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.
---<--@

The Plight of Mary Jane Veloso

Mary Jane Veloso, a citizen of ours, is currently in death row in Indonesia. 

She along with nine others of different nationalities (Australia, Nigeria, Brazil, France, Ghana, Indonesia) were convicted of narcotics trafficking. All ten are sentenced to be executed by firing squad soon.

A recent news report about the plight of Mrs. Veloso revealed to a concerned nation that she and her family were clearly from among the poor of our Country. Truly, it feels so wrong for her family to have to be pained in this way... the circumstances surrounding her current plight begs further reflection. 

Therefore, I should also like to express my view as regards the death penalty and in particular the plight of my fellow Filipino, Mary Jane Veloso.

Consider that Mrs. Veloso herself is not an addict. That her own experience on drugs and the trafficking of drugs would be limited. Certainly as a mother and a wife, her life choices based on their present state of life were itself also limited.

What motive did she have if the act was intentional? It is highly probable Mrs. Veloso herself might not have fully apprehended the seriousness of the matter in the first place.

If it were unintentional, imagine the malice of those who exploited her in her poverty. It is a spit in the face of the poor to have to be given over to an evil fate such as that of Mrs' Veloso's.

Everything about it seems a consequence of a choice she didn't have to make but was imposed upon her will either knowingly or unknowingly by the criminality of those who would exploit her by manipulating her hopes.

I truly believe making an example of victims only perpetuates the cycle of victimization by emboldening those who would knowingly and willfully exploit human hope for devious purposes, especially of the poor who are very vulnerable.

What the law prescribes and what justice demands at times require our human discernment. As our own Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago famously said, "not all that is legal is moral".

I have recently read a Time magazine (issue 20141027) article on President Joko Widodo of Indonesia. It gave me the impression that he himself must know all too clearly the evils of poverty.

Here in my own Country, I am opposed to capital punishment. 

I am for a swift and efficient justice system. I am for a justice system that delivers faithfully its duty to my Republic, serving with neither fear nor favor. Loves what the people love, that maketh them good, that preserve them in the good, and sustains them in the life of our national communities.

There is a kind of justice that harms, you see. That which seems aloof, mistakes vengeance for duty, and interprets fear and punishment as the basis of law. It rules over more than serves with. 

I have become wary of this kind of justice. I believe it false. For it appears strange to me that the people should fear justice, is confounded by its presence.

Is not virtue a friend and ally of the human good?

I oppose capital punishment because capital punishment in the hands of a justice system such as the one I have described above seems to make more burdensome that spirit of human oppression justice should serve to alleviate among the people, with the people, most especially in the least of the people
for the sake of its own virtue.

I am not arguing to exonerate the guilt of those convicted, I am making a statement that I firmly believe that those ten convicted do not deserve death but the chance to make proper amends... to change the change they owe society and themselves. 

It is said that the cry of the poor may not always be just but if we do not listen to them, we will never know what justice is. In the case of Mary Jane Veloso, it might profit those who are concerned to listen:

She in particular, I firmly believe do not deserve to die for desiring a better life for herself and her family. 

---<--@

20150417fri 2058h: Sent the letter below through President Widodo's Facebook profile. We continue to pray and watch.

Dear President Widodo,

I am writing to implore your Excellency to grant clemency to Mary Jane Veloso.

I heard from a recent news report she herself is already reconciled to her fate. Though she maintains her innocence to the degree her motives were not malicious but sprang out of her vulnerabilities and the evil intention of others, as with most poor people in my Country, she might feel powerless to resist such an evil fate.

She might undoubtedly fail to protest the severity of her sentence in the same way she failed to duly protect her own rights to due process at the onset of her trial and incarceration. My government have reportedly exhausted most avenues to effect justice for Mary Jane. But sir, many people including myself still hope for a fair conclusion to her ordeal.

I am of the opinion that executing her will not serve to deter such crimes as the one she has been charged of committing. In fact, it might even embolden those who exploit the vulnerabilities of poor people in my Country; those who by their cunning and malice would betray decent folk to an evil fate. This has happened before, your Excellency, in the PRC.

Mary Jane Veloso's family are presently in Manila seeking avenues of reprieve for their kin and I should like to join with them in petitioning your executive grant of clemency.

I am not asking to exonerate guilt. I respect the larger view of the justice that you are sworn to uphold. Her personal ignorance might not be enough to save her from the sanction of your law. But please, President Widodo, consider also her lack of evil intention and humble submissiveness to your justice system and grant our sister Filipino a commuted sentence. She is a decent woman and I am sure she has more good to give to herself, her family, and to human society in general were she allowed the chance.

It would most certainly be greatly accepted by a great many over here in my Country were you to act in behalf of our cumulative efforts to save our Mary Jane. I myself have a lot of praise for your person and your people as a moderate and democratic nation.

May your Republic prosper greatly under your watch. God bless you and the Indonesian people, sir.

To your consideration I humbly submit my petition.

Very sincerely yours,

Eric John San Miguel
concerned citizen

Some Thoughts on RH

Abortion is evil.
Life begins at conception.

True.

In my view however, these are not the real issues regarding our RH conversation.

It is freedom of choice. Choice, of course, not in the sense that one is free to define one's freedoms.

After all, we owe our personal freedoms to the certainty of our common commitments to Democracy as well as human morality and as a Country held responsible for them by the Life and Liberty of our Nation.

Therefore, I think the better question to be asked as regards choice in the context of RH for us Catholics is - how may these freedoms be unleashed - in the spirit of Humana Vitae - to serve the individual as well as the common good of Woman, Mother, Child, Family and Greater Society?

And this question where it pertains to Family and Greater Society directed not only to Woman but to both Man and Woman together as one soul and not just in the Catholic Church.

It has always been the negative choice "not to have a child" in scrutiny.

As such contraception is so aptly named - in the negative sense.

Now, let us examine the affirmative choice "to have a child". Because when it comes to its moral weight as regards the vital exercise of free will, this is the greater of the two choices.

There are actually two choices involved here. The negative choice "not to have a child" and the positive choice "to have a child".

The negative choice is a passive choice.

It actually goes against the natural intention of every sexual act.

It might look like an active choice but where ever and whenever this choice "not to have a child" has failed, so does the potent belief in a sovereign free will diminish itself in the human exercise.

In the souls of the people concerned, when this choice have failed them so many times "not to have a child", in most cases, human responsibility for the fruits of conjugal love slides back to being a random thing. Children are begot in our society without a clear parental vision of a definitive future for them

The failure of passive choice "not to have a child" having failed those people, most of whom are already struggling against other more immediate evils such as hunger and human security, in my view is the root
of this epidemic of helplessness is the center of the issue as regards contraception.

And is further complicated by larger structures of poverty and other adverse social conditions that besiege and surround the family unit, leading most to passivity and complacency as regards to the transmission of life as a free and human choice.

On the other hand, the positive choice "to have a child" is an active choice.

It is an act that empowers the free will. For all thing the mind conceives begin from the heart and all things the understanding illuminates are all things we may actively pursue by the innate power of our individual free will - as free and human choices.

Choices that arise from reasoned and prepared thought and reasoned and prepared thought that arise from a heart that knows it is a heart of love are never passive choices.

The choice "to have a child" therefore, goes along the natural grain of every sexual act because it involves both husband and wife envisioning family and duty to family and conversing about furthering and prospering their future, deepening the quality of their conjugal love.

If couples are taught and empowered to prepare for the active choice "to have a child" and are fully informed in their hearts and minds as to what this choice must entail - they would be inclined to think more about their choices. Planning is planning, after all.

Legislation may help curb the helplessness wrought by lack of an empowered choice. But only education can truly turn things around as regards to teaching the right choices and undoing the lingering effects of the wrong ones.

Social betterment in our nation must move not just along the limits of the law but by the free dictate of well-formed and soundly informed individual consciences. We are a Democracy after all.

This is where the locus of Catholic education should be.

Poverty is an integral part of the RH debate and we can not as a Church fully address the question without addressing poverty.

In my opinion, the questions arising from poverty takes priority. If we can curb the complications that make the equation as regards RH more simpler, perhaps the tide may one day turn.

If we slowly but surely address poverty, we might more sooner than later find ourselves perched upon a better vantaged position to effectively and democratically address the RH issue along the spiritual lines of the Church.

Because you can not teach a hungry family how to plan or how to even think ahead of their next choices to eat and to drink.

The positive choice may always escape them and the negative choice confound and weaken them - this is the conundrum. It is a Gordian knot that we may only undo by getting the poor to the middle class first.

Thus, it is important that we all must solve for hunger first.

And in this most obvious of social justice causes, I believe we can work with the politics of RH whatever side it may be, because its main concern I believe and trust is to provide a better quality of life for our less fortunate brothers and sisters in the Nation.

All the while, we shall move to better our moral and spiritual positions to correctly address the RH issue by Catholic education. In this RH conversation, we could lose to a single battle but if we do it right, we may find, we are fighting along the same lines as those who are presently pressing against us.

Let us not forget that hunger and poverty makes us poorer and poorer in spirit NOT in the sense that our beloved Savior Jesus Christ did teach us upon the mount.

Where we are poor in spirit because we are diminished in the light that makes us one, we become truly poor - being without the light that makes us a simple and single-hearted nation.

This kind of poverty make us all forget that this Nation is one.

Also, we are a Democracy, let us not act as if we are not. Too, this is a Republic, let us live up to its trust believing indeed every good thing under Heaven has a time and place here in our Land of Promise.
---<--@

Like Selling the Vatican

I recently finished reading "The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee". It's Sarah Silverman's book about her life and comedy career.

Personally, I think it is a nice read.



In the book, she wrote about a video she produced, "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World". It's on YouTube. I haven't really seen it myself. I don't think I really need to. If I get around to it, I'll see it. But I do not have an overarching need to see it. Sarah's art is way too graphic for me sometimes. But Sarah herself to me is cool.

Anyway, she immediately got Internet-whooped about "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World". Most netizens launched relentless tirades against her Jewishness, a fact that, she confided in her book, confounds her.

None of those aforementioned comments that she included in her book recognized what question she was actually posing and the fact that it was all being done in the name of comedy.

Why so serious, people?

Anyway, I wrote Sarah my own reply:

Sarah, speaking to you as your fellow human being, it's not as easy as it looks!

You know, there are also people within the Catholic Church and within Christendom in general who voice the same opinion - why don't we sell the Vatican and feed the world? 

Most of the treasures over there possess a profoundly religious and cultural value such as priceless works of art, ancient books, rare manuscripts and Christian artifacts. There are also many items used in our rites and have resonance in our history and our memory. All of them the Vatican keeps in behalf of the whole Church. All of them have the weight of sacred tradition.

If they didn't we'd have auctioned them off ages ago, I think.

Plus, the Vatican is the seat of our Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome.

It's a fine thing, your sentiment. And in essence I feel you, I see what you're saying. I also see in the humanity of others, the urgency of the need to raise many of us who are trapped in poverty to the dignity proper to the human person. But we should be wary of simple solutions to complex social problems, I think.

Perhaps you too have become quite frustrated about the widespread hunger problem we face as a planet, because truly, it can be very daunting. Here in the Philippines, religion is a reliable ally against it, and rallied properly, is a powerful force for positive change.

Losing the Vatican would be devastating to us Catholics, Sarah. The local effects here in the Philippines of selling the Vatican would be very sad and very real.

Our Church is not perfect, I admit. Even some priests these days find themselves losing their own faith. They fall (as we do in the Laity) and at times they fail, some priests as you know, fail so terribly that it scandalizes the whole Church. But of the bad ones, we also have good priests - and one good priest in a parish is worth a dozen rotten ones, maybe even more. I know this. I thank God each day I remember how blessed we are by the good and faithful priest who serve in our parish.

It's a nice thought to sell the Vatican and immediately get the funds to alleviate the hunger over here - but it's an escapism. You made it funny, even crass to the point its funny. You're you, what can I do - I take you as you are. No two persons are ever the same. We're like cats that way.

Your point is not a moot one though. It has resonance. We're looking at the same point in the horizon but our compass bearings just don't match. You you. Me me, Sarah. No two cats are ever the same.

I hate and regret it that religions have had to trade blows over a problem so universal that it is obviously best approached in an attitude of humanity and togetherness. I respect that you are an agnostic. I also understand your Jewishness.

My bestest girl-friend is Jewish. My Savior chose to come to our hearts through your nation and my religion is descended from its faith. How some of my co-religionists so easily forget is beyond me. I can only speak for myself, Sarah.

I guess some cats like to run around in circles. I apologize for their dizziness.

They say most of the Nazi leadership corps are Catholic or had Catholic roots. So too did Judas follow Jesus before he turned against Him. I would never leave Peter or Paul for Judas. I will not become evil-inspired by the lingering malaise of Nazi thought and deal a double blow against our memory.

I just want to add that thought above because some Christians become bitter or jaded by the myth of bad Christianity. Many of us throw it all away without even trying to discover its true gift. I do not think there is any such thing as bad Christianity. Bad Christians, yes.

Evil cloaks itself in light all the time - in all religions.

I love the Church from whose bosom I have in God been nurtured and brought up, Sarah. I may not always agree with the particulars but the greater truths we hold to are one; and they all ascend to the One. We are one Church after all, made up of people - of living stones. Church with a big "C".

I am not referring here to our church buildings whose bricks are incapable of intelligent thought or any form of human sympathy. That would be spelled with a small "c".

I think the cause of world hunger will be better served by small kindnesses. I am sure you along with many other good people around our world do this everyday, some without even thinking about it. I don't want to say I know you, Sarah, but from what I can gather from your book, I think you're a really decent person up close. And cute.

If we can inspire people from the many nations who do small acts of goodness everyday, and raise their awareness about the pressing need to defend our communities from hunger, it would add up to a big, big thing, don't you think?

It would be like selling the Vatican.
---<--@

=^.^=

Second Class Citizen

I am a second class citizen,
living in a second class Country,
in a dead-end corner of the earth,
three worlds away from the memory.

My struggle is not for Liberty,
my dream does not reach that far,
I only want something to fill my belly,
and a safe bed to dream in under a star.
---<--@

The Nine Common Human Needs: Hunger in the Nation

The hunger in Man is material. 

It is a condition of our Exile
and the most basic of all human needs.

The need to sustain the corporeal body
with the life of the earth - drive the hunger in Man
who takes so he can eat - and eats so he can live -
and lives so he can master his hunger.

It is - in itself - not evil.

And finds efficacious remedy
in the salutary nature of human labor
and the work of the Earth 
commanded by God 
of all Nations.

However,
hunger in the Nation,
when taken for granted 
may become for Man,
a source of material poverty
and exist as a social evil
contrary to the growth and development
of the human community.

This denial of hunger
(in all its forms, from slight to serious)
when in our own midst - feeds unto itself -
and give rise to the various social sins -
that worketh to prevent in the Nation,
the material prosperity necessary
to sustain and foster - even in our midst -
the individual human development
of our common Citizenry.

Material wealth - in any Nation -
is always a result of a people's
spiritual strength.

For there are two forms of poverty in Man;
the first one is physical and the other one is spiritual -
the former is always preceded by the latter.

When the condition is that the spiritual needs 
required to alleviate material poverty is present in the people -
then this kind of poverty is the physical kind.

And this is remedied by the work of the earth.

We are then,
by and with our connections
- with and among ourselves -
in God through our Nation,
prospered by our citizenship 
and material prosperity becomes for us naturally,
as an occurrence of our need to master
the hunger in each ourselves.

But when the same physical poverty is likewise
the result of ignorance or corruption of the spiritual needs 
required to address hunger, as the most basic of human needs,
and the soul of the Nation is dim and weak,
this kind of poverty is the organic kind
and dwells with the life
of the people.

If the Republic - were to mount a defense -
against Poverty in the Nation, it would be undertaken
specifically against this aforementioned kind of poverty
as a means to obtain for Social Justice in the Nation
a better expression of the Equality of our peoples.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation 
is Food Security.
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

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 #164

The real answer
to the question of poverty in our age
may not be more but BETTER forms of prosperity.



(The Question of Wealth)

Wealth,
darling Starshine -
what is it?

- selah -

"What is wealth?" -  beloved,
is a question we should each know
how to ask the citizen in each ourselves.

For the recognition of wealth -
its forms, orders of value, real purpose in time,
generation, preservation, conservation,
and ultimate possession -
is the central question being sought
(to be sufficiently grasped and understood)
by each our answering - in our own times and places -
the collective call of each our own undertaking of Country.

The answers - that each of us are -
whose completeness in the ascent - as a whole -
(like stars finding their way together
into every new morning of every new day
unto the completion of our Country)
drive forward the economy of our generations.

Indeed,
the singular - temporal - pre-occupation
of every nation (of the children of Mankind)
is how to adequately understand
the question of wealth.

Truly,
it is important to understand this question.

FOR
how one nation understands the Question
directs its timeless energies unto the answer...
even... precious starshine, all the way.
---<--@



Ask yourself:
is money - by itself -
wealth enough?

Money
can be good.

- BUT -

Money
can be bad.

Why?

Starshine,
what (or who) makes it so?
---<--@



Questions ask, answers answer.

20110709

There is an old Chinese saying - "when seeking prosperity, first build a road." I personally subscribe to the timelessness of this wisdom.

Essentially therefore, poverty alleviation in this Country of ours must begin with connection...

Salutation #33

(The Common People)

Why do you find it so difficult to believe?

Filipino ingenuity lives everywhere in our people.

There is passion in our hearts - we are a people with a lot of love to give.

Because of this fire, there is bravery too.

Sometimes, this bravery can be misplaced

and so we must open a way for courage to profess itself

- within the Republic -

in a manner that is not divisive.

Valor must find its way back to its immortal beloved

in the reality of the nation we all must cherish and protect.

There is a mighty patience in our people.

Perseverance is truly present in the soul of the nation -

if it were not so, my honorable compatriots,

we would have descended long ago

into the pits of anarchy and - consumed by endless battle -

we would have ceased to be in our heart of hearts.

Everywhere in our people

- there are willing hearts and humble hands -

productivity is rampant even in the poorest of the poor!

Is this not a reason to be glad?

For productivity when it is duly recognized

leads to more productivity.

Why be so bitter and unbelieving then?

You are not a citizen were it not for citizens like yourself.

Wise up.

We have what it takes to succeed as a nation.

We only have to return once again to an understanding

of ourselves as ourselves.

---<--@

Ignorance breeds fear for lack of understanding.

What's strange about it all is that people seem to fear the understanding more than the ignorance itself.

---<--@

"Bless our one Filipino nation,
O LORD and Giver of all good things,
each and every Filipino heart,
that yet believes with conviction
in this endeavor of Country
that we may by our own willingness
be transformed by Thy abundant mercy."

- From Prayer to God as First Defender of the Republic

(See Sidebar)

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The National Minimum

20110425

Salutation #7

(Unity)

OPEN A WAY FOR PEACE!

Give way to a sense of self-belonging

that you may believe in your own heart

that we are a nation.

Open a way for the poor!

They are the measure by which

God shall open for us the way forward

lest we, as sowers, sow upon scattering winds

the sacred trust by which the Providence of God

have called us together as a nation.

For this is the truth! Therefore,

establish upon thy hearts a reign of Justice

and recognize the ground upon which we build -

a lasting edifice to the economy of our generations,

an altar of Sacred Life, and a shelter of law -

the noble vision of our own Eden rebuilt,

our great labor of Country!

Our work of Country

is the labor of our generations

to the very last of our generations.

The longevity of the Republic whole

is not established on individual lifetimes.

We do not rise and fall with the tides of exile time

for no matter how great or how small we seem,

everything that is good about our citizenry

is everything that we carry forward,

ascending with but one ascending.

So remember this, my honorable compatriots,

and do not be discouraged by the littleness

nor be disillusioned by the sheer fragility of it all.

We are always more than what the eye can see

for the nation in ourselves is greater in force

than what

individual hearts can muster -

But if the one heart of the people is divided

we shall be but a shadow of ourselves indeed!

For peace is what brings the people together,

bound by the freedoms that make us responsible

to the noble promise concealed in our individual fragility

and to the great dignity of our common humanity,

not so that we may each be the same

but so that we may together against

the darkness prevail.

Just as the shattering of the angelic realms

was brought about by War in the heart,

plunging our native skies into unconsciousness,

War in the heart shall likewise have claim over the earth

if our nations do not stand together.

It will institute a desolation before its time;

an abomination it shall call "peace" -

and a wasteland shall be the inheritance

of our generations.

---<--@

IN THE SAME WAY that a tree upon our world is possessed of life, so are we.

In the same way there is a breathing that breathes in the birds in the sky, and in the animals upon the land, and in the fishes in the sea, so are we likewise possessed by that same living that make us all peers to Sacred Life.

For as all things alive in all of creation, seen and unseen, are all things immersed in the unseen waters of an everlasting substance, so are we.

But much more than those green things that grow upon our earth and greater still than the animals that fill our world with much color and motion, we are because to our native reason is granted the names and the knowledge of all these things, that they may share our voice.

To each of us is granted the faith to freely and commonly apply our hearts to the keeping of our Creator's creative ideal in this world that we may by our lives' width and breadth, render service to all of life's longing for itself and preserve our LORD's peace upon the inhabited earth which is the glory of God in all things.

The faith that makes us common, Beloved of God, makes us all servants to the one LORD of all the living and the everliving.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Sacred Life is all of life, plant and animal, above all human life.

20110409

Sources of Poverty

I have often meditated on the problem of poverty.

We are mistaken who should believe that the problem of widespread poverty in the Philippines is a purely material phenomenon.

We can not make the poor rich through purely external means. So those traditional economic indicators of a nation's wealth (or lack thereof) are only indicative of a part of the process and certainly not the whole.

We can not completely rely on what other economies think, well-meaning though they are, about our own economy because the roots of our national destiny is planted not on the soil of their land nor is the will of our nationhood established upon the soul of their experience as a people.

Surely, we can not look at a happy, smiling picture of another nation and say to ourselves it is our own without deceiving ourselves. For no nation upon the earth is the same.

Though we are all allied to each other by blood and covenant, each of us - each nation - is as distinct as individual human beings are unique.

The progress of any other nation is built upon the backs of its own sweat, blood, and tears.

Each their own journeys in time shaped by their own common experience of a love willingly and freely shed and therefore, shared from among its people across their generations; their peace a result of the reality they have crafted by grace of God from their own belonging together.

We are not any other nation, my fellow Filipino compatriots, we are this nation.

How we see ourselves as ourselves has a very direct as well as distinct bearing on our national destiny.

It might seem to fade in contrast to the obvious reality of the material but we must remember that the roots of our poverty goes deeper than the things of this world - and that is the truth.

And it matters not what name we should call ourselves - we are what we do.

If our understanding of the Angel of the Philippines (or the spirit of the one Filipino people) is wont to teach us anything, it is this:

We could choose to change the name of our nation (not that I am for it, mind you, I am completely against it) but it shall always remain for all our generations that we are who we are inside of ourselves more than what or how or by what name we appear (or make ourselves appear) from the outside.

We shall wear our Flag on the inside before anything else or not at all.

Because time is a flow and once it has gone out of the timeless within our hearts, once time has flowed out of the Sanctuary of the LORD in our every hearts, it is no longer time but consequence and is near impossible to change. (You may refer to the River in Ezekiel 47: 1-12.)

Only a miracle of God can change the course of consequence.

These miracles do happen but if we rely exclusively on them, we tempt the LORD.

For the small and hidden miracles that God works in the hearts of all men are plentiful indeed and more than enough to change the course of our history - we just need to pay attention and hear Him.

Verily, we can not rely purely on externals to solve our problems as a people.

The fact of the matter is poverty is a social justice issue here in the Philippines. It is therefore, a wrong that our society as a whole must make right.

We have to become willing to re-think ourselves again as ourselves - together this time.

People are poor who have accepted the reality of being poor. A nation is defeated who have come to accept its own defeat. No nation can so thoroughly deplete the spirit and exhaust the will of another nation as completely as it can its own self.

We are not a defeated people. We have spirit enough in ourselves to make it right. So we have to educate ourselves aright, above all our youth.

Our history writes that the Philippines was re-discovered in 1521 by a nation not its own.

Let it write further here today that in the third Christian millennium, the Philippines is re-discovered once again by its own nation; by a people wholly its own and a generation called to re-constitute once more our original culture of life and peace.

Carry on with determination, President Noy.

Do not let your faith waver nor the belief in your heart be weakened by those things that oppose your good will and spirit of Country.

Rather, let if flow out of yourself as a mighty river, continue to strive to be the change to inspire us and to work in the nation a remembrance of itself, mabuhay!

We are with you, sir - all the way.

Furthermore, please refer to 20110317, The Roots of the Problem - and consider these also as major sources of poverty.

---<--@

Araw ng Kagitingan

Today we commemorate "Araw ng Kagitingan" or Day of Valour. This day marks the surrender of Bataan and Corregidor during WWII.

Through it, we commemorate the universal spirit of the Filipino profession of arms in general and our friendship with the US Armed Forces in specific.

To do justice to the undying sacrifices of our soldiers and of all soldiers from every nation, we must always remember that there is no such thing as a "just" war, only just causes.

That it is the lives and the actions of just and virtuous military men and women of our nation and of every nation that we shall remember to honor this day, because, my honorable compatriots, in stark contrast to the atrocities of war and the dishonor of war criminals, it is these that redeem.

Military blood ties are permanent.

We ignore the counsel of our own military remembrances at our own peril.

Lest we forget. Lest we forget.

---<--@

A Tragedy in Brazil

I was shocked and saddened by the recent school shooting in Brazil. There are no words enough to express it. I stand in silent sympathy with them.

Let us pray for the victims of this tragedy, feel their hurt, and ask God above for healing for the Brazilian nation.

Let us say peace be upon Brazil, peace be upon the Brazilian people.

---<--@

Another Earthquake in Japan

Japan has done so much for the Philippines. In this time of great stress, let us continue to pray for Japan. May God bless the Japanese nation!

May their indomitable strength of spirit triumph against this test.

Please visit Asia For Japan.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

20110331

From Hope to Hope -

The People's Republic of China yesterday carried out the death sentences for Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Elizabeth Batain and Ramon Credo.

The three were executed by lethal injection. It was carried out in strict accordance with the law of that land which we must respect. There was no evidence that due process was denied any of them. Everything went like it should...

Why is it that it still feels so wrong?

I received the news yesterday evening while riding a bus back home and I can not help but feel a wave of sadness overtake my thinking. For a moment I felt what their families and friends were expressing behind all those tears.

I understood that underneath all the raw emotion was a fear of the unknown - a fear that the world has been unkind to them and will continue to be unkind to them.

And then I felt angry - angry at the people who betrayed my compatriots to this evil fate. For it is an evil fate; a fate I believe does not belong to them.

In my previous posts regarding this matter, I have made clear my view as regards to the fate of our three compatriots.

We now have an onus to carry out their final hopes on earth - as a nation, we must do justice to their plight - take care of the people they left behind and assist our local authorities to pursue and convict those who are responsible for this crime.

...and all our local Barangay Watches.

Personally speaking, I want this event permanently etched into our national memory and let it seep thoroughly into those institutions that fight against this evil.

As a Church, we must continue to pray for the repose of their souls.

What worries me now is precedence.

---<--@

Improve Philpost

As a proactive measure to ensure Internet trade, when it booms in the Philippines (because it will), is properly facilitated and the advantages of eTrade preserved for the benefit of the nation, steps should be taken to revitalize and improve Philpost.

I believe that this would be a good investment and should be seriously considered. This will help boost government revenue - eventually.

It will also help us feel more closely connected.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.