A Problem of Dust

I was from the Bikol, or my maternal lineage grew from out of it, I have found. And my paternal line is from Cavite. My ancestry is Tagalog and Chinese and Spanish.

But me, I grew up displaced. In cities and in places, in the here and there, that led me back to the wondering who I am and where I've been. And I have to believe urbanization has this effect on my fellow human travelers on the way of our return, who are traveling as Nations back to our home Country.

One does not grow roots in a city. One grows a business or finds some form of gainful work over there. But there shall always be from the city in the heart of a people, a longing for good, green soil and clear blue skies.

Does it mean one is not loyal to one's community? Loyalty to one's community is an essential character of one's civic identity, and allows us to embrace the whole universe, if we are as loving as we are wise.

No, I think it only means there is more to our national communities than just the living to make a living. And that the city community is only part of something bigger and better than itself, and must be. Else all the hum and the noise is just one great, big nothing. Not enough living to make a life.

One has to find time in all that living, for life itself - yes, life in the raw! Life in the "be" form. Living without the present form "ing". Basically, just being. 

Here in the Pinas, I feel we are blessed.

From within our Cities, we have little islands of just plain life in the raw. We Filipinos like to do everything as a unit, we like to pack it up in a jeepney just to beat the chill, especially during cold nights and dark, windy, stormy days (don't we?).

We like to live life up close, just to be warm and this warmth - and - the need to be warmed - for the longest time, shaped and informed our living culture in the Nation.

I have learned it by observation. And I have discovered it in myself as such.

Which is why, it is my own conviction that those of us who would like to abolish our barrangays have gone mad from too much exposure to the city life. But it is not their fault too.

There is no line that distinguishes where one ends and one begins. Neither its physical measures nor any of its interior dimensions seem to be distinct between the both from the fog of so many human dreams weaving and inter-weaving together with the noise of a hundred thousand things - city and barrangay seem merged but not because we understand how they are united, but simply because - I think we don't.

To lay upon the life of our barrangays is to find good, green earth. 

And to return to the basics of being just plain human and alive, and Filipino to boot. We need what we need as individual persons - and - as an extension of our human communities, there is always a social dimension to every individual human need, especially in us Filipinos.

As a matter of fact, I am personally inclined to conclude that we might be more persuaded to represent our voices in the Republic not as individuals but as any of these units - from family, to barrangay, to city or from any number of formal or informal groupings within our Nation and its Republic for as long as there is strength and comfort in their unity - for the horizontal structures of our Republic are peerages by their Institution, and preserve for us many things that pertain to our Liberty e.g. personal initiative, civic cohesion, political solidarity, and human sympathy, etc.

This is passionately democratic of us - our Liberty is beautiful, isn't she? She is also not dumb. For we as a people able to innately distinguish between a warmth that comfort and a fire that consume.

- selah (pause and think) -

Greater than the City, where the blue skies must be - where we must as fishes rise to get some air, we have our Provinces.

It is where we go to get a vantage on life, to look at things from a greater perspective. It is to me like Jesus overlooking Jerusalem in that painting that I love. But ours is more in that we have complete possession of our Provinces where in the Lord's time, it was different.

Therefore, our Provinces (who are our arcs of sky) also contain the water of our living culture, and it's air to us has a substance which is not empty (and musn't be).

We might go up to regional but that is like going out of the atmosphere.

Our regional in the National is for demographics and incident command and risk control purposes that the central government of our Republic utilizes to muster the Nation and to marshal the efforts of those first three LGU's as a unit, towards Time and the Truth.

To establish another sky upon another sky, and create another level of community in the regional - within our Nation, is just plain bureaucratic insanity, a humdrum thing that could go on and on ad nauseam.

To do the same thing under a barrangay is like going down into the ocean. And we have yet to grow gills. Everything is as it should, I think. Nope, (as Ron Weasley would say on the train) I think we're good.

Like when I was in Manila looking for Manila, the old Manila by the sea. I found I was looking only at her dirt and her grime. She was never lost to me. We only need to clean things up and reveal our quality.

There is nothing wrong or lacking in us.

It's all just a problem of dust.
---<--@

"Our home is a bit of a fixer upper,
there's nothing wrong with us,
all we need is a mop and a feather duster,
and get rid of the dust (ala Frozen)."

"So she's a bit of a fixer upper but this we're certain of, you can fix this fixer upper with a little bit of love."

=^.^=

The Haze

Hazing is all about the "haze".

There has been a lot of public controversy about hazing. Most of it is well founded.

This matter mostly concerns our youth.

Because most of those who speak out against hazing are grieving parents who have lost a son or a daughter to it - respected fathers and beloved mothers in the Nation.

For many are the names heard who perished from the ineptitude and utter recklessness of those who haze who understanding nothing about the "haze". And it is always one life too many, and it is always one of our hopeful and aspiring, spirited, young starshines.

Those who themselves did not conquer the haze now use their blindness to mindlessly destroy young lives and young dreams. They do not haze, they simply abuse. Some of them so wantonly and so recklessly that perhaps they have come to feel they have a special license to secretly propagate their violence in the minds and hearts of our children in the Nation.

They have no such right.

Those traditions who transmit violence for violence's own sake are evil and empty and also blind. It mires the spirit of our youth permanently in a state of inward confusion and afflicts them in their formative ages until they themselves resolve to regard violence as a point of clarity and resolution. Until they themselves become inwardly drawn to violence as a mode and an answer to interior conflicts.

It is a betrayal.



Those who did not physically perish - have themselves perished - from the thought - that lived within the formative longing in them - for those self-same spirit ideals of civic trust and human solidarity integral to the formation of a crucial sense of a uniquely personal sense of identity - distinctive - yet identifiable with and within a greater, common belonging - a civic identity, a citizenship.

- selah -

The issue at hand as regards the controversy on hazing, I am convinced, is not really about hazing but about those who have corrupted its spirit and living tradition. It is really about criminal abuse, spiritual corruption, and the betrayal of the common trust of our generations.

Hazing is an act of passing on. One does not endure it or merely survive it, one must conquer it and from it prevail in passing from a past life into another one.

It afflicts in an inductee, a deliberate sense of confusion and this state is - the haze.

How this is done may be physical or mental or both. And though it shall and - it must - always involve a level of pain, it must never be done to excess. Because it is intended to be a spiritual rigor. Those who pass it on must be careful in passing it on - because the act itself always contains something...

One emerges from the haze, into the fullness of the clarity of its intended evolution. It is always part of a program of initiation and indoctrination. And it is always an act of spiritual connection, sacred as well as intimate. It proves trust and blesses it. A paradox to those who do not experience it from within.

The haze is what it produces. Because a lie is a lie is a lie - but - it is not self-deception unless one believes that a lie is not a lie - inasmuch as to knowingly tell a lie and to knowingly impugn the Truth is not the same action.

It has something to do with character building - and - it has everything to do with leadership formation in a peerage Institution.

Because self-deception is the enemy of every Code that institutionalize leadership professionally in the formal and in the national, civil as well as military. And it shows no prejudice to rank just as much as the Code shows no yield to the equality of its application.

Because ultimately, it is only a question of one or the other.

The Code answers to a question, and it is a question of honor, and it is a question too - that no man nor woman may know the answer to - unless he or she becomes - and is made answerable to - the question itself.

And is not a question of violence - or how violent.

The haze is what it produces: It makes for a vigilant spirit and an upright heart. It produces focus and clarity of intention. And it is always an integral part of a greater spirit of a living tradition of leadership formation and academic excellence. It prepares leaders to serve among leaders.

But if it only passes on an empty spirit and a dead tradition - in this controversy on hazing, we may also see - the blind can never lead the blind.
---<--@

Life itself will haze us, you know. Individuals and Nations too. And in the world outside, if one loses sight of one's own true self - or what is true - it will be permanent, and it will be for real.

Fear only what is certain.

Then KCCO.

GunSMART: An Able Steward

Every Gun Safe and Gun Mature Citizen
understands the implicit spirit in - and - the explicit intention for
- the Second Amendment - as intended by General George Washington
being a natural Provision in the Freedom of the new American Nation
to be invoked in Liberty - as necessary for the Security of a Free State -
and through her constant Illumination - forever purposed - and proceeded -
across all generations to the last - by the duty of the Common Defense.

And in that same Faith - decisively undertook -
in God - and - in the Providence of God in Country,
thou - should now undertake to cross the same Delaware
with Washington - in thy own spirit - to train to become
after that last cold and bitter Wintering at Valley Forge
- a constant and Able Steward of the Gun.

 Every
GunSMART
Citizen - is a -

S - Safe
M - Mature
A - Able
R - Responsible
T - Trustworthy

Steward of the Gun.
---<--@

3. An Able Steward
is Safe, Mature, and quite Proficient
- in the keeping and the use of the Gun -
Fully understanding of the Power of the Gun.

That the Power of the Gun - is to kill -
and that this is a Power - utterly without recall,
without remorse to Life, without prejudice to Liberty.

The Vision of the Gun Able Citizen

is of one secure in a knowledge of the truth 

that the Power of the Gun is - never its Virtue.

So that an Able Steward,
in order to rightly Respect - the Power of the Gun
obtains for him or herself, an understanding of its Virtue.

That the Power of the Gun - is distinct from its Virtue;
that this Virtue is - Valor - and - Valor which is
the greatest expression of all Martial Virtue
and the order - and - purpose by which
all Martial Virtue must forever
distinguish themselves
from all Virtue.

For one is a fool who knows not
how to rightly respect - the Power of the Gun -
who in never seeking the truth of its Virtue and of its Liberty
can not be defended by its Power.

And another such a one
so taken by the Power of the Gun
who submits one's soul to the Allure of Arms
in the seeking to serve and to worship its Power
becomes a lowlier fool, who exceeding not the Ignorance
of the first fool - but transcends it - so infinitely so - that
he proceeds with great evil - and does great harm.

For those who serve the Sword
never serve the Sword by their Ignorance.

For
- as in the first fool -
the Ignorant
when Danger is near
may hearken to the Wisdom that arouses
their spirit to waken from the slumber of the dust.

But
- as in the second -
those who have become
by their own free submission
- evil-inspired -
are those who fear
no other ruin
more than the ruin that Wisdom herself
may call down upon their heads,
who have made a choice 
to remain unmoved.

Truly, the Sword of the Nations know of each of them
who - of its own truth - became intimate with them
only by their own Ignorance and Malice -
to their great and terrible regret.

For the Sword
that must fight against
each our own Ignorance of the Sword
- in Truth -
is the Sword that must likewise stand
against each our own Betrayal of the Sword
- in Justice -
before the LORD and before All
the Nations before God - is -
that selfsame Sword of the Nations.

And so
- they who become evil-inspired
by the Allure of their own arms
shall - against the Admonition of All
in Heaven and on the Earth -
forever know of a willful deliberation
(and the Despoliation of the Sword in them
come never by any accident of nature).

Thus,
during a time of greatest need
their own Nations shall forsake them
(and burden of their own Arms

shall work to crush them).

So that
even as their own swords are failing them,

their evil works shall die with them.

For verily, this is true -
by Providence and Gospel admonition:
all who serve the sword
shall die by the sword.

An Able Steward
does not - and - never will serve
the base nature of any Nation's Arms.

And because of it - not in spite of it -

proceeds in Confidence of his Freedom,
and through it obtains to a Maturity of its Virtue -
in Liberty, bearing its Burden firmly in the Right.

That the Virtue of Arms
wields the Power of the Gun -

for the Power of the Gun is to kill

but the Virtue of Arms is Valor
and preserves the soul 
against War.

Valor is Virtue - brightest against War,
as a Spear - set against the ensuing Darkness,
constantly aflame - with a Sacred Remembrance -
All that - in Light - must arise to lead Virtue into Battle,
commanding as Charity commands, is Valor ascending
to realize itself - in all Martial Virtue - for God and Country
in each Person of the Soldier - unto Victory - and unto Peace.

One then proceeds - to learn
of the Proficiency and the Skill
specific to each particular weaponry
seeking to Master its every utility
without ever succumbing
to the Allure of Arms.

And that the Nation is to be defended 

not by the sheer might of its Arms
but by the Virtue of its Arms -
as a Gun Able Citizen.

---<--@

*At the conclusion of this series,
I shall post a simplified version of GunSMART
and the GunSMART oath.



To my beloved nieces 
- Aleksis, Clara and Leila -
and their common generations
utterly deserving of safer schools,
saner communities, and abler mentors -
upon a brighter world, under nobler skies.

Remembering Tado

People say comedians are inwardly sad, that the reason for the brilliance of their comedy is a deep and personal familiarization with tragedy. I tend to believe this. Humor often conceals difficult truths.

I always wonder now how much we've lost with the passing of Tado. I feel he was working for the genuine betterment of our people to the North of Luzon when his life was cut short. 

I feel that he left us something to complete... 

I too feel strongly for the preservation of our indigenous tribal cultures from Batanes down to Sulu - theirs is a knowledge that is fast becoming rare in a globalizing, urbanizing planet - profitable for its ageless, proven wisdom - and am conceiving a "Council of the First Filipinos" to represent the Lumad ways of life as a force of good in the Republic. They too are citizens not unlike a city slicker like me.

Arvin "Tado" Jimenez (19740324-20140207) via con Dios.

The Phenomenon of Corruption

CORRUPTION 
in the manner with which we use it 
in the National Dialogue 
as citizens 
is usually implied to be 
a political malaise. 

Thus,
that same word, 
when in the forums of the Republic 
the issue of the popular will 
as regards corruption 
is - in every manner - heard,  
bears with it 
this weight of civic belief - 

that corruption 
is "political".

And so - 

Our genuine representations in the State 
whose particular politics - must - be relied upon 
to hammer and craft a policy on this matter (of corruption)
find themselves cast on the same boat 
with the disingenuous. 

Without the public trust, 
the politics of the Republic can not work 
in the manner it is supposed to work. 

   (Because 
   the public interest 
   - is - 
   this public's interest.)

And dirty politics 
will indeed 
creep into the Republic 
to cheapen the regal mantle 
of public service - 

the public 
and the Republic 
be damned.



So what is corruption? Certainly our Nation must consider this issue as an event - for the life of our Nation is more permanent than the Phenomenon of Corruption. And this is the truth. 

We were not always overly anxious about corruption till it became a life threatening sickness in the Republic. 

Poverty and corruption seem to be in a death spiral because the labor of our Nation translate not or is either dissipated or ignored by the unsavory politics that - we, the people - are supposed to own (i.e. exercise a proper civic ownership) in this Nation. 

Were we not a participatory democracy, everybody should be free to exculpate political responsibility from the people (and divest popular government of all its virtue). 

AND were we not a Republic, that same "freedom" (to willfully deny the character of our citizenship its first principles) may be a right invested forever in the "citizenry".

That the politics of the free 
belong not to the free 
and the right of its freedom 
is a political exercise 
of no one.

But that is not who we are. 

The truth for this Nation and its Republic is - if corruption were indeed political (and there is nothing to be done about it), then we are all corrupt. This makes us all responsible for the Phenomenon of Corruption.

Corruption is political. Therefore, what troubles it brings to our politics is our common concern. 



Political freedom - is ensured -
by the right to exercise its - expression -
- responsibly, purposefully, and honorably - 
in a participatory democracy, 
as citizens equally, 
and with our representations in government, 
knowing well - we are together - 
across our generations - to the last -
engaged 
in a Republic undertaking. 

Political devolution that is the exercise of our national communities as LGUs makes no sense if this power of popular empowerment was intended only for those who use it in a manner that is corrupt  - politicians of this stripe neither serve, nor sow, nor build, nor burden themselves with the weak and powerless, but only seek to reap. How do we make sense of our political freedom with theirs?



There are no good or bad politicians, politics was never a vocation - in and of itself - in this Republic, only public service.

And so, who we consider as our politicians are actually our public servants, whether good or bad, especially those who - we affirm - as an Electorate - in their Executive and Legislative seats of service - who are in various ways, skilled in politics. 

Whatever platforms and initiatives these elected officials in the Republic State shall represent - receive our mandate in the elections that affirm them - because they represented the matter well - in the public forums of the Republic.

BUT of the good ones, let is also be said - that they have won their mandates - because their agendas are derived from a heart that listens to what is real in the hearts of the people - and so serve to carry them out, their politics is the art of the real - real service, real needs, real people.

So in politics, there are those who are skilled in its exercise - living with and alongside the people - and also those who believe that politics may be exercised without a heart of public service. No one is a politician like these politicians. And no politics is dirty that represent what is sovereign in the Filipino people. 

We have truly dedicated public servants serving in our midst everyday, some of them exercise in our behalf, the politics of State - to make real what in the election we have affirmed in them - as a matter of policy. 

Corruption is not a political malaise - in them.

Corruption is what grows forth in fields of County where the laborers in the Nation become scarce. 

It is not a weakness in our civic spirit, but a failure to appreciate what is true forever in our common citizenship; a failure to recognize the tares from the wheat.



Legislating corruption will seem an impossible task without apprehending how Law may serve to confine its specific manifestations in the life of our national communities. 

Where our Justice system and juridical thoughts be led to suspect that corruption is ONLY political, it shall defer the matter exclusively to the Executive and Legislative as a matter of institutional self-maintenance. 

But the truth is, corruption affects all Filipinos in a very real way, producing poverty where before there was none and despair where poverty have for so long persisted - poverty that registers as a national security concern. 

Why is Justice herself (as she is established in this Nation) not impelled to act? 

Perhaps, we need an anti-corruption law. I personally think we do.

However, with our lawmakers and leaders saddled with the enormity of the political scandal wrought by Janet Napoles, it seems there is little time for it.



Public funds forever retain a public nature. 

Citizen Napoles should have realized the aforementioned fact and her personal freedoms should have responded accordingly. 

Any Court in the Republic may convict her for the misuse of the material representation of the spirit of our coming together as a Republic - that those taxes and all such proceeds that symbolize the parity of our common fortunes as one Country and one Nation - were never hers - nor were they the possession of those who authorized their individual disbursements - for the law recognizes theft as a crime. 

But no Court save the Justice of God in both individual and collective Judgment may convict her for the omission with which she first implicated herself and caused her to willfully commit this quite epic public disappointment we now witness unfolding in the life of our Nation - a transgression against her freedoms which are those same freedoms defined by her citizenship - which is that same citizenship that we are all responsible for - upon the Liberty of Country as we know it - because as a citizen, it should have been made well known to her soul that to bear the burden of our Liberty is to share in its light. 

These days, pending the conclusion of the Legislative inquiry, she stands a very good chance to lose her freedom. Indeed, the freedoms that bless are not the freedoms that curse.
---<--@



Personal Reflection

I feel, as I know most of us do, the enormity of the loss inflicted by billions of pesos not just in the material but also in the spiritual - for the taxes we all pay - are always - more than just their material worth. 

The permissiveness of it all confounds minds and crushes hearts. It sets us back years. And it affects lives in the millions, afflicting the Nation as a whole.

I do not hate Janet Napoles. I hate what she did but would never wish for anyone, the predicament she now finds herself irreversibly embroiled in - so full of betrayals, distrust, and seething malice. 

No amount of money in this universe is worth the value of good and simple, happy living. Wealth comes naturally to a free and happy people - AND this is who we are. 

AND this is why we are a Republic, to make it so.

My observation as regards the Legislative inquiry is first and foremost, as an aid to the work of sustaining the living law - public funds deserve better protection and this shall require the aid of Law.

To move the Nation forward with the times, we should also seek to better understand and realize - within each ourselves - the citizenship which is our heritage and the freedoms we are responsible for - because of it, that keep us free. 

Because in a way, we are each responsible for Citizen Napoles - not for what she did, but for who she failed to become.

An Incident in Tokyo

Early this week, there was this incident in Japan that caught my eye. Apparently, more than 300 copies of "A Diary of a Young Girl" was vandalized in public libraries across more than 3 different wards in Tokyo. These were Japanese translation of Anne's diary, much appreciated by the Japanese people.

I had personally tried to translate her diary in Filipino but found that it was beyond my competence to do so. I have not given up on trying to reserve its lessons for our youth though. What is vital in this work is not that its Jewish (although it is) but that it is human - very human, in fact - as we should learn.

To politicize her Diary is a flagrant crime, in my mind - because of the many motives for doing so, holding true to a right Remembrance of Anne and of her times is not one of them.

In my opinion, what happened in Japan is most probably a stunt.

However, it still begs to be investigated. There is a slight chance that this incident is an appearance (a symptom, if you will) of a deeper and more dangerous undercurrent.

Anti-semitism - along with other "isms" akin to it - is patently dangerous - to its victims as well as to the hearts and minds of those who feel the need to be empowered (as we all do - because - Man is a social creature) - it is supremely easy to be swept up in diverse forms of hatred instead of swimming against the current - as we all should do - who are alive and in the water - to the Nations, it is always in the weakest amongst ourselves where weakness enters into our Peace... and where tragedy soon follows.

If Anne is not a human being - as the pain of her history and a Remembrance of those dark and tragic times teaches our memory, then who is?

One who learns to hate must always find reasons to exercise this hatred. Therefore, if it is not the Jews, it is the Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Blacks, homosexuals, the disabled... you name it. 

Hatred will never and shall never empower us, my people - it shall enfeeble us.

<Recall now, Starshine - of the Four Faithful Causes, War will first subvert the Fourth Cause and work its way all the way up to the First Cause - to overthrow the sovereign will of the people and corrupt the sacred trust of the Nations - ALL THE TIME.>
---<--@

Some Thoughts on the Bangsamoro

The Bangsamoro is a National Initiative: It is therefore, the concern of all Filipino citizens. It is an effort to evolve the ARMM and learn from its lessons - and make it work.

Mindanao is endowed with much abundance. But it is run like a frontier - 'tis a place ever awash in a sea of uncertainty, its communities trapped between the ebbing and flowing tides of random sky and restless earth - never seeming to be able to change to master change.

But the Island of Mindanao does not constitute our Southernmost frontier, in fact, it is a center of gravity of our Republic - it owns one of the three Foundation Stars that form our National sufficiency.

What is it that make us sufficient as a Nation?

Our Republic is not random nor blind. Neither is the Peace that it promises empty.

Our Republic is a shelter of Peace. Its labor with ours, as a Nation across our generations, is to constantly ensure that the sovereign will of our people rise above random sky and conquer restless earth.

To be sufficient as a sovereign and free people is to be capable of sustaining this Peace. Not as a product of  strings of random events, the whim of tyrants, or an obscure fate but as the sum of our free and independent choices.

Indeed, this ability to ponder "what we are" (being) and "who we are" (becoming) came at a high cost in personal sacrifice and heroic dedication. Let us always remember - to Remember them - and seek to know them by their names.

We have suffered too much indeed in our struggle for self-determination to abandon our common destiny. The Bangsamoro is a result of this realization. It is a deliberate National effort to re-establish a meaningful, durable Peace in Mindanao.

AND is one of the many processes now taking place - in our hearts and minds - to take back from the brink - the soul of our Country and the spirit of our Republic center. It is a process that along with (1) the National Rebuild in the Visayas, (2) the difficult fight against Corruption in Luzon, (3) the labor to balance the ecological promise of Palawan with our Energy needs and stabilize our western frontier constitute the four main areas - under the Eternal vigilance of Almighty God - wherein this Peace is likewise being advanced - on a broad front - all across our Nation.

PEACE which is not an absence of conflict but a return to the Memory - of what we are - and - of who we are - that we are a "we" and that as a "we", we have belonged forever. Peace which overturns War - that the life of our people may find rest - and the enemies of our Peace find only restlessness. Peace which is the truth of something real to love, something real to defend with a zeal that can never be lost or misplaced.

For we can no longer allow ourselves to be divided by the idols of chance or the gods of ignorance. For this Nation answers to God alone and this House (Republic) serves the LORD, the one Sovereign of all Nations, above and beyond all things, seen and unseen.

- selah -

The one constant that may be presumed from the nature of frontier areas are that they are always peripheral to the politics of the central government - this to our Republic represents a problem of perspective. In the political arena, this tragically mistaken sense have denied from many of our common generations, the abundance of Mindanao, spawning policies and laws self-prejudicial to the well-being of our Republic and detrimental to the common weal of our being as a National whole - past, present, and forever.

This near-sighted politics of the frontier exists as a constant challenge to competent Ambassadorship - for what is peripheral to the National consciousness and what is central to the International consciousness are almost always in need of political synchronicity as well as human reciprocity - and so as a rule, good Ambassadors are always good managers of frontier politics - from the center - transforming them in accordance with specific foreign policy goals and specified state interests.

And most certainly, Mindanao does not require an Ambassador from Luzon. What we need to do is to draw Mindanao into the Republic center - where the Island, its peoples, and its star rightfully belongs - equally - with Luzon and the Visayas. We can not do this without winning the Peace in Mindanao for we can not win back to our Republic center that vital Foundation Star by remaining with the rule of War.

- selah -

As a direct result of a misguided perspective, the Island is trapped in poverty. Its people never knowing the enabling peace of our Republic sky and the life of its communities never knowing the empowering Good will of our Nationhood.

Poverty is the lot of Man and the labor of the Nations is to overcome it. We are here to work to be happy and be free to be wealthy. Simply put, the labor of our coming together as a Nation upon this world is to become rich - both - in the more lasting spiritual as well as in the more immediate material (or temporal) sense.

Our Republic exists not only to establish Peace, but to overcome poverty. But not artificial poverty. For we can not become fully established - as a Nation - in the sovereign labor of obtaining from Heaven - in behalf of the Earth, our legacy of Justice and the heritage of our National Wealth - without Peace among ourselves.

Coincidentally, the former secessionist spirit of both the MNLF and the MILF were fed by this problem of perspective. Because this problem - compounded by increasingly provincial politics - espoused a sense of inequality that is uncomfortable in a Republic.

It is uncomfortable because we were already established as a Nation before God. Else, we would feel no compunction. It is uncomfortable to us as a Nation because it is unjust before God and inhuman before the Memory of our people.

It is uncomfortable to the point of bitterness and the shedding of so much blood and tears. Both factions have heretofore, according to all our understanding - repudiated this separatist mission. Because now we are pursuing a common mission of Peace - together this time - in the Bangsamoro vision.

The fact that there are deep and ancient divisions between the two great Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam that together shape the living culture of our Republic - in the past - often did nothing to heal all those simmering political rifts, many a time adding only to the heat of those many fires that in the darkness consume instead of shedding more of the light that in the darkness leads out into the Truth. And so we have fought among ourselves to dismiss and disown the Truth for so long...

Until this new time, until this new season under heaven...

Indeed, these present days - it would be a sin not to recognize the fact that we can, as a Nation - accomplish nothing further by being divided in our hearts and in Mindanao we may find the main epicenter of this division - this fragmentation in our soul of Country. (The Visayas may feel it too, to a lesser extent - but at large, we are faced with a different set of challenges to win for ourselves that Star).

And it can all be explained by the fact that we have not done enough to draw Mindanao to the center of our Republic and address this fundamental sense of inequality that leaves so many of the least and littlest among our peoples in the shadow - apart from the light of our three stars, and away from the reach of our one sun.

To become sufficient in our Nationhood, we must in spirit - become one people - to become this, as our 1987 Constitution does not include within it, a deeper reflection on the spirit and the character of our citizenship (as it relates to the fundamental natures of our democracy and of our Republic), we must come to a deeper REALIZATION in ourselves of the spirit and character of our citizenship - one with another.

AND we are, as a Nation, the most sufficient when we do our utmost for God and Country - when we seek the good, know the good, and do the good - and to be citizens not unlike each other in this way.

None of us is a Filipino citizen unless one accepts this basic equality - to do unto each other - equal Justice before God - through our one Republic undertaking of Country - and to fear no evil - by virtue of a common civic spirit.

This common civic spirit binds us deeper than blood ties and liberates us from tribal limitations that we may - as citizens of creation - come to know greater freedoms.

These bonds of citizenship are what makes us a cohesive democratic society - it is this fundamental equality as citizens that allow us to endure and in freedom prevail.

BUT what make us truly a Republic is the constancy with which we learn to freely and humanly live out this sufficiency to allow us - with every cycle of our generations - to ascend the way of our Maturity and obtain from the Truth its fullness - in the all of us - for the All of us.

- selah -

Those three stars on Old Defiant represent to us - our being - as a Nation, and its relationship to our sun represents - our becoming - in our Republic.

Before God - at every time and place, all Filipinos true to our Memory profess this as truth - that before the LORD and the assembly of the Nations before God in Eternity - we receive freely in our souls - this being - and - this becoming - as citizens not unlike to each other.

AND our sun is the symbol of the unconquerable Dream of freedom (in God and through God's Country) within which every single Filipino dream of happiness is to be forever possessed in its golden pursuit.

This is our basic equality as citizens before God and its fundamental activity is - to seek to be good, to know to be good and to do what is good - to proceed from Benignity to establish - a dominion of Justice upon our souls - and the rule of Law upon our soil - and the realms of Sacred Life preserve upon this Earth - and to make it all "very good" before the LORD - and on each other's behalf - through His Peace - and in Good will of our common humanity - forever as Nations - of the one Family of the Nations of the Children of Mankind.
---<--@

Say Peace to the River...

Imagine, if you will, a river that flows through your own heart - is it a nurturing river with waters refreshing to your soul? or is it a polluted river with waters stinking up your spirit?

Imagine all our rivers this way, flowing out in time from our hearts of life and living community - are we at peace with these waters that flow or not?

Any river that flows through the life of any of our community, if it doesn't flow through our hearts does not (and will not) answer to our voice.

How then do we say peace to our rivers, to our skies, and to our seas?

Darling Starshine -

A river flows out into the sea, into heaven, and around again - through you and through me.

How do you say peace to a river without setting it free?

And how do you set a river free without letting its waters come full circle...

from the mountains, through the earth, and to the salty sea - where every river ascends again - invisibly - into the heavens - through the clouds...

...and back again from above - from love to love - through you and through me?

How can you say peace to a river if you do not let it run through thy heart...

Can anything be set free without love?

Can any river long endure being chained? It will either go home to heaven, or exact a terrible revenge upon the human communities of our earth.

How do you say peace to a river?
---<--@

Hope Taking Wing

Personal reflection: The pollutants in our rivers are mostly sewage and non-industrial waste. This means, our rivers are mostly in good shape. We do not have to deal with toxic and radioactive pollutants and their expensive clean up costs. All it shall take is OWNERSHIP of our natural bodies of water and waterways.

If we take care of our rivers in this present time and learn to say peace to them - when we become a more mechanized and industrialized Republic, we will grow in a way that is friendly to the vital living ecology that surrounds and sustains our natural human habitat. We will become a more happier people.

Code of Cooperation

Can all the concerned parties agree that the implementation of a Code is -

(1) for purposes of stabilizing and demilitarizing the area of concern to pave the way for a diplomatic resolution of the points of conflict (which we shall work to discern from the area concern) -

(2) and the prevention of open hostilities upon that beleaguered sea around which all of us share a common shore?

As it is, the 9-dash line is diplomatically untenable and entirely unacceptable to my Republic and while this Code does not intend to resolve this issue, it seeks to create conditions that are better suited towards a resolution that will redound to the benefit of all parties, including the regional and the international community.

This Code of Cooperation recognizes two strategic premises -

(1) Uncertainty is our most immediate threat.

(2) War - as the agent of the last 2000 years - is our greatest enemy.

The two principal aims of this Code is - (1) to undo uncertainty and (2) to withstand War - that we may, as claimant parties together more effectively preserve the sovereign rights of our Nations and ensure freedom of navigation along the sea lanes leading in and out of the area concern.

Its primary directive is singularly and unequivocally Cooperation.

1. Distinguish economic interests and disentangle them from the political dialogue.

2. Preserve in the political dialogue a means to better express the parameters of a singularly economic concern (as distinguished from an existential demand.)

3. Observe again the SEA issue and identify these economic points of intersection (wherein the Code is preeminent and automatically applicable).

4. Identify all presently distinguishable economic points of intersection across the whole area of concern and number them systematically by count.

5. Prepare to pilot the most average issue. Agree to politically dignify regional economic cooperation where decisive national means exist - than to allow the crisis control over matters crucial to the future of our region.

6. Reach out in good will, and in smaller ways build a new consensus that is regional in scope - in behalf of the many and not in spite of them.

7. Observe and conserve the ends that favor peace over war.

8. Let us do this together in agreement and break the preponderance of conflict over the region.



In our EEZ's the primacy of decisions initial and fundamental to establishing shared responsibility and common reward for equal development will be retained by the GPH and the initiative of the Filipino people.

In return, know that we are equally and quite profoundly invested in resolutions that preclude conflicts (1) fought for lack of trust - that may have been bridged without exacting a great and terrible cost by diplomatic skill and a common, overriding focus - words spoken truthfully and sincerely always read better, and in the long-term, speak clearer to our memory than blood (2) or conflicts fought for fear of discovering what is truly human in the other - that preclude the knowledge of common ways and familiar needs by a belief that is not served in reward of learning but is nevertheless present and unconnected, floating as it were - conveniently over the reality of truths inconvenient.

For the Tao of War is deception - to undertake the resolution we desire in this Code require us to emerge from this Tao - and speak plainly - to make the circuitous straight - in the language of true things.

The Art of War constitutes victory over War - which is Peace over War - Peace as the craft of all human Nations. And the Tao of  Peace is the Truth - therefore, within this Code we shall speak sincerely only of true things - restrain and contain our politics within our borders and reach out to the other in the truth.






Some initial recommendations: Approach ASEAN partners first - Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei simultaneously. Consult with Thailand and Cambodia on the Preah Vihear issue and seek to understand their lessons learned. Offer advice and support to help Thailand obtain political stability - within the framework of ASEAN, according to the level of bilateral good will Thailand will accept. Then approach the PRC with the ROC together. Explore if applicable to the East China Sea issue.

Personal reflection: To be honest, it is very difficult for me to complete this Code. First of all, I do not have all the information I should like to know to be able to support my larger premises with factual evidence in their details. What I do have are entirely from open sources as well as my internal guidance which is profoundly inclined toward the prevention of any outbreaks of War in our region.

This Code therefore, is an extension of my larger efforts to promote Peace and Peace reform through this blog - in preparation for the next age of our world.

Finally, let this Code and its vision be a work in progress. Let us stop hating each other and start looking after each other, dreaming together as Nations this time.

God bless the PRC and the ROC, my Republic, our ASEAN, Japan, Korea, the Pacific-rim region, and all Countries involved in the task of re-building and re-balancing for Peace.

Mabuhay po tayong lahat!
---<--@

Nation at Prayer

My brothers and sisters of the Promise, today at 5:00 pm, our Nation will pray. We shall pray for those who were lost to us from natural and man-made disasters last year - for indeed there were too many.

They were
our fellow men and women;
fellow citizens the LORD intended
for the great labor of this Country
- human beings not unlike ourselves -

who, male and female, young and old, 

dreamt with us a common Dream 

of a better Republic for all Filipinos.  

Living souls whose fruits we shall never now know or taste  -
Promised lives whose fruition we shall never now see or hear -
whose fullness of good renown this world shall never now enjoy.

All of them we shall now commit to the one God of all Nations - each of them by their name - ever by a space in the heart we shall solemnly recall them - and resolve before the LORD as one Nation that their loss shall not have been in vain.

And as we remember them now, let us be sure to remember them as they were - always. So full of the things we shall today - in prayer before God - commit to the memory of our common humanity - so full of the things of life - so certain of the promise of the Peace which is our Nation's original birthright.

For indeed we shall remember them - we shall ensure their hopes do not remain unheard and their lives do not remain fallen. For we shall indeed bury with the past - the evil of those days.

None shall remain behind us but the dust.

For every thing that is to us everything we shall carry with us - in our hearts - into 2014; and the rest we shall commit before God unto tomorrows we shall as one Nation in Peace continue to reach for - together this time.

We thank you LORD God for this time to pray unto Thee!

We thank you God for the lineage, instrumentality and the unique person of our 15th President Noynoy, we thank you God for our Nation and for our Nation's Republic, we thank you God for family and friends, and for this Family of Friends - united in thy Peace - upon a journey of greater belonging and of learning to know each other in Thee.



Salaam. Shalom. Peace. For Thou art God, above and beyond all things, and there is no other, AMEN.
---<--@

Peace in Russia

Human constructs  
- systems, institutions, corporations, etc. -
fielded across each their necessary applications
to bring form and order to the purposes
of all human endeavor
within the Nation,
where these fail against their own times - is -
because these constructs inherit also
what weakness there is in Man.

But Nations are not human constructs.

And Russia is a Nation.
---<--@

The first act of Peace is always Good will.

All Nations destined by the LORD - unto the gathering of the Times, in the here and Now of today - before this planetary crossroad, are all the Nations of the Children of Mankind.

And all the Nations of the Children of Mankind, commissioned by God at the Autumnal Dusk of our faded Eden, stand together to strengthen and preserve the life and the labors of Man through his lineages in time across all our generations to the last of our generations.

For we are upon this world to fulfill the First Command to build up the Earth (into the Inhabited Earth - a world not only rich in temporal life and in the living but in light and limitless spiritual wealth).

All the Nations of the Children were equally commissioned by God - together - and are symbolized by the Angel that the LORD placed at the place of our beginnings - at the East Gate - where we together left for our long march into exile - which is also the direction of our common returning.

Thus, our sovereignty is part of the endowment granted each of us by the God of all of us - and indeed, this sovereignty is realized - at all times and places - in the people -

...the peoples of this world - whose lineages entire the LORD entrusts to each of us, their Nations, to safeguard and prosper - and ultimately to return back into Him - much enriched and in better forms of communion with each other - and through God's own mysterious actions in time - individually as well as collectively worthy of His Salvation, being upon this visible universe - a brilliance that to the LORD is - "very good".

This, the LORD did in our living Assembly before His Throne in Eternity - and is always true.

The common roots of our sovereignty arise from the order by which God has from all Ages intended for Man - for his own good's sake - to accomplish before Him, the command to build up the Earth - for Man.

Thus, Nations are small or great - as Trees are trees in the Garden of our World - not for tending the Tree which is not our own - but for loving that which God has intended us to love (Peace) and in this love growing through Remembrance of our selves and in each other in the knowledge of the Truth of our selves and each other (Good will).

We have and we maintain borders not because of limits to human potentiality or because of a reality which is fragmented but because there must be order and purpose to the work.

To safeguard this order and purpose is the craft of all our Nations - and this craft is Peace.

(In the Sun Tzu - this in not just the first consideration when we consider "Moral Law" - it is the first and the final consideration - and is more than just Moral Law - it is the ultimate form of the "Sovereign" and embodies a living Spirit of present Remembrance.)

Hence, at the time we were together commissioned in Assembly before Godl, we also received as well from each other a priori, a recognition of our sovereign selves - and this is always true.

Because the first act of Peace is always Good will.

Therefore, sovereignty in all our Nations is always a reality in ourselves - realized (in our citizenship) as well as recognized (in the citizenship of other sovereign Nations) - our reflections in Heaven, as they should be in the truth - upon our Earth.

Truly, as Nations among each other, we have said our "Peace" unto each other - in Good will - before the LORD, our one Sovereign - long before our Time upon this world came to be - a Time that was upon this time - inaugurated by the LORD through the Noahide Covenant.

And I would that we should deeply consider this as we remember again today, our Peace with each other.
---<--@

We did not emerge in physical time together as we were commissioned. Israel was the first - the tip of the spear - first among equals. How God fashioned the Nation Israel is how each of us are also fashioned - being a people first - before and above everything else.

(So that each of our sovereignty is always a reality that emanates from the life of our people - and this life is a concentration - build upon human dignity and human promise - whose strength relies upon how well and how faithfully we each come to realize, recognize, sustain and develop our Peace).

And today, we have all arrived - so that we must accept the status quo of our world from 2009, and work to change our hearts that we may see far into our Nation's hearts.

And let us again remind ourselves of the reality of our Nationhood and together understand that this is not a religious labor but a very, very human one. And that a broken Spear - anywhere and in anytime - is useless against the charge of the Horse.

Indeed, the most prudent and visionary of our leaders - in our kings, queens, princes, presidents, ministers, and captains, have ever always understood for the sake of the many, that all National Remembrances are ultimately Human ones - and that Peace is over War.

And in this Age of Spirit and Thought - it is Now incumbent upon all of Mankind to realize what the best and greatest of us have been made to realize - that the enveloping global darkness that is the Siege of War may be broken and a new door and a new path may be opened before our world - as a planetary community entire.

We did not emerge in physical time together as we were commissioned. But where we do emerge - alone, the pattern of our commissioning always reflects the pattern of our emergence upon this world. So that in Peace and Good will - we always have stood by each other - and with each other before God - and from always to always - this shall be so - forever.

We just have to remember.
---<--@

After the Cold War, the Peace was won. But the War that nearly annihilated all life in this world is not yet fully subdued. And so the Peace that was won is not yet completely ours.

Bewilderment and confusion always follow in the wake of major conflicts - this is most especially true in the case of a total, global War.

Even as our corporeal eyes hurt to emerge in the Day when the passing Night for us have become too deep and too uncertain a Darkness, there are times likewise when the sight of our hearts have largely forgotten or forsaken too much of what Peace in us sustains and what Peace for us in the LORD obtains - to become mostly blind to what is - for every Nation, an absolute - and therefore, absolutely worth fighting for.

(As the generations living now in my own Country have never known internal peace and have never tasted its promise must remember the Darkness that we may move toward the Dawn of a new Light.)

(In the external sense, this is what is happening in South Sudan now. And we Nations who recognized that Nation emerging have an obligation to assist that Nation to secure herself from the Darkness.)

(And in the CAR, an absolutely dishonorable religious division is again taking hold against our Peace. This is also why it is difficult for one to take sides in Syria - for ultimately, there is no side there but - our side - the human one vs. the one who would make us all inhuman.)

(Indeed, we shall all account for these losses.)

Battles may always appear won in the first four spheres of Military involvement. But War itself and as itself can only be withstood in the fifth.

That the Cold War was not brought to conclusion - and thermonuclear annihilation at the global scale of all things a hundred times over - is already a gain of Peace.

Who yielded and who did not shall be the gain of our Remembrances together - for "that war" was the War among all past wars, the one to be withstood.

The past is bitter drink indeed where and when it holds the present hostage and the future to ransom.

But Nations never drink from the cup of the past - our cup is always held out for the water of present things - here, in the Now.
---<--@

We are today not as we begun. For Nations (in each their being) are also their particular motions (in each their becoming) in time, a labor of Country - a Tree among many Trees.

(If one were to be presented with an image of the Garden of many Trees, at the center shall always be what particular Nation the LORD has from all time intended to be, for each of us, our own Nation - and - the one Tree of the Desolation War, the Dominion of the Devil whose Sword is the Despoliation of all Sacred Life.)

For we are a growing and reaching out - a journeying, if you will, in and across time.

And sometimes, we pick up some travelers along the way. As the parable of the Good Samaritan, when applied to the community of Nations, will invoke in our hearts - We are to welcome the Stranger that the Stranger to us be Strangers no more.

For this is what the LORD requires - that all Men and Women be equal citizens before God and all Nations before the LORD stand shoulder to shoulder equally -

...the grieving widow to comfort,
prisoners to safeguard and to lovingly correct,
orphans to kindly and freely embrace -
and to multiply these persons
upon our human world
no more.

So Peace be upon you, Russia, do not be bitter. Hold no one and nothing in contempt. For thy life and thy future is yours - all the rest we shall together learn and remember together.
---<--@

I remember Beslan, a terrible thing among many terrible things that this little world of ours should not have to endure. But we all do - for Beslan is everywhere. Volgograd is too.

For hatred was in the 9 o'clock blue of New York, shattering that morning September sky - it was in Bali, Mumbai, Madrid, London, Amman, and in all Continents present save for perhaps, Antarctica (who if we do not turn course, may also fall), as the sin of the Devil's pride persists.

It is also here in my own Philippines, something I am working and praying hard - with all my brothers and sisters of the Promise - to battle and overcome - together this time.

Because it is our most fundamental of responsibilities as a Nation commissioned by the LORD to serve and preserve both human dignity and human promise of the Children of Mankind upon this fallen world - that to the extent we are faithful to our commissioning, we together preclude evils of a social nature from setting its foot upon the soil of our Earth.

But where we are in the soul of our citizenship together weak of compassion and sympathy for the human condition, War gains a foothold upon our human world in order to make it inhuman against our will.

The Savior of all Mankind came to deliver this world from its sin - the sin of separation - which is the original and fatal wounding all Men suffer - and to allow the human lineages return (according to our repentance from personal and moral sin) to an Eden rebuilt - even while Man is still upon this world and gain for ourselves together an everlasting place in a Kingdom that neither in splendor fades nor in glory ends - at the consummation of time as we know time to be...

...so that Now, with every present time, we must as individual citizens and individual Nations together work to deflect and remove this alien and inhospitable Darkness (of sin and War) from our own human world, to the extent God allows, our humanity permits, and the times require -

particularly in this Age above all ages past.
---<--@

Self-immolation is an act of protest - sacrificial to the most - and bound not by ordinary human freedom. In all of these cases, where there is an abiding, legitimate and human cause - the object of Justice is for Justice to be done unto Justice herself. These are therefore, purely the domain of Law and legal redress. To redress it, Law must come to understand it - from the source.

Suicide bombing is a species of self-immolation, louder in expression, and profoundly more deeper in voice - and in all cases, extreme in the eyes of all living souls. Invariably, for its indiscriminate violence against the life of our innocents - it is always an act of terrorism and in so being, demands our urgent attention.

Terrorism is always a political act. And so it gains from any political uncertainty on our end.

There must exist a cycle of pain and loss here that works to progressively destroy the normal course and outcome of authentic human freedoms that until this cycle effectively is broken by Law and its protections - will ultimately exact a terrible toll against our Nations - a price measured by the sum of human lives lost - for in all acts of terror we lose them all - save for the bomb and the conditions that allow the political will of terrorists to be married up to the means of terror.

Where to draw the line of the defense is the question. Remove and redress the prevailing conditions and the will and the means shall divorce themselves permanently.

This is a law-enforcement led process. Prevention here is in the Law. Justice here is a reaction. Military means may in many cases only exacerbate the matter and may only be employed in the tactical, where all proactive means have already failed.

And as War, there is no better deterrence to terrorism than to prevent it from breaking through into our world.

Meet the ever so wearisome politics of division with the better politics of human unity and know at the heart where to draw the line where the defense may be well fought - not in support of War but for the sake of the Peace.

Even the same Peace, we shall this winter in Sochi celebrate together.

I pray and I hope for a safe, secure, and memorably meaningful Sochi winter games - for all our Nations! The time is not yet late. May all Nations come together under the warmth of the Olympic flame in Peace and in Good will with each other and in friendships compete in the sport and in the spirit of these modern games - to know and to honor what is best in each ourselves across all our Nations.



Remember, when War draws near - it seeks from our Nations a confrontation.

Do not confront the Dragon where it approaches, defend. 
---<--@


Didn't know we're celebrating June 12 together this year, cool.
---<--@

Spot the diff? This is the Flag of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

---<--@