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 Nine Common Human Needs: A Just Society

My brother and sister Filipinos,
who are all my siblings in God and Country,
kindred to my soul through the blessing of Nationhood,
whose hearts long to dwell in the native spirit of our Peace
and whose spirits seek to mightily soar with soul of our Nation -
my word to each of you and your thoughts to mine, beloved Nation,
may all come by way of our friendship and arrive by way of the Truth
through our one common and national salutation, peace and mabuhay!

Man is an extension of his human community.

They say, my brothers and sisters, that the proposition of a just society implies the existence of an unjust foundation; that the reason for Man through his Nations to establish Justice upon his world is Injustice.

And truly, such is the case. 

Indeed, we recognize only what is good in this world because evil preceded us in our going forth - in our tribes and lineages - unto the furthest reaches of the lands of this Earth.

Evil was forever bound to this world, however. But we are not. 

Our going forth is an exile march and in our hearts, we know there is reserved, for all the children of our Mankind, a way of return to our Eden rebuilt.

There is a way that leads to the right places in time that is reserved for us.

Indeed, we expect to reach those places glimpsed by the hope that is common in all human hearts through the light of every faith precisely because we are expected to come along that way - to come along the great and inevitable circle of the totality and fullness of all human experience, unto a place where we may truly be - the promise and the life that the LORD, our God, did intend for each of us to be - before this time, before the onset of the pain and the poverty of our human exile.

How come then, if this way did indeed belongs to us, that we are met with so much trouble that at times we are completely overwhelmed along the way of our ascent? (You have to pardon my lingua franca, I mean all that is put down in this blog and I trust you to know it by now.)

Because we have to do it - as Nations dreaming together this time. We have to do it as a community that is in community with each other. We have to succeed as a world and as a family of Mankind.

Lest we forget as a Nation, Man is by first principle, a victim; that innocence is maintained until such a time as guilt is established in a court of law.

Let us look again at the proposition of a just society. There is indeed, in this world, an unjust foundation that exists and exists so that a just society may seek to know and to find itself - but it is primarily social in nature.

The most evil structures of this world are social in nature. It is their scandal that accounts for so much of the trouble we experience along the way of our ascent as Country - into our proper ages in time. And all of them are a slavery that consumes both the life of our souls and the souls of our societies.

Take corruption for example - an issue that stares our Nation in the face; and an evil that feels itself brave enough now to stand in the way of our Republic whole.

Its first principle cause is a crisis of Filipino identity.

Its effect is also a weakening of the Filipino identity.

And causes us confusion and doubt - undermines the life that lives in the society of our Nationhood and thus, propagates itself among us like a virus.

Its scandal furthers the ignorance that now infects with despair our ever deepening crisis of identity and makes that which is natural, unnatural. (For all societies must endure a never-ending search for itself to emerge, to prosper in time, and to eventually arrive unto the Truth - for hope. Despair comes only with forgetfulness, confusion, and the descent into division and the oblivion of war. In my Catholic tradition, despair is a sin against the Holy Spirit.)

We accuse each other of its evil. When the Evil in the evil itself dwells from within the accusations we often mindlessly hurl against each other. We can never rid evil by pitting it with evil. Cancer cells will never heal if we inject ourselves with more cancer cells. We have to return again to what is healthy in being Filipino.

I'm not saying here that no one is criminally complicit in the Pork Barrel scandal that set this Republic back decades. I have a fair idea of the totality of what we have lost through this sad and unwanted affair. What I'm trying to say is we are all responsible for the cure that will allow this Nation to surpass this test.

After all, are we not a just society? Because if we are not now. Then, we can never be later.

It is important to strike down the actions of those who willfully and maliciously conspire with the social evil of corruption in their desire to reap the rewards of its many sins, this is true.

In view of the above, we are a people endowed with an established system of Courts in this Republic. And this Court system exists within a greater institutionalized system of Justice in our Nation that along with our laws help us to make provision to protect the vulnerable in our communities from the evil and the scandal of social structures specifically unbecoming of our dignity and promise.

Therefore, it is just as important to also understand, that what makes us to become largely immune from the sins of corruption lies not in this Justice system alone but relies also in our capacity to resist the Evil of what is not of us - in ourselves. Our Courts may only make us safe so long as we ourselves remain convinced in the merits of our better selves and in the goodness that is worth treasuring in the life of each citizen and every one of our national communities.

Man as an extension of human community; that we as citizens are never disconnected from each other's lives - for the Sun of our Flag shines upon all, seeks to equally guide all, and expects all to to see all and to know of all - being gathered by each other in the light of its Liberty.

A just society is all we envision ourselves to be - as a Nation, as communities in one common community. And so we must constantly bring it forth not in our yesterday, not in our tomorrow - but today.

I do not have to further expound or elaborate on it. We know it and I know we know it. But let me say this, the greatest understanding of it may only be found when and where our unity is greatest.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is - 
the Maturity of Present and Living 
Human and National Remembrances.
---<--@

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

The Nine Common Human Needs

The Nine Common Human Needs: Clothing in the Nation

The Devil and his angels 
hid from the LORD 
for the same reason 
our First Parents 
hid from God.



For it had never occurred
to either Lucifer or his corrupt angels
before the onset in their awareness of evil 
that the mortal dread that must arise in terror of God
was to be born of the coming swift realization
- of the real consequence of their own treason -
that they, by so choosing to freely cast themselves
- as realities distinct and apart - from the one Sovereignty
of their one Creator, did come to fully recognize
to their everlasting shame - that their own impotence
was - and shall forever be for them - the very real cost -
of their futile act of betrayal against the Omnipotence
of the one, true, and always-victorious LORD, our God. 

The most apparently visible cause
of the nakedness in Man and in his Enemy
(being the Devil and his fallen angels - who are all likewise
the Enemy of God, all the Holy Angels, and all of Mankind)
seem but one and the same - a betrayal of a most Sacred Trust.

But the conditions that have arisen from this sin
   as they have been decreed by God to prevail in Justice
   forever - in the beings of the Devil and his fallen angels
   and for a time - in the beings born of the lineages of Man
   that Divine Providence have reserved to long in sorrow endure
   and eventually - through the shedding away of our many tears,
   prevail from the fallen state of our Exile - upon an Unknown Earth -
   far across the generations of the Nations of the Children of all Mankind
are wrought not in similar forms, nor are they one act of Judgment.

For the roots of this sin of betrayal were born
from very different motives - and the grounds upon which
these seeds of treason were sown - are of two very distinct natures -
which neither Man nor the Devil can adequately comprehend
in the attempt to fully understand or relate with the other.

For in not understanding the other, 
one is lead - unto an understanding - in the self.

So that each act of Divine Judgment 
are wrought for either Man or Devil alone 
and have nothing to do with the other. 

For the Pride that leads to Perdition
and for the Humility that worketh 
unto Repentance and Salvation.
---<--@



Nakedness is another condition of our Exile. 

It is expressive of Man's fear of his human vulnerability
essentially expressed as a deep and profound fear
of all things life-giving and salvific (in God and in Goodness)
but seamlessly proceeds to rise into the surface
of our everyday human understanding as bodily fear 
of the many evils that abound on the unfamiliar
and hostile ground of an Unknown Earth.

And proceeds
as a realization in the human awareness - that -
as Man alone, each of us are weak and vulnerable of being.

The symptoms of these are fear (and daring), despair (and hope),
and our very human need to seek the safety of living shelters
of God - in our family, in friends, and in human community.

For we are naked
and we know that we are naked -
and in need of clothing - for our nakedness -
clothing fit to preserve our inherent
dignity and promise.

And so God gave us 
the initial clothing to wear... 
and so we are, and so we must.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is 
Access to Universal Human Healthcare  
and Public Hygiene Services.
---<--@

Taxes we bear with money;
Remembrance, with memory;
Poverty, with wealth and posterity;
Death, with the life of our humanity.


The Nine Common Human Needs

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

Salutation #140

Equality is an environment

where individuals who are not alike (in our distinct persons)
become equally empowered (under God) to find their own happiness
as well as enabled to freely support (through Country) others in that same pursuit.
---<--@

(Define Equality)

Equality is a quality of Justice;

the fullness of every life's goodness
made present in all - for all.

Equality is the perfection of Law;
the completion of the labor of nations
made manifest in all - for all.

It is not a form of slavery
to a blind and mindless conformity;
the ancient curse of modernity!

Nor a vainglorious submission
to the fickle fashions of the times
that soon wash away with the darkness
ever as fleeting as the world!

Equality is
the boon of peace!

And therefore,
a social virtue born of good will -
the undoing of all false impressions,
mischievous hatreds, and maliciousness.

It is the medium of every human respect
and the foundation of our every labor
of awakening the timeless dream
that slumbers from within
every Man - for every Man
born of freedom and love of the same
not make every person a copy of the other
but to allow us all in our common communities
to be uniquely and supremely happy

   (across our kindred nations,
   across our common generations)
in the realization in the self that indeed -
freedom is not happiness,
happiness is freedom.

This is a Just Equality.
---<--@

Old Defiant says -

If
Luzon + Visayas + Mindanao = one Republic

Then,
Luzon = Visayas = Mindanao = one Nation

For
Star + Star + Star = Sun (synergy)

And
Star = Star = Star = Sun (luminosity)
---<--@


No Unity without Diversity

Salutation #125

JUSTICE would seem as love
to those who are familiar with her
but to those whose hearts
are far away from her,
Justice is their chief terror.
---<--@


Justice with Virtue and Vice

(The 3rd Cause: The Cause of Justice - Harmony)

TWO THINGS 

the heart of our Mankind needs:

Love and Justice.

- selah -

The original state of Man
is one of unadulterated goodness.

In this original state,
Man knew neither good nor evil
but is wholly submissive
to the nurture and protection
of God, his Creator.

In this original state,
the promise (human potential) of Man
is completely in harmony with his freedom
and his being (human dignity)
both in body and in soul
constantly preserved
by the golden Presence of the LORD,
his Eternal Provider and Holy Sustainer,
in and across all of living creation,
whether seen or unseen.

 (Truly,
 an unimaginable wonder indeed!)

The root 

of all that is evil
(i.e. the source of its mystery
as it is experienced in the visible world)
lies in the apprehension in our understanding
of a wholly spiritual, completely true,
and therefore, symbolic (or veiled) truth - 

as regards Man's abrupt departure (exile)
from this original state
since that most primordial of evil
was a sin that was inflicted
upon Man through woman*
(and from Man and woman*
unto all of our lineages to the last)
by the sin of another.

   (*The vulnerability of woman - here -

   is equally a consequence of the failure of man.

   Neglect of this first principle
   is a constant source of suffering in every age
   for it is the spirit of division that insists on parting the fault
   and therefore, disowning the peace the LORD
   hath intended between man (Adam) and woman (Eve)
   undoing the harmonious and complimentary order
   God hath placed between male and female.

   Furthermore,
   the woman spoken by here
   is not the Woman of later revelation,
   clothed with the Sun, a Lady with 12 stars -

   the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Savior of Mankind.)

For the fall of Man
- was an act initiated -
by the Serpent of Eden;
the Devil, Satan - Lucifer -

who is now and forever
the enemy of All.

- selah -

Unto Man was offered
a knowledge to command All things;
a knowledge over and beyond God Himself
so that Man might become like God
and therefore, apart from Him.

By this lie Man was deceived.

Because none
may offer this knowledge
but the LORD, 

God and God alone!

And no creature
whether in heaven or on earth
may ask this of the LORD 

without sin!

For the Serpent offered Man
- knowledge of God Himself!

It was this lie
that caused Man to break away
from his original lineage
of life and of light.

It was this evil 

that have caused 

the one heart of Man
- to become divided -
necessitating his departure
from this original state.

Man 

(and the children of Mankind) 

came into exile grief
and time itself was torn asunder.

Heaven was grieved
and its open gates was shut
at the autumnal dusk of faded Eden.

So began - the long march -
of the nations (of the children) of Mankind.

- selah -

Now,
that which caused this departure
was disobedience of which Man is guilty.

But that which caused this disobedience
was not of Man: It was of the Serpent.

Justice is a result of this first principle.

And the Creative Ideal
even as it is perceived - in exile time -
(as if looking through a glass, darkly;
obscured and eclipsed, as it were,
by both [1] the veil of time
and [2] the presence of sin
- at the very heart -
of the one habitation of Man)
is an expression
of this original state (of Man).

It is

the timeless expression
of the one, absolute Good
- the ideal Peace -
longed for - in and by - 

every human heart.

The original destiny
of all the nations of Mankind
- long lost -
yet still waiting to be found
and offered by God - continuously -
as a gratuitous outpouring of grace
(wrought by the Atonement of Jesus Christ)
to those who have ears able to listen 
and hearts willing to receive.

It is as an unspoken promise
understood by the children of all Mankind
being written in each our hearts
and so duly expressed
in the Ideals of the States (Constitutions, Laws)
that govern the nations
to whom this Creative Ideal
is entrusted by God (our Father)
and continually revealed - in time -
by His Providence

on earth.

Justice primarily concerns itself
with this Creative Ideal.

For what concerns Justice is 

the restoration of Man.

Therefore,
all meritorious acts of Justice
as a virtue - must be that -
which serves to restore Man
to (a vision of) this original state
(being continually revealed
unto every generation, and unto every nation
- by and through -
the Holy Spirit of the LORD).

- selah -

In this way,
Spiritual Justice
is a constant pursuit.

For Spiritual Justice
- must concern itself -
with the human community
as a growing, dynamic,
synergistic whole.

It is always vigilant.

It is always in motion.

It drives the juridical sciences
according to the needs of every good
in the context of the realities
of every present time.

What seeks to banish
the evils in human society;
what seeks to redress the legitimate grievances
- of the wholes - of all human communities;
what seeks to safeguard
the individual good and the common good
(in the context of each other);
what seeks to continually fulfill
the requirements of the Creative Ideal
as it is - currently expressed - 

in and by the hopes of every nation
and mandated through the ideals 

- vested and entrusted -
in each its Responsible States,
all of these are acts of Spiritual Justice.

It is what imparts force of truth
to the individual will to meaningfully defend and preserve
- through human institutions (the courts system),
the prevailing peace and the living order
of every civil (human) society.

From Spiritual Justice spring Temporal Justice.

Now,

Temporal Justice
is a remedy of law.

Its merits are derived
from the prevailing judgments
of a particular law court
which are always relative to the needs
of the present realities
it has been called to serve and redress.

Its proximity
to the realities of these needs - in time -
and its efficacy according to Spiritual Justice
is always underpinned by its own faithfulness
to the Creative Ideal.

Thus,
it is never anger
nor the spirit of revenge
that drives - forward and onward -
the Cause of Justice
but Justice itself!

- selah -

The relationship 

of the 3rd Cause to the 4th Cause
(Benignity, the Cause of Minorities)
is not incidental.

For what concerns Justice
is the total and absolute defense of the good
(conceived - as it were - 

as one and [at the same time] at-one, 

in and with itself, according to the Ideal Good, 

or the Highest Good, or [of] God
and understood, according to every present understanding, 

in the synergistic context of each other 

as an absolute whole [or as it really is in Eternity]).

Simply put,

Justice - promotes and protects - 

what is good.

It is Law
that seeks to bind
what evil there is
(specifically the Evil
in all evil things).
---<--@

The Circular Relationship of the Four Causes

No Comment

To exceed the defense is to become the enemy we claim to fight.

I really have no commentary on the present goings-on in our Country (at least as far as those issues hugging the headlines at the moment).

Sometimes, you have to draw back from these things to see them from perspectives far from the maddening crowd. It all seems so confusing right now.

One thing is for sure though: If it were that the Executive and the Judiciary is indeed carrying out the beginnings of a constitutional crisis - let us be wary.

Let us be wary for our own good sake's.

Let us not be bitter. Let us not be hasty. But let us be prudent.

Let us be solicitous for the people caught in between - both rich and poor alike - let us care about the way they are treated and let it be a reflection of our finer sense of Justice.

Let us be rightly concerned about the plights of both GMA and the farmers of HL - let us be solicitous for their deliverance - the former from an unjust retribution and the latter from further exploitation.

We are after all, one nation - not two, or three, or four - but one.

---<--@

Running Commentary -

20111209: Mind you, I too pine for Justice to come favor our Republic with the full measure of her virtue.

Now, the Justice I thirst for is not in spirit animated by either vengeance or hatred. [Please see the 3rd Cause.]

The Justice I seek for us, my people, is not the crude give and take rule of the wilderness but the virtue that restores the truth to end all injustices.

We should therefore be wary of a false sense of justice in our midst in much the same way we guard against false hope.

This is what I mean when I say we should be wary.

We should not allow ourselves [our hearts and our minds] to be drawn into a meaningless sense of division but stand steadfastly on the strength of first principles.

It is not fair having to have to choose between two co-equal branches of the one government we have entrusted to carry forward the singular vision of our one Republic peace.

While, it is true that the Supreme Court's most recent decisions seem to be leaning somewhere suspect it still remains that those decisions still are decisions of the Supreme Court.

Man can not live without order. Law is necessary, even laws that are broken and evil, because where there is no law, Man can not long endure.

It is to this order, this nascent Constitutional order, that I perceive the real damage of the current divisions engulfing the Executive and the Judiciary is being received - subtly, with consequences that are very difficult to foresee.

I still do not doubt the President's sincerity but his methods of late especially as regards this row with Chief Justice Corona seem to wax less than the nobility of his intentions.

Therefore, may both the Executive and the Judiciary work together to decisively put an end to their disagreements and present to us, the people, a united will and a common vision.

20111212: If it was that the 2004 elections were indeed hi-jacked, we have a lot more soul searching to do as a nation than I previously thought... I think about it and leads me to a place so dark and so deep i don't want to go there just yet.

Does this mean we might still be in denial as a people as regards to how sick and impoverished our one Republic truly is?

Does this mean it hasn't yet completely dawned upon us how far-reaching and broad our responsibilities to each other is to see our nation through this long night?

20111214: I've been reading some really polarizing articles on the impeachment of Chief Justice Corona - minds out there seem split, conflicted between their condemnation of one or the other (President Noy or the Chief Justice).

I think this is why due process should take its place. Because if we do not see this trial to the end, we - the people - will never know.

It is this ignorance that is dangerous.

Furthermore, I sense something is off about they way Chief Justice Corona delivered his most recent speech - it was as if he was digging in for a fight - but a fight with whom?

On the other hand, President Noy is taking great pains to frame his arguments even at great cost to his political capital, working and thinking hard to clarify his position amidst words like dictator, enemies of the court, and Hitler.

It might not be anger or hatred (or revenge) that we are presently seeing from our President but sheer determination and history might recognize it as such.

In any case, due process must take its place...

20111215: Define independence. Independence from what? I think what our Country needs is a new generation of citizen-servants!

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I want you to bear - into your heart and mind -

that old familiar Flag - our Old Defiant.

- selah -

We can not be the Country we weren't meant to be,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise.

Therefore,

we have to be better than that

if for no other reason than because

we deserve better than that.