Independence Day 2014

"I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like heaven by the Americans", the second President of our Republic is famously quoted.

Indeed, these present days, further up (or down) the lineage of that prestigious and noble Office, some might convincingly argue this country indeed is being run like hell by us Filipinos.

Was President Quezon being cynical about the budding Republic with which he so diligently served our struggling and anxious nation as our first head of State? Was our second President, after Aguinaldo, being bitter about our chances at actual Independence?

Should we be careful what we wish for? Should we dare not believe again in our hopes of Country?

My brothers and sisters of the Promise, Manuel L. Quezon is one of this Republic's guiding lights. His star is one that shines bright, but only when we care to look at ourselves in the right light.

To do the memory of the man Justice, allow me to finish his quote, "...because however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it."

He knew the learning curve would be steep. He knew the world during his time was consumed by war and our nation was in the thick of it. He knew the way toward maturity for our young lion of a Country was one fraught with much danger and pitfalls, internal as well as external.

But he also knew, Independence was a risk we should always be willing to take.

We are always better served by bravery rather than timidity when it concerns Liberty and Country.

Because however badly we may be going at any time, were we single-hearted enough as he was to dare to believe we can as a free and sovereign people change things around for the better, we can.

We have a lot of heroes, if only we should want to seek them.

There is an entire constellation of them up in the skies above this nation's soul - if only we care to find it. And at nights, if you must know, when our Republic is at rest - it is the forbearant, quicksilver light of their living memory that watches over our way towards every golden sunrise.

Personally, I admire President Quezon for the compassion he showed to the suffering humanity of the elder sons and daughters of Israel, our brother and sister Jews, who during WWII, at one of the darkest times of their nation's life, this President gave free sanctuary among us in our lands.

I would, if I had the clout, likewise provide free sanctuary to the suffering humanity of the people of Syria not because of anything else but because they are suffering and they are human not unlike you or I - just like our second President.

Let me remind us that War is a slavery, and is a master we ought not serve.

We shall never achieve the fullness of the promise our actual Independence is meant to bring for this nation with a spirit divided, dark and confused. Let us carry on with the peace process - unto completion.

May we be blessed with a meaningful Independence Day.

Happy birthday to our citizenship, my fellow Filipinos, mabuhay!
---<--@

President Quezon 
lost his battle against tuberculosis 
away from our home away from Home
but what he never lost was - who he was - 
and in my remembrance - still is -

a leader to his people,

and a friend to his friends.

Salutation #190

Of the elements of Country, there are three -
the Nation, the Responsible State, and the Common Market.

(On the Country of the Philippines)

The Nation that we are, my people,
is founded on a Covenantal obligation
between God and the Children of Mankind
which is the Covenant that the LORD made forever
with all of the Nations of the Children of Mankind
that our God inaugurated in time
through Noah and his sons.

The Noahide Covenant
binds our generations to the freedoms
that ensure the preservation of sacred life
- the whole spectrum of it - that upon "our world"
   (as a realm apart from "the world" of the fallen Nations of old),
water shall never again consume the life of the Earth -
but shall through the life of our Nations
be nourished and sustained by it.

For we are through bonds of water and blood established.

Sacred Life is our sacred obligation -
and its preservation in ourselves and therefore,
throughout all of lower creation - is -
the fire that animates our spirits.

This "world - as our world"
that we are each as Nations is commissioned
to build together for all of the Children of Mankind
   (as God's own human peoples - arising from lineages apart -
   from the inhuman and irreparably corrupt spiritual lineages
   of the fallen Nations of old who sinned with the pride of Satan)
upon the Unknown Earth - which is likewise -
God's primary command to all the Nations of Mankind
   (including those fallen Nations of old
   whose life He utterly destroyed during the Great Flood,
   whose spiritual lineages the LORD disowned,
   and irrevocably unseeded in them)
is what we call the Inhabited Earth
that Crystal Blue Sphere that
   (it is blue because it is immersed in water)
from the spiritual realm
is a wonder for all
to behold.

This is our Covenant
- the Covenant of the Children -
and we are never free to break it.

To preserve the dignity and promise of Man - in all our Nations - is -
to do Justice to the image and likeness of Man - reflected upon the life of the world
and make it, "our world". Thus, making the Earth to the LORD, "very good".
Because to do Justice to the sacred life of this world - from the person of Man
right down to the very least of all of Man's animals and Man's plants
is the fundamental reason we are called to exist as Nations.

The existence of life in our world
- is - the soul that gives our Nation breath,
and the living up to the very wonder of this life,
along with the most profound existential questions
that specifically pertains to the mystery of life
and to the living of this life in this world,
- is - the spirit that is our breathing -
the truths of life's Salvation and its Redemption
is the fire that animates both our water and our blood.

The preservation of "the all" of sacred life
in this way - is the mission and the commission -
entrusted to all National communities of the Earth.
It is our Peace and the Goodwill of our Peace.

For the Universe
is not created for Man
Man is created for the Universe.

We as the Children exist for the labor.
Everything else exists for the glory of God.

- selah -

As a National community -
we are called of spirit and of blood born.
However, it is from water that our lineages upon the Earth are established.
For it is from the formless - that - the form of our citizenship
constantly renew itself and arise: Our truest citizenship is in our soul.

And from it proceeds the spiritual truths
where from we derive the first principles
that shape and define our Social Contract.

This Social Contract establishes - our labors as truth -
and - our truth upon the Earth - as a Sovereign Presence
before the LORD and the Assembly of the Nations before God
both in Eternity - and also upon the Earth.

This Social Contract is known as Democracy.

- selah -

We - as human beings -
do not practice our freedoms in a vacuum.

Freedom is a profoundly spiritual reality in Man.

Where in the life of lower creation, freedom is but a physical act,
completely reliant upon the nurture of freedoms ever greater than theirs,
our freedom is beholden to a spiritual dimension - because as human beings,
we implicitly know in our hearts that we must reach out to the only other freedom
reaching out to us, the freedom of God - in much the same way
that the life of the Earth reaches out to us.

The universe was not created for Man.
Man is created for the universe:
We belong to its labor
   (as common laborers upon the Master's field)
and only to its labor we belong -
particularly as Nations of the Children.

For example,
a dog whom we love or the plant that we nurture
- in the most immediate and real sense -
belong not to us.

For is it not also true
that it is Providence that speaks for its life?

We belong to it - or more specifically speaking,
to the labor of making it ours again.

And so inasmuch as we quicken our souls
to the work that we owe to the life in ourselves and to the life of all of lower creation -
in God and with each other, they become ours and they awaken again and learn our voice.

Else, this world - above the din of all other things that seek to confuse us -
will roar in silence deafening: For this world will never speak its secrets to our hearts.

And we will never know of it as our First Parents did intimately know of it
and so remain - very uncomfortably - strangers to the wonders of our own living Earth,
- trespassers and invaders to the varied realms that lay within our own Human Habitation.

If we love anything in lower creation - in the Truth,
they - like the Truth - become our possession forever. 

This is a freedom no animal or plant possess.

And it is never practiced like animals and plants practice their freedom.

It is never practiced in a vacuum.

And so
from Covenant proceeds Social Contract
and for us, my brothers and sisters of the Promise,
this is simply all about - Life and Liberty -
and so specifically - we are - as a Nation among Nations -
a participatory, constitutional Democracy;
a people brave, and free, and fair.

- selah - 

Why participatory?

Stronger freedoms require Liberty that we may exercise rights that exist to make our personal freedoms strong and also guarantee those same rights commonly preserved for other citizens not unlike ourselves.

Weak freedoms fall prey to any number of dangers and calamities, and the labor that we must fulfill is not easy.

If we do not hold on to our Nationhood, or worse - if we do not know how - it becomes impossible for any of us to build up the Earth.

Everything that in exile time progresses in Time without the Truth shall appear as an unremitting retreat into a devouring darkness - as the world gets darker and darker - meaninglessness becomes bitterness, bitterness turns into despair of self, despair of self becomes despair of others not unlike the self, and so - as the years become empty of their substance - Country will seem as nothing else but a madness that devours, and what once was in our common humanity precious as our hopes for all sacred life become abased into a sheer tyranny of beliefs founded in falsities and illusions.

The gravity of these things we must fight against - it is not our way of return: Ours is an Ascent in Time and unto the Truth.

We were never free to not fly upon Eagle Wings. For the LORD God saith that saying of the Nations, not of individuals. So when you shall sing to thy soul the popular song, "On Eagle Wings", make an effort to see that song as dedicated to Nations entire and not merely to individuals.

Our Nation, my beloved people, is one of those Nations. In this Nationhood, we are impelled to participate. We are therefore, we must.

But we can not build the right world with the wrong values.

- selah -

Why constitutional?

The Nations of the Children of Mankind is one great Peerage before the LORD.

And indeed, we are each - as human individuals, a peer to one another - through our personal and individual distinctions, equally - a keeper and a friend to our common humanity.

We all have - and have forever possessed - a basic, human citizenship.

Our communities too, are such as we - a Peerage of the Nations, for unequal each Nation may be in spiritual maturity and material strength, but as a Plenary Global Community - being as one Family of Nations - we are each enabled to equally overcome that we may together prevail against this world, and make of the Earth, our home away from Home.

For we are all here for a reason exclusive only to the fulfillment of a dream of happiness, and it is not even our dream, it is God's dream for us, and it is wonderful beyond wonderful indeed!

The authority to govern our peers whether from within the Nation or from among the Nations themselves is not a human authority, but a Divine authority.

And this authority is vested in a Responsible State and the structure of this State, as it applies to our Nation, is established in our prevailing Constitution - this binds us - in spirit - to a particular undertaking of Country that is in form - a Republic - and which therefore possess in itself - a very specific spirit.

We move like a Republic moves.

However, it is our personal freedoms that determine its Ascent - into its ages in Time - from emerging, developing, developed, and mature - and our Right of Ascent is likewise determined by the rightness of these freedoms.

Each Nation only has one Right of Ascent, each Country only has one freedom or Way of Ascent - all else falls into the gravity of the unveiling of the darkness of the desolation - and Democracy as a whole - is the Social Contract we specifically have - with each other, that we owe - for each other, and that our generations owe - to each other - that we will secure for ourselves and our Posterity this Republic, and it's Liberty.

It imposes a Burden
   (which we shall also expound upon very soon),
because our freedoms are neither cheap -
nor are they ever free.

- selah (pause and think) -

Now we come to review the Engine of our Economic Progression.

For to liberate our souls to pursue those spiritual freedoms that is our happiness,
we must first liberate our minds and our bodies from the physicality that in material weakness
mires us individually and prevents our communities from securing for themselves within the Nation,
our Republic Vision (as it arises from the Maturity of our Love and Remembrances together).

This engine is human enterprise Capitalism,
and it establishes upon our Common Market within the Nation,
a Free Enterprise Market structure.

It is the Engine naturally compatible with our Democracy and its sheltering Republic,
driving its Progress forward, against the flow of exile time, that we may secure - at the helm -
for all our generations to the last, through an Economy of matter and grace,
the wealth of our Nation - which is wealth already established in us
being in everything already dedicated as our possession forever.

The full breadth of the Vision of human enterprise Capitalism is to perfect the drive of human enterprise and liberate Man from the poverty and the humiliation of the human condition.

It creates material wealth as a means to secure and obtain - in the Nation - for each and every individual, the freedom to individually pursue a happiness that is fully and completely human - so each Man may know to be free - to learn to be happy, even in this world - securing and obtaining for himself or herself true riches - from perishable means to imperishable ends.

The full breadth of this Vision does not create more poverty. It makes the poor wealthy and the wealthy truly wealthy and leads all and involves all in the Real Economy of the Nation.

Furthermore, Capitalism is - a National proposition - and therefore, may not exist to serve only the interests of a few citizens, particularly in a Democracy. Else it should falter and fail - to the everlasting regret of all.

Also, as it serves a primordial need in Man's own being - to be truly free and truly happy, Capitalism - as an Engine of Economic Progress - must naturally possess a spiritual dimension. It's promise of happiness never was a material dream, for its dream of happiness is an invincible one.

People drown in riches because their souls can not be filled by gold alone.

Greed has no part nor place in a free enterprise Market.

And as ours is such a one - our free Market structure must naturally react to expel greediness - as tares are beaten from the wheat.

Indeed, it must be intrinsic to our Economic structures and strictures that inordinate wants and the many lusts that support them are not only counterproductive but also counter-intuitive to our National Economy and run counter to our economic good as citizens - being usually not only corrupted but criminal.

Truly, truly, virtue is currency.

Greed in our Economy is like having termites in the wood of our tree.

All of that which places the value of Man's things over the things of Man give nor possess no value and only exists to take from Country; it shortens the length of our days (making it appear to our hearts we're getting nowhere fast), is useless to the fostering of our sovereign freedoms, and is quite destructive to the labor of securing the National wealth.

We can be as rich as we want to be in our Economy, provided it does not make any of us filthy - but only truly happy.

In fact, in the most ideal sense - everyone should own capital, multiply it, and have a successful business so that we should all be billionaires, rich with good things besides, and wealthy at the same time.

A Capitalist does not value imprudence in the use of material resources and despises greed because greed is reckless. Greed is narrow and selfish and suffocates both human creativity and personal initiative. It is the saw that ultimately saws off the branch it is sitting on - calamitous to the Market it preys upon.

Capitalism values not how much money is in the bank but on how much capital enterprise is in the works, it values chutzpah, and rewards honest, dedicated and inspired work, no matter how small it may be, seeking to succeed not on how well and how bravely one runs from business - but on how well and how bravely a business is run.

The capital in capitalization, and the exclusive proprietary rights of those who own the means of work is only the result and not the source of the capital in capitalism. It is a myth that Capitalism is prejudicial to workers' rights; a legend propagated by the greediness of a few.

The human capital is crucial to the success of Capitalism, so that it's betterment - both in the labor force and in the management corps that serve each proprietary trust - in business and other market venture entities - that comprise our Free Market is vital to the success of our Economy.

But the value of the human element may only be as valuable as we recognize it. Fairness is what makes our Markets free. Therefore, a degraded economic identity in our citizenry will - and shall - imperil our Market Freedoms. When honesty in the small seem to count for nothing when the truth is that honesty can never be measured by any material dimension. Honesty is honesty in all persons.

And this in turn shall slow or even stop the many human gears that drive forward the popular engine of our Economic Progress. It will produce disparities in the way we view wealth and poverty, polarize it into an unnatural state of division - so that wealth and poverty are no longer connected - in both our minds and our hearts.

(That wealth and poverty as they exist - exists not harmoniously but are inimical to each other - like hydrogen refusing to bind with oxygen to make water.)

Indeed, there is now in our Nation, and perhaps also in other Nations not unlike ours, that selfsame unfamiliarity; a sense of unbalanced imbalances that seems so unnatural to the Economic evolution of any free, fair, and brave enterprising people - and one that prevents each our Country from taking wing, leaving us all earth-bound - below the clouds, under the darkness, out of sight of the stars and the skies.

This is not a deficiency in our people's virtue and good. There is so much bravery in a magbabalut or a fish ball vendor, or an honest taxi driver or airport porter - or any enterprising Pinoy who invests in the smallest of seeds - his or her citizenry - to dream of a better life - in this Nation - it is this spark that we should be looking for... 

(The author also has a specific proposal to make common for all Filipinos - the practical means to enter into our National Economy and strengthen our City's common ability to build up the National wealth which shall also be posted in this blog at a later time.)

For it is this spark that we may use it to jump start our Engine back to life - it is found in the here, there, and everywhere, just raring to go - in each of us, because all of this is - in the heart of the Filipino - and - in the soul of our Nation.

And Now is our Time.
---<--@

A Nation's Treasures

A Nation's wealth is the life and promise of its people - across all our generations.

My people, as we emerge as a Republic in our ages, before we are burdened more and more with the responsibility of material wealth - I want us to remember the simplicity of our happiness in this picture.

It is commonly said that one ought to find one's happiness before doing anything so that anything one does shall be of good profit to the self. This is true.

But lest the world anymore complicate it, this is true only if one can keep one's happiness in the soul and keep it there - present and abiding as a joy in thy spirit - without anything else.

So that in knowing this, we shall always know, as we together undertake to further progress our journey of Country, Earth from Sky - the bounds of our reach and the reach of our limits - where the freedom of Man ends and the Freedom of God begins.

For our freedoms
shall always be our bounds,
our happiness shall to each of us
always remain within their reach
appearing as limitless to our hearts as the Sky
only as far as their limits are known to us here on Earth -
therefore, to transgress the freedom that keep us real
is to distort the happiness that keep us free -
as the gravity of material things tend to do
to remind us of responsibility.

Let us always remain with the truth - we are a spiritual people and therefore, when it comes to our dream of happiness - simply, a simple people.

Everything we need is within each of us - from this unity, God-helping, we shall confidently build.

Now, let us carry on - into the morrow.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.
---<--@

We are to be wealthy first before becoming wealthy.

Salutation #184

No Unity without Diversity, 

No Peace without Adversity, 

No Perfection without God.

(Precious Forever)

As thus, precious Starshine -
shall the Judge of all created Worlds,
before the Throne of the LORD in Eternity,
judge the Peace of every Nation at the Last Day
- by the great Jewel that is set in our every crown of  life -
the LORD will strike it thrice with a hammer - three mighty blows -
one for Justice, one for Mercy, and one for Love -
the unfailing, the faithful, and the true - shall not shatter,
being together - made victorious through trial and adversity
whose reality by the Providence of God, the light of the Angels,
and the freedom of Man, is hard as diamonds - and precious forever -
ascended unto everlasting skies before God and the assembly of Heaven.

But the unworthy, as it is written, shall shatter -
into dust and ashes.
---<--@

Where is thy brother, Abel?

To a man with no sense of Remembrance, one hundred people murdered in war and one million people murdered in war makes no difference.

But to those who know of Sacred Remembrance - to save one life is to save all of Mankind.



The first time
Man ever saw in himself
the form of the Enemy was
when Cain slew his own brother, Abel.

This primordial sin of mortal division
that passing through the door of the heart of Cain
unleashed the adversarial spirit of the Enemy of all Nations
and upon our world, resulted in the first taking of a human life
marked the advent of War and the first loss of an innocent soul
as both violent conflict and murder were realized upon our world -
at the very same moment - for truly they are synonymous to each other.

Beloved Starshine -
the Soul of every single Man
when they are each endowed by God
makes fully human - and - fully complete
the seed of corporeal life that is fruit and blessing
of the consummation of the love of Woman and Man
wrought within the freedom of their Sacred Union in Marriage
at the very moment of its conception - to become a Living Soul -
a complete human being - united in body, soul, and spirit -

and as such, contains within it's being all the good and the promise 

that the LORD hath fully intended for that person to be and to become
in time, emerging upon the earth, a wonder and a work of completion
in the freedom of the Truth - for the greater purposes of God -

for Man is a creature of the becoming - a being invested in hope!

(Why do you think, Starshine, human parents plan ahead for their child?
God being Parent to His Children, also plan for their success - as is His right.)

So when God asked Cain, "where is thy brother, Abel?"
The LORD was not asking Cain about the whereabouts of his brother.
Indeed, God already fully knows where Abel went, for - in being with Him
the LORD asked of Cain where the life - the entire life - of his brother went
that he may come to realize the gravity of his sin - for all that Abel was - cried up
to the LORD from the ground and his blood wept for all the good that shall never be.

- selah -

A sapling felled
at the beginning its life will no longer yield it's fruits -
and yet these fruits shall still be required of us by the Master of Harvest
we shall then produce them by the improvements we make unto ourselves -
that - each of us - may hope to yield more for the Master of Harvest
but most of all, by the improvements we undertake to create in our communities -
that - all of us - may hope to yield more for the Master of Harvest
and by our Remembrance receive the blessings of His everlasting Peace
and by our God's faithfulness and mercy - succeed!
And that our joy may be full forever.

We wonder why the world is so troublesome and lacking in fruit...
How many trees have we lost since the beginning of our long march into Exile?

How many times
have the LORD asked our Nations
the same question he asked Cain at the advent of War?

And how did we respond?

- selah -

Every Nation of the Children of Mankind
are charged with a constant Remembrance of these things,
that we may together render faithful account of each human life
All in behalf of each other - all for the life of visible creation
with a Book of Memory, and a Burden of Justice to carry
and a Sword to guard - for each of thee - thy every generation well
and to charge them all - to remember always - from the very beginning
at the East Gate of faded Eden - the way of our return to an Eden rebuilt -
their constant Debt of Remembrance - to God and to each other -
that each is a keeper to another, citizens and human beings -
so that by each their labors, these thy generations may soon undertake
in behalf of each other - and - in peace with all other Nations
to make each their Soul of Country in spirit - ever brighter
by each their degrees of Love and Remembrance
and its every Ascent unto completion of All Country
in Ages together - ever more certain.
---<--@

Happy Independence Day, Malaysia

Happy 56th birthday, Malaysia - MABUHAY - May you and all our ASEAN grow strong in our ages in time and ever nearer to each other in peace and good will...



May all our troubles vanish, may all hatred cease, and may all divisions be overcome - May our politics be glorious and humane, our sovereign will to defend each other as a regional family resolute and noble, and our unity enlightened and strong for being blessed by the one LORD of all human nations Who in diversity makes one and in adversity makes perfect.


Peace. Salaam. Shalom.

Merdeka!

Salutation #181

Of the nations of old, those ancient, fallen and evil Principalities of this world, utterly corrupted in their light, inhuman and incapable of knowing truth, forever drowned by the LORD in the Great Deluge, it may be said, all have perished and inhabit no more the times of the Children.

Yet even as God extinguished these fallen nations of old, and did inaugurate during the time of the Patriarch Noah and his sons, His Covenant with us, allowing for the emergence of the Nations of the Children, their malice still to us persists, their light still lingers on as shadow in this world, and their works of darkness, in the Void of the Desolation of the Angels, remain to haunt with death and calamity those who are not joined with their Sacred Remembrances.

(Chosenhood)

Chosenhood is emergence.

All nations are chosen in this way:
to be tutored in war, tested through peace
and proven by maturation in time.

For we are, so we must -
by our fruits we are known!

Made of golden promises
and paved with good intentions
is the way of war
but the fruits of war
is just as well-known -
(to the memory of the nations
and to the remembrance of man)
it is deception, discord, division,
degeneration, disintegration, death
and desolation.

But the craft of all nations is peace!

All nations that will prevail as one
(the Nations of the Children of Mankind)
were chosen and commissioned
by the LORD - all in the same act -
right at the Eastern Gate,
(the way of our remembrance)
at the beginning of exile time,
at the autumnal dusk of our faded Eden -
each one to emerge in time
according to the purpose of God
all, despite the appearance of darkness,
for the greatest good of all creation
for the LORD wants all
to experience His Salvation.

And Israel, ever beloved,
among the Nations of the Children
is first among equals.
---<--@

An Emerging Republic

The next time you hear, "third world country"... THINK.



Whenever I hear a fellow Filipino refer to our Republic undertaking of Country as "a third world country", I think of the mindlessness of such talk and shudder at the thought that many of us may still, for lack of a better working model, thoughtlessly accept this concept of a three world global order based on perhaps, a most narrow and unfair definition of national wealth.

Too, there is something implicitly prejudicial about the concept...

We are NOT a "third world country". We are an emerging Republic - just one of the many undertakings of Country (Republic or otherwise) cast upon a World afloat in a vast temporal ocean composed of Nations unevenly spread, under the unfathomable dictates of the Providence of God, upon an area of earth, sea, air, space, and spirit that comprise in all its sum (at the time of this writing), only a single planetary whole.

We exist, a Nation among Nations, growing great through our labors of Country as Trees exist, growing together in a Garden of Many Trees.

We (1) emerge to belong, (2) we belong to build, (3) we are built to become, (4) we become to belong, and (5) we belong to be one with the One - for these are the Five Ages of Country.
---<--@

We are, therefore, we must.


The Ages of Country

Vessel of the Generations

A NATION 
who lays asleep in the darkness,
fearing nothing - and - knowing nothing
is like a ship that knows only the safely of a harbor,
a vessel unaccustomed to voyage.



But that's not what nations are for,
dearest starshine.

:::Think and Unlock:::

2012 is not an end!

When we speak about the end of the world
what is really meant is the end of the world as we know it

And the end of the world as we know it
has nothing to do with the world but with the passage of time.

It is the end of time as we know it.



2012 is not an end!

For there is no end,
only a return to the beginning;
only a transformation -
a necessary transformation,
a saving transformation.

Not a few people
may fear the approach of 2012.

But change is inevitable
so we must change to master change.

We are not powerless
over which life we choose to live,
everyday we enter into it
by the power of our choices.

Just the same -

We are not powerless
over which future we choose to live through,
as individuals - but even more so -
as whole communities of individuals,
we only have to enter into it
by the power of our lives.

So let us not fear 2012 - rather,
let us seek to understand it.

THINK about it.
---<--@

Salutation #151

(Crossing Together as one Family)

LISTEN!

The burden of the times
is a burden of expectation.

If it were a burden of justice,
would any nation survive?

For all have sinned
the sin of War.

   Is there any nation in our world
   who is completely without guilt 
  of shedding the blood of another?
 
Therefore,
do we deserve
each other's forgiveness?

Yes.

Is there any other way
to progress into the new age?

- selah -

UNLESS
all our nations
become aware enough
to care enough
about the suffering
of our common humanity
during the last 2000 years
to desire it
for each our undertaking of Countries
to completely break away
from the poisonous reign of war,
we shall yet again
descend into
another age of conflict
more terrible than the last!

UNLESS
our peace is kin,
all ye nations of the children of Mankind,
we shall never become
family enough
to become possessed
with the strength of unity enough
to bridge and overcome the spiritual rifts
that threaten to devour
our peoples.

IF
we do not dispel
the spirit of War now,
- in and among ourselves -
we shall yet again
become subject
to its terrors.

NOT
because it is God's judgment for Man
but because it is Man's judgment
on himself.

- selah -

EACH
our undertaking of Country
stands to gain in age and maturity
in this present time.

NOW
do we deserve
the abundant prosperity
- spiritual as well as material -
that the peace of our planet may usher in
and freely offer to us?

Yes!

For
we have as nations
suffered long enough now
to know and to understand
the answer to our troubles...

We just needed to be asked...

SO NOW
the question is being presented to us
in each our hearts and across our nations -

Do we deserve
the abundant prosperity
- spiritual as well as material -
that the peace of our planet may usher in
and freely offer to us?

- selah -

THEREFORE,
at the coming of the new,
markedly by the end of this year 2012,
we must work to complete our remembrances -

This means to sift through
all the hurt and the pain of the past
and get the hopes of our nations aright.

   Why were our nations commissioned by God?
   Is it for the purpose of dominating and humiliating each other?
   We certainly can not totally erase this divine commission,
   we can only fight ourselves into exhaustion - again and again.

   Is not our common craft the craft of peace?
   Is not our common labor the building up the inhabited earth?
   Is not our common endowment naught but each other?
   Is not our common vision life and the abundance of living life?
   Is not our common mission the complete and utter transformation
   of the darkness of the unknown earth ever by the kindred light
   of each of our own particular(ly) human civilization?

This means to get rid of all historical baggage!

Yes, this means to forgive and to be forgiven -
people to people, and nation to nation.

UNTIL
our peace is truly kin
and we are a family once more.

AND
we must do this work of completion
- as human beings and citizens to each other -
that we may each MAKE the right choices
that each our nations will TAKE
- together this time -
into the right door that opens
into the right future.

THIS
is how we shall fulfill
the minimum of the times.

THIS
is how we shall together shine outward
as the numberless stars of our Father Abraham,
seeing far into forever.

THIS
is how we shall close
the iron gates of Country
against the darkness of the past.

THIS
is how we shall cross
into our futures together
as the one family of the nations
of the children of Mankind.

There is no other safer way across the river 
that marks the beginning of the new 
than together.
---<--@

Salutation #119

In the Ages of Country,
that necessary and vital transition
from emerging to developing
(as well as from developed to mature)
- is a purely internal shift -
'tis a definitive change of spirit;
a repentance of the heart.

---<--@

(Growing Great)

IT IS EASY
to flaunt strength
when a nation is blessed
and outwardly strong
but this outward strength,
my brothers and sisters of the Promise,
however awesome it may seem,
must soon be surrendered
to an inward awareness
of what is truly forever abiding
in the life of our nations.

It must gain the profit of its grace.

Else it is all vanity.

- selah -

It is said,
precious Starshine -

"Half the victory is knowledge of self."

For one who desires
to obtain the victory (of God)
must first understand the self, 

master the self, overcome the self -
before one truly learns
- how it is -
to live and fight
and die for others.

The other half then,
is just enduring.

(This is true 

for individual human beings

and for individual human nations.)
---<--@


The Ages of Country

Salutation #99

The things of division are ephemeral

- difficult and painful they may be -

these evils serve a necessary purpose

and this purpose is always

- greater and nobler -

than these hurts.

For unity and the fruits of unity,

- these are the things that matter -

these are eternal!

(Emergence)

Listen!

When I was a child,

I demanded perfection from my parents.

As I grew,

I came to accept not only their imperfection

but my own.

Now that I am all grown up,

I work with my parents

to make our family more perfect...

My brothers and sisters of the Promise -

That child is our nation,

those parents are our government

(under the LORD as our one Sovereign),

and that family is our one Republic.

---<--@

To everything there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Salutation #91

The Ages of Country
is a measure of the maturity of our Republic;
a measure of the brightness of our national remembrance.

From emerging to developing to developed to mature to ascended,
the development of our Country through its natural ages in time (the first four ages)
and its perfection in Eternity (the fifth age) can be likened to a tree
growing upon our one earth - in a garden of many trees.

It is deliberately conceived as a more harmonious alternative
better suited to the unitive spirit of the times
than the implicitly divisive three worlds, one earth model
that projects a first, second, and third world.
---<--@

We shall be aiming precisely for the fourth age - a mature Republic.

(The Fourth Age)

I can not see our Country

as anything else but a mature democracy -

a work of the truly free:

A hardy shelter of peace,

with wings strong enough to embrace

the whole of our one Filipino nation

- from least to great and great to least -

and spirit mighty enough to carry our one Republic forth

- across the vast wilderness of exile time -

from generation to generation,

from strength to strength,

and from truth to truth,

till all things in time are begun again by God

at the summit of our common Ascent

and the beginning of all things new.

---<--@

Remembrance: The Ages of Country

20111028

Salutation #62

I am hopeful not because there are words.

I am hopeful because there are people with listening ears

and hearts who are able to hear the meaning to the words...

(Nations Like Trees)

Wisdom is in the people -

(and discernment is in the Responsible State)

if we remain in ourselves, a nation united

- through thick or thin - by and by,

our Republic shall be enlightened by the peace we profess as a people

and our leadership enabled - inasmuch -

as we are empowered by the unity of our peace.

The more mature the peace we profess as a nation,

the better the age of our Country in time.

The deeper the roots of our citizenship is planted

upon the earth - far into forever -

as one Republic undertaking,

the more trusted shall be its fruits.

For nations are like trees

and the labor of Country is the labor of bringing the promise

of our nation into full fruition - for all Filipinos.

It is a labor of cultivation and nurture.

This is why I am passionate about the peace process.

Everything in this day and age - as far as our Philippines is concerned -

is invariably tied to its success and its success is likewise tied

to the greater forces that are now driving our world

toward interdependent community.

For there are many rooms and many trees...

---<--@

One lineage of hope - 7,107 islands strong -

"In the longer view of things, divisions don't make a difference, unity does."

You know, I used care a lot about where we've been - about one's upbringing, how one looks, how one sounds, what's in a name, from which school, from what religion, from what province, and from what family, and from what social class...

Now, what I truly care about the most is where we are ALL going.

I have awoken to the truth - that -

there can only be one Philippines for ALL Filipinos!

---<--@

An Accounting of Time

Time is not distance for time is distant

only to those with distant hearts.

Nor is distance a hindrance to our hearts

that in the timeless, beholds and is beheld.

PEACE, I salute you.

---<--@

Our dearest Starshine -

Let me teach you
the way in which thy heart
does perceive the idea of numbers
and the concept of its operation
in those realms where
the mathematics of physicality
and the limits of its reality
in terms temporal
and in measures finite
does never and shall never agree
with the reality of things within.

Because the substance of thy soul

is the abode of the timeless
that in terms eternal
and in measures infinite
are an accounting of thy heart
that amidst thy comings and goings
perceive things as they are
like a vision of love forever
in moments standing still
and not as they seem to be
amidst the darkness of things
that appear and disappear
with the rise and fall
of the tides of exile time.

One is not the beginning

for one is time neither begun
nor is one perceived to have an end
because one is an infinity
and two is not two things together
but two things that become one
for three are not three things apart
but two things made one whole one
by the Love that visits
each our longing for itself.

And so when you shall perceive

each of thy friendships, dear Starshine,

(e.g. family and friends, above all conjugal love,

as well as all natures of relationships.)

among all truly human relationships
you shall think only of one.

And when you shall seek to perceive
each our own expressions of hope
in the sharing and the bearing of Sacred Life
(e.g. complementarity of the sexes, the freedom of thy gifts, etc.)

you shall think only of two.

And when you shall seek to perceive
those things born to thy own heart's longing
and felt through the beauty of remembrances

(e.g. the creative ideal - cooperation with the Creator,

Peace and the labors of peace, etc.)
awakening to thy slow awakening dream
you shall think only of three.

And ever be aware that the medium

of thy constant reality from within
is an emerging continuum of gratitude
spread as luminous stars upon thy spirit
bursting with the joy of living life
born from things that cleave as truth
unto that vast universe in thy soul
that make you think of the many
but return you always to one -

the One, O my Starshine,

the LORD!

The one Giver above His gifts.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Patient Perseverance

Remembrance: The Ages of Country

20110727

This is my initial reaction to the SONA 2011 -

My one Filipino nation, with the Peace of the LORD - I salute you.

What I noticed the most is the President's call for national transformation.

Let me explain:

Our Country seem insulated from tragedies such as that which recently befell brave Norway. This is so because most Filipinos are too busy trying to survive from day to day.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, if we as an emerging Republic get the workings of the foundations of our fledgling national culture right - here and now, when in time we become developed enough for our people to start confronting those problems developed Countries must presently confront at this time, we shall not find our nation as vulnerable to such crimes as those wrought by the terrorist intents of the likes of Mr Breivik (or Mr. McVeigh, or OBL on the other extreme for that matter).

A mature Republic is proof against War in the heart.

It is this gathering spirit dwelling in our culture that we are presently trying to awaken into here now today through all our Salutations and our conversations in this blog so that when time comes (and it will) and we are, God-willing, developed enough in our material prosperity as one Republic whole, my honorable compatriots, our present generations will also have had (as a gift from us) the spiritual maturity to seamlessly advance this Country of ours into its fourth and most fruitful age upon this earth.

(You have to excuse my language here and bear with me, I am expressing them in a form that is native to this blog alone. They shall be meaningful to you only if you have been following me in this conversation of ours.)

In a sense, I get President Aquino's speech about the wang-wang mentality. The transformation he is spearheading is a necessary thrust in the right direction away from the night that has long engulfed our Land of the Morning.

We must let go of the wang-wang mentality that says, "I will lord it over others." Jesus Christ the Lord Himself warned us about this mentality.

This is nothing more than the "them" and "us" mentality that flies in the face of our just equality as human beings and peers to each other before God and the law.

It is the elitist mentality of the so-called servant who does not actually will to respond to the Divine calling to serve the nation in the Republic but rather, seeks through selfish ambitions to possess the fruits of the virtue of others instead.

- selah -

My brothers and sisters of the Promise, you know as well as I do that this long night can not last forever. We are here now and step by faithful step, we shall lead each other away from the tired old ways of the past.

We shall break ourselves free from the gravity of the last 2000 years by the sheer brightness of our remembrances together, each to the other, a keeper and friend, all to the All, one whole sky.

No longer shall mindless division, political discord and a dissolute spirit confound, weaken and trouble our belongings to each other as citizens to this nation God has commissioned for a Country the LORD has commanded to prosper and prevail over the darkness of an unknown earth - allied to the peace of all our kindred nations.

We shall break new ground in our ways of thinking and belonging as a people, and of building, sharing, and enjoying through our labors together, this land and its fruits.

And we shall defend this endowment - continually being won for us by our people and eternally granted to us by our God - against all takers, foreign and domestic.

Indeed, we shall as citizens to each other advance this Country and its posterity into the dawn that is promised by the LORD to all those nations who love and fear Him as God to one and All, once and for all.

(So let us out of fear, dispense with thousands of years of rigid, formal introduction, Beloved of God, for there is but one God and one LORD alone: As you love God, you know Him.)

---<--@

Salutation #43

(Service)

Any undertaking of Country

- across its generations in time -

easily span the width and breadth

of human lives in their millions.

God is severe enough with sins against individuals

but to willfully sin against Country,

it is beyond my understanding what will happen to those souls

who knowingly and maliciously deprive an entire nation

and their generations their own God-given house,

which is their shelter and sanctuary against War in this world.

Indeed,

countless human lives have from different times and places

been taken from us before their time

only because they lack the shelter of Country.

Remember them today,

bring their hopes for a better world with thee...

and with forbearance, serve.

Starshine,

there are as many holy innocents in heaven

- pleading constantly to the LORD -

for an end to War and the breaking of this midnight world

as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth.

So remember the LORD today,

trust in the wisdom of God even in thy midst

- do not despair in the midst of all this darkness -

for the LORD allows rain to fall on the good and the evil alike

so be thou good - Beloved of God - shine for Him

and with forbearance, serve.

- selah -

Do not be scandalized by the tares in the wheat!

---<--@

Some Suggestions:

I agree with Senator Marcos - employing the poor in productive labor gives them a much better fighting chance to liberate themselves from the clutches of poverty.

Distribute the PPP projects by region.

Triage the entire Country by region, province, then city - determine civil defense readiness and necessary requirements per LGU. Establish a national standard of readiness and a centralized, unified incident command process.

---<--@

Just a Thought:

Is it so hard to take care of a nation? Heck, it practically takes care of itself.

A nation is like a seed; a labor endowed by God with the power to fulfill its own destiny.

It already has in itself everything it needs to grow and to succeed.

Now, the work of government is to just help it along its own way and - most importantly - avoid suffocating the life of the people.

---<--@

Let us continue to pray for the Kingdom of Norway and her people, for peace in our nation, the Middle East and in Asia.

Let us also pray for CGMA who is presently in hospital - despite everything that is happening - let us remember to her credit as well as ours that she did our nation a measure of good as well.

---<--@

Lastly, let me and my Miyang share this with you - Utak Wang-wang

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Service is a call (not an ambition)

One Nation

Breaking the Siege

20110527

A Mature Republic

Mature nations derive their eternal significance according to responsibility. The most powerful is not necessarily the greatest. The greatest is the most responsible.

Of the five ages of Country, my fellow Filipino compatriots, only the first four is well within our natural competency as a nation distinct but not apart from our one family of nations.

The fifth age is a supernatural event. For at the hour of fulfillment, when all things true and good the LORD, our God, shall restore unto their original beginnings, all nations shall be transformed into ascended nations - together.

This hour is commonly known as the Last Day or General Judgment. Now, as the one heart of Mankind implicitly knows, this hour shall certainly come to pass for the promised time shall indeed be fulfilled.

But this hour is known to God alone.

So we shall leave it at that. For we are a nation under God, my people, and we shall forever be that way

Therefore, for our own intents and purposes of building a better, brighter, kinder Philippines, it shall be sufficient for us to concentrate our freedom and our will on the first four ages of Country.

We shall be aiming precisely for the fourth age - a mature Republic.

---<--@

A Nation Distinct But Not Apart...

These days, under our President Noy, we are laying the groundwork of those things to come.

Now, being always mindful that our nation as a whole is always greater that what the present can perceive, let us make that last statement more complete:

These days, under our President Noy, we are laying the groundwork of those things to come - for us, here in our present time, and for all our generations, past as well as those that are yet to come.

My honorable compatriots, if we perceive ourselves only in part, we shall find it quite difficult to grow into a fuller, more potent appreciation of who we are as we are - as we must be.

Consequently, we shall find it hard to qualify in our souls those little, seemingly unknown acts of civic responsibility and common patriotism that we are everyday required to meaningfully accomplish as citizens to each other. For they will seem pointless - like a fish out of water.

But a miracle is almost always composed of little acts of faith.

Likewise, to get to the fourth age of Country - a mature Republic, we must labor to commit ourselves sedulously to accomplishing meaningfully those selfsame acts of civic responsibility and common patriotism - for ourselves (i.e. family, friends, tribes, communities), here in our present time, and for all our generations, past as well as those that are yet to come.

- selah -

Every nation is unique to itself and to it belong its own destiny.

When this destiny is understood by the peace of its people - the vision of the national success is perceived by the whole of the nation.

When this destiny is likewise perceived by the Responsible State, it drives forward the motion of Country (for Country is a verb) into its ages in time.

For the peace of the State and the peace of the Nation are one. And this vital unity builds as well as enriches the Common Market, prospering the people, giving glory to God.

- selah -

For our intents and purposes, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, our destiny is to work our way into becoming a mature Republic and to shine in the brightness of its remembrance - not only for the good of our own nation, but equally so for the good of all the kindred nations of our one family of nations (represented in and by our United Nations institution).

Truly, one who understand these things should agree with me that it has now - more than ever - become vital for us Filipinos to awaken to a knowledge of who we are as ourselves - as our new, old Philippines.

- selah -

We were not situated by the Providence of the LORD, our God, upon a continent so we should not be thinking in terms continental nor should we be building in terms other than tropical and archipelagic. We have to re-discover our own unique forms of architecture.

Too some say that national power is intrinsically linked to national productivity. This is true.

But national productivity is first of all, linked to civic responsibility. And this sense of civic responsibility is founded on a heart of peace that in this Republic "we belong" truly as citizens to each other.

This is how we shall "open a way for the poor".

Indeed, my friends, middle class is key.

---<--@

Our Justice System

We are not a material people (i.e. unspiritual).

I can name you precisely those problems that we face today that arise out of a forgetfulness of those things we have just mentioned above.

I am quite sure however, that those of us who are abreast of these things already know them.

These problems affect those fundamental national functions because those things that lack our remembrances are existential national truths.

Having said that, I greatly admire Secretary de Lima for her indefatigable spirit and unwavering determination to make things work. She is truly a blessing to this great Country of ours.

It is always a good thing that we pray for her and for all our national leadership.

One must never again doubt the fact that our women have a great contribution to make to the future of this Republic.

Our Justice system is not broken, my people. It has always been there.

Its spirit has apparently become diluted however, and therefore, keenly require our own greater participation that it may continue to preserve the life and the promise of our nation.

Having said that, here are the Five Pillars of our Justice System:

1. Our National Community
2. Our PNP
3. Prosecution/Public Defenders
4. The Law Courts
5. Corrections/Penology.

---<--@

Our Common Market Environment

Our natural resources are the patrimony of all our generations.

It is sad to hear the report from among our news agencies about the plunder of our coral reefs.

These reefs take generations to grow, my fellow Filipino compatriots and they are presently being destroyed in a comparatively very brief span of time.

Is this not an outrage?

In a previous post, I have identified four major sources of poverty (i.e. corruption, geography, division, ecological depletion) - this plunder of our natural resources is one of them (ecological depletion).

We are being taken for fools by criminals who do not recognize the value and the beauty of the natural patrimony of this nation of ours.

I think it's about time we citizens wise up to them. Let us echo the call of our DENR and of our President Noy -

Boycott all black coral products!

---<--@

The Joplin F5

Lastly, let us pray for the victims of that massive tornado in Joplin, Missouri, USA.

May all of those who have been lost to friends and family find their way back to God and may all of those whom they have left behind be likewise led by the LORD back to safety and peace.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas, long may our remembrance serve us! God bless us all.

Patient Perseverance

20110430

Salutation #8

(Awakening)

I shall speak plainly -

we are a nation emerging,

a Republic awakening to itself!

So awaken, O Filipino soul -

return to a knowledge of yourself,

O my honorable compatriots, peace.

There will be a time

for building our material prosperity

but that time is not yet come.

I shall speak plainly -

we are a nation emerging,

a Republic awakening to itself!

Once we have emerged

we shall know how to build.

Only then shall we build.

Today, we shall remember.

---<--@

A little note:

Globalization is dangerous unless the world shifts from a mixture of Emerging and Developed Countries into a mixture of Developing and Mature Countries.

This may only be achieved in a climate of peace.

Of the Ages of Country, the transition from Emerging to Developing is an internal shift which though different in character is not unlike the transition from Developed to Mature.

When we will have completed this shift by 2012, my honorable compatriots, we will have completed our remembrances as a nation.

What proceeds is vigorous national development through to 2045.

Do not be overly anxious or perplexed by wars or rumors of wars, or of earthquakes, or of the general atmosphere of our world approaching 2012. What really matters is what we are to do with our time today - together.

The things concerning the end of time as we know it or the Last Day (General Judgment) shall indeed be fulfilled. But it is the LORD, our God, alone Who knows the hour of the fulfillment (to our vigilance belong the discernment of the season).

Our work as individuals apart and as individual nations together is to always be ready for the time of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and so our greatest security against the uncertainties we shall be facing in the near future is the knowledge that we are indeed doing this necessary work of humble preparation not just as human individuals but also as human nations.

For this is the labor required of us, nothing more, nothing less.

Now, my friends, we will do this vital work in a season of peace.

That season is today.

So let us do all that is humanly possible for us, my fellow Filipino compatriots, bearing in mind and heart that God will fill what is impossible for us to do.

Peace to all our nations and good will to all men and women of peace.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Healing Work

20110416

The Republic Peace

THIS PEACE can not be enforced from the outside, as by force of arms.

Our Republic Peace is first and foremost, a free and willing observance. It is born of promise; a dream in the wing, born of a proven reality.

And if this necessary reality require more proving, my honorable compatriots, then let this be our striving - together this time.

Peace may only be embraced as its remembrance is honored - by all, from least to great, it is thing that must be present in the heart of the people.

Peace is a role of nations - it is the necessary atmosphere that guarantees national progress and human development. Peace is the responsibility of the national government - it is the necessary medium of political cohesion and meaningful national dialogue.

Without it, nations perish and governments fail. Entire civilizations depend on it.

A deficiency in the vision of peace is a serious lack. For the Filipino dream will always remain a counterfeit dream for as long as this dream is not our own dreaming together.

So what are we, my fellow Filipino compatriots, and why for are we born to this particular time and place?

If I say I am Filipino and you say you are Filipino, what binds us in love and truth? What makes of you and I, a nation distinct but not apart from other nations?

It is this peace. So what is it?

It is a belief, a sacred trust embraced across our generations, that we shall as citizens together prevail over the unknown earth. It is an unassailable truth founded on the guarantee of a clear vision of the national destiny.

It is a remembrance of God and Country. This remembrance is an essential component of the sacred trust of our one undertaking of Country.

So what is this undertaking of Country?

It is the indivisible labor of all our generations, under the eternal vigilance of God Almighty, to bring this peace to pass, from hope to hope, strength to strength, across the wide, barren desert expense of exile time and into our Home in eternity. It is a work of return to our Eden rebuilt.

Now, there are many undertakings of Country upon the earth, yet we are each called to the labor of one and this one undertaking of Country is our Republic of the Philippines.

So what is a Republic undertaking of Country?

It is a guardian to a people orphaned by War. It is this guardian spirit that preserves the necessary Republic form - for the nation. If we are to remain true to the Republic form, we must come to realize its potency in ourselves.

We shall be to each other, a keeper and a friend.

For just as a nation is not a nation without the LORD, a citizen is not a citizen by his or herself alone.

Our Republic government must be a shepherd state; a responsible steward of the Causes that advance the peace of our people - a servant after God's own Heart, a Responsible State, willing and able to be generous enough to freely respond to the needs of a hurt and wounded people in disinterested, selfless and loyal public service.

We have to work to realize in ourselves with conviction of heart that as a Republic, we are across our generations to the last of our generations, under the eternal vigilance of God, one work, one people, one destiny.

The deeper the roots of our Republic peace (that is, the more this peace becomes present among our people), the stronger its hold on the ground of its own truth, the more trusted its fruits.

If we do not understand Country, we shall be as wandering stars, scattered, having no certainty of its own light; without a past, without a present, and without a future.

If we are to be as real stars, those that arc in the sky, being certain of its own light (that is, my fellow Filipino compatriots, being certain that this light is not its own and shall therefore end up possessing that Light) we must know that we are as a nation commanded by God to -

build up the earth,

love the least,

protect all minorities,

preserve and uphold justice,

observe the law,

and cherish Sacred Life

- and that we are as thus arrayed as a Republic because of our common will to carry out this divine command, for our own good and the good of all nations.

That we are gifted with a will of Country is proof that the nation is alive in ourselves and that God has preserved this reality in our hearts not because of what evil there is but because there is merit in our people.

So we are a Republic, my honorable Filipino compatriots, and the first rule of service in the Republic form is this - know that the real treasure of this nation is the people.

Therefore, O my people, you shall live to love the LORD, thy God, in everything and with everything.

We shall be victorious according to what dignity and promise we shall together work to accord and help to realize in the very least of our Countrymen.

So we are a Republic - a lineage of hope 7,107 islands strong, one work, one people, one destiny.

Only one thing shall ruin us, my honorable compatriots, War in the heart.

Because the craft of all nations is peace.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Vision.