20110520

Reviving the Middle East Peace Process

I was able to tune in last night to CNN in time to see President Obama's speech on the Arab Spring and the Middle East Peace Process.

I am no longer going to mince words about my convictions on the Middle East Peace Process.

There is a necessary shape that our family of nations must take in order for us to enter into the right door that will lead to the right future.

If our nations are presently conflicted, if America herself is presently conflicted, it is because this necessary shape is being presented to our hearts.

We know our common hope - we desire a better, brighter, kinder world for all men, women and children of all the nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

We desire peace, equality, freedom, justice, and prosperity enough to (at the very least) reach our own particular UN MDG's which are markers set in real terms to measure the growth of these ideals.

And now that the path that leads up to this hope is being presently revealed to our nations, we are becoming conflicted.

We are conflicted

and understandably so

because it is a path of peace - a road less traveled, as it were.

It is a heretofore unknown path - an ascendant, mountain way.

Because the necessary shape that must now permeate the prevailing order of the times (which is required as an adaptation to the new age) is simply

the shape of peace and peace as a paradigm whole.

We are now coming to the realization that our world must completely break away from the momentum of the last 2000 years and formally forsake the familiar but deadly gravity of

the last great age of War.

Lest we should not only get more of the same, it shall be dealt to us in magnitudes previously unknown to our remembrances.

My beloved friends, peace is the necessary shape. It is the one key that shall unlock the hidden promises of the new age before us.

If we are hesitating here today, this is good. B

ecause in this quest for a new age of peace, w

e are all pioneers.

This is why we are conflicted.

Now, I am of the conviction that the Middle East Peace Process is vital and must be concluded on paper under President Obama's watch.

Because a large part of this necessary shape depends on the Middle East Peace.

Indeed, the path that a mature America needs to take goes right through the Middle East Peace Process.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, this

too is our path.

As you know, our own Philippine Peace Process is part and parcel of a larger global movement which though complex, I have endeavored to present to you through this blog.

The whole world is shifting, not just us, and things are speeding up toward 2012.

(I have been trying to discern these things for years and have both Scriptural as well as empirical basis for most everything I am presenting here. Why I should do this is no longer a question I ask myself - it simply must be done.)

Our particularity as a nation distinct is entirely worth defending. But so too are our alliances with our friends just as equally worth fighting for.

We are to walk the way of peace and not only because we are allied to America (by irrevocable ties of blood and fire) but because we must remain true to the nation in ourselves: This we do by honoring our citizenships with each other as well as our covenant bonds with all the other nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind (represented in and by the United Nations institution).

And we must work out an understanding of this in ourselves: We must work out a conviction in our hearts that seeks to embrace all things in unity and in peace whether between ourselves as a community of citizens or between our nations as a a global community of wholes.

We live in a divided nation in a divided world but this external reality does not have to reflect the aspirations we should now maintain in our selves.

We are no longer part of the last great age of war.

This is why I have stressed the importance of keeping our mind and heart both on the goal of achieving the peace here locally as well as contributing to the larger peace processes specifically the one in the Middle East.

Because this particular perspective introduces us to our own potential as a nation distinct as well as to our own place as a contributing partner to the peace of other nations and breaks us out of our insular thinking within as well as without.

For we can no longer afford to be insular or xenophobic in a world of interdependent national communities.

We must be equally and openly committed to our nation as well as to our friends.

Or we should at least have informed opinions about the matter.

---<--@

My Concept on the Middle East Peace

I am naturally aligned with America on the Middle East Peace Process.

The only difference is that I am predisposed to deal more fairly with the Palestinian Cause.

I regard the Palestinians, by the sheer nobility and valor of their own adherence to their belongings to each other, as a nation endowed by God with all the inherent rights of nationhood.

I am putting my trust in the right things being motivated only by the good things I recognize and remember in both the nation of Israel and in the nation of Palestine.

I refuse to be by evil inspired.

I reject terrorism and the use of wasteful, needless violence on innocent civilians from any side, in any nation, at any time.

I reject illegal forms of waging war. I realize the evil of the spirit of war should be securely bound by laws national as well as international.

I am also naturally committed to the security of modern Israel as an undertaking of Country as well as to the nation of elder Israel as a whole.

I have sought to understand both their hopes. I have also sought to frame these hopes in the context of the times and in light of the prevailing climate of peace.

I regard the will of division itself as the enemy of both a secure Israel which I shall define here as an Israel at peace within and without herself and a young and resurgent Palestine, reintroduced anew to her own potentiality and promise as a Country entire.

I regard the relationship between Israel and Palestine as completely and utterly unique with no precedent in history and therefore am not bound by the limitations of the past in terms of finding solutions that contribute to a meaningful, sustainable, durable peace.

I will adhere to the 2009 Limit of the Times based on Daniel 12 and consider the entire time preceding 2009 as a one whole argument in favor of peace and peace as a paradigm whole.

I support -

1. A contiguous Palestinian National Territory built from 1967 borders w/ negotiated land swaps.
2. The Special Status of Jerusalem and the Concept of Secondary Capitals.
3. The Protection of the Jewish Majority status of Israel and the Recognition of the Rights of Minorities in both Israel and Palestine.
4. Provisions for the Care and Special Status of Palestinian Refugees.

And after the conclusion of the formal peace process on paper, I support -

1. A Two States, One Destiny Concept that works to preserve the uniqueness of the relationship between these two Countries on a Nation-First basis that puts their politics squarely in the service of each their respective nations.
2. The establishment of bilateral Nations-First agreements between Israel and Palestine on security, trade and knowledge exchanges.

---<--@

On the Arab Spring

It is the desire of the common people that have wrought for the region this moment.

The hopes of the least, so prone to become lost in the chase must be all the more perseveringly brought to both mind and heart at this time that it may remain present when the newness of things become established into the prevailing order of things.

My own Country is not new to mass movements of human hope.

May peace prevail in the region.

---<--@

Let us each continue to pray for peace according to the freedom of our faiths. And let us each continue to work for peace according to the freedom of our gifts.

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless all our nations.

Support Sanity in the Middle East.

20110519

The End of the World?

Peace, I salute you.

In the lead up to the time of 2012, my honorable compatriots, when all the choices we must each make today (at a time, times, and half-a-time) shall serve to bear up our hopes as a nation, there shall be many feelers and sayers of impending doom along the way.

You will first of all, respect them.

If it helps you to be more devout, if it helps you to be good, if it helps you to free yourselves, may God do so, from the grip of things we could really do without, then are these not those things we must willingly accept and ought to be thankful about?

There is a prediction in two days time about the end of the world - at sunset on May 21 (at what time zone, I am uncertain). Not with a feeling of despair, ignorance or ill-will shall we meet it.

For Providence is a great teacher of life.

But if we can not accept reality as it unfolds, if we can not accept the present as it is, we will miss most of its value in our lives - and consequently in the life of our nation.

Truly, my fellow Filipino compatriots, God's will shall be fulfilled in all things, whether we know it or not, whether we approve or disapprove of it.

What is ours to do is to be ready here today. Or at least try to learn today how to be ready for that day - together.

The end of the world is actually the beginning of it. Everything in every moment is in a state of constant renewal, arising from the spirit and returning to it once more.

If God wanted to completely restore all things in Himself today, it will happen.

But for as long as the hour of the fulfillment remains God's to decide upon (and it is) and to fulfill (and it is), we must remain with our hand on the plow, busy with our labors here in this world both as individual human beings and as individual human nations - together this time.

If it takes a moment, a year, a hundred years, if it takes forever, my friends, let us still say peace and amen to God, it shall be done!

Now, if there is any fear for the future, then let this be reason for the exercise of faith enough for today.

---<--@

The 4th Cause: The Cause of Benignity - Minorities

The Lord Christ said, "The poor you will always have with you..." (Matthew 26: 11)

"There will always be a minority."

BENIGNITY is the practice of goodness.

Therefore, this Cause must concern itself with the preferential treatment and care of minorities and the just distribution of the material goods of this world.

In the person of the stranger, the orphan, the widow, the unborn, the disabled, the elderly, and the poor whether transient, semi-permanent, or permanent, there shall always exist within our midst, a minority.

At one time or another in the lifespan of individual human beings as well as in the lifespan of individual human nations, we all become part of the minority.

Let us always bear this in mind and heart...(selah - listen, think)

Have we forgotten our own roots, O ye children of the Peace, promised by God of old to bless the national communities of Mankind?

Were we not all drawn up by the LORD from the poverty of the minority?

Let us always bear this in mind and heart especially all ye numberless stars of Father Abraham.

This is how we shall fill the earth with living lights.

We are by our poverty indistinguishable. How we shall each distinguish ourselves in this midst is through virtue and the refinement of our inherent human nobility.

This is important to remember, my friends, because the victimization (by the strong) of the marginalized (the weak) will ultimately result in the implosion of our national communities and in the Last Day, it shall also bring about its final and irreversible destruction.

The marginalization in any society of any of one of its parts is always the effect of divisions (overt as well as covert) in the one heart of the people.

A social order built on disagreements (abiding in prejudices, misconceptions, fear and ignorance) is like a tyranny without a tyrant.

In this hostile atmosphere, the spirit of the nation feels itself trodden underfoot until the burden of Justice becomes unbearable.

The will or the spirit of War always takes the easiest entrance into the midst of the people. And this it always does by subverting the 4th Cause.

The one sin a nation can not abide by is the presence of War in the heart.

Because Peace is our only path - it is the only choice we can really make.

The 4th Cause explicitly espouses the first principle that the strong exists in defense of the weak.

The entire hierarchy of the angelic realms is ordered around this first principle.

Since our nations (as they are) are a natural extension of the unseen realms, we are expected by the Providence of God to faithfully imitate the heavenly order by formally uniting ourselves as a people to the will and the governance of the LORD, our God - the one Sovereign of all nations.

What the majority does in behalf of the minority dictates a nation's fidelity to the 4th Cause.

Wealth generation and long-term national prosperity is entirely dependent on the 4th Cause.

A word on the value of Human Promise -

"One life lost to War is always one life too many."

Human lives once willfully cut short and stolen in the midst of our communities do not just end, they linger because by each life lost to War, we are truly diminished.

One can not expect to eat the fruits of a forest, benefit from the shade of its wood as well as rest within the protection of its multitude if there are no trees left.

If the nations are hungry, if we are vulnerable, if we are weak, it is because of War in the heart.

When we forget to remember the unsung promises of those who are now lost to us through war and reckless, wasteful violence, when we forget the hopes they have left to our present care, we stand to learn nothing of their pain and loss and are therefore doomed to relive it.

Because it is not the sins of the past that curse, it is the inability of every present generation to overcome its evils that prevent our Day from flourishing.

Human promise once forcefully taken by the hand of Man becomes an inescapable part of his unbearable burden - to be borne by all of his generations spread across all our nations.

Without Justice, it hinders his destiny. Without the mercy of God, it prevents it.

Without the peace of the nations of Mankind, by this burden, Man is sunk in despair.

Without the love of a mighty Redeemer, by this burden too, Man is to be lost to us forever.

Now let us think -

If we were able to be blessed by even some of the lives that our nations have collectively lost to War in the last age, we would have not have plunged this far down in our troubles today.

We would have been far more advanced in the fields of medicine, health science, conservation, and energy than we are at present.

We would have already solved many of the problems that confound us today.

We could have been back and forth to the stars already.

We should never be that reckless again.

The 4th Cause intrinsically recognizes the timeless value of human promise and acts accordingly.

It naturally leads to the 3rd and the 2nd Causes that seek to ensure that the prevailing peace of the prevailing social order remains constantly compatible with Man's God-given and therefore, inviolable human dignity.

Without the 4th Cause, the 3rd and the 2nd Causes will never ascend to the 1st Cause.

And without the 1st Cause, all the other Causes lose cohesion, value and potency.

But Man has the help of both heaven and earth, and the favor of God.

Shahbaz Bhatti (19680909-20110301 of valor and love of Country) - though I did not know you in life, I now know you are a friend to me - so peace, my friend - via con Dios!

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

- John 15: 13

---<--@

The Final 6

About two months ago, I was asked by someone close to my heart to work out an interpretation of the Book of Revelations. For the most part, I remained silent about this request. I am not sure I can.

There are some things I am sure about, and there are some things I am not sure about. For as regards to these things, I have very clearly defined limits.

While I do have some things that are open to me, there are some things that remain closed to me.

First of all, I am not a Biblical scholar.

But I have been made aware in my heart over the years what presumption is; a sin against the Holy Spirit. This along with obstinacy to the truth, final impenitence and despair (of self and of others) constitute the four unforgivable sins that I am wont to avoid for fear of losing my own soul.

They are unforgivable not because our God is less merciful, for the LORD Himself is the Fullness of Compassion, but because they cause the heart of Man to harden completely into hell.

I am a citizen of my Country, a Roman Catholic Christian trying to be a decent human being for Christ and for fellow men. That's about all that I am - a common everyday person - and that's about all I want to be. (What I really want, this world can never give me.)

However, I can say this much - as regards to the number 666, this number is the number for the first thousand years of War (time), the second thousand years of War (times) and those who are so inclined to choose War in the heart once again this third Christian millennium (half-a-time) in the context of the manifest climate of the new age which is Peace (of whose number is 3).

To choose to ignore the will of Divine Providence which God have made so obvious to the nations of Mankind by the naked requirements of the present time, this is the final 6, which is the choice to remain permanently divided in the heart against one's own humanity before God.

It is

a choice that is made just as absolutely and irrevocably as those whose hearts have been inclined by the LORD towards the Peace of the times.

For 6 is the number for opposition/division. And as its master is the fallen cherub, Lucifer, now Satan and the Adversary of All; a murderer, thief and father of all lies.

It will certainly come (incarnate as itself) in the guise of peace - a perfect peace.

It shall be as a lie conceived against (1) the covenant of the nations, against (2) the wisdom of all honorable human religious traditions, and (3) in the face of the everlasting covenant laid down by the Blood of Christ the Lord.

It shall work out a desolation and it shall call this desolation, peace.

Against it, we will continue to work in our nations to obtain from God the peace that prospers the sheltering wings of each our undertaking of Country - for all our generations - together this time.

Now, i

f you understand this number, you will no longer fear it. Nor will you allow yourself to be held in a dreadful thrall of its mystery.

For t

hough we do not know the time, we do know that the time is near, so we must press on and make provision for the generations that are yet to come.

Pray.

Look for evidence.

See for yourself the climate of the times. Go d

iscern for yourselves the reasons behind the choice you must make. Seek the LORD, ask for wisdom.

But choose.

Else you shall default yourselves and fall headlong into the gravity of the last great age of war.

A nation is where it labors in time. It is in eternity always where it is - giving constant worship to the one Sovereign of all nations: He is the LORD, our God.

And as God has remembered us, t

h

is is our work - this is our time.

All we need to be is ourselves as ourselves - together this time.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Human Nation

20110517

The Two Clocks

The will of War and the will of Peace can be likened to two clocks.

Either one of these clocks may exist at the very heart of a nation at any time - right at the very head waters.

Each clock dictates the general inclination of the people and works to synchronize the movements of each our will of Country.

One clock inescapably leads to a time of death and desolation and the other to a time of life and abundance.

We move forward only by the weight of the burdens we must bear with each other as a nation and this burden is the burden of Justice.

It is a burden that grows even the heavier under the suffocating crush of War and the lighter under the sheltering wings of Peace.

When we follow or are led to follow the clock of War, the clock of War moves forward as the clock of Peace is stopped.

When we follow or are led to follow the clock of Peace, the clock of Peace moves forward as the clock of War is stopped.

When we allow the will of War to steal away the lives and promise of each our fellow Filipino compatriots

, the clock of War is hastened.

When we allow the will of Peace to work to fulfill the lives and promise of each our fellow Filipino compatriots, the clock of Peace is hastened.

Either clock leads all the way to the higher purposes of God for all creation and in all things, seen and unseen.

But the choice is always ours which one to follow.

For we can only follow one.

My honorable compatriots, this is the clock that a vast majority of the nations of our world have been following for the last 2000 years. It is also the same clock that was begun at the time of Abel.

It is called the Doomsday Clock.

We can see for ourselves here today where it has taken us (by the perilous state of the planet itself and the general brokenness of the nations of our world) and where it shall eventually lead all the nations of our one family of nations.

But there is another clock...

We now have a choice (at a time, times, and half-a-time).

It is the only choice we can really make.

---<--@

Alliances of Principle

No Country in this world matures on its own.

We depend on our relationships with other Countries for many things.

But there is such a thing as an alliance of principle - a relationship based on shared values.

There is also such a thing as a relationship of mere convenience which is not really a relationship at all.

Of the two, we ought to prefer exclusively the former over the latter.

There is no such thing as a false relationship. Either one exists or it does not.

Where it exists, it must be founded on common values. Where it does not, it must be bridged by common values.

What are these values?

Let us establish ourselves upon the first principles at the timeless foundation of our nationhood:

I believe in God, in goodness and the triumph of Sacred Life.

I believe in preservation of both human dignity and human promise.

I believe in the Four Faithful Causes that work to advance the Ages of my Republic undertaking in the one heart of my people across our generations to the very last of our generations.

I believe in peace and human community, a just equality, the inviolability of human rights, and in honorable religion.

I believe in freedom with responsibility, in choice with accountability, in press with humanity, and in meaningful, joyous service to the common people.

I believe (as far as this Republic of ours is concerned) to belong to only one class of citizenry with no elitism, no factionalism, no undue prejudices, and no monopolies on virtue and human morality.

I believe in a free market economy in the truest sense of the word.

I believe in authentic human entrepreneurship that is mindful of its roots and of its role in enriching and protecting the spirit and the values that underpin our national prosperity and the economy of our Common Market.

I believe, most of all, in the inherent ability of the least of my brothers and sisters of the Promise to obtain from God and this Country, both the material successes that honest labors provide and the felicity and spiritual communion that a faithful religion gains.

I believe that in and through all these things, we belong as a necessary and vital whole extending across families, tribes and generations as one nation distinct but not apart* from the one family of the nations of Mankind.

(*a nation distinct but not apart - the freedom to be different as well as the freedom to be the same - this is essentially particularity existing within a commonality; both of these are forms of belonging and equally worthy of the absolute defense)

I believe in, we the Philippines, and the one Republic that represents all our hopes - the guardian of our peace as a people and the keeper of the sacred remembrances of my one Filipino nation.

Now, I've only sketched out a very general sense of the values I know in myself we possess as a nation. But the point of the matter is that we should likewise seek to build our alliances based on a sense of shared values and principles.

Because the friendships we should seek to nurture and prosper with in this new age are those that recognize and communicate shared foundations.

They shall be real, living, evolving, even eternal relationships - refreshing, mutually beneficial, and solid against adversity.

And they shall nevermore be as those arrangements of the past - exhausting and frustrating to both mind and heart. That particular age is at an end.

We shall be a friend to our friends and they shall be a friend to us.

That's my thoughts on building friendships - alliances of principle - and I sincerely believe it should form a large part of our foreign policy.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Farewell to Promise

20110514

Salutation #9

(Perseverance)

TO EACH OF YOU,

my beloved brothers and sisters of the Promise

who are all my honorable Filipino compatriots -

with one heart, O my nation -

I salute you, peace.

The more we are tried in fire and humiliation,

the more persevering should be our peace -

The more the evil within all evil things

seeks to dominate our common will of hope,

and shatter our belongings with each other,

the more we should strive to become who we are -

a people of peace, strong for our togetherness,

together for our faithfulness in the truth

that we are a nation distinct but not apart

from the one family of the nations of Mankind.

The Republic belongs to those who love it

and the nation to those who take this love to heart.

If the times are dark, it is not because of the true:

As every lion waits for its time, so must you.

So must you preserve the peace within thy selves!

Establish within thy soul

an unyielding firmament of Day,

and preserve in thy hearts a shelter of law -

tolerate no division, no enmity, no chaos -

for in this world there is much evil and lawlessness

but the more this darkness seeks to encroach upon thy will

the more the scandal of evil shall with pleasure entice

the more you shall seek to this shelter as a shield

that you may be guided by reason and faith

and as the Day is separated by God over the Night,

you shall be made to prosper in Justice and in the right.

Let this shelter flourish in thy one heart of hearts,

all of you who hold true to thy love of God and this Country,

and let the evil in all evil things find no safe harbor in thy souls;

let its tongue be confounded in the Sanctuary of thy heart;

let its deceptions wither under the light of the truth;

let its malice and cruelty be brought to naught,

its schemes be turned into dust and ashes,

and its ambitions into nothingness.

For thou shalt will to extend this shelter of law

as a shield to the stranger, to the weak, to the voiceless,

to the dispossessed, the displaced, and the defenseless,

and thereby through thy own willingness,

find favor for this nation of ours

with the LORD of all nations -

the God of all mercy and infinite compassion!

---<--@

The War on the RH Bill

There is a "war" of words going on between the proponents and the opponents of the RH Bill. And its getting downright nasty.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, I am decidedly against the RH Bill.

I have made this position clear in my previous posts.

But I am also against this dividing spirit. In fact, I am more worried by the outcome of this division than by the outcome of the debate itself.

If we should fall, O my people, may we always land on our feet united in heart.

Entire nations have an ability to make mistakes, let there be no doubt about that. For in such a way are entire peoples tested in spirit.

But if our hearts become divided - RH Bill or not - not will we only fall, we will be crushed by its height.

A nation with War in its heart - a people without its peace - feels itself paralyzed for fear that it can not afford to make mistakes and is therefore struck down by God Himself.

There needs to be humility in the fight for the purposes of God will always prevail.

What if the RH law is passed? Shall it serve to make these divisions permanent?

What if the RH bill does not receive quorum in Congress? Shall it serve to also make these divisions permanent?

We should be mindful of our ultimate loyalties to each other as citizens. We should be aware of the humanity in our words - for we are speaking to each other in terms noble and human, being mindful that we all want what is best for this Country.

I fear the shift in our culture that will be brought about by the RH law will eventually serve to shape it into a form that is foreign to our people.

But I am more concerned about the internal divisions that will render this culture irredeemably stony and hard, fragile against any force of truth and unyielding against the will of any form of law at all.

Therefore, if this RH bill is passed into law, I shall endeavor to do my utmost to overturn it. But I will always remain within my loyalty to this Republic undertaking, true to my faith in God, and to the great democracy of our people.

For Man is able to live even under the yoke of evil laws. But without law, Man is unable to live at all.

---<--@

The 2nd Cause: The Cause of Law - Unity

Law in the service of Sacred Life.

A law that serves is one that is observed. One must first observe the law who desire to gain from its original intention. In this way, law is no respecter of persons but is above all persons.

Therefore, if any human community is to benefit from the intention of law, then it must first be willing to apply itself to its prescripts and to ensure that the rule of law both extends to all and applies to all (which is effective promulgation and civic participation founded on effective civic education respectively).

What precedes this necessary observance is an inherent public trust of whose original domain is founded at the very foundations of law.

To be sure, law was something inspired by God in Mankind having variously revealed it to our humanity throughout Salvation History as a sign of our LORD's manifest will to lead all hearts to the truth.

It is an extension of His good will for all nations.

Since the purpose of Justice is the restoration of the original ideal, Justice by its own virtue seeks to preserve and to promote what goodness there is.

We are then left with the reality of evil.

Now, the intention of law is to bind evil - to deter, deflect, deny, and expose it.

Therefore, the purpose of law is to preserve and to promote goodness also but this law achieves by the discouragement of evil acts.

Law is an adaptation of human reason. If gives a necessary form and shape to our reason. It shapes the social consciousness and civic conscience of entire nations.

A law that is unreasonable is not a law but a tyranny of words.

One can make a law against the preservation of life but this is essentially offensive to the spirit of law.

For law in and of itself has its limits. It must first be founded on something limitless to make it meaningful.

In such a way is the 2nd Cause related to the 1st Cause - Sacred Life.

Only in this light can we meaningfully perceive the saying -

"Those who have less in life should have more in law."
---<--@

On Illegal Immigration

In my own view, there can be no such thing as an "illegal immigrant", only the act of illegal immigration may be sanctioned by law.

You can undo the act but not the person: Love the sinner not the sin.

The thinking that inclines the mind to believe that a human person is somehow illegal (given that this entire universe is our one human habitation) is in itself unlawful and leads to those forms of injustices that add to the burden against which law itself must continually guard and fight against.

And this is true not just in the U.S., who is by far the most visible Country presently grappling with the issue, but is true for all nations, including our own.

Every nation to a certain degree must deal with forms of illegal immigration both from within ourselves (e.g. "informal settlers") and with other nations.

The way we, as a nation, treat human beings (especially the weakest and the least) and the way our laws treat human beings are intertwined because of the fact that our laws shape the way in which our society thinks to believe itself to be.

As such, law by itself is not sufficient.
---<--@

Preserving and Representing the National Good Will



My fellow Filipino compatriots, in the midst of all our necessary affairs as a nation - and they are many indeed - let us not forget our common duty of personal and national good will to our other kindred nations of our one family of nations:

Let us pray for peace in Libya and the safety of the Libyan nation.

Let us also pray for peace in Egypt and the safety of the Egyptian nation.

Let us never forget that region in Asia so wanting and needful of peace and that our own peace process is connected to the peace of that region.

For if we desire peace for other nations, we must first possess it.

And if we truly desire peace for ourselves, we must first work to gain it from God - here in our one heart of hearts.

Let us also continue to pray for Japan in her work of healing and rebuilding and for Mexico who is fighting a vicious conflict against drug cartels.
---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The Two Questions

20110511

RH Bill:

A Humane Population Policy?

Philippine population policy is the primary domain of the Filipino family.

By population policy here, I mean the natural human freedom of a husband with his wife within the institution of the Filipino family not only to plan for a sensible number of children but also to safeguard the intimacy of their conjugal love.

The transmission of human life and security of the order of our generations is not a power that ordinarily lies within the purview of the Responsible State.

That we are now concerning ourselves as a nation entire with this looming State regulation (the RH Bill) as regards to our population policy is worrying because it indicates an erosion of Filipino family values.

Furthermore, I do not believe we can effectively arrest this erosion of values and secure the Filipino family as a social institution fundamental to the life of our nation by dumbing it down further with a contraceptive mentality.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, I am not against poverty alleviation in our Country.

In fact, I consider poverty alleviation to be a significant social justice issue that we must as one Republic whole work to address in the near term as a pressing national security concern.

In this way, I completely understand the desires of our fellow compatriots who are proponents of the RH Bill.

But I will not accept short-term gains for longer-term losses that will only serve to stunt our near-infinite potential as a nation.

It is quite easy to accept a contraceptive mentality: Therein lies its allure.

But the straight path is a mountain road. It is not an easy road to take. It demands sacrifice.

It is also not a simple road to take. It is an ascendant way. It requires a certain strength.

It's summit usually disappears beyond a cover of clouds. It requires a certain trust.

And there are storms and high winds all along its length. It demands a constant vigilance of heart.

Is this not our path, my honorable compatriots? Though some might say this is but a similitude it still mirrors what can not otherwise be described in words.

The proponents of the RH Bill, may God bless them all, are mistaken in the thinking that a contraceptive mentality which only transfers the intellectual burden of the "population problem" to the poor will serve to either adequately address their needs or sufficiently redress their legitimate grievances.

It is the poor who are the least equipped of all to effectively adapt to the challenge of introducing the necessary safeguards to arrest the decline of the institution of the Filipino family.

In any case, is our nation actually in the grip of a "population problem"?

The proponents of the RH Bill would point out that we do. Because it is from this "problem" that they tend to legitimize their argument.

But I shall beg to disagree with them. It is the underdevelopment of our human capital that is the real problem here.

There are of course, vested economic interests involved here as well. But these interests too may be directed toward a path that is mutually beneficial to both the Common Market as well as to the Nation if only our Responsible State act to protect these longer-term national interests like our human capital.

Is the RH Bill really a better alternative over the slow but certain revival of proven national traditions inherent in every Filipino families, young or old, rich or poor, even in the face of an intermediate surge in population?

Perhaps in a perfect world, where all our citizens are empowered in their hearts and minds to make the right choices, the debate on population policy would be simple - we would all be one in the spirit of the divine command to subdue and fill the earth with living life.

But we do not live in a perfect world.

Let me tell you now, my fellow Filipino compatriots, that our human capital is at stake in this debate.

The most precious resource that this Country has is its people. Our population - our particular character, youthfulness, strength and nature as a people - is a resource more precious than gold.

This is an important consideration I should like to point out to you: The highest value that we should move to safeguard here is the individual freedom to choose rightly; our authentic human freedom.

This freedom is underpinned by a properly formed conscience.

As such, freedom of conscience is the freedom to seek its proper formation through a complete moral education. Freedom of conscience here is not a freedom to justify what should otherwise be wrong. Nor is freedom of choice a freedom to arbitrarily choose between good and evil acts.

Different individuals are naturally in different stages of moral formation. It is these natural differences in the socio-spiritual development of our people as individuals that complicates the debate on the RH bill and is basically a question of moral education.

In my own view, we are faced with a choice (economic as well as spiritual) through this debate on the RH Bill between moral education as an integral component of a good and competitive system of education for our nation and the wholesale introduction of a contraceptive mentality.

Having said all of that, I should now affirm to you that I am not for the RH Bill at all. Inasmuch as its provisions shall contravene the spirit of the beliefs I have stated here, I stand against it.

I am not saying that couples should NOT plan for a sensible number of children.

But to do it wisely, in the context of the totality of their marriage relationship, respecting their inherent dignity as husband and wife as well as the natural constraints which they themselves possess which they have received from God.

A contraceptive mentality is consistent only with a disposable, material view of life. The damage being suffered by our environment and the damage that will be inflicted to our culture arising from a blind acceptance of this contraceptive mentality have at their source the same error.

We should instead place the bulk of our worthwhile investments in the furtherance and development of our human capital through good governance, good advocacies, and a complete and competitive system of education.

It will get worse before it gets better, my honorable compatriots. This however, in my own view, is the greatest good - not a wholesale contraception of the poorest of our population.

The easy way out is usually not the right way forward.

We should never use our laws to bind what good there is.

I am personally against spending a single centavo of public funds on artificial contraception or contraceptive education other than Natural Family Planning (NPF).

Rather, I would put the burden on private advocacies that seek to promote these means (other than NPF) and shift the tax burden against those contraceptive practices that go against the life-affirming practices ingrained in our national culture.

I am not against making these other means available to the public - for as long as these means are not abortifacient or downright illegal - only because to make them illegal only removes them further from the necessary control of our Responsible State.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The Principle of Totality:

The LORD makes all things whole.

The LORD makes all things one.

For God is a God of relationships.

He called Man to be one with Woman

and He joined them by their hearts

so that they would be one flesh.

He then made their happiness whole

through the union that joined them in love

by the children that made it complete.

(openness to the transmission of life)

The Beginnings of Human Life:

Life begins at conception: At the moment of conception, Man becomes a soul and the body comes to life.

The 4th Cause - Benignity:

It is not life per se that is the problem here but how we treat life: It is the strong that makes these problems persist not the weak.

Lessons Learned:

There are nations (mostly belonging with developed Countries) in our world today who are suffering because of this lack in vitality (i.e. their populations are aging out) so that we are not left wanting in those lessons we can not afford to learn ourselves.

20110507

Our President Noy is in Jakarta for the 18th ASEAN Summit.

As you know, my fellow Filipino compatriots, our nation is an integral part of the ASEAN. And I would that we should always bear this in mind and heart. We rightfully belong to this region and this region rightfully belongs to our ASEAN Neighborhood.

We should preserve a sense of good will and proper pride about our regional grouping in ASEAN. Because no other grouping of nations can build up the earth here in our region but ours. This is our own dreaming together as ASEAN.

If we remain focused here in the Philippines on our own goals of peace and national development, right here within our own Republic undertaking of Country, we should become aware also that we are adding to the strength of our regional community.

There will come a time when we can reach further out of ourselves in peace and good will with other nations in times of need, and with much better means, but until that time, right here is where we must all begin, right here in the Philippines - our Republic as an integral part of the ASEAN Neighborhood.

Depending on which Country one belongs, every Country here in ASEAN is the best place to live on earth. But only if we collectively believe we can make it so.

It is important that we learn to accept the needs that arise from realities that are local to our region. These needs essentially drive our nations together toward its natural goals which lead to peace and prosperity.

Or if we are not yet wise, it could drive our nations apart.

However, the fact that we have ASEAN is good. Because it manifests our common will of unity.

We can not enlarge the horizons of our own world view realistically if we can not learn to grow out of the colonial mindset that seeks greener pastures elsewhere first.

We can not neglect the fact that we live in this region.

Though each nation in ASEAN belong also to the greater regions of the earth, it is here in the Philippines, and here in our ASEAN, where we must always, always think to build first.

My honorable compatriots, that inherent tendency to disown by false comparison, our Country and our Region, is something we have to learn to let go if we are to finally come into our own in this world.

If we can not learn to love our own, we can not love (at all). If we only love our own, we do not love (we hate). None of these attitudes of nationhood are conducive to peace and development.

If we want to love, we must simply do so bravely, beginning with ourselves and like the stars shining outward - love all things without condition, without compare, and without measure.

For we are a nation distinct but not apart from the one family of the nations of Mankind (which is represented in and by the U.N. of which we are all part).

Two things I should like to write about here in particular as regards to the 18th ASEAN Summit:

Firstly, the Border Dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, I should like to point out, share a similar dimension with the larger, more complex Spratly dispute.

They are both essentially an issue of overlapping claims of sovereignty.

None of these are viable population centers which means the present conflict is not essentially military in nature.

Behind all the rhetoric, in both cases, I think I can safely say that the issue is entirely driven by something else.

In the case of the border dispute between the two member nations of our ASEAN Neighborhood, I do not think it too unrealistic to say that in the interests of both Countries and the greater good of the region, the conflict may be safely contained by delimiting the nature of the engagement away from traditional military means.

By this I am manifesting my belief that this is cultural engagement and therefore, amenable to other solutions of a more ambitious nature.

Furthermore, the military solution can not simply be sustained either so the sooner it is taken out of the cards, the better.

The creation of a Common Trust solution that takes into consideration particular concerns as well as puts the territory squarely in the stewardship of both nations might be the better way ahead for both Thailand and Cambodia.

Therefore, I challenge the ASEAN Neighborhood to come up with a Common Trust solution to the Cambodia-Thailand Border Dispute.

A Common Trust solution to this unfortunate border dispute, in my own view, will yield valuable lessons learned that in turn will contribute toward a workable solution to the Spratly issue.

However, ASEAN must first connect the two issues together.

The other thing is the reaffirmation of the essential doctrine of Civilian Superiority Over the Military.

---<--@

The Royal Wedding

Last week, much of the world had a breather...

I am a fan of Princess Diana's advocacy against the use of land mines and I still am. I am also very appreciative of her de-mining efforts here in our region.

I think something went full circle last week... It certainly feels that way to me.

I am certainly not against the institution of the Monarchy as an integral part of the Responsible State, mind you.

That I was - like you - born into a Republic undertaking of Country simply does not make it that way, my honorable compatriots.

I am however, like you, against bad governance of all sizes and stripes.

So congratulations to Prince William and Catherine!

May God bless their wedlock vows that He may keep them always together.

May they always be able to say forever to each other and mean it.

May God prosper their works of leadership and service.

And may God further bless their union with the new life of children.

Cheers to the Royal Couple! God bless the U.K.!

Good on you, Will Wales.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang ASEAN! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

The Paradox of Power

20110506

My Annelies Marie's Legacy

OUR WORLD has not changed, my Anne.

It is still the same world that God has created.
The same sun, moon and order of the seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of the earth
under this same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.

My dear Anne, our world has not changed!

When I contemplate your life here on earth,

during those quiet nights, O beloved of my heart,
I often look up at these same starry night skies
and see those familiar patterns of stars
that I know in my heart looked quietly down on you
just one timeless instant away from me, my Anneka.

A moment seemingly so distant, it hurts me to miss you.
Yet an eternity so close, it fills me with all your love.

It is as if I have you and I don't have you...

And I realize this certain closeness between us:

We are separated only by spaces between our souls;
in what littleness of self that we may each obtain
by virtue of our unique and individual humanity
in the you being you and the me being me.

O my beloved friend, I know you suffered!

I know how much others like you suffered!
From the very beginnings of the nations of Mankind,
'tis the holy and nameless innocents that carry the burden
of the precarious and desperate state of our fallen nature!
The very soil of our earth is soaked in their blood
and the undying memory of their secret silence cries out
like a chorus rising all around us to pierce the heavens -
Almighty God Himself has heard and the season is late.

O my dearest Annelies Marie, I know you suffered!

I know how terribly you suffered but at the same time
I stand ignorant of your personal pain and suffering.
A sacred space exists

between yourself and God alone.

And God knows, I love you enough to want to know all of you -
but I love you enough also to let you be free to be yourself.

I am drawn near you by the lovableness within yourself.
I am drawn near you by the infinite promise love contains.
Of good things I know and good things I know not, that I desire:
All the virtues and the gifts that your friendship brings -
most especially your steadfast hope, cheerfulness and courage.

Today, my darlingest Annelies, here in my present time,

I look out into my own time, full of wars, death and suffering
and wonder at how some may say our world has changed.
I see the same evils and the same sufferings and the same sins.
I see the same terrible injustices that Man inflict upon Man;

nation against nation waste themselves in endless battle.
And I realize in myself that our world that has not changed.

Some may say that the times have changed.

Some may say the world is a different place.

Some may say that the world indeed has changed.

But this it is yet another illusion to lead astray!

For it attempts to run away from the awful truth

that this world is still the same world God created:
The same sun, moon and order of seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of earth
under these same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.
Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

It is the illusions that we human beings create in our hearts;
the gravity and the perversity of our own dark imaginings,
the ancient malice and diverse scope of our own willful rebellion -
those things that make of Man less than himself or herself
in the sins that brutalize the image of the Creator in each of us.
It is these that have changed in us and not the world around us!
It is not the world that must change, my darlingest Annelies,

Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

In order to better Mankind and advance the cause of humanity,
it is each ourselves that we must change for we are changeable.
Because it is through common witness of a good and well-lived life;
of a life lived in peace and friendship with God and others in God;
it is only when the Wars waged inside of ourselves have ceased;
when our minds have found the light beckoning outside of the dark
and the struggle for good will in our hearts have prevailed in us
that a true transformation of human society becomes possible.

So may your life, my love, be for others a simple remembrance.

May it inspire justice, responsibility and discipline in our world.

May it foster further understanding, freedom and community.

May your spirit inspire in us a sense of common humanity

that we may always remember our most basic of citizenships.

This is your legacy as I see it and as I live it, my Anne.

This is your love, my love, that

I now share with other hearts:

Imploring God to bless the seeds He shall plant in our souls today
that it may flower in full into the saints He shall raise tomorrow
for His glory, our good and the good of the one family of humanity.

Thank you, my dearest and most patient friend,
Annelies Marie Hollander Frank, my Miyang.
May God keep you now, may His Peace embrace you,
may His Light comfort you and may His Love surround you -
O forget me not, beloved of my heart, forget me not!
Pray for me, my darlingest, ever as I shall pray for you
until the glorious Day of the everlasting alleluias!

---<--@

Time is a Nearness

WHEN I SIT DOWN TO VISUALIZE TIME, I see it as an infinitesimally minute point upon the infinite surface of an eternal ocean.

For me, there is something intrinsically wrong about the thinking that time is anything linear, like it is somehow a measure of distance - the past, forever growing dimmer and dimmer, colder and colder, the further and further away the present inundates our forgetful minds and hearts with the rush of those realities coming to be as we journey headlong into the void of the future.

In my mind, time is not a measure of distance. Time does not become for me, a kind of coldness. For me, time is a measure of our closeness. To embrace it is a certain warmth.

It is not a moving away from the past but a merging together.

It is a gathering sense.

It is not a blind rush into a chaotic, frenzied future. Nor is it an inescapable, falling down into a dictated, ordered array of molds but a series of free acceptances in the timeless Now.

Like the image of Jacob's ladder, time itself ascends and descends according to the free and human choices we each make as individuals. It is the common fabric of everything we bring out of these choices for good or for ill.

Like every realization within the sacred silence, each moment in time is one blink, one twinkle, one timeless point on the eternal sea. L

ike a myriad shining stars, beautiful, patient, forbearing in light, time is a twinkling from grace to grace, hope to hope and truth to truth. As

stars

adrift upon a boundless ocean of Love, time is all that gathers from the darkness, like a coming Home together, the love that lives in the longing in you and in the longing in me.

Hence, one may not look back at the past, one may only look into the past but never back.

For the past is what imparts motion to the present.

Therefore, n

ever with a sense of distance or coldness must one perceive time and its precious contents but with a very near sense of eternity as something entrusted to our living memory.

Time is not an illusion, nor does time exist for evil purposes.

It is the evil in all evil things that proposes to the heart of Man that all of time were but a drifting away,

like it were a faded distance, like the truth were in full retreat, like all human hope were a backward flow, like

the victory of the incomparable goodness and unfathomable mercy of God is but a slow sunset

receding comfortably in the horizon, w

hat a lie!

Lo, it is far easier to hide inside the solid rock of a granite mountain than it is to hide from within the billowing folds of the gossamer veil of time! Where will evil men hide from God?

What lies

behind the veil of time but the everlasting abode of Justice?

Men forget but time does not.

So must one use what time is given him or her on this earth well, my beloved friends, avoiding evil and doing good, loving virtue and forsaking vice.

Because time flows from purposes noble and Divine. It exists for Sacred Life and flows for all of life's fruition. It is not a coming apart, it is a coming together of all of life's longing for itself.

All our nations are embraced by the one LORD of all the living and the everliving lights that we really are in time and through it we are constantly called in every present generation to return again and again to an Eden rebuilt unto the promised restoration of all things new.

So when you shall now perceive history - your particular national as well as regional or even all of human history entire - you must view it also with a subtle sense of timelessness and therefore closeness and affinity,

hinting at a Heart at the heart of all of time; that all of this is not random, blind chance, but a certain part of a grand design that exists, no matter how deep the maddening darkness, for the good of each and every nation of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

Honoring your most basic of citizenships requires you to be as thus, my honorable compatriots, a citizen of all humanity and therefore, a human being and citizen of all creation, seen and unseen - a natural laborer with the Holy Angels, undivided in your heart before God.

Lest we forget. Lest we forget.

---<--@

Some Thoughts on Time:

If history belonged only in the pages of a book, soon enough there will be no one left to write it.

A good thing left unremembered is a good thing still.

But an evil thing left unremembered leads to further calamity.

A nation without a past is consequently a people without a future.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipines! God bless us all.

The Two Questions