alan Cayetano, I disagree with the good Senator from Taguig at times. Katulad nung pagkukuwestyon niya kina Iqbal at sa pagdidiin niya kay Sec Deles at Ferrer. Masyadong PG kung baga. Alam mo yun? I think Sec Deles and Ferrer must work with the tools they are given. If they were negotiating from a position of weakness - which was my significant take away from the Senator's well-prepared privilege speech - we should be more diligent in going over the BBL. Because the BBL is the present sum of the whole peace process as far as the GPH-MILF track is concerned. Thank you, Senator Cayetano, for your inspired efforts.

Let me say that I make my peace right now with the common people. Walang kwestyon that there is civic peace in the Philippines. Citizenship is not so well defined in the Constitution. Only its legal parameters are mentioned there. Pero we have a deep tradition of citizenship. Malalim ang balon at marami ito laging imbak na tubig na malinaw at presko. I have attempted in this blog to define and to clarify some of its principles and characteristics. Dahil sa tingin ko importante.

Many of us are asking "who or what is a Filipino?" And many of us do not find readily available answers. Tama ang tanong. Pero dati rati kasi walang masyadong nagtatanong kaya ang diwa na nangdadala nang liwanag sa mga katotohanang pinagsasalukan natin nang mga sagot tungkol sa sino tayo ay hindi ganung kalakasan pa para maramdaman nang marami. Para itong hangin, pag pakonti-konti lang ay konti lang din ang makakapanisin nito pero pag dumami na at lumakas, may makakadedma pa ba dito? E ang dami na ngayong nagtatanong... e signal number 3 na.

Let me just say, to find out who a Filipino is, one has to make peace with the Nationhood that is ours. The answer to this question of who we are is not something we should just hear from other people. Citizenship is never an opinion. It is a conviction. It is something we must live by. Something we must realize by the power of its own truth. Hindi sa salita lamang ang sagot kundi sa katotohanan. And so I have found that my peace is fullest when it resides with the Nation, with the common people. Our Nation - Under God. And our people - With Him. We, as an integral part of one Family of Nations. For as long as you and me remain human beings with common human needs, we belong. So peace be unto us, in the service of our common humanity.

Iba itong kapayapaan na ito sa BBL. Let me just make that clear. But the BBL if it serves to facilitate the national peace, is essential. Pero kung power play lang ito and it fosters a sense of exceptionalism in just a single community among our national communities, it is not democractic. And will remain so until the means are made equal: Uncommon Exceptions. We owe it to our fellow Muslim Filipino brothers and sisters to help them craft a peace that is meaningful and lasts and this peace is only this when it is a peace that is compatible with the Peace which is for all Filipinos for all time. Hindi lang Constitution natin ang basihan. Dahil ang Constitution natin ay may basihan din. Kapag umuwi tayo lahat dun sa basihan na iyon. Ito yon.

The National Peace is like the Dream, made up of the peace of many living communities within our Nationhood. I've written before that to salute the life of any individual with peace, one has to implicitly salute also the life of that individual's community with the same peace. Because the dignity of a human person and the dignity of a human community are goods reciprocal. One arrives in peace, one leaves in the spirit of that same peace. Damage one and you damage the other. Deny one and you deny the other. To love one, therefore, you must also know to love the other. Dahil tayo'y Bansa. Lupang Hinirang. Land of Promise. Brothers and Sisters of the Promise.

Citizens must recognize: Salok sa tubig ng langit ang diwa at buhay ng ating pagka-bansa dito sa lupa. Tubig na dati'y dito sa lupa ay delubyong pumatay at sumira, sa ati'y nitong naging sanhi ng isang samahang bayang payapa. We can not build up the living earth without these water ties. For these are the ties that bind us into the freedom of one human nation, one among a family of nations. Blood ties strengthen our families and form the foundation of our communities but only our water ties (spiritual) make us into citizens. Water is ancient.

Ako po ay para sa kapayapaan kaya po ang tingin ko importanteng busisiin ang BBL at ipasa ito dahil sa kapayapaang naririto na... na layunin nitong palawigin. Ito po ay akin lamang: Peace for me does not depend on the BBL, rather it is the opposite. The BBL for me depends on our peace. On how well it has considered it and on how well its vision (as the BPE) aligns with it. Kaya nga when Senator Cayetano brought up his points during his speech and then he asked the question whether we were negotiating from a position of weakness, it made me think. Peace is always through strength. Not of arms, but of truth. Strength of spirit. Filipino spirit. Ito ang pinanggagalingan nang ating kasarinlan. And so, we can never lose our sovereignty by accident, only by ignorance.

So the talk as regards the BBL is not the humanity of our fellow Filipino Muslims brother and sisters, they are like us, human beings with human needs. And it is certainly not their religion we are talking about, they are like us human beings with human needs i.e. Meaningful Existence. In these, both our peace and our freedoms as a nation are already established truths. It is the politics of it. Important but distinct. And I think it is important that we make the distinction. Para medyo luminaw ang tubig. Kasi marami ang nagsasabi na ituloy ang usapang pang-kapayapaan pero pag dating sa BBL, ayan na po... dito tayo uli sa pulitika nito nagkakasanga-sanga. Ganun talaga dapat. Kaya nga ito pinag-uusapan - sa Bansa at nang Estado.

Kaya hindi nakakatulong ang malito. Iisa lamang po ang Republika nating Katigan. Kaya kahit na sadya nga pong nakakalito ang panahon ngayon. This too will pass. Because if we should stay true, it will. My hope is this: After the storm, we will have a deeper appreciation of the calm. Meaning a deeper sense of who we are. And when I say we, I mean lahat po tayo. Lahat.

Kasi kung ibabato pa po natin ang tuon natin sa mas malayo pa sa Bayan nating sinilangan... e di ba parang mas magulo? Kasi nga po magulo talaga. Kaya huwag na muna. Magulo po kasi ang mundo ngayon. Bakit kaya? Diyos lamang po ang nakakaalam nang Kanyang layunin para sa sansinukob.

Just the same, it is really up to us to take away from all these troubles what is ours to take away. And we will never know what ours is until we have a deeper appreciation of the community - the common human unity - we call the nation in ourselves. 'Yang Inang Kanlungang na ang tawag po nating nakasanayan ay Pilipinas na ang tunay pong pangalan ay sarili - na ang bigkas po sa ating langit ay katotohanan - na ang katotohanan po sa lupa nati'y kapayapaan.

Pasensya na po kung medyo napakahaba at medyo nakakalito ang mga saloobin ko na ito. Pero para po sa akin - iyan po tayo. At nandito pa rin po tayo kaya mabuhay po tayong lahat!

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.

---<--@

Thoughts on Religion and Political Moderation

I am a Catholic. Not a moderate Catholic. For there can never be a moderate expression of the faith I hold dear and holds me dear as well. I am simply a Catholic (though not always good at it).

What we love that is for always can never be served by moderation. Religion and its virtues may only truly prosper in ourselves only by full spiritual expression. And this democratic expression of freedom in religion and of religions may only be accommodated in an atmosphere of national peace.

It is an atmosphere long denied to our world. This brokenness has left the house of humanity broken and bleeding. We are today a world of broken nations; a broken peace prevails among the order of our unity as a family. Thus, the human family is scattered. 

This dysfunction at the heart of our nations serves not a single soul. It is unconscionable to the listening heart to allow the nations of the children of Mankind to tarry in the darkness in this way.

And so I say, I am a Catholic. Proud to be one. Properly proud to be in the service of the Peace of Jesus Christ. Ever may it prevail!

In the same way, I understand there are no moderate Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or Sikhs or Hindus, etc. when it comes to the religious profession of the faiths we all hold dear and holds us all dear as well.

What I shall ask is for us to be moderate in the duty and practice of our politics. 

What does divide religion are not the truths and the virtues of its revelations but the politics of which we, through right remembrance of a long history of suffering and loss, may now at present discern separately and distinctly from the lives of faith we each must live, according to our freedoms, with truth in the heart.

The world has not become smaller. What our world at present has really become is wider. It has become more not less. Its horizons more expansive than ever. We have to have the heart to be able to embrace it as a human family. Lest the immediacy of the spirit of present tidings remain to many of us strange.

We perceive a landscape of things that may be in our common tomorrow as nations so open and so wide, we discern a darkness foreboding. And instead of going boldly forth to conquer together with cultures of light, retreat into the comfort of past molds.

The can be no living the past. What it is when we choose to so commonly retreat from the face of our right remembrances is a denial of the present. Where there is no peace in the now, there is no now. 

We can not be like this, in particular as children of our Father Abraham; we can not deny the present (and be absent from the now) while holding true to the true living that ours, along with all religious wisdom prescribes to our common humanity.


Peace to us is a time. That time is now.

If we can not make the moment ours, together this time and with all people of good will - as one human family - this world, our world, might so remain where it was, so receded into the spirit past things, so absent from the present, so much obscured from the view of Heaven, it falls again and again into the embrace of the defeated Enemy.

We must not allow this vicious cycle to continue...
---<--@

On the National Conversation

Trying times bring out the best and the worst in people and these are trying times indeed...

One should always presuppose something human about the State and the Philippine State being what it is, democratic, a healthy clash of opinions is a good sign.

I agree with those who disagree with me in that they like myself are free to express their thoughts on matters concerning the life of our State.

One should not be the judge of opinions other than one's own.

If your stand is stood on principles, then your opinions as a reflection of your convictions should outlast the opinions of the hasty and the reckless. 

However, when we start turning on each other as judges of each other's belief, things start to turn from sour to bitter. Because this makes it political. 

Let the facts shape our belief. Let the truth dictate our vision.

I believe our civics or basically the art of how we treat each other as citizens is grounded on the truths of our nationhood. Therefore, "our" national conversation should be generally conducted in the spirit of our civics.

We as a people talk all the time. 

We are free to do so by a freedom that is our right and responsibility - "free expression", it is called. Free expression as a form of participation in the life of our nation (and ultimately in the politics of our State) is what I refer to as our national conversation.

The Filipino media, our free press, are our gatekeepers as regards the national conversation which is why to impinge upon press freedoms is the beginning of the end of free expression in the nation.

Our government and its institutions are formally represented to the Filipino public by each its own public affairs representatives. Our press is the popular equivalent. This is important.

One who believes in free expression should also make the connection in his mind that press freedom is just as important and in his heart understand the reciprocity of its good.

It has been said that a state that begins burning its books ends up burning its own people.

In much the same fashion, any democratic government or for that matter, any free people not outraged at attacks on its own free press do not understand how free expression works and place themselves in peril of ultimately losing it. Indeed, we ought by knowledge of this be forewarned about the twin values of press freedom and free expression and live our freedoms accordingly.

Brother and sister Filipinos, we should care about the quality of the conversation we are having as a nation. 

To this end, I should laud our media people who are working hard to make all this talk a worthwhile thing to have for all of us.

I too believe the talk we should be having, for our national conversation to bear us good fruit, should be focused on quality. Our conversations about issues that matter should always honorably reflect, in spite of the sobering reality of so many woes, our highest ideals and beliefs.

Our national conversation serves the quest for truth, and truth in service of the people.

I think we should mostly be concerned with solutions to our problems and not on identifying problems we already have but fear to own... maybe because what once was a molehill has now turned into a granite mountain seemingly right before our minds.

When I say this conversation becomes political, I mean it in the sense of the politics that is exercised by our politicians in the formal government of our State.

We are not all politicians after all nor should we all desire to be. We are all citizens though and as not all of us are elected (by us) and set apart by popular mandate into those formal positions of public service within our Republic, our politics are basically expressed through the national conversation in support of the politics of our representative leadership in the formal government of our State.

If one would and takes this all a step further, one writes or contacts directly, his or her representations in the formal government of the State in the Executive, Legislative or Judiciary branches.

Politics are important and because it is, public participation in the political life of our Republic is vital.

All things political to our nation arises within the State from the soul and into soil of our nationhood... its science shaped and empowered by the art of our civics.

Not all of us are politicians, brothers and sisters, but all our politicians are citizens and to the extent that they are, all our politicians should be statesmen and stateswomen.

And those of us who should freely submit ourselves to their leadership ought duly and willingly participate in the national conversation.

In a democracy, we are all leaders.

As all good leaders know, all leaders learn the art of their leadership as followers. In a democracy, all of us too are basically led by the light of our own truth. Hence, leadership in the sense that it is democratic should know and understand that to lead and to follow are one and the same responsibility.

If we know and understand this, and if we trust in the decisiveness and clarity of our vision, all our talking will lead to the one walk - along the way of ascent that will lead us to the eventual and true awakening of all our national dreaming...

All our words should lead us (again and again) to the realization of the promised truths of our peace.

Because truth is truth and at the summit of our Republic Sky lay for all our hearts, the ideals drawn from our highest truths - of proven principles that enable us to conceive together a vision of the State that is always comprehensible to the Filipino soul no matter how different our opinions on the ground may be...

Actual proof of this is our written Constitution, this national document being a distillation of the Filipino spirit handed down to us in physical form. (Have we ever wondered why from one proceed the many and how from the many, one? Have we truly taken to heart its Preamble?)

I trust that leaders be responsible for their own truths and for speaking it out with respect of their own dignity and the dignity of other citizens not unlike them - being honorable Filipinos. 

And so we begin... again and again... while time is time. Till every question and answer become unto us all simultaneously one and the same thing...

Let us have a conversation as a nation... and let our free expression propel our democracy forward to the good of our Republic as a service to our nation and therefore, to the benefit of each and of all.

God bless the Philippines. Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

Freedom for Sale

Corruption is not inspiration.
Corruption is trouble and ruin.

Do not give in to corruption!

Citizen, who you are is why you work.

So just be the best you can be... 

And it will be well for all in the world.
---<--@

Is your freedom for sale?

Do not sell your vote. 

Those who would buy your vote
would buy your rights and your freedom too
if they could...

So don't sell yourself out, Citizen - reserve the vote.

If you can't vote or if you feel disinclined to vote,
for any reason you may think compels you, abstain. 

Reserve your vote.

Vote only when you are convinced of the power of the vote.

- selah -

Your vote counts. 

So vote to win!

A single vote might seem to you insignificant
and should tomorrow you came to believe this true, Citizen,
then tomorrow our democracy too might perish.

Consider the reliance of the stars,
how entire stars rely on the action of their most fundamental elements
to complete their life cycles.

Can we not shine bright as those stars, Citizen,
through the Three Foundation Stars of our Country?

Therefore,
whoever one may choose to elect by way of the ballot,
understand that when we, the people, vote...

we vote to win.
---<--@

Liberality of the Filipino Spirit

Filipinos, they say misery deserves company. But not from ours.

We in the nation deserve happiness.

In all its wondrous shades of diversity, happiness and the paths that from it lead all to human progress and achievement to us is possessed of one ageless color - gold.

This splendid color for our nation is the color of imperishable treasure.

Therefore -

Let us trust ourselves to be happy for the good fortune of our fellows.

Liberality of the Filipino spirit is thus:

Generosity exercised not so much by the hand than by the heart.

And forget crab mentality.

Just do it.

---<--@

Fossilized remains of Filipino crab mentality.

No to Homophobia

"Some of the bravest people I know of are homosexuals." I stand by that personal anecdote.

I embrace our gay community. 

I am proud of their quiet contributions to this Republic. They pay their taxes, observe and obey our laws, and add to the richness of our diversity. I recognize the contribution of their community to the well-being of our sovereign freedoms.

They should have a voice - and they do. The same with all minorities in our Nation.

My politics regarding this matter is simple:

I shall not endorse the homosexual act as a legitimate act of conjugal love. I am not for gay marriage in the Catholic Church. I will defend the fundamental integrity of the Filipino family as a social institution in this Republic and preserve marriage as a sacred union before God between man and woman.

But that is all. 

From this point, it is all civics.

I am totally and utterly against homophobia and the misrepresentations that have led to or sustains the spirit and form of the persecutions pitted as an evil against the common humanity of the gay person in our society or in any human society.

I will recognize and uphold their humanity, their rights, and their intrinsic value.

Their adequacy as citizens is equal to all others in this Country.

I am for preserving and protecting their property rights (and its legal transmission), as citizens equally engaged in this Republic undertaking of Country, through specific life contracts in the civil sphere.

I am largely inclined to recognize their ability either to responsibly adopt or provide adequate foster care to orphaned, dispossessed, and underprivileged children and babies in this Country.

I am a believer in free will. As such, I recognize it as proper to the dignity of the human person to seek, to know and to choose for him or herself freely what is human and good - in the true self.

I do not think of homosexuality as a social disease. It is simply a crisis of person. As such, homosexuality per se has no negative social dimension whatsoever from my perspective.

Insofar as it is a crisis of individuals, homosexuality per se has no ability whatsoever to corrupt or negate the free will of others in the human domain.

Homophobia on the other hand is an adverse (misanthrophic) social reaction to a purely individuated crises of persons. I will see it for what it is - a social evil.

When people argue that homosexuality is a sin of being, we forget that being simply is. The real sin here is the sin of denial and so we can see - it is precisely these types of denials that breeds those cultures of division and misanthropy that places us ever in the dark with each other.

Not our differences.

I am for prosecuting hate crimes in this Country. I am prosecuting war crimes in this Country.

I never allow this Republic to retrograde in its ages in time back into barbarisms of the past age. We will live in a civilized society held together by a peace worthy of the quality of our present times born of the maturity of our living remembrances - no more, no less.

I will recognize and uphold the value of human life in all our citizens.
---<--@

Differences make us the same

Thoughts on Democracy

If we get this right, it will really be right for us.

Democracy is not a rule of State. The Republic is our system of rule.

Democracy is our way of nurture. It has everything to do with the peace that lives in the heart of our people. A people at peace with their freedoms is a people strong and steadfast, fully capable of building up the earth and of bettering their society.

Democracy is freedom kindled by the unfailing light of reason. Liberty is its sheltering burden. The rule of the State is thus received freely by the nation and popular government is enlightened by it.

Democracy is received by the soul of a people. It may only be sown by its own citizens and grown from out of the soil of its own nation. It must be received by the sovereign State. It is an unfolding of itself in time. It must therefore be directly experienced by the people.

It may be helped along in good will by learning of the shared successes and failures of Countries similarly nurtured by its guiding ideals - through reforms. It can not be safely transferred intact and complete from Country to Country.

Elections are not it's measure. What lasting wealth it establishes in the community of the nation and the fruits of it in the people are its true measure. Justice, Equality, Liberty, Humanity are some of its common ideals.

The way of amity among nations. The right of family with the nations. The duty of common defense and the ideal of dedicated arms. Sovereignty emanating from the unity of the people. Citizenship established through faith in God and faith in each other. Sufficiency through reliance with Providence as the highest Reliance.

Enlightened liberties as primary guarantor of justice and domestic tranquility. The dignity of the human being and the unleashing of the human potential. Human development led national development.

Human citizenship. Common rights and human responsibilities. Free expression. Rule of law. Equal protection under the law and equal justice before the law. The protection of minorities and representation of the dissenting voice.

Belief in human enterprise. Belief in an enterprise economy driven by capitalism. Economic cooperation in a free market structure driven by initiative, daring, entrepreneurship, opportunity, and competition. The pursuit of happiness. The multiplication of capital, the improvement of means. The alleviation of the humiliation and poverty of the human condition in the nation and also among the nations.

Love of the Flag and the symbols of Country. Deep regard for and recognition of civic virtues. Respect and appreciation for the power and glory of the human spirit. Pride and participation in the living communities of the people. Global sense, local presence.

Plurality of religion without hypocrisy or syncretism. Freedom from war. Civilian superiority over the military. Freedom of the national press. Freedom of academic thought. The establishment of National and Civic Endowments for the sciences and scientific research, technologies, arts, sports, humanities, and life values.

Reciprocity of the good both common and individual. The integrity of the family. The integrity of the national ecology and the preservation of indigenous flora and fauna. The conservation of the national will and culture through interdependent, plural and harmonious community.

The conservation of the national wealth through proper stewardship of resources. The common trust of the generations. Posterity as a living and spiritual economy.

Equal Taxation and responsible use of public funds through due representation in the formal affairs of State. The prudent preservation (through necessary transformation) of national institutions, laws, and infrastructures of State to guide the national progress and support the vision of the national success through changing times.

Food, water, power, human mobility (transportation and communication), and human safety (public health and public hygiene, medical emergency and healthcare access) as principal elements of human and national security. Physical elements of human and national security being only secondary.

Historical sensibility and a sense of sacred remembrance of the living and eternal memory of the nation. An understanding of the place and purpose of the nation among a family of nations. Love of friendship.

These are all principles of a free State. If we, the people, desire democracy we have to be willing to carry its burden with vigilance. Much depend on the spirit of our citizenship. And how steadfastly we identify truthfully with our labors, failures and successes.

There is no perfect democracy. It shall always be a work in progress while time is time...

Every generation shall be challenged by evils sufficient for their own days.

The LORD shall require a harvest of the fruits of these enlightened freedoms every season. He shall from every generation demand His portion of the life of our nation, according to the whole of each His intended good for each our generation.

Through covenant decreed by the Almighty from eternity, His Providence shall not increase or decrease His portion for each human life.

How it is we shall succeed depends much on our meeting the challenges of each present time as a lineage of human generations embraced and sheltered by our nation, represented and guided by our State, and fostered and served by our Country.

Thus, we shall never be able to triumph or fare well enough to raise the dignity and promise of our common humanity without abiding in a peace that does abide and prevail in us. For without peace we place ourselves under the dominion of war and it shall our troubles and woes multiply exceedingly with tears that make bitter the earth. We shall have no defense against the despoliation of the sword that wanders the earth as a restless spirit. It shall with violence and blood lust consume our people and destroy us from within.

Neither sky nor earth, night or day shall come to our aid until we remember in ourselves no more: That life is sacred. That each human life is to be cherished. That these are our values. That our society is in the service of man and woman as living souls made to shine for the earth, in behalf of the life of the earth; a little less than the stars in heaven but precious to God above all.

Adversity shall come against our democracy. It shall as a violent storm crash against our foundations and hurl itself against our labor of Country. Time and time again it shall test our generations - how deep are its roots? How much watered by the soul of our citizenship is our peace? How right are our freedoms? How sovereign our Liberty?

We will endure the test and leave things as they were, we will fall short and lose length to our days and light to our years, or we will together prevail over it, prosper our people in glorious triumph and add to age of our Country in time, the memory and sacrifice of our own life and times.

In our civics, unlike our politics, little things matter... small things count. From the exercise of little things - for ill or good - arise the magnificence of our values. Democracy is a way of awakening and of nurturing the seeds of these values.

That we become in time, surely as we must. 

If we get our democracy right, it will be really right for us.

If we get it wrong, we are always free to make it right.

Vigilant trust. Self-determined destiny.
---<--@

Political Wisdom

Our politics these days seem only to confound and confuse... people say - kakainis na, kakasawa na, masyado nang madumi.

Is there really such a thing as "political wisdom"?

This is what I think -

Political wisdom is not seated in the mind of an individual. It is a virtue of a political community.

It is like military intelligence that some people say is an oxymoron - a self-contradictory term.

Some minds tend to accept the term and its attributions as if springing from individual (personal) virtue, take the worst possible example of military or political leadership, and apply it as a failure of the whole organism.

Military intelligence has nothing to do with personal intelligence quotients as some people like to think.

It has everything to do with intelligence as a function of command. Will and Outcome are what it serves and manages not brains and smarts.

A superior commander with clarity of intent guides his or her intelligence to accomplish a given mission in a manner that preserves unit initiative and in a way that preserves the advantage to overall strategy.

A political leader likewise retains to him or herself what is personal and will freely seek to augment it as necessary through his or her political community - with the broadest political community being that of the national community.

The national whole in the context of the State is a body politic.

It would behoove us as the Filipino citizenry to work to demystify the politics of our own Republic.

The civic exercise of the political is a primary power and responsibility of the Filipino electorate. We must have a sense of the political - of what serves the better interest of our communities in the public sphere and we must duly represent them - through officials after our own hearts. 

The civic exercise of political authority reaches its summit whenever we vote.

It is not our politics to forever participate in its distractions in the government of the State. Some of these distractions are necessary but some shall be extraneous... we shall leave this matter for another time as a matter for platform politics.

Suffice it to say, we through our democratic interactions in the State, enlighten each other in the nation, in a sense. And from this humble enlightening, we become wise in all our ways as a body politic.

It is political to simply know what is fair unto other human beings - and to apply it as a citizen for the good of thy own neighbor is civic virtue.

Things like personal wisdom plays a vital part - but on its own, or tainted by the vice of intellectual pride - a good leader stands to gain nothing from the mind of a community

If

one should think the self to be a constellation
- in and of itself -
capable of accurately navigating the heavens
above the soul of the nation
on its own.

For

The Republic Sky is like the sky above our heads...
it shares of itself freely, is meant to be shared,
and therefore, must be shared.
---<--@

Peace Month 2014

The spirituality of peace is connection.












Tomorrow, my brother and sister Filipinos, let us shoulder together in the Bayanihan spirit, Peace Month 2014. Let us do this as a Nation. Let us work together to deepen our understanding of the word,

"Peace".

Salutation #199

The right to rule is a sovereign authority.

The right of rulers to reign among the nations is an expression of the authority of their rule.

The rule of kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, and all chiefs appointed among all the human peoples scattered across all the lands of the earth is a power to govern the nations of mankind.

The right to rule is a sovereign in authority because it is a Divine authority. Every rule sufficient to govern the nations must itself be invested in an authority which is sovereign.

Rule and the authority to rule is sovereign only when they are one and the same.

Only the LORD,
the one Sovereign of all nations
possesses in perfection forever 
both Sovereign Rule
and Sovereign Authority.
---<--@

(The Flaw of Human Government)

The rule of human government is sovereign only in authority inasmuch as the lawful rulers of mankind recognizes in the one Sovereign of all nations, the Source of their rule and its authority.

That their reign may be as wise and as faithful as their rule is just and humble.

No human ruler, from their every time and place, true to his or her appointment may lay claim to a perfect rule. Whatever form of election there may be in them, whether eternal or popular, all human government regardless of their particulars must share the burden of this reality.

All forms of human government is intrinsically flawed from the very beginning.

Henry David Thoreau wrote in pondering about human government:

"Government that governs least governs best".

Because government that governs best governs not at all.

The flaw of human government is that it exists. And it exists because it is necessary to exist.

The flaw of human government is that it is human. And that government must exist among the nations is the question the State must address, each in its behalf, and according to its own particulars.

The cause of the State is the flaw in human government. The purpose of the State is to address the question of rule. All States thus, are flawed. But the most flawed of States exists only to rule without question.

The cause of the State seeks the State to be just. The purpose of the State causes it to come to a knowledge of its own virtue.

Vigilant Trust. Faithful Authority. Faithful Rule.

Rule is the fundamental language of States.

No State emerges in time and upon our world fully armed and fully mature. As thus, the State is ever an incomplete expression of sovereign authority, to be expressed faithfully - in every generation, in every nation. The State is answerable to its question, and exists to be interpreted - the cause of politics.

Politics is neither the cause of the State nor its purpose. It is and shall continue to be while time is time, an accident of the State.

When necessary to the well-being of the State, effective politics provides for moments of necessary sufficiency within the State which through the auspices of human government creates betterment in the souls Providence has peopled in the nation and fulfills the power of human government upon the earth. Politics that is unnecessary and extraneous to the State serves it not by need of its accident but by its own independent design.

There is no good or bad politics, only effective politics. It is the art of the real.

The politics of the State is not flawed in and of itself alone. It is the science of human government.

Politics however, inherits the flaw of artless leadership in the government of the State. Where the flaw of human government is only human. Flawed politics is not. It is less than.

Politics is never apart from its reality integral to the common good of the State. Whenever and where ever it is meaningfully expressed to its nation, it is faithfully expressed as a service to Country. In the government of the State, it comprehends duty. In the communities of the people, it comprehends honor. It is never beyond its science, and is never away from its art. What it loves forever is to make our society better than ourselves.

A good politician is skilled in effective politics. More than that, he or she is a civil servant with a genuine heart of service to the nation; the living communities that together form the being of our peace, the very soul of our nationhood. Love of God and Country is not an obscure ideal to him or her, it is a principle he or she is able to bring right down to the very soil of our people, from up the loftiest places in his or her soul of citizenship -

as a service to the nation that gathers us all - across our generations -
unto the peace of one belonging - endowing us as a people
with a common identity, a living memory,
and a shared spiritual heritage.

An edifice of corruption arises from a culture that agrees to its monument. 

Corruption through collaboration, ignorance, or indifference will invariably permeate the climate of Country, turn our Republic Sky into another unfamiliar, unfeeling, unseeing darkness. It shall as the night invite the unhappy heralds of the Adversary of all our nations - war being the first herald, the first of four. 

Sovereignty is the being of our nationhood realized in time and in the truth.

The formless spirit of nationhood that is our timeless, changeless foundation proceeds as flowing water from generation to generation - with every present generation tasked to realize a living and a present remembrance of the national account, commanded by God, that we may bring constancy and form to our citizenship, and make sovereign the presence of our labor Country upon the world we must as nations rebuild together with freedoms anew... ever as nations dreaming together this time.

Where this realization is weak, citizenship loses its potency. It becomes a corruption of itself. It becomes a malignancy that shall lessen what is sovereign and true in ourselves, and bring unto the bones of our people a weakness that prevents not as our laws prevent (to make a necessary social passage for all of us safe and straight) but only prevents to block our strength from rising from its very marrow.

As thus, a bad politician is the corruption of all the things a good politician is. He is a victim first, a coward later, and a criminal last.

Evil has its own gravity, as war does. Evil intent where all other choices are taken away soon become relative to our Liberty, and the freedoms we must keep absolute lose their sacred value.

Soon enough the rights we keep equal unto all men and women before God through Country shall lose their responsible power to shelter in safety the principal foundations of our democracy.

Liberty that is dim is also narrow of light and short of sight. But it is a fullness and a vision that has ever been ours from the very beginning; perfect freedom reborn forever from a Liberty that is perfect. 

The further away the rot of corruption takes us from what is common to all our good, least to great, the less and less we become in love with our journey of return to an Eden rebuilt as nations in exile. 

The less and less we understand a clearer vision of those things we must behold in our love, the more difficult it shall be for us across our generations, past, present and forever, to emerge triumphant into our ages in time as Country.

But the more we hold fast to what belongs to us. The more they shall cleave, truth unto truth. And we shall experience the pull of another gravity, an ascendant brightness - simple and easy and light. 

Remembrance that is right does not suffer evil to enter into the living memory of the present time.

---<--@

Politics is an accident of the State. Civics on the other hand, is integral to the State and its political custom.

We can not all be relating to each other politically all the time since we are neither just numbers nor abstract ideals floating around in space...

We are a real people.
---<--@