A Reprieve for Mary Jane

We have won a reprieve for our Mary Jane. Let's make it count.

Kudos to our President BSAIII and his Indonesian counterpart, President Joko Widodo, to our DOJ, DFA and its Indonesian counterparts, to civil society from both our nations, and to the God of all nations.

Everything led to everything in the right way because of everybody who cared and prayed and labored to bring about this opportunity... the important thing now is to make it count.

Let us keep in mind there is still work to be done to obtain for Mary Jane that hoped for commutation of sentence. Other things may happen from there. But we have to get there first.

We have to continue to watch and pray and help in our own ways.

Let us also pray for the eternal repose of those eight who were executed early Wednesday morning. Let us remember their grieving relatives... and let us be humbled.

But for the grace of God go we, my brothers and sisters... Let's give thanks and make it count...

Salamat po sa Diyos at salamat sa ating laht!
---<--@

Update 20150505tue: My thoughts still return to the 8 who were executed Wednesday morning last week. Let us please pray for their souls. Learning about the stories of some of the ones besides our Mary Jane was as hard as it was sobering. I think a few more should have been spared. 

There really is no right way of killing a person.

Even through human institution, taking a human life is always an evil. Perhaps an evil weighed against a greater evil but an evil still... There truly is nothing good about it. If not for the safety it stands to gain for the community, capital punishment would have been an outright sin.

Perhaps capital punishment has lived out its usefulness in our days, perhaps not. One thing is for sure though, a person once dead can not be wished back to life again.

Keep Calm, Carry On

  Quick, call secutiry!

Best of 80's new wave...

Lessons from Hanukkah

Hanukkah teaches that the right response is not to curse at the darkness but to light a light.




Hanukkah teaches us not to rely on miracles.

It is a witness to strength of perseverance.

Did not the oil itself persevere?
---<--@





Hanukkah 2015 begins in the evening of Sunday, December 6 and ends in the evening of Monday, December 14.

Though Hanukkah 2015 still lay in our tomorrow, its lessons remain so near to me... It's one of the two Jewish holidays I hold dear in my heart. The other one is Purim.

Both of them are holidays of national deliverance.
---<--@

"Ich Janke air fur all das cute, una liebe, una schone." - Anne Frank, 19440307tue

Thank You God for all that is good and dear and beautiful.

A prayer for Mary Jane and her companions

Heavenly Father, please do not forsake Mary Jane Veloso and her companions in their hour of need. As in Gethsemane You sent Your Holy Angel to comfort Your Son before His Passion, be there for them in their anguish also. Hear their prayers.

Comfort them. Comfort their families. Give them gentle counsel, O most merciful God. The forgiveness of their sins. Give them strength and courage to believe in the grace of Thy deliverance.

For Thou art God, able to produce good from any evil, and make the wild flowers grow from fields barren and accustomed to death; Who forsakes not and produces in each of us despite ourselves, the fruits of Thy ultimate and everlasting purposes, we shall pray to Thee and thank Thee for our prayers.

If today, O good and gracious LORD, Thou willed to receive them, deliver them swiftly. If today, dearest God, Thou willed to allow them to remain living here on earth with us, deliver them swiftly.

Let Thy will be done.

Amen.
---<--@

Personal Reflection:

I am fully convinced now that Mary Jane Veloso is a victim of circumstance.

A concatenation of adverse events to which she had little to no power to reverse has her now in thrall. My hope is that sharper minds and nobler hearts can unravel the truth before it's too late.

Hope still remains that Mary Jane will not be executed... Whatever happens though - we must move to make things better over here so as not to multiply victims like Mary Jane.

20150427mon: Whether we believe in the death penalty or not, as a Country, we have an obligation to ourselves as citizens to see to it that our rights to both life and liberty receive adequate legal protection - here or anywhere in the world.

The dignity of the human person in every Filipino citizen and the prestige of the entire Philippine State are goods reciprocal: To recognize one is to recognize the other, to respect one is to respect the other.

If one believes this as I do, one should likewise realize how we contradict ourselves whenever we choose to protect one and not the other. Both bases must be covered.

We can not dictate policy for other States but we can certainly accommodate for better here at home... Some improvements will be structural to the Republic and will be gradual but the most immediate ones I can suggest are these:

Screening for high-risk OFWs - criteria to be based on Country of destination, age, gender, level of education, average overseas experience and any adverse social conditions relevant and applicable.

The screening itself will either be in questionnaire form or through an interview. This will be done before the departure date and a clearance will be required by customs at the airport.

Voluntary for all Filipinos travelling overseas - either as OFWs or tourists. Mandatory for those who are travelling to particular Countries identified in the criteria.

Set up a Citizens Defense Fund. This fund is to be drawn from sources of income already being drawn by the State - sourcing it from relevant centers of revenue - and must not be passed on to the backs of those particular class of citizens it is intended to protect - to protect the prestige of the State.

The CDF will provide the financial capacity to sustain and carry out programs and information initiatives meant to shield and empower professions identified as vulnerable or high risk - OFWs and Journalists are two that I would like identified. This until such a time as statistics change and those categories have entered levels of risk considered to be nominal or other categories have been identified and included.

As these ideas are still in their formative stages... certainly, they can be improved on in due time.

Kwestyon en anser

Sa kabila ng mga kaguluhan sa mundo, sa gobyerno, sa kapayapaan, sa dagat sa kanluranan, at ang walang kasiguraduhan sa kilma, may pag-asa pa kaya ang Pilipinas nating lahat?

Schempre naman.

Kaya ipaglaban!

Sino pa?

Pasasalamat kina Ben Tisoy II, Z generation kutings, at Totoy Badboy.
This post has been approved by the Boom Boom Paw Foundation.

Seal of Quality

Hikahos

Hay hikahos! 

Buhay nga naman...
Talaga pala minsan.
Parang ngang gulong.
Umiikot. Umuusbong.
Dumarating. Lumalayo.
Nagtatagumpay. Nabibigo.

Ganun talaga.
Nananalig. Umaasa.
Natatapos. Naguumpisa.
Basta't may ligaya.
Minsan ma'y kadiliman.
Babangon muli. Umaga...
---<--@

Generation Diary

Personally, I think a parallel project here in our own Country would be really nice...

Anne Frank's legacy is a human one: Meant to inspire the human spirit in ourselves. Do not politicize it. Do not think it merely in an historic way. And you will better understand it. I did.

On Lifting the Moratorium on Capital Punishment in this Republic

I am not against the death penalty. I am against the death penalty being abused. 

I believe there are times when the imposition of capital punishment becomes necessary in the ordinary pursuit of justice so that the severity of the punishment meets the malice and gravity of the crime.

I also believe the guilt of executing one innocent person can not be wiped away by executing ten more who are guilty.

In all criminal cases, this guilt takes on the character of community so my opinion is this: We, the people, should try and ponder on this more carefully. For the question is not an easy one:

Were the Republic to lift the moratorium on capital punishment, is our justice system ready?

There are five pillars to this justice system.

All five pillars form one synergistic whole. But the center-most pillar in my view is the people. 

Our national communities being one of these pillars - are we, the people, ready? 

The other four pillars of our justice system are as follows: (1) our courts system, (2) our police service, (3) our state's attorneys, and (4) our state reformatory system.

All of them draw their necessary virtues from the character of our peoplehood.

Let us look at how we judge and accuse each other everyday - how rash and how harsh we can get... How many or how few the times do we choose to actively preserve each other's honor and recognize each other's dignity as something of equal and precious value.

Let us look at in-built social prejudices: The provincialisms and other chauvinist excesses that linger on within our selves. For these things - were we to serve the ideals of the justice we, the people, commonly desire - must all be considered carefully.

Let us work to rid ourselves of these... As for my own part, I continue to actively work to remove these harmful preconceived notions from myself as well.

Also, look at how some people here, her own compatriots - react to the case of Mary Jane Veloso. I have a lot of admiration for Mary Jane. For her detractors here in our own Country - so very little. They react like they don't think. Like they worship law. 

For these are safeguards against abuse of the law. Indeed, a good and well-regulated populace is better than any law. Good judgment naturally supports a sound justice.

We should be citizens first in this Republic after all and politicians last. Are we?

In any case, the fact that there is a moratorium on capital punishment means that the death penalty is not off the table and it never was.
---<--@

Love Smarts

IX. Love Smarts

Love is pain.

The pain of a broken heart. Hurts deeply. So deeply it seems, it eludes the mind. And so we struggle to find ways to cope. To mend a heart. A heart that once was whole. That now lay in pieces.

Salt itself has lost its taste! And life its flavor... 

So the broken heart labors. Weeping. Shedding salty tears. Until every drop has been shed. Flowing out. Into rivers, sea, and sky. Until the hurt relents.

And the rain renews. Once again...

Bitter were those days... Seasonless were those skies...
---<--@

Love Captains

VIII. Love Captains

Home is where the heart is. So you come home to your love... and your love comes home to you.

When you fall in love with a person. It just happens.

You suddenly realize, "Wow, I'm in love!" 

This is not to say love is a happenstance thing. One actually enters into love like an unknowing dream.

You have all these ideas in your head about a perfect person... and wham! Love takes you in and like a trap that shuts, one in love is in. So suddenly and wonderfully taken in.

You fall in love. You fall. Indeed, you fall in. But that's not true love, one must eventually accept. You'll have to clamber out of love and together experience each other apart. The true lover's art!

Physical attraction is important, one can not dismiss. Yet beauty is deeper than this. If physical attraction is not followed up by deeper connections, when time comes... love may not fulfill its intentions.

So when you fall in love, waste no time in discovering each other deeply. Make use of this safe harbor. That you and your beloved may build a strong vessel together.

So make it a fast ship with proud sails! 

That when tempests rise to break your love apart, you may together withstand it. Even in the midst of thy many adventures, great and small. So remember...

When you can stand apart from each other like pillars to a strong house, thy will in love abide. To revel in thy togetherness. For time itself will have proven the lovers worthy.

Thine is a ship that has mastered the sea. For Love has come alive between thee.
---<--@

Don't count the miles, count the I love you's.

Are we special?

Plants and animals are more ancient than Man. The universe was not created (or set in motion) for Man but Man (brought to an awareness of our humanity) for the universe.

The vineyards were already established before the LORD chose the stewards who were to administer them. Angels and Man both.

The Angels did not cause the celestial heavens to open up in golden light and wondrous life. Neither did we establish our own space-time existence. Its constants, symmetries, its depths, its heights, its width and breadth, its limits and ultimate purposes we neither caused nor willed.

Nor may we ever fully comprehend them.

The fact that we may think about these thoughts makes us unique. But are we special?

Yes, I believe we were caused to make each other so. Not to assume it - to make it so. To make it so that we can live in a world fully aware of the knowledge that we are the children of Mankind. We may likewise chose to undo our common dignity and ignore our common calling.

We are not central to anything in anything in the universe unless one becomes alive and aware of the being of our being... and be unto each other a keeper of our common humanity and together - faithful stewards of the life of temporal creation.

It is truly humbling to peer into a telescope and realize how small and insignificant we are. Also humbling is to realize that from small and insignificant beginnings, we are together called to shine as the stars.

Carl Sagan and Eugene Shoemaker are two of my most favorite scientists.

Carl Edward Sagan 19341109-19961220

Carl Sagan hated the sins of religion because he loved science. I feel sympathy for his atheism to be honest. It is a reaction to the evils wrought by the sins of the recent past. Yes, the sins of religion. Not of God but of the harmful ways Man chose and still chooses to react to the Divine Reality. The structural sins from which St. John Paul II asked the Church to purge herself of.

The fact that Carl was able to think and decide to do something good about his life makes him special in my eyes. He lives on in his legacy. In a way, as a fellow lover of the universe, I am an inheritor of his labors. And for him, I am grateful.

Now if you were to ask me, does Carl or Eugene for that matter, live on in the afterlife? I would say, I certainly hope so... I do not know and that is wonderful enough for me.

When we ponder the universe looking for traces of God in the furthest places, with longing eyes and empty hearts, we will always behold a void - hostile, cold, irradiated, and mostly empty - staring us right back.

It is only when we know our place in creation that we shall appreciate what it is to dwell among the stars.

Carl Sagan did. We all look for a place among the stars in our own way. We are wanderers after all. Our planet is a wanderer among worlds. Our sun is a wanderer among stars. Our own galactic community is a wanderer among countless galaxies. Time itself is a wanderer in space.

The original pale blue dot - Earth from 3.7 billion miles away
(NASA/JPL/Voyager)

Is everything wandering because we are lost? Was time put into motion for nothing?

That depends. The answers I feel are here on earth and not up there in the temporal heavens. Truth is in the heart. Because of it, faith seeks understanding.

Faith is essentially an expectation of true things. It is a knowledge that precedes all knowledge. It seeks even without our seeking, born of a Truth prior to all that is truth.

Faith in religion and faith in science are essentially the same seeking. Both science and religion must trust in order to produce fruit. And the fruits they produce, if they are good, are good.

Good being something of grace and produced separate and apart from the labors of both religion and science.

Science and religion are not incompatible, I think. Some people may seek to pit them against each other but knowledge will still remain knowledge, truth truth, and people people.

Today is Earth day. What I wish for is for us to view our planet as it is - in its littleness and insignificance - all the more, our home away from Home.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. May God bless us all.
---<--@

I support the Bangsamoro

I support the Bangsamoro. 

By this, I mean all our brother and sister Filipino Muslims regardless of political faction or tribal distinction who desire for a better peace in the Philippines.

I am of the opinion that the BBL though an imperfect document fully represents in spirit the sincere desire shared by many Filipinos of a more perfect peace in Mindanao and that passage of the BBL will serve as a foundation toward the fulfillment of this hope.

I support the passage of a final form of the BBL with revisions in keeping with this spirit. 

The basic law is a means toward better means in the ARMM region. The BBL is not an end to itself. The passage of the BBL is not a guarantee of a perfect peace in Mindanao or elsewhere.

There is no such thing in this world as a perfect peace. 

Peace shall be something we as a nation must always strive for in every generation. Much more effort shall be needed on the part of our Republic after the passing of the BBL.

Therefore, preserving our unity as a Country for Filipinos and cohesion as a nation of Filipinos must be a part of the considerations being made in the current deliberations as regards the BBL.

One AFP and one PNP. We should insulate both military and law enforcement arms of the Republic from as much political considerations as much as possible.

Constitutional bodies must remain national in scope and accountability.

I think public education most especially in this new age where innovation as regards education is made necessary must at least be a concurrent power.

Funding must bear in mind the public nature of public funds. While I can see that the BPE is to be allowed a necessary head start, funding must eventually prove equitable and fair as a means toward better temporal ends for all provinces and regions across the Republic of the Philippines.

This is so as not to cause internal friction that might lead to destructive rivalries and popular discontent in and among our national communities and their representative, structural LGUs. To preserve that unity and cohesion necessary to carry forward, from strength to strength, into fruition the intentions and vision embedded in the BBL in consonance with the Republic vision founded on the 1987 Constitution.

That is all I can think of...

The earlier the BBL is passed, the better. The sooner its intended benefits reach our people closest to the soil of our earth - the bakwit or IDPs, the Badjao, the IPs, etc., the better.

What I submit through this post I intend as guidance. It is a personal expression of my own long-standing commitment to peace in the Philippines. My hope is to share them through this blog to the prudence and wisdom of our representations in Congress and all other Filipino souls interested in the bringing forth of a more perfect peace in our beloved Philippines; a peace for all Filipinos.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. May God bless us all.
---<--@

Friendship is the only real choice we can make in the night. We can not keep saying to each other in the night it is dark. And recognize each other not on account of the night.
---<--@

Beware of easy extremes: Absolutisms in a democracy are employed like demagoguery is employed in fascism. They stop people from thinking for themselves. For fascists, this is good. For a democracy, this is bad. Very bad indeed.

Ideas are a part of our lifeblood as a free people. 

Happy Sunday

Let us give thanks... rest, refresh, renew.

Let us pray for peace in our Country, in our region, in the Middle East, across Asia, in Europe, in Africa, in the Americas, in Australia and across Oceania. Let us pray also for Mary Jane Veloso and those who are in prison with her.

Let us pray for Persecuted Christians and all human beings who suffer unjustly for their faith.

Let us pray for more good will in the world, between nations and between human persons; more acts of kindness, more appreciation for the blessings of life, liberty, and Country; and more trust in the infinite goodness and Providential grace of God among all peoples of the earth.

Yes, let us be strong in diversity. united in adversity, and steadfast in hope!

Things change. It does not rain everyday. Behind gray skies, above the storm clouds, beyond reach of the tempest... perennial blue skies endure in golden days embraced by the sun.

Tomorrow could be worse, but let it not be today.
Today we will decide to act to make things better.

---<--@

Thoughts on Foreign Policy

Foreign policy is a domestic issue.

If we were to obtain for ourselves from the Republic vision, an independent foreign policy, then we must bring this issue closer to home. We must be able to know and express our place in this world.

Rizal was a true citizen of the earth. 

He exercised human citizenship as a foundation of his being Filipino He was not a xenophobe. His best friend was an Austrian, Ferdinand Blumentritt. And we all know his love life.

Our 1987 Constitution offers us guidance in the form of two things - renunciation of war (conferring the right of common defense) and amity among nations (conferring the right of family).

I perceive those to be two sides of the same foreign policy coin.

War to me is not a foreign policy. 

Personally speaking, I believe in an independent, interdependent foreign policy, one that stresses the importance of an interdependent planetary community as an immovable constant in a changing world.

At its soul is love of friendship.

Its central concerns are human rights and national rights simply expressed as their basic human causes and these as goods reciprocal.

And these also expressed as sovereign need and sovereign trust in international relations.

And so - less stress on politics, more emphasis on clear and resolute choices.

No peace is perfect. But the decision to pursue peace must be one that is perfect enough. Truth is the first casualty of every nation's falling away from peace. Darkness sets in. War then takes its place. And so begins the death of human purpose and the corruption of human order.

If truth can not be resurrected by the choice to return to the path of peace, it is not a failure of peace but a failure of choice.
---<--@