Guns and Colonial Mentality

"Ang baril ay mabuting alipin ngunit masamang panginoon. (The gun is a faithful servant but an evil master.)" - Fernando Poe, Jr.



This quote encapsulates a liberating view of arms, one that releases our spirit from the colonial mentality that inclines us to believe - through the common experience of our people - that the prime utility of arms is to gain power over others, especially others weaker than we are.

If during past times the strength of arms were indiscriminately used to subdue the strength of our spirit, then the same truth that lives in the virtue of arms shall be the necessary remedy that shall awaken our nation from the error of past ways - so let us together reflect upon this...

Guns mean goons only if the virtue of arms is forgot dahil ang baril ay masamang panginoon.

But if we remember what FPJ said and make use of arms as our arms were intended - for the defense of our nation and in faithful service of all that we love - we serve ourselves well, my brothers and sisters of the Promise.

We serve ourselves well because we have - together - mastered the gun and by this throw off - more and more - of the lingering yoke of dark spirits past dahil ang baril ay mabuting alipin.

- selah -

People who fear the gun, in truth, fear other people.

But it is a work of Justice to instill good will and solidarity among men and peace and brotherhood among the nations of man that this fear may eventually turn into fellowship.

Arms do not serve individuals, arms always serve a community that looms greater than the self.

(Can we realistically conceive our local defense industry prospering in the absence of this truth in our culture? No, because colonial mentality holds us back in many places and through many diverse ways.)

To do justice to the gun, we must first do justice to ourselves - as ourselves - and re-discover ourselves as a nation - together this time.

In this context, the utility of arms find their original purpose and scope.

Through the reality of nationhood, the virtue of arms find strength and meaning and the ends for which it's knowledge and grace has been by God ordered and intended - in and among - our kindred nations of our one family of nations - the safety and peace of humankind.

This is the virtue of arms.
---<--@



So let us remember what FPJ said - to us - and - for us - about guns and the knowledge and virtue of arms - and say to him in return - "mabuhay ka, FPJ!"

Salutation #163

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution introduces to the people - equally engaged in that Republic undertaking of Country - the right (and the duty) to bear arms in the common defense of the nation.

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

It underpins two essential concepts of American Constitutional Liberty - Freedom and The Common Defense (of Freedom) - concepts which must be well defined for its essence to prevail as truth in the will of the people.

(I recall to mind the US Army motto: "This we shall defend".)

For the bearing of those arms - in and by itself - does not guarantee the life of liberty. Indeed, it might prove to be the death of it.



(On the Bearing of Arms)

Do I believe in guns? No.
Do I believe in the necessity of guns? Yes.

Furthermore,
I believe that the loftiest vision of weaponry
and its development in our world is to make itself obsolete -
in time.

I believe the necessity of bearing arms
provide the means to finally and eventually surrender their utility -
in time.

   (In the last great age of war
   that culminated in the Cold War,
   the nations built and developed weapons
   without an ultimate purpose in mind and heart
   and therefore, mindlessly submitted themselves
   to the truth which is implicit in the nature
   of all weaponry - destruction.

   Weapons were developed
   and refined to such a fine degree
   so as to make it - entirely possible -
   to make our humanity utterly obsolete.

   Weaponry were made to be the ultimate means
   to our own final and complete destruction
   and not the other way around.)

- selah -

Do I love guns? No.
Do I love what guns defend? Yes -
Most certainly.

I believe the means and the resources - to develop -
as well as - the will to wield - weaponry is entrusted to the nations
because the dream in making these weapons is to make safe our world -
not to undo it.

And that only its virtuous use (in the defense)
will lead all Mankind to this greatest of all desired (temporal) ends -
a world where (short of the appointed time, known to God alone,
when heaven and earth are made into one), God-helping,
peace is the rule and - not anymore -
the exception.

- selah -



I believe in a local defense industry
infused with this ethos and professing this motto:

"Filipino arms for the primary defense of the one Filipino nation".
---<--@



Bedevil the gun! 

Let us fear it,
let us make it a thing of mystery,
let us pour all our blame on it -
let us not understand it, 
that we may lay ourselves prone
to higher forms of slavery.



"The gun has played a critical role in history. An Invention which has been praised and denounced, served hero and villain alike...

and carries with it moral responsibility.

To understand the gun is to better understand history."

- Tales of the Gun, a History Channel series

20110718

Salutation #38

(Purity of Arms)

Peace can not be won by arms

but by remembrance.

Our Republic undertaking of Country

is never ennobled by the strength of arms

but by the purity of our arms.

So if we are too hasty to bear them,

if we mistake one path for the other,

my honorable compatriots,

Providence Itself will grind us

into dust and ashes.

What Divine Providence defends

and what our Nation chooses to defend

through our common Republic endeavor

(especially through its military arms)

must be one and the same

- Benignity, Harmony, Unity and Sacred Life -

that Almighty God may restore freedom

to our one Republic as a whole

- that the Peace of our one Republic undertaking -

may likewise restore

its own native protections

upon the virtues of our people.

So let us be aware -

Every nation in the world of our present day

- from the least to the most responsible of nations -

is emerging from a deep darkness;

our world as a whole is questing for this Peace.

What is unique to our present time right now,

is not the perennial nature of armed conflict

- within and between our nations -

but the sharp contrast drawn

by the sheer weight of collective human history

between the presence of War and the absence of Peace.

That we may as one nation among a family of nations,

urgently know that -

by our arms, War is delayed.

It is never hastened.

Lest we forget. Lest we forget.

---<--@

Salutation #39

(The Necessity of Soldiering)

They say,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise,

that the most ancient of professions is prostitution.

The most ancient of professions is soldiering.

Of the two,

my honorable Filipino compatriots,

soldiering have always existed out of a necessity

- temporal in its mission, Eternal in its scope -

to defend the necessary Peace

that, in God's own turn, work to preserve

within our Republic undertaking of Country

the promise and dignity of our nation.

Prostitution only seems ancient because of our neglect

- the utmost width and profound depth of it -

to constantly fulfill, each in our own times and places,

the promise we bear as citizens to each other.

- selah -

They say,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise,

that the most ancient of professions is prostitution.

The most ancient of professions is soldiering.

---<--@

The above Salutations - taken together - form my official entry into the AFP writing contest in the Team AFP facebook page.

Go Team AFP! Go Army!

Adversity Tempering Hope...

The senate hearings that exposed to the greater national dialogue the prevalence of the cultures of corruption and betrayal in our AFP is disheartening.

I could not help but feel sad about the whole thing - a necessary process, mind you - but these are sad days indeed for our military services.

It is painful to watch.

Being sad however is a far cry from being in despair.

I am of the conviction that it is normal for one to feel sad about these proceedings who loves the Filipino profession of arms. What is not normal is to feel bitter about it or to grieve as if our AFP institution is beyond all hope.

Our Republic is not dead yet, my honorable compatriots.

You know this to be true who can feel its spirit stirring in your heart, calling you to care and to start believing again... in ourselves as ourselves.

---<--@

Why do I care about our AFP?

It's not complicated.

I am a citizen of this Republic endeavor. I understand it.

When I say, I love my Country, I mean it. I love my Country with a love that is not vague. I love my Country with a heart that is able to see by the light of my faith in God and in my fellow Filipinos the profound riches of the great destiny that the LORD has entrusted to our keeping.

I intend to cherish this gift and protect it from all takers.

I will defend this love as far as I am able, together with all my fellow citizens, utilizing whatever talents God has given me, because I understand - despite myself - with an unfaltering conviction that If I lose this love, I stand to lose everything.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

A Prayer to the King