Peace be with you, sister

I too am for peace. It is my hope that peace shall one day be the rule in this Republic of ours rather than the exception. I believe that if we are patient, and we are a patient people, peace for all of us shall be inevitable. For now, let us not lose hope.

Reflections: 20150312, Thursday

Sea as a reflection of Sky. Sky as a meditation of Sea

Nakakalito ang panahon, mga kapatid. Muddy water... How long is it going to last? We have to wait till things settle down... ganun talaga ang tubig.

What is driving the confusion? I think it's politics. Saludo ako kay Walden Bello. I lean toward the right pero when it comes to principle - everybody should be drawn toward the center. It is politically gutsy what he did. He stood on principle, acted his convictions and resigned from his party. Bakit? Kasi nakakainis na talaga yung nangyayari sa taas.

All this blaming is weak. President Ramos was right when he said that the President is not being very Presidential right now. If insiders, our own citizens, can recognize it, what of outsiders. Both our friends and those who we have not yet won over to be our friends must be of their own opinions on the matter of Mamasapano, the Peace process, and the BBL. But as for me, what is of central importance right now is for this Republic to sort itself out. Muddy water must be made clear again. Ganun talaga ang buhay na tubig. Clarity. Truth (with love as the highest truth). Everything else will follow.

Think about PNoy's advisers and appointees. What the hell have they been up to. My attitude is they should at least consider the dignity of the Office of the President. Even when they should disagree with the prevailing politics of the person of the President, I think they must always be mindful of the prevailing reality of that intangible truth upon which he, the person of the President, as well as they, his political appointees, stand upon - in the seals, symbols and titles of our Republic.

Because these are the things that will outlast them. The Office will outlast the person of the President and the Office of the President shall outlast his or her appointees too. These seals, symbols and titles will outlast because they were meant to outlast. For the truths that live within them are as vessels that contain and serve to bear forward in spirit that sense of continuity (1) for our Country in ourselves, and (2) of our Country in time. Certainly, these truths will outlast the politics of any present time and deserve to retain their own honors distinct from their successors through a lineage that is intact.

I think about PNoy himself. I do not think it wise for him to resign. I do not think it wise for him to persist in absolving himself either. Sabi nga nila e. The buck stops there. If not accountability, take responsibility to ensure accountability, Mr President. The guilt you will bear if you were not to blame in any of this is not because something was done but because nothing was done. Or because something was done after the fact that falls short of what must be done. Do I still believe in our President? Yes I think so. Pero please sir, assure your people.

Also, why does it feel like there are too many secrets here. Cover up nga daw. Pero secrecy daw is not deceptive. It should not be. Because secrets serve the truth and the truth serves the people. The State is never served by believing in a lie: Kaya umamin siguro si Washington dun sa Cherry Tree. Sino ang pinagtatakluban kung meron. At nino? At bakit? Our striving for truth must always be mindful to preserve honor but not hide incompetence. US involvement? Side issue lang yan. Intelligence cooperation is essential in operations in the nature of Oplan Exodus. Lalo na at ang NICA natin ay hindi pa up to par. Hindi pa front-line agency.

Isa pa. Gripes go up not down. Kaya siguro nasasaktan si Napenas kasi sabihin na natin na may lapses siya. Perhaps, he expected some amount of amor propio to survive in the bearing of the burden of the Fallen 44. And I do not think it was unrealistic of him to expect it.

I have a term: Conservation of Citizenship. I think we all know this concept by heart but have not given it a name. We all want second and third and fourth chances at happiness. In fact, I believe in a Country where these chances are unlimited for those of us who honestly and humanly work at being happy.

Public servants who serve at the Nation's behest up and down our Republic do the vital job of facilitating the awakening of these dreams of personal happiness within our larger awakening Dream of Country (or what I call "Republic Vision"). When these individual dreams awaken, they become real ha... Hindi po tayo parang tulog na nananaginip lang ha. The Republic Vision is a waking dream... it is like something in the horizon we have to return to, something real. Something awesome. We do not fall asleep into this Dream, we live in it. And because we do, most of us implicitly understand we can not fully "be" all of this while war is in our midst. That a house divided will not long endure.

Our dreams are reflections of each other. They only become real because they are reflections of each other. The larger Dream of Country is a fabric of a forever woven from all of these awakened dreams. In a real sense, we owe each other something because of each other's dreaming. Consider along the line of this thought, the water we drink, how we should be thankful. We should recognize in this, our "intrinsic value". Nationhood teaches us to accept, appreciate and to ultimately love the human being because he or she is a human being. Hindi dahil ang taong ito ay may silbi (dahil nga tayong lahat dito sa ating bansa ay may kanya-kanyang silbi) kundi dahil ang tao ay tao. Love the player. Change with the game. 

Not one of us expects their virtue and their worth in this Republic of ours to be wiped out by a single mistake. For as long as these mistake are human, they should stand the scrutiny of our civics. Ewan ko lang kung pinulitika na ha. Politics nga exist at the level of the State and is wholly subsumed by it. It is however, always underpinned by the spirit and strength of our civics.

Human morality, our right remembrances, and the fruits of a good religion in turn inform, empower, and enlighten our civics. Kaya nga I believe a good religion should speak to us as a human nation not so much through our politics but through the art of our citizenship and help us - teach us - to build a culture of light and a dominion of life.

Since a lot of us talk at the same time in the National Conversation and policy being an expression of the present will and vision of the Chief Executive of the Filipino State. Magulo talaga ang pulitika, pero lagi dapat maka-bansa't - makatotohanan at makatao. Politics exist to make things clear. Pero nga bad politicians use politics to muddy up the water. Wala namang bad politics. Bad policy oo kasi nga there are bad politicians - by calling talaga or by accident lamang. Pero ang pang balance po natin dito ay ang ating free expression. Kaya importante ang Free Press. Kaya madalas ako kay Ted Failon sa umaga. At hindi lamang dahil nandun si Tina Marasigan sa medyo huli... yung cat.

Kaya nga bilib din ako sa speech ni Senator Alan Cayetano, I disagree with the good Senator from Taguig at times. Katulad nung pagkukuwestyon niya kina Iqbal at sa pagdidiin niya kay Sec Deles at Ferrer. Masyadong PG kung baga. Alam mo yun? I think Sec Deles and Ferrer must work with the tools they are given. If they were negotiating from a position of weakness - which was my significant take away from the Senator's well-prepared privilege speech - we should be more diligent in going over the BBL. Because the BBL is the present sum of the whole peace process as far as the GPH-MILF track is concerned. Thank you, Senator Cayetano, for your inspired efforts.

Let me say that I make my peace right now with the common people. Walang kwestyon that there is civic peace in the Philippines. Citizenship is not so well defined in the Constitution. Only its legal parameters are mentioned there. Pero we have a deep tradition of citizenship. Malalim ang balon at marami ito laging imbak na tubig na malinaw at presko. I have attempted in this blog to define and to clarify some of its principles and characteristics. Dahil sa tingin ko importante.

Many of us are asking "who or what is a Filipino?" And many of us do not find readily available answers. Tama ang tanong. Pero dati rati kasi walang masyadong nagtatanong kaya ang diwa na nangdadala nang liwanag sa mga katotohanang pinagsasalukan natin nang mga sagot tungkol sa sino tayo ay hindi ganung kalakasan pa para maramdaman nang marami. Para itong hangin, pag pakonti-konti lang ay konti lang din ang makakapanisin nito pero pag dumami na at lumakas, may makakadedma pa ba dito? E ang dami na ngayong nagtatanong... e signal number 3 na.

Let me just say, to find out who a Filipino is, one has to make peace with the Nationhood that is ours. The answer to this question of who we are is not something we should just hear from other people. Citizenship is never an opinion. It is a conviction. It is something we must live by. Something we must realize by the power of its own truth. Hindi sa salita lamang ang sagot kundi sa katotohanan. And so I have found that my peace is fullest when it resides with the Nation, with the common people. Our Nation - Under God. And our people - With Him. We, as an integral part of one Family of Nations. For as long as you and me remain human beings with common human needs, we belong. So peace be unto us, in the service of our common humanity.

Iba itong kapayapaan na ito sa BBL. Let me just make that clear. But the BBL if it serves to facilitate the national peace, is essential. Pero kung power play lang ito and it fosters a sense of exceptionalism in just a single community among our national communities, it is not democractic. And will remain so until the means are made equal: Uncommon Exceptions. We owe it to our fellow Muslim Filipino brothers and sisters to help them craft a peace that is meaningful and lasts and this peace is only this when it is a peace that is compatible with the Peace which is for all Filipinos for all time. Hindi lang Constitution natin ang basihan. Dahil ang Constitution natin ay may basihan din. Kapag umuwi tayo lahat dun sa basihan na iyon. Ito yon.

The National Peace is like the Dream, made up of the peace of many living communities within our Nationhood. I've written before that to salute the life of any individual with peace, one has to implicitly salute also the life of that individual's community with the same peace. Because the dignity of a human person and the dignity of a human community are goods reciprocal. One arrives in peace, one leaves in the spirit of that same peace. Damage one and you damage the other. Deny one and you deny the other. To love one, therefore, you must also know to love the other. Dahil tayo'y Bansa. Lupang Hinirang. Land of Promise. Brothers and Sisters of the Promise.

Citizens must recognize: Salok sa tubig ng langit ang diwa at buhay ng ating pagka-bansa dito sa lupa. Tubig na dati'y dito sa lupa ay delubyong pumatay at sumira, sa ati'y nitong naging sanhi ng isang samahang bayang payapa. We can not build up the living earth without these water ties. For these are the ties that bind us into the freedom of one human nation, one among a family of nations. Blood ties strengthen our families and form the foundation of our communities but only our water ties (spiritual) make us into citizens. Water is ancient.

Ako po ay para sa kapayapaan kaya po ang tingin ko importanteng busisiin ang BBL at ipasa ito dahil sa kapayapaang naririto na... na layunin nitong palawigin. Ito po ay akin lamang: Peace for me does not depend on the BBL, rather it is the opposite. The BBL for me depends on our peace. On how well it has considered it and on how well its vision (as the BPE) aligns with it. Kaya nga when Senator Cayetano brought up his points during his speech and then he asked the question whether we were negotiating from a position of weakness, it made me think. Peace is always through strength. Not of arms, but of truth. Strength of spirit. Filipino spirit. Ito ang pinanggagalingan nang ating kasarinlan. And so, we can never lose our sovereignty by accident, only by ignorance.

So the talk as regards the BBL is not the humanity of our fellow Filipino Muslims brother and sisters, they are like us, human beings with human needs. And it is certainly not their religion we are talking about, they are like us human beings with human needs i.e. Meaningful Existence. In these, both our peace and our freedoms as a nation are already established truths. It is the politics of it. Important but distinct. And I think it is important that we make the distinction. Para medyo luminaw ang tubig. Kasi marami ang nagsasabi na ituloy ang usapang pang-kapayapaan pero pag dating sa BBL, ayan na po... dito tayo uli sa pulitika nito nagkakasanga-sanga. Ganun talaga dapat. Kaya nga ito pinag-uusapan - sa Bansa at nang Estado.

Kaya hindi nakakatulong ang malito. Iisa lamang po ang Republika nating Katigan. Kaya kahit na sadya nga pong nakakalito ang panahon ngayon. This too will pass. Because if we should stay true, it will. My hope is this: After the storm, we will have a deeper appreciation of the calm. Meaning a deeper sense of who we are. And when I say we, I mean lahat po tayo. Lahat.

Kasi kung ibabato pa po natin ang tuon natin sa mas malayo pa sa Bayan nating sinilangan... e di ba parang mas magulo? Kasi nga po magulo talaga. Kaya huwag na muna. Magulo po kasi ang mundo ngayon. Bakit kaya? Diyos lamang po ang nakakaalam nang Kanyang layunin para sa sansinukob.

Just the same, it is really up to us to take away from all these troubles what is ours to take away. And we will never know what ours is until we have a deeper appreciation of the community - the common human unity - we call the nation in ourselves. 'Yang Inang Kanlungang na ang tawag po nating nakasanayan ay Pilipinas na ang tunay pong pangalan ay sarili - na ang bigkas po sa ating langit ay katotohanan - na ang katotohanan po sa lupa nati'y kapayapaan.

Pasensya na po kung medyo napakahaba at medyo nakakalito ang mga saloobin ko na ito. Pero para po sa akin - iyan po tayo. At nandito pa rin po tayo kaya mabuhay po tayong lahat!

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.

---<--@

Thank you, France

President Francois Hollande of France recently came over to our Country for a State visit. We share with France many things in common at the level of the State... Our very own Jose Rizal was himself inspired by the motto of the French Republic: Liberte Egalite Fraternite.

On the National level though, on the horizontal people-to-people level, our people were graced along with Hollande by some leading French citizens advocating in our behalf against climate change.

Shosanna! Hi Melanie. Thanks for your visit.

The BBL at the wake of Mamasapano

The peace process as far as the MILF-GPH track goes have led us to the national debate about the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Mamasapano for all it's pain, was the catalyst.

It used to baffle me, and I once felt it to be slightly injurious, that all this attention to the peace process with the MILF has bubbled up into the national consciousness because of the pain that Mamasapano inflicted on the psyche of our peoplehood. It was a pain which was complicated and made even painful by the controversies surrounding that badly done operation.

Why do I say it was badly done? In memory of our fallen SAF, their wounded comrades, and their families - the performance at the tactical level on the field by those 44 that we lost along with those who survived Oplan Exodus was extraordinary, their legacy will always be glorious.

But we bled too much in Mamasapano. The entire Country knows it, understands it in our heart of hearts that we lost too many. Even for one such as Marwan, 44 was too much. I personally would that we had lost none, not a single one of them. Nada.

How do we bring justice to the fallen 44?

Continue with the peace process. Proceed smarter. Give the BBL a fighting chance. Recognize the hope invested in it. Find the lapses that were internal to the operation. Dispense with command authority. Quit assuming blame on the President. Wait. Command authority only applies when there is a clear and established chain of command which in this particular mission was deemed lacking. Why? Determine accountability and extent of administrative liability. The fault is structural first. It is personal last. Loop the families into what is being done. Determine criminal liability. Exhaust all means to enforce the law of the land, in coordination with the MILF through the AHJAG, where criminal liability is found and the persons culpable reasonably identified. See to it we never have to endure another "Mamasapano".

In time, when we have peace, we shall return to these terrible days of loss and make compensation for all lives lost to us - this time in spirit - and through a right remembrance of those days help to fully heal the nation. We shall build monuments to our unity. We shall honor war no longer but the virtues of our common peoplehood that led us all to peace. We will have renounced war within as well as without. And the defense of the Republic shall be stronger and surer for all of us.

The Mamasapano incident is illustrative of where our counter-terrorism efforts intersect with our internal peace and security efforts. Two distinct but very closely related things. Distinct because the MILF is not a terrorist organization. Closely related because terrorism at present is motivated by political exploitation of religiously inspired tensions. Let me underscore here that the landscape of terrorism is also evolving.

Terrorism is something I have thought about for some time now. I am careful about my labeling of something or someone as terrorist. I know accordingly when and where to apply the label. For I have seen and now believe it contrary to our efforts to contain the scope and spread of terrorism if such a word is left so broad as to escape a precise definition, at least, in the usage of the State.

Marwan is a terrorist. He was a callous and indiscriminate mass murderer. No matter his labeling of himself or his ideals, he is a political extremist. Left. Right. Center. It doesn't matter. His politics was way off base, serving an ideal/s less than human and therefore, more than real or possible.

One becomes a terrorist for the sake of politics alone. One crosses the line from peace to war through murder. Murder for the sake of justice. Murder in behalf of the nations. A lie for the sake of the truth. An affront to the collective dignity of the living communities of the earth.

What the State serves are human causes. Human causes natural to and evident of its own Nation. The particular Nation of which the State is sovereign expression of an intangible truth. Justice is what it speaks of. Not vengeance. Restoration. At the center of this Justice is Human Dignity and Human Promise. Goodness upon the earth. Humanity upon our humanity.

In Mamasapano, we got Marwan. And we will continue to hunt down, capture or kill terrorists such as he. It is clearly in our national interest to do so. In pursuit of counter-terror operations such as those which this Nation of ours through the Philippine State, as a Republic will very probably continue to mount, we, the people, may very well be asked again and again to make many small sacrifices for and in each the other's behalf. Some of us will render the full measure. Receiving loss for loss - continuing the violent cycle. Perhaps feeding it. To what end?

I think it is important to hear that the defeat of terrorism itself will not fully depend on operations such as that one we now will remember as Mamasapano. Politics at its very core is a hearts and minds game. When the ideals that espouse extremist politics that support terrorist thinking seem again what they really are, unreal and inhuman, terrorism will die. Person by person, terror as we know it will diminish. Not in the field alone shall the threat be fully countered, contained, deterred and finally diminished to the point of irrelevance.

Mortal fear is a negative freedom. To defend against it, we have to know when and where to defend.

Not so much that the people may be completely free from fear but in being inclined to the public good, fear not each other. Civic peace. Consider then, little acts of human kindness - mercy and compassion. For these things defend from terror just as mightily as the mightiest of arms.

Imagine for just a moment, just one hour of little acts of kindness multiplied by 100 million Filipino souls - what amount of good it does to the receiver, and more importantly what amount of good it does in the giver... multiply this further by the grace and the Providence of God.

In saying this, we return to the ideals of our national peace. Why do we forget that we are all Filipinos? That nobody wanted Mamasapano who believes in the promise of our peace as a Nation. I would hate to think Mamasapano is being politicized. There is nothing there that needs our convincing. No policy over it that needs defining. The pain is unanimous. The lessons clear.

We should be mourning all of our losses in this continuing war within ourselves. In saying this, I shall add to the Fallen 44, in the general list of casualties that our internal divisions have exacted from our nation through the years, the fighters from the MILF side that perished as well as the civilians who perished with them.

Why should anyone feel content or even happy to see everyday in the papers the mounting toll of decades worth of indifference and inaction on our part? Do we not know one life alone lived to its fullest can change our national destiny, alter it by degrees, make it a shade brighter, a tad more colorful...?

How much more can we dare to lose? How much more can we afford to overlook before the scale tips from light to dark and how slippery goes the slope from there... How easy it is to see all those lives lost without a care. As if we weren't graced by God to be one nation, as if we ourselves refused to embrace the legacy of our heroes, known and known to God alone.

So we return again to the peace process. It is good that we are talking about it.

Perhaps, the enlivening of the national conversation as regards the peace process in particular with the MILF was serendipitous of Mamasapano. Let us not lose the moment.

Let me just say that the BBL is not the end of all ends as regards the peace process with our brother and sister Muslim Filipinos. But as regards the GPH-MILF track, it well might be. It is important to give the BBL a fighting chance.

But equally important is to not lose our horizons despairing over the political what ifs being brought to play in our minds. The absolutisms of partisan politics. Good when good. But mostly bad. As if the only choices we got to deal with were either the BBL or an all-out war (or the BBL as it is or nothing). Because it isn't.

It isn't good for a democracy to be limited to black and white choices. Because often times, both black and white choices are wrong. Democracy is all about finding the middle course between two extremes. It is about having an honest conversation on issues that matter to all-in-the-nation. Horizontally across our communities as well as vertically up echelon to our leaders in the formal government of the State.

Democracy is the grace-inspired dawn of enlightened human reasoning in a nation. It is not the rule of the mob. It implies give and take. It requires listening and hearing and in between them, compromise. It is the caregiver and nurturer of the peace that our Republic is sworn to defend.

Trust is requisite to freedom. Respect is a requisite of trust. This respect as a shared belief in the necessity for mutual confidence between the central government and the BPE is written into the BBL as the principle of parity of esteem. Respect is also at the root of this principle. A respect which was built on years of dialogue and common action between the GPH, the OPAPP, and the MILF.

I think some of this fundamental sense of trust was tested during the Congressional hearings. I also think the MILF should do some soul searching because what was done to some of our troopers fall terribly short of the mutual respect they themselves require in the BBL. Discipline your forces.

When and where did we lose respect for each other? I think it was long before Mamasapano. A lingering pain from Colonial times. A wounding we long endured to the point where we became comfortable with the pain. A pain that have long eluded our capacity for social adaptation. A pain we adopted instead. It went right back into our national psyche. Not because we remembered but because we lack memory.

We are each fully accountable for each other. For as long as heaven recognizes the citizenship Providence Divine did vouchsafe for us in our hearts, all our generations together are each fully accountable for each other. Did we not implore the aid of God Almighty as a people in our 1987 Constitution?

We asked for trust yet show less respect. And the cycle begins again. Mamasapano had nothing to do with the peace process. Ideally. Were the Oplan that was its genesis redone without the mistakes we know were made on the fly, the peace track with the MILF would have not at all been - in any way - significantly associated with it. But now, the reality is - that it is.

All this attention is good. We can make great headway in the peace process through it. The BBL may benefit from it. I am not against the BBL. I am against a sloppily crafted version of it. I am against a version of it that lacks respect for the hope and the effort invested in it.

I am against whatever unfairness is therein contained in its draft form. Unfairness meaning any lack of equitable concern for the other communities wherein the BPE shall dwell in actuality amongst, in the context of its promised peace, a peace which we shall all likewise as one Nation make our own, like a wedding. One peace. For life.

Funding is one of my primary focuses. Because we are not yet that so well endowed with loose funds and constrained politicians. Funding and planning are two things intimately related in my mind. They are each a side to one coin. National security is my secondary focus, this includes civil defense, including effective public service commitments and real community policing. Education is my third. Human Fluency. These must be structurally spread equitably across the Republic. Most notably in the CAR which is the ARMM's closest political kin.

Fundamentally, constitutional bodies such as the COA, COMELEC, CSC, CHR and the Ombudsman must remain at the national level being wholly responsible to the one whole Filipino nation. I understand what is being called for as the asymmetry of political powers. But the branch should know where it must connect to the trunk and the trunk to the roots and the roots in the ground. Furthermore, there should only be one AFP and one PNP.

The CAFGU and its equivalent evolution or outright decommissioning after the peace process is another question altogether.

I want a vision from the BPE that goes beyond and above the constraints of the letters of its enabling law. I want to gauge the buoyancy of its spirit. Political commitments. Shared human causes. Subsidiarity.

And above all, moderation. Moderation in politics that preserves common respect. Respect in politics that encourages confidence in the process, and trust in the politicians. Not absolutisms. Truisms.

Not artless partisanship. Clubbing each other over the head like thugs. Patriotism. Helping each other along the way like citizens.

Politics is a fight. But whenever it is a noble fight. Like it is as one expects in watching the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, at least for the Pac-man, it shall be glorious. Glorious and profitable to the nation.
---<--@

Thoughts on Religion and Political Moderation

I am a Catholic. Not a moderate Catholic. For there can never be a moderate expression of the faith I hold dear and holds me dear as well. I am simply a Catholic (though not always good at it).

What we love that is for always can never be served by moderation. Religion and its virtues may only truly prosper in ourselves only by full spiritual expression. And this democratic expression of freedom in religion and of religions may only be accommodated in an atmosphere of national peace.

It is an atmosphere long denied to our world. This brokenness has left the house of humanity broken and bleeding. We are today a world of broken nations; a broken peace prevails among the order of our unity as a family. Thus, the human family is scattered. 

This dysfunction at the heart of our nations serves not a single soul. It is unconscionable to the listening heart to allow the nations of the children of Mankind to tarry in the darkness in this way.

And so I say, I am a Catholic. Proud to be one. Properly proud to be in the service of the Peace of Jesus Christ. Ever may it prevail!

In the same way, I understand there are no moderate Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or Sikhs or Hindus, etc. when it comes to the religious profession of the faiths we all hold dear and holds us all dear as well.

What I shall ask is for us to be moderate in the duty and practice of our politics. 

What does divide religion are not the truths and the virtues of its revelations but the politics of which we, through right remembrance of a long history of suffering and loss, may now at present discern separately and distinctly from the lives of faith we each must live, according to our freedoms, with truth in the heart.

The world has not become smaller. What our world at present has really become is wider. It has become more not less. Its horizons more expansive than ever. We have to have the heart to be able to embrace it as a human family. Lest the immediacy of the spirit of present tidings remain to many of us strange.

We perceive a landscape of things that may be in our common tomorrow as nations so open and so wide, we discern a darkness foreboding. And instead of going boldly forth to conquer together with cultures of light, retreat into the comfort of past molds.

The can be no living the past. What it is when we choose to so commonly retreat from the face of our right remembrances is a denial of the present. Where there is no peace in the now, there is no now. 

We can not be like this, in particular as children of our Father Abraham; we can not deny the present (and be absent from the now) while holding true to the true living that ours, along with all religious wisdom prescribes to our common humanity.


Peace to us is a time. That time is now.

If we can not make the moment ours, together this time and with all people of good will - as one human family - this world, our world, might so remain where it was, so receded into the spirit past things, so absent from the present, so much obscured from the view of Heaven, it falls again and again into the embrace of the defeated Enemy.

We must not allow this vicious cycle to continue...
---<--@

A movie trailer we'd like to see...

Pacific Rim

If you can't laugh, you can't win...

Our Navy Girls Rock

Do they not?

I am for peace

That we as a nation have a choice for peace 

while other nations struggling as we are

may not or can not have this choice 

is itself a constant wonder to me. 

It is something I think about often 

that we - in the here and now - 

are able to desire peace...

It is a truth I never take for granted.

It means the favorable time for peace is now.

This is the most apolitical picture I can post... I think it fits right in.

Peace may also be won by a contest of arms. 

However, let us remember to consider the field upon which these battles shall be fought and won.

Nation-States have been shaped by wars fought among themselves. These wars are common in our history. But those wars fought from within a Nation-State are different. These internal divides do not shape destiny, they predicate destiny. The longer it happens, the darker that destiny becomes.

If a contest of arms were the solution to peace reform in our Philippines, why is it taking us so long to arrive at a decisive outcome? Our internal conflict have been the longest running in the history of the world. And so much pain and loss it has cost this nation, across the generations.

How easily some of us dismiss the blessings a season of peace might afford our nation's children. How easily some of us would rather trust in the power of arms than believe in the power of peace.

When shall we ever tire of killing our fellow Filipinos in defense of the very Republic sworn forever to our common defense?

Among ourselves, where individuals seem to kill others without responsibility, is it not because the very presence of war ultimately allows it?

As a nation where we seem to view all these individual tragedies as obscure, being without a sense of common accountability, is it not because the absence of peace ultimately precludes it?

Those who advocate a course of war do not understand the cost of war. Nor its nature in particular that we must everyday contend against here within our Republic of the Philippines.

No, I am for peace. 

I am for a just, meaningful and durable peace in Mindanao and across the whole of our Philippines; peace as a cornerstone of the national success.

I am for a peace gained through faith in God and unity through Country; peace that serves and defends all Filipinos with virtue, humanity, and maturity of remembrance.

I think we have suffered enough to merit this peace, I think it is within reach of our memory, and by grace of God and love of our people, we shall have it.
---<--@

Today, we commemorate the miracle of 1986. I was 13 years old then and even then, I had an idea that something big was happening... something bold.

I think many things happened to allow for that miracle in EDSA to occur. God did not just bless us with a miracle from out of the blue in 1986.

If the Gospel has taught my own heart anything, it is that miracles had to be owned first before it is owed to us by God - that faith is always first before fruition.

Today, I remember that truly peaceful revolution our nation was empowered by God to pull from out of the blue through our collective faith and unity as a people... a real crossing of a threshold.

I say it is one of a kind... and I respect it as such... unique. It is special not only in the memory of this nation but in the history of our family of nations. A great movement in the soul of a people... ours.

Oratio Imperata for Peace

Let's do this...


































February 23, 2015

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Reverend Administrators:

The situation of the country and the world right now calls on all of us to turn to the Lord in humble supplication and gather our people to pray. As the nation continues to grieve over the tragedy in Mamasapano and the family of nations is threatened by war and terror from extremist groups, our best contribution to the nation and to the world is to encourage people to pray.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14).

I respectfully propose that we the bishops of the Philippines encourage our people to pray the following Oratio Imperata for Peace. Hopefully this prayer can calm the anxieties of our long suffering people and touch the hearts of the enemies of peace.

The authority to declare an Oratio Imperata for the various dioceses is the sole prerogative of the Local Ordinaries. If this proposal will merit your pastoral approval, I humbly request that you issue a circular to the clergy and Catholic faithful in your jurisdiction to make this prayer for peace mandatory.

I submit this proposal to your better judgment and pastoral wisdom.

Sincerely yours,

+SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS
Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan
CBCP President
---<--@

Anne Frank Cycle Challenge

Brilliant and lovely. All at the same time. Like my Anne.

Confronting Climate Change: Philippines

Weather these days is becoming worrisome.

Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) bearing down on our Philippines

The typhoons our nation must yearly contend against are becoming unpredictable in number as well as fiercer in intensity. Indeed, we have a new classification per PAGASA for "super typhoon".

Furthermore, our typhoon season seems to be no longer predictably contained in the wet season. As such, seasonal monsoon winds exacerbate a number of these unseasonal storms blowing in from the pacific causing our communities more grief. (I've never heard of those red, orange, and yellow rainfall warning growing up and we didn't have any typhoons at all past November.)

Why is "our weather" becoming worrisome?

Weather is local. 

I say it is local because its effects are local. It is worrisome to us only because it is local. Ask yourself where you were when Yolanda or Ondoy made landfall and you will see: Weather is local.

Those who think much about weather are usually those who are much affected by its effects. 

The very immediacy of weather produces an urgency. 

And this urgency we can feel because the Philippines along with many island nations in the Pacific are at the front line of climate change in the sense that we are the ones who must more or less directly contend against its local effects... as we have with Yolanda and Ondoy.

What is the connection? I want us empowered to handle the local effect of climate change but for now let us look past Yoldanda and Ondoy...

Let us look past weather when we worry about climate for weather is already a consequence of climate and it is climate that is driving the changes in our weather.

What is climate?

Climate is more predictable than weather. These are systems larger and more powerfully integrated to forces and motions that arise from the nature and circumstance of our planet.

One may Google more specific information about climate but for the purpose of this article allow this writer to emphasize this fact: Climate is not local.

Climate is global.

We hear about global warming these days. We hear arguments against it as well as in support of it. We hear of climate summits wherein the leaders of our nations seek to address it. We hear of its advocacy. We hear its many and varied voices.

How come for many of us local Pinoys, it seems difficult to really empower ourselves about any of the issues associated with climate change. Even those of us who are convinced that something has gone awfully wrong with something up in the sky there somewhere find it hard to do anything with that sense of the urgency that is nagging at our convictions. So we hold on to our stories and our beliefs... and wait...

And wait...

For many of us now, it is becoming painful to wait... wait for the next supertyphoon? 

Wait and not know.

You see, the problem (as I see it) is that unlike weather, climate is global.

Many of us really do not do much to affect the climate of the planet even if we wanted to. We Filipinos as a people have small climate footprints. Our Philippine Republic in this same regard do not rank among Countries we may say are primary contributors to either the problem or the solution.

Most of the issues surrounding climate change remain distant to many of us. 

The reality of climate change seem so disjointed from our common experience as a nation that the sense of urgency that should be building up in the spirit of our Republic due to such unprecedented weather phenomenon as Yolanda and Ondoy seem itself unsure.

Actions that truly empower us in this regard seem few and far between.

This is both good and bad.

GOOD: Because we have not yet committed the worst of environmental crimes. The kinds of pollution we ordinarily deal with as a nation are not (yet) highly toxic. Our present day mistakes - if we get a grip - are (still) not costly to fix.

The kinds of pollution we Filipinos endure everyday tainting our land, air, and water are usually brought about by ineffective garbage disposal in our communities oftentimes by our communities themselves.

BAD: Because we, as Filipinos, seem not yet fully aware of the environmental and ecological dimensions innate to our citizenship.

And so in retrospect, we think to ourselves sometimes at the wake of those unseasonal storms: If only we as citizens (or as a nation) have done this or done that so as to enable ourselves to become more involved and more informed about these things...

The problem is, unlike climate, weather is local.

When weather happens, it is already a consequence of climate. 

So we feel helpless. We begin to hate the player not the game. I want us to be able to hate the game and be an effective player in the game (so to speak).

Dealing with climate change does not have to be an exercise in helplessness.

Climate is global. Weather is local. 

The effects of climate change is worrisome because weather is becoming worrisome. We may not have the reach nor the influence to largely affect climate. But we can advocate matters that deal with and help prepare the communities of our nation for the effects of climate change. We can empower their thought by explaining how weather is only a consequence of climate change that they may not feel pitted against something beyond the grasp of their understanding. That the right response is to be prepared.  

Let us allow our LGUs the comfort of being able to believe (by each their own measures) they are doing their best... because they are.

Weather and preparedness are two key words that go hand in hand. As regards weather, preparedness is not only the right thing to do... it is the most we can do. And in this, we can do much.

As regards climate change, we must deal with it decisively as well... by fully reviving in our citizenship, its environmental and ecological dimensions. (Meditate on the 3rd Rupture: Man - Creation.)

The green in our citizenship is gold to our nationhood. 

The good news I think is this revival taking place at the heart of our civics is already happening... Sagip-Ilog, Run for Pasig River, Tree Plantings, Green energies, citizens disposing their garbage responsibly... 

Think about it, my brother and sister Filipinos.

When we think about climate, apart from the weather, let us in our minds think - climate and pollution are the two key words that go together.

For it is pollution that is driving the changes in climate, pollution of a kind we are NOT YET capable of and, if we are a wise people, should not think of being and therefore, developing our capacities in that way... learning from the experiences of our one family of nations.

We can be wiser than the game by playing nature fair... and much shall it profit our peace.

Love of nature after all is a timeless Filipino trait.
---<--@

Our Peace Process at the wake of Mamasapano

Trying times bring out the best and the worst in people and these are trying times indeed...

There seems a lot of opinions out there as regards the peace process. As I too am committed to the peace process, let me express some of my own.

The peace we want to accomplish through the peace process must ultimately be a human peace; the justice of this peace in its ideal form being a restoration of our unity as a human community.

To me, a "human peace" is simply one that restores dignity to the life of a community and since the peace that we are negotiating across the board is a national proposition - this peace must be capable of restoring dignity to the life of all our communities in the nation - across the Republic of the Philippines.

Will the peace in Mindanao affect things in Batanes? Of course, it must! A human peace is one that is able to provide for the human needs of a community. As a Republic, we are this community, this one house!

To do justice to the temporal house of the one Filipino nation is to make it one as our soul is one. To remain in our souls divided in war is to choose as a nation to remain in a state of spiritual injustice.

The essence of our civics is to do unto each other good. 

For in this Country, we all must be free and unafraid to do good to our fellow Filipino.

A human peace allows us the space, across our generations, to preserve both our freedom and our hope, in all things good and worthwhile to and for the Filipino... To desire this peace, to me, is therefore, always a good thing. For it shelters and protects our national communities from war (often in more ways than one).

What happened?

From the Nation to the State, we have to introduce words to articulate something true about ourselves and, my brothers and sisters, words always exclude. Indeed, words both limit and exclude. Therefore, peace as its human expression may be intensely political - most especially if our remembrances about it as a nation are not yet as mature.

Observe however, how a lot of Filipinos think war is not the answer - that is good. It means the spirit of our memory is being restored unto us... we just have to articulate it properly in the State.

The BBL is one such proposed articulation of how we may as one Filipino nation be restored to the unity of our peace. It is certainly not a perfect document. I myself have several things I should like to be able to clarify about it.

The BBL is a result of a long process... One should at least respect the hope that is invested in this document which is a hope for peace; a hope that if expressed correctly in the State may never go wrong.

I am NOT for war. Indeed, I am absolutely against any forms of "all-out war" - in any place, at any time. I am definitely for the peace - in particular here in our Philippines.

However, I must accept the path unto the threshold of this peace is political. Also, that the politics of a peace process will not readily confer justice in the temporal sense but initially serve to deflect the onset of more evil days. In Syria and the Ukraine, this for me is also true.

What justice we may work out shall be the justice of our sincerity in desiring peace and desiring peace absolutely - with a maturity of remembrance.

In general, the goal of our local peace process is to restore spiritual justice to the Philippine State that the State may then proceed to bestow temporal justice in behalf of all its citizens.

Justice in its fullness we can not deny ourselves. 

Our nation has a responsibility to possess in its soul an account to God of all human life. 

This means as citizens, we are responsible both for and to the memory of all Filipinos the Providence of God hath vouchsafed to  be born into our nationhood - through a living and present account of each and every single one of our names. This is our common debt of remembrance to God and Country, a burden of Justice which is part of our responsible Liberty.

We can not remember them all singly but as a nation we must remember them all fully.

And through a memory of their lives and sacrifices - live! Indeed, prosper and live! This "live" is the essence of our "mabuhay" which exhorts us to live the memory - therefore, long live the memory!

Maturity of remembrance understands the "intrinsic value" of each and every human life and detests war for what it is, understanding peace. 

A State that is fully accepting of peace in spirit proceeds from this truth not so much with law but with liberty. However, as we are wounded by so much internal strife, we need a cast to bind our bones to make them whole and strong again... We may liken the provision that establishes the CAR and the ARMM as such a cast. If the cast is not working, maybe it needs remolding.

Such is our quest for peace here in our Country...

We do not seek a perfect peace. It is impossible to attain peace in its perfection in this world at its state. But we may anchor our peace upon principles timeless and absolute and live its lineage unto truth and the victory of the Truth.

Our temporal dominion as a Republic here in this world may never be as perfect as our loves desire but if in our hearts we understand how we are united as one national community and if in our communities we know how we may live this unity and the hope of this unity in freedom... I think we all will be well.

Peace making involves trust. This means accepting risks. These risks are the same risks we normally subject our nation to when we choose to default to war and distrust.

Peace is an enlightened choice not to accept the status quo of this world and one we make as a nation - because we finally understand.

What does this mean? 

When we speak of the peace process, sincerity above all matters most of all.

Even before the politics of everything, I think when we seek peace we must seek peace absolutely. 

Appeasement of war bring more war and doing things in behalf of peace short of a true desire for peace is harmful simply because it is untrue... For the peace we all hope to establish among ourselves shall ultimately be tested by its fruits... a peace for all Filipinos.

Let us review in spirit the peace we are after. Let us have these reference points from each shore before we wade into deeper water... that the bridges we may seek to build - together this time - may be strong and straight and nevermore skewed.

The rest we shall attend to as things unfold... for we are creatures caught up in time after all... change is our right and our responsibility. 

Let us be patient. Let us be understanding. Let us be above all, firm.

Peace is over war. For war is not for always. But unity is eternal.

God love the Philippines. Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

In the midst of all of these, in this Lenten season, I should like to remind my fellow Filipino Catholics to come back to a meditation on the Year of the Poor which is this year, 2015.

Let us work and pray that the Holy Spirit this year carry our nation forth into waters safer and vistas brighter.

A little personal anecdote:

Smile the Pope Francis smile: When I look at how our Holy Father smiles, I feel the warmth - the gold of the smile! One of the things I can not forget about our Holy Father is his smile. Isn't smiling like this a form of charity?

We love you Holy Father Francis!

Ash Wednesday 2015

Today after a few months off, I went back to serve as an EMHC at our local shrine. I participated in two Ash Wednesday masses; one at a local high school, one at our Shrine.

There were a lot of people indeed...

After service, I felt that good kind of tired... not the tired of being tired kind of tired but the kind that says, "yes, I am happy i did it!"
---<--@

On the National Conversation

Trying times bring out the best and the worst in people and these are trying times indeed...

One should always presuppose something human about the State and the Philippine State being what it is, democratic, a healthy clash of opinions is a good sign.

I agree with those who disagree with me in that they like myself are free to express their thoughts on matters concerning the life of our State.

One should not be the judge of opinions other than one's own.

If your stand is stood on principles, then your opinions as a reflection of your convictions should outlast the opinions of the hasty and the reckless. 

However, when we start turning on each other as judges of each other's belief, things start to turn from sour to bitter. Because this makes it political. 

Let the facts shape our belief. Let the truth dictate our vision.

I believe our civics or basically the art of how we treat each other as citizens is grounded on the truths of our nationhood. Therefore, "our" national conversation should be generally conducted in the spirit of our civics.

We as a people talk all the time. 

We are free to do so by a freedom that is our right and responsibility - "free expression", it is called. Free expression as a form of participation in the life of our nation (and ultimately in the politics of our State) is what I refer to as our national conversation.

The Filipino media, our free press, are our gatekeepers as regards the national conversation which is why to impinge upon press freedoms is the beginning of the end of free expression in the nation.

Our government and its institutions are formally represented to the Filipino public by each its own public affairs representatives. Our press is the popular equivalent. This is important.

One who believes in free expression should also make the connection in his mind that press freedom is just as important and in his heart understand the reciprocity of its good.

It has been said that a state that begins burning its books ends up burning its own people.

In much the same fashion, any democratic government or for that matter, any free people not outraged at attacks on its own free press do not understand how free expression works and place themselves in peril of ultimately losing it. Indeed, we ought by knowledge of this be forewarned about the twin values of press freedom and free expression and live our freedoms accordingly.

Brother and sister Filipinos, we should care about the quality of the conversation we are having as a nation. 

To this end, I should laud our media people who are working hard to make all this talk a worthwhile thing to have for all of us.

I too believe the talk we should be having, for our national conversation to bear us good fruit, should be focused on quality. Our conversations about issues that matter should always honorably reflect, in spite of the sobering reality of so many woes, our highest ideals and beliefs.

Our national conversation serves the quest for truth, and truth in service of the people.

I think we should mostly be concerned with solutions to our problems and not on identifying problems we already have but fear to own... maybe because what once was a molehill has now turned into a granite mountain seemingly right before our minds.

When I say this conversation becomes political, I mean it in the sense of the politics that is exercised by our politicians in the formal government of our State.

We are not all politicians after all nor should we all desire to be. We are all citizens though and as not all of us are elected (by us) and set apart by popular mandate into those formal positions of public service within our Republic, our politics are basically expressed through the national conversation in support of the politics of our representative leadership in the formal government of our State.

If one would and takes this all a step further, one writes or contacts directly, his or her representations in the formal government of the State in the Executive, Legislative or Judiciary branches.

Politics are important and because it is, public participation in the political life of our Republic is vital.

All things political to our nation arises within the State from the soul and into soil of our nationhood... its science shaped and empowered by the art of our civics.

Not all of us are politicians, brothers and sisters, but all our politicians are citizens and to the extent that they are, all our politicians should be statesmen and stateswomen.

And those of us who should freely submit ourselves to their leadership ought duly and willingly participate in the national conversation.

In a democracy, we are all leaders.

As all good leaders know, all leaders learn the art of their leadership as followers. In a democracy, all of us too are basically led by the light of our own truth. Hence, leadership in the sense that it is democratic should know and understand that to lead and to follow are one and the same responsibility.

If we know and understand this, and if we trust in the decisiveness and clarity of our vision, all our talking will lead to the one walk - along the way of ascent that will lead us to the eventual and true awakening of all our national dreaming...

All our words should lead us (again and again) to the realization of the promised truths of our peace.

Because truth is truth and at the summit of our Republic Sky lay for all our hearts, the ideals drawn from our highest truths - of proven principles that enable us to conceive together a vision of the State that is always comprehensible to the Filipino soul no matter how different our opinions on the ground may be...

Actual proof of this is our written Constitution, this national document being a distillation of the Filipino spirit handed down to us in physical form. (Have we ever wondered why from one proceed the many and how from the many, one? Have we truly taken to heart its Preamble?)

I trust that leaders be responsible for their own truths and for speaking it out with respect of their own dignity and the dignity of other citizens not unlike them - being honorable Filipinos. 

And so we begin... again and again... while time is time. Till every question and answer become unto us all simultaneously one and the same thing...

Let us have a conversation as a nation... and let our free expression propel our democracy forward to the good of our Republic as a service to our nation and therefore, to the benefit of each and of all.

God bless the Philippines. Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@