A Message to our one Filipino Nation

The SONA is an expression of the President's hope for the nation, it is meaningless if we refuse to share in the same fundamental hope. One does not have to agree with all of the message but one must be careful not to fall into entrenched positions of militant absolutism and political brinkmanship both of which only serve to enfeeble our social democracy.

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O MY HONORED NATION, for so long have we dreamt of our freedom; of the independence to steer the destiny of our social democracy; of complete self-determination and for so long have we desired to prosper from this one hope.

For so long have we fought, for so long have we labored under the yoke of the unconcerned world in and around us; from foreign colonial powers to the yoke of the tyrannies our own peers have imposed upon ourselves.

We have shed profuse streams of our own sacred blood, waded through a wide river of our own martyred tears and through it all, O my beloved nation, we have, each and every one of us from generation to generation, endured with this one hope prevailing in our hearts; unyielding through our long and anxious passage into maturity as a people, ever like the unfading light of the golden sun and the stars of our own flag, our Old Defiant, forever standing steadfast against the darkness, ever faithful to our glorious anthem's promise, this, O honored Filipino compatriots, is the collective resolve of our one Filipino nation.

This is our resolve, O my honored nation, as perennial as the sun in our days and the stars in our night sky. Let us always be mindful of this resolve for it is the unyielding, unfading, immortal flame at the heart of the universal Filipino spirit and descriptive of the strength of our common experience as a one people.

Let there be no doubt, O my honored nation, that we are all thoroughly imbued with this same eternal resolve. The spirit of our people can never be absent from those who belong to this one Filipino nation for all of us are bound from eternity by Almighty God to share in the one destiny.

Being mindful of this resolve, O my people, under the eternal vigilance of Almighty God, let us stand together and believe with all our heart in ourselves as one people, all our strength in our particular endeavor of Country and all our faith in our common hope as one nation.

Let us forsake the bitterness that binds us to the past for the past is the past and whatever questions born from past afflictions that linger unanswered in our hearts will never find their answers by our clinging on to the emptiness of the past. For the past is a moment spent, meaningless and void, it is without answers, without promise, a stillness of things undone; a ringing, disquieting silence whose emptiness shall only make us bitter and bitter the longer we immerse our souls in this nothingness.

Let us free ourselves from the bondage of the past things that divide us, start believing again in the things that unify us as one common whole and begin to experience again together the promise of every present moment.

Indeed, it is a hard life, O my Filipino compatriots, for we are a poor nation but if we learn again to openly share the warmth of our common hopes with one another as one nation instead of allowing ourselves to be divided by the cold of our bitterness, these common hopes of ours will soon prevail.

Do we not know by now from the common experience of our past generations together that it is by the strength of our common spirit as one Filipino nation that we may prevail over every difficulty?

For the eternal destiny of our one people may only be gained by our being one nation, this is our common hope, O my beloved Filipino nation, and our hearts must only believe enough to be able to embrace it for our common hope to become true once again.

"Have thou now forgotten
that promise long ago?
return now to the wonder
and never let go."

"The night's almost over,
daybreak twilight draws near.
Aright my dear people,
the dawn will soon break.
Our Republic awaits us,
O nation most dear.
Our land of the morning
is soon to appear."

- The Maiden of the Sea

Saint Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila, pray for us.

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.