Thoughts on the Philippine Constitution 2

Nation is sovereign Foundation.
State is sovereign Expression.
Country is sovereign Motion.
---<--@

Our Constitution being the rule of the Filipino people, the ideals and consequent provisions derived therefrom must be responsible in particular to the question of power.

How sovereign authority is to be utilized to serve the Nation through the Republic within a Philippine democracy are its principles.

These principles serve the Constitutional vision and are the principles of national power.

National power and its structures are Constitutional accommodations - exclusively.

Therefore -

National power must be aligned with Constitutional authority - always.

National power must be made to serve the people - always.

Justice serves the State not because the State is perfect but because the State is flawed and human from the very beginning. This is why the symbol of a Republic is a shield.

And it's wings are sheltering wings.

All Country are zealous for their peoples. But the most zealous of all, as far as our experience may tell, are Republics. This presents us with dangers and advantages unique to our form.

And the most severe, as far as the question of rule is concerned, is the subject of how power is to be preserved, accommodated, and duly exercised in and through the Republic form.

Whatever advantages of permanence lost to us shall linger long after the flames from which all Republics are born have become transformed into the light that warms us, ever guides us, and bids us to carry on marching forward.

Continuity, Concordance, Concentration, Coherence - which Monarchical States, though differing in each their accommodations, reserve to each themselves in a way original to their form, we must in a Republic consistently address as though they were in danger.

This is cost of our Liberty, an eternal vigilance.

Because if we do not properly address these matters - whenever we must, our own zeal will consume us. Toxic power will poison our labor of Country.

In a democracy, we are all responsible for each other's good. The rights we enjoy demand it.

If we as a people falter in our vigilance, if we lose our civic sense and cause this public's trust to fail, what trustworthy fruit shall we reap from this Republic then?

Sovereignty is an emanation of the popular will of the Philippine nation - the people - as our whole in general, but specifically, especially where politics are concerned, in our present form and favor.

How our Republic builds is enabled by how the Philippine State establishes itself in power.

Let us always be reminded that - power without authority is toxic to the State. That power must always align with Constitutional authority - for our own sake. Power itself in a Republic does not necessarily corrupt. A lingering sense of popular powerlessness does - and will.

Tyrants and tyranny are not just of people. They have a powerful social manifestation. Betrayal of the public trust is a betrayal of national power.

Corruption is born of political ambition first. It is never a thing that arises from origins purely civic in nature. But will consume with desire what is civic and make it all political.

A purely political State will appear obscure even to itself. Civics and politics must always agree on a balance. It is a tension, not born of evil fears, but of zeal for the good - a vigilant trust.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, so the saying goes.

And since we have to take the human being as we are, we have to also take our society as it is - there will always be a degree of corruption in an otherwise healthy Republic, but when the common cold is enough to kill us off, that is another matter altogether... Something, somewhere is not in order...

Politics serve. We must demystify the political culture of our Republic and make it clear. Public service is a calling to serve. It is not an ambition to power but nonetheless remains a reward unto itself.

For all consequent successes of the State begins and ends with its most faithful servants - along with its prestige and its rewards.

There is a better way to for the Filipino to prosper, a much surer way. Indeed, if only we can get Country right, it shall be very well for all of us - rich or poor, man or woman, young or young-once.

The popular ambition is a meaningful happiness born in pursuit of freedoms reachable, reasonable, and real; emanating from a Liberty that shines out as a light, to enlighten our nation, nourish the souls of our citizenry, and embrace with a sheltering warmth, the life of the many communities that live within our one Republic whole.

Happiness is different for each person.

However, it is always a consistent theme among all States. How happy it is to be happy - and be whole; one, clear blue Sky in an eternal, golden Summer. War will not purchase for us these things. Therefore, wherever war may seek to present itself, war must be met and withstood. By our peace.

And with all our means.

My fellow Filipinos, brothers and sisters of the promise -

The peace process is a litmus test for this one Filipino nation. I have long carried this message of peace and have consistently conveyed it through my writing.

If by 2020 we are still a split people, it might become less and less likely that we will reach our goal by 2046, and we will fall short.

Hopelessness in all our national communities along with all its attendant paralysis is what we must address: Stagnation, retardation, and impotency in the national life.

National power must be made to serve the vision of our Constitution and build for our people something more worthy of our labors together as one Country.

Hunger in the nation should be one of the first on the list of things we should seek to efficiently channel our national power onto and effectively address.

If we take us for what we are, we know it may not be a thing we can do in haste, or an accomplishment we may claim by our disparate parts.

This nation must prosper the peace, prosper the people - together this time.
---<--@

Salutation #198

(The Three Branches of our Republic Government)

The Three Branches of our Republic government
works best when they stand on their own merit.

They are like expert Judokas, powerful
when they have their feet solidly under them.

They do not need the intermingling of each other's powers
to be able to fulfill their functions - within and for - this Republic.

In fact, the Three support each other best
by winning all of their fights on their own terms.

They are like a unit that way -
a unified form of popular government;
a strong and self-confident champion of
our Filipino people.

Corruption blurred the lines. 

It did so to the point
that there are claims of independence
between the Three that seem ridiculous
for being so explicitly self-serving.

The Three can not stand apart. 

At the same time,
they have to win their battles
- independently -
standing on their own strengths,
prevailing by their own lineages,
and winning through its own merits.

That way, the Republic is preserved - for the Nation;
the Nation from which we all rise at Day, and rest at Night -
till the end of time - as we know it.
---<--@

Thoughts on the Legislative System

Our Congress
may be likened to two lungs
- the Senate and the House of Representatives -
they both feature one function -
Respiration.

Now, as it were - in this metaphor,
each one whole act - of - each one whole lung
is the action of one system -
the Legislative.



IF within each lung
there were divisions that make it functionally stronger
then that is just a natural part of its physiology -
for these divisions assist and facilitate
in the efficient delivery of its vital function:
The meticulous crafting and maintenance
- in behalf of the National whole -
of a living system of law.

BUT if within either lung,
those divisions were to cause either one to weaken and fail -
shall the body ask which lung is giving it such distress?

Indeed,
within the Legislative System itself
- shall either lung - whether the Senate or the House -
reply to the organism, the one Republic of the one Filipino Nation
   (on whose a priori existence its own existence manifestly requires
   and unto whose well-being and safety, it is - as a whole - subordinated
   both in sovereign function - as well as - in sovereign authority),
"only a fraction of either one of us did it"?

NO, because in the first instance, the System itself - as a whole -
is directly answerable to both itself - and - the greater body of the people:
"The we forever" that this Congress exists to singularly serve
and on whose constant behalf must therefore,
diligently and sincerely maintain itself
ever toward that specific purpose
of popular service.

FOR however small the tumor
- just as much as the successful function of the System rely on its parts -
any failure of its parts to deliver is also a failure of the System entire.

This is (and should be)
the beginning and end of the measure
by which all the generations of the people
shall remember and acclaim - our Congress -
in its sessions and throughout its seasons, a Congress:
Never so by its parts but - always and ultimately -
according to its assemblies in their wholes.

Because for richer or poorer, in ill-health and in well times -
all elements that belong to the functions of the wholes within a Republic
are wed to the Systems unto which they serve
as parts to a synergy of wholes.

This is why,
in the way of understanding
our own particular Republic undertaking of Country,
one should never treat the Systems (and its Symbols) that comprise it - like its parts -
withholding one's convictions from bitterness and despair - for our own good,
and to reserve in thy civic spirit - a sacred space of patriotic belief -
where one may always seek to return to with honor.

And so
- in the case of this particular meditation -
one may likewise only exhort the legislative Offices
distinctly as their separate Houses - and/or - at their highest Collegial level,
exhort either august bodies to function FULLY together as a Congress -
and move independently of the stultifying spells of the politics
that this Republic may - even at sundry times obtain
from the persons of each their politicians.

- selah -

NOW
it is normal in the realm of politics to exist in opposition.
Therefore, Opposition parties do not choose to become Opposition parties
but are placed into their position by normal legislative circumstances prevailing in their day
and therefore DO have to perform a function
in particular with their specific calling
from within Congress.

Opposition parties
must oppose the intended legislative priorities of the Majority.
And this it does in order to give them pause - and - to remind them of the Opposition
or the Minority view that only by a twist of Providence, a circumstance of the Divine Wisdom,
the Majority could always have been - and could be - IF the Majority view fails
in their function to maintain the health of each lung, as it were - and coalesce
behind themselves the vital breath that bring new life to the living law.

The Minority view principally represents
the voice of the very, very fine smallness of random chance,
the nature of which the Legislative Body - as a whole -
must always be aware of - and - ever so be made to be aware of
for the System unto which they all as fellow legislators equally serve unto
once willingly given over to the realms of fate and of blind chance
- instead of being dedicated to the challenge of it -
loses control of itself completely and abruptly.

And so the Opposition must not be necessarily adversarial in nature
and should exist not to merely oppose but to "be in opposition" -
ever faithful to the Congressional whole - and - loyal to the Republic whole.
For the Minority in being aware of itself, lends its certain strength
to the Majority - and keeps the whole system sober
and functionally aware that it is.

Because in the end, within the embrace of our National peace,
everybody profits from knowing everybody belongs - to make things so -
and that politics and politicians - in and by their being, are transient by nature -
and this - their persons must always remember - that it is - and - that they are -
AND so realize that the ultimate vocation of all persons who in their souls
profess to belong to this one Republic whole - belongs -
to the right exercise of a common citizenship.

And that sometimes,
one has to be on the right side,
and lose - and carry on.
---<--@

The Power of Party Politics

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



Party Politics in a representative democracy is healthy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why the shutdown?



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Tah-dah! Success...?

Thoughts on Pork

Greed is the real dirt.

The Creative Ideal is this -
to know truth, and apply it -
to love thy neighbor, and do it -
to know the Word, and live it.
---

The story of Pork is all about personal accountability to a very public responsibility. Take note, personal and not political accountability is the central theme of the issue.

(Political accountability takes into consideration the good of the Party as a lens to perceive what good there is but personal accountability regards its ethics directly as truth before God and the Nation/s.)

In my opinion, the allotment of Pork enables in the government, a certain degree of responsiveness to any unexpected but necessary shifts or shortfalls as regards material demands (take note, demands not needs - needs can be planned but demands are determined not by any plan but by their outcomes, good or bad) being claimed by the national community as urgent - in real time - in the context of the Republic Vision.

Simply put, in its own context, Pork is a means to deliver a timely and specified response.

These material demands are usually sorted out by their urgency and entrusted to the better judgment of those persons to whom the Pork is yearly entrusted.

And presupposes a fundamental grounding in personal integrity, honesty, and simple human decency (which means a modicum of wisdom generously mixed in with a sense of professionalism that is earned on the job).

Pork therefore, is not political. It is necessarily consumed to make equitable adjustments on the fly in order to make better sense of the greater Economic Vision of its present administration (or any of its major points of consideration) and allows government to keep a certain degree of monetary flexibility in order to serve the public good as it unfolds in reality.

Because budgets are usually prepared in advance of what is to come... that's where Pork comes in.

Pork is a good thing for as long as it is kept away from politics. The Economic Vision of the Republic and its Political Vision are two distinct things that though they constantly produce and re-produce each other and give each other purpose and meaning are like two parallel lines that never meets - they only agree on a direction to take.

The issue we have about Pork now is because the presuppositions that were supposed to preclude this issue we're now having have been either ignored, taken for granted, or basically subverted so that only the external appearances of these things remain. Pork has become political.

When one is entrusted with the welfare of another, it is not entrusted to one because one is a politician - it is entrusted to one because there is realistically expected from within the Nation to be a multitude of these requirements to respond to - with urgent and unexpected requests (that can not be anticipated in formal planning) cropping up from the people everywhere. (This reminds me of the discretionary funds of senior commanders in the military - they serve the same purpose - but this one however, is in support of the mission entrusted to the AFP.)

Plans are good until it meets with reality - to be real, we have to plan to also not have a plan.

Again, let me say that Pork is not political. It is not intended to win political victories but hasten the triumph of economic ones - all in the name of the one Filipino people. Public funds shall always be, no matter who disburses it, public funds.

A servant of the people should find it joyous to be able to so freely and so generously uplift one's poorer compatriots - within or without one's constituency - and be constantly rejuvenated in his or her politics in this way without mixing the two.

After all, politics in its simplest form is the art of accommodating human hope; it is the science of government the expression of which is an art not a science - and fulfills itself when these hopes are realized in reality of the Nation - the noblest good (particular, common, and absolute) of which is the highest expression of our politics. It is basically a dialogue with reality wherein we speak to the Truth about our dreams together.

There are no bad politicians, there are only those who are not versed in politics - as a calling to serve the Nation. Certainly, there is no such thing as dirty politics only pretenders who use empty words and dirty, below the belt tricks (unbecoming of our citizenship together) to thwart (for the very narrowest of reasons) the vital dialogue that we as a free people upon this world must constantly dare undertake to have with ourselves as a Republic and with God as a Nation.

Hence, to return us again to the topic of Pork - public funds shall always be, no matter who disburses it, public funds.

The Filipino public - who are wiser than we give ourselves credit for (after all, we have been a Nation many centuries longer than we have been a Republic) will recognize virtue, for as long as that person and his or her politics remains true to the people, and consequently shall become convinced that the politics of that person is just - and this will most certainly redound to the political good of that person who shall gain more political capital to spend - moving in the same direction as the Economic Vision of the State - without violating it.

The problem with this is that when the internal supports of just about anything under the sun are ignored, taken for granted, or undermined, the entire structure itself becomes unstable.

So now it has all collapsed right before our eyes into one big heap.

The bigger problem is, we're under it - we, the people, especially those of us who still need a clue - suffer in the rubble. Who caused it?

Actually, let us rewind a bit. Because truth be told, the structure of Pork has not yet collapsed.

It has just been recently declared condemned. It was indeed deemed unsound by fear of those who are most in danger of its collapse i.e. we, the Filipino Nation - across all our generations - past, present, and forever - along with those who have chosen to represent us in the government of the Republic State who likewise fear they are the cause of all this fright, legitimately or illegitimately.

I sympathize with some our politicians who genuinely think they have done no evil who after realizing that they have - mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa - repent of it and return, humbled and fortified, to their loyal service to the Nation. Who among us is perfect anyway? Politics doesn't make one perfect, it doesn't even make one powerful (unless it is aligned with the authority of the Responsible State) - but it always makes one responsible. Perhaps, a little bit more so than the average Juan dela Cruz.

Because the first problem with Pork is that it - mayhaps - have become a thing misunderstood. This is the first and the only presupposition to the Pork Barrel Scam that I shall take.

This means I sympathize with those politicians who think they are being tried by publicity.

They deserve a fair shake and the due processes of our Republic likewise deserve a decent go at them and without the undue duress of having to witness their political life being torn to shreds before the bar of public opinion.

After all, it takes work and effort to build one's political reputation and any of our politicians, of any stripe, being citizens like ourselves, too deserve to be seen as innocent unless proven guilty.

The most popular (this is not necessarily to say that any quorum of our electorate approve of their politics but in the sense that people know them best as being famous) of our politicians are the most vulnerable in this particular regard - Senators Enrile, Estrada, and Revilla - for example.

Because for all it's salutary goodness - the bar of public opinion shall always be ruled by emotion more than reason and truth be told, the passion of the people can not always be trusted - just look at opinion polls and how they can be manipulated by external forces (i.e. from the way questions are framed to just plain lack of context of the subject matter being assessed to outright maliciousness).

I'm not saying opinion polls are useless - they are, according to the value of the work that is put into them, a good way to get a general feel on things but do not (and should not) by any means constitute the final word on anybody's political belief. Because they are imperfect.

One has got to be able to make up his or her own mind about things that matter - and believe in one's own politics; in a vision of the national success, however different or difficult or small it may be, that is agreeable to thy own good sense of common humanity and civic righteousness. And in the midst of the maelstrom of public opinions be able to express this view as well as amend it where necessary without deviating from it.

But not all of us are like this, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, some of us are kept by the virtue of others, while some of us are the keepers of others' vulnerabilities - (and all of us, each according to the development of our freedoms, kept by God) - sufficiency through reliance.

It's this vulnerability that makes us officially elect representatives to stand in our collective place in two of the three great Republic forums - Executive and Legislative.

The Judiciary is not for us to elect. For our Judges and Justices do not represent us as an Electorate. They are, in their Courts of Law and in their Chambers Judiciary, the ultimate recourse of our common grievances as human beings and citizens to each other - there, where all else fails - is represented the Ideal of our Justice which we can not elect for it has always been there even before we were a people.

To our Executive is entrusted, the Republic Vision, to carry our hopes through. To our Legislative, the Law of our Nation, to make safe our way ahead. Our Juridical system exists to make our Justice more perfect, to more intimately bind for our national consciousness, both heaven and earth - and preserve for the life of our generations both the order of their times and their own forbearance in time.

This is why we are a representative democracy - because reason is always more important than emotion and the passion of the public needs strong hands to rein it in - and channel it into a unity and strength to overcome what presently needs overcoming so that the common good (perceived only at a distance with the heart) may always prevail.

The former (the public) will find their focus and get angry, the latter (our politicians) will scatter and play for time to regroup. But of the latter who genuinely serve those who are angry - they will channel this into focus to help guide and create needed change for all - these are our lions and lionesses and God bless them always.

The first and most salutary recourse is, of course, to attend to the rebuilding of the internal supports.

But then again - because of our personal commitments to sacred remembrances, there may be those - and this only because of the monumental evil of the thing - 10 thousand million pesos heavy - who have so conditioned their personal freedoms to sink into the maddening depths so much that this feat would be like raising the Titanic.

They, by their existence alone - proven or unproven, would render this solution of solutions moot and the believers of it, by no fault of our own, be made to look incredibly stupid or naive or totally inane.

Until we are a Nation enlightened enough in our Liberty to be served by our Justice in a way that neither interferes with nor requires the application of Law nor its sanctions, scratch that for now. We will know when we become.

The second, and the opposite extreme of the first, is to go Halal or Kosher - evacuate everybody, as it were, from the condemned structure of Pork and just straight away demolish Pork and raze it's entire concept to the ground.

Pork however, has it's merits as I have beforehand opined. We should know to expect that our system is not dumb - let us not be a people conditioned to always assume inferiority - its main defect (and also its greatest safeguard) is its perfect reliance on human interface.

In short, our government to be effective relies on Pork and Pork to be effective relies on our government - the problem is government (the material side anyway) is always made up of imperfect persons.

Therefore, the effectiveness of this human interface as regards Pork with the government of the people depends genuinely on the sincere, knowing, and willing support of each other - personal accountability on behalf of the persons, and institutional transparency (constant audit readiness) on behalf of systems like Pork - each remaining separate conditions - the person for the effective dispersal of its intended effect - the Pork as an aid to the greater material prosperity (and individual happiness) of the Nation.

When system and person is confused and the person himself or herself ceases to be a part of a system and the system ceases to be separate from the person - as it is evident when government authority and persons serving in their capacity become mind melded (by alien Vulcan means, perhaps) into a single narcissistic entity, the proverbial iceberg and ship shall have now met with predictable results, of course.

Person and Office, Power and Authority, can never be one in their being - just as the Flag is not the People - one may only proceed from the other and also be served and survived by the other.

The benefits of Pork however, shall not - and should not - be sacrificed because there exists disloyal servants - in the Catholic sense, Peter should never be abandoned because there is a Judas.

Just because there is evil in our midst, doesn't mean everything and everyone else among us is evil - let us bear in mind that night always leads to morning and hurts to healing - and Pork to Lechon.

We must as a Nation always endeavor to survive, preserve, and prosper the good (particular, common, and absolute) especially during evil times by strengthening it, not by abandoning it.

Indeed, this holds true with the concept of Pork. And so we must endeavor to rationally understand the problem of Pork by recognizing Pork for what it is, both good and bad.

And also we must also remember to address the problem without creating a self-defeating bureaucracy around it, as Republics sheltering truly democratic societies are naturally wont to do.

Perhaps this is because of the law of human gravity that inclines both humans and human constructs to unconsciously choose the path of least resistance. But certainly this happens when freedoms sleep and Liberty is complacent - democracy becomes an easy thing to hopelessly complicate.

More often than not, the solutions to problems that involve the subject of personal freedoms are always reached - and adequately so - by a process of subtraction not by addition.

Pork must be simplified (not in its totality removed or made even more complicated).

So we come to the third solution: We can frame it all in the Christian sense of eating Pork - it must be made to go the shortest distance from hand to mouth - by a responsible hand - and a willing mouth - all of whom are accountable to a hungry stomach which the mind can always verify by an internal audit of one's state of hungriness.

And it must be done in the right spirit - so that the Christian soul, or in this case, the very human Soul of our national community within our Republic whole, can proceed to continually function to work to fulfill its vital raison d'etre.

What of the bacon that was already taken from us?

We will consider it officially sold - at a price determined by the Justice of our Courts, each in their due deliberations on our good behalf and collect the payment in terms of reparation in trust misplaced and time lost - with profit - written qualitatively in sums of pesos and quantitatively in length of prison time - in big, bold amounts and even larger span of years.

We have to let Law form and inform our Courts of Justice in its Chambers and let it take its due course in the Soul of our Nation that truth may prevail to serve our people.

And we will learn from this evil to defeat and preclude the next one.

Because, you are - whoever you are - the weakest link, good bye! Game over.
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What I would like to personally ask of everybody involved in this is to place our Nationhood first before everything and all throughout this issue keep ourselves honest, decent, patient, and compassionate in our care for each other's being and welfare - as citizens to each other.

For whether one has done wrong or not - the point is, that there is no "I" in "We" (the I, in the absolutest sense, is an attribute that only God can assume upon Himself - God is the great I AM).

You can be sure this Truth shall outlast...

Let us pray that this issue along with the Zamboanga one makes us stronger not weaker, better not less, and therefore, a people more determined to more faithfully and more fully recognize, receive and profess the nationhood in each ourselves... and work the work of being human beings and citizens to each other, a little more joyfully this time perhaps...

So let us be humbled by His Providence and always consider the, "we" - in our nationhood - that we may together individually prevail in the labor of bettering our Republic in its task of prevailing - for the all of us (the "we forever").

Mabuhay po tayong lahat.

Thank You, LORD God, for the labor of the Earth, honest work that brings the light of virtue to the life of our world and value to the dignity of Man.

The Separation of Powers

Tyranny (in all it's forms) which is a betrayal of sacred trust is the evil against which the Power of human and popular government  must constantly preserve itself from - that the authority of the State remain faithful in the service of the Nation.

Power is a function of authority which in the Republic resides in all its Offices of State - their Flags, Titles, and Symbols - that comprise the visible standards of a permanent lineage of government.

These Offices being established by a free people from among themselves embody the universal Ideals and particular Traditions of a single and united Nationhood universally enshrined in a writ Constitution bear by virtue of the life of all their generations, from first to last, in good will of their living Memory, at all times and places, the collective burden of responsible and effective governance.

This lineage of government (of the people, by the people, and for the people) shall be embodied in and by their persons variously raised by the enlightened will of the Electorate from among themselves in their due and appointed seasons through popular Elections and the responsible exercise of Suffrage rights.

The exercise of Power in government is the function of Public Service and the individual persons who duly and freely undertake the vital calling to serve their fellow citizens through the meritorious and compassionate administration of the duties variously established within all Institutions that serve the Offices of State - through authorities enacted by the Republic to willingly carry out, at all times and places, the Nation's mandate for a responsible and effective government - honorably to govern with the freedom of those who allow themselves to be governed by the freedom of their peers - humbly, ably, and faithfully.

Power in the Republic is the ability to recognize and preserve the sacred trust that binds together the souls of our citizenry in the freedom and strength of Nationhood - and in so doing prosper and persevere in good will of the Peace that endows with Truth, our sovereignty.

Power in the Nation is the action of Nationhood - fidelity to Truth and the Creative Ideal, awareness of the Human Condition and the First Principles of Nationhood, Stewardship of the Peace and the Public Trust, Love of God, Country and Common Humanity - and is the common exercise of every citizenship.

Criminals in desiring more freedom subvert freedom and corrupt their citizenship for the sake of their chains.

Tyrants in desiring more authority transgress authority and Power (in the Responsible State) is made futile and impotent by their betrayal.

A Tyrant is oppressive not because tyrants wield the Power of State but because they are bereft of it - hence, just as evil is a departure from good - tyrannies are likewise a departure from good governance.

Tyrants are vanquished but every Nation's permanent lineage of victory, and every labor of Country's singular right of ascent, and the Power that both forms and informs the Responsible State can neither be lost nor stolen nor the vision of these triumphs diminished through unjust and undeserving service of pretenders, murderers, and thieves.

A Republic is the chief consequence of the evils of Tyranny. It is a jealous Guardian of betrayed and wounded peoples - without Kings and Princes, without Peasants and Slaves, every Republic is sheltering wings to a Nation of citizens - a Country to an orphaned people - a human work called by the LORD and kept by the Providence of God in the safety of His Peace through a remembrance of the Truth.

There is no difference between Old Countries who survived their ancient lineages of eternal government in the Institutions of human Monarchies and the Republic - each face similar dangers, one the result of another danger - for each Republic is a continuation of the Old Country, reconstituting the advantages of constancy and continuity of a permanent lineage of victory by shifting Power from Crown to Office, not by human will or advantage but as a result of the Human Condition and the War against which all Nation's find a common and implacable enemy of their life and their every life's pursuits - all are allied against this danger - all aware of their principle endowment of building up the Inhabited Earth.

All tyrannies begin small as one act, one inscrutable motion of the human will, one choice made in the heart - quiet as a whisper that with the passage of time, under it's own season, mature into a deafening crescendo of evils - with the permission of the people.

A tyrant is the result of a preponderance of ignorance, complacency, and indifference in the people - the rise of a mature tyranny is made possible only with the complicity of Nations - certainly no people desire to be burdened with the unbearable burden of tyranny but those who know of this exercise a necessary vigilance.

Every tyrant once vanquished, leaves behind a dark, distorted, and deleterious web of invisible supports capable of propagating it's own evils - an under culture of malice and corruption whose sins have caused various falsities and distortions to emerge as tares from the enriching soil of our culture of Country, the collective richness of our diversity and freedoms challenged - and the reality of our own sense of truth questioned by the lingering presence of this burden of Justice - this is why the Nation itself must be restored to the Truth - that we may know ourselves as ourselves - that the legacy of tyrants may wane with the returning of sacred remembrance that a free people's triumph over tyranny may always and ever be final and complete.

The Separation of Powers - Executive - Legislative - Judiciary - in a Republic is primarily purposed by it's establishment in the Constitution of the Nation as principal safeguard against the disruption of tyrants and the evils of their tyranny.

It is essential that we know the order and the purpose of their Separation as a harmonious, synergistic, and necessary truth in the life of our Republic - that they are Powers separated to safeguard a singular lineage of victory, and that they all owe their ascent (unto realization) to only one Truth, nor are they at war with each other but exist to repel the very divisions that have produced their Separation.
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The Positive Freedoms - "freedom of"

Expression
Participation
Dissent or Non-Participation
Press and Academic
Suffrage

The Negative Freedoms - "freedom from"

War
Inordinate Want
Mortal Fear
Ignorance
Oppression

Three Facets of Human Equality in a Just Society

Political
Economic
Social
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