Who is a Filipino?

na·tion -noun - a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own.

state -noun - the body politic as organized for civil rule and government.

Coun·try -noun - for our intents and purposes; 1. the common endeavor of a particular people to perfect in exile time the synthesis between nation and state. 2. the Holy Grail of human civilization.
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WHO IS A FILIPINO but the heart that truly loves the one whole nation of the Filipinos.

A heart who truly understands our nation as WE being the one whole people of the one whole social democracy represented by our one whole Philippine Republic.

A heart who willingly embraces our one whole people, from the least to the greatest.

A heart that understands the entirety of our one whole truth that our people is an unbroken lineage of sacred life extending from generation to generation unto the Last Day.

A heart that shares with our common hope, anchoring it firmly in eternity and extending it across the long march of exile time from sacred trust to sacred trust unto this present day.

A heart that joins together in the continuity of our noble endeavor of Country, Country being the synthesis of both state and nation linking every Filipino together from beautiful life to beautiful life across the vast desolation of this world of endless battle.

A heart that believes enough to journey among the numberless stars across the midnight sky to quest for a shining peace that shall take us safely across the darkness into the dawn of the new morning from on high and a better, kinder and safer time for all our men, women and children.

O my beloved nation, I can not describe to you the static face of our people but I can show you who a true Filipino is when I see his or her heart in motion.

For we must never again allow ourselves to be defined by the vanity of our external world. Thus do we finally free ourselves from the last vestiges of our martyred colonial past.

Ever since the birthing of our ancient fathers, we have always been as a people defined by what timeless virtue is contained within those infinite worlds inside each and every Filipino heart.

By thus we were recognized of old and by thus we must again be recognized the same today, tomorrow and forever.

We are a people not because of what we were in our colonial past but because of who we are as we are of old.

We are the one whole Filipino nation.

"O dear Filipino nation,
we are who we are
long have the years
kept our dear country away
through trial and sorrow,
through fear and strife
through furious battle
through bloodshed tears
how long the struggle,
we fought to remain
through every opponent,
our hope overcame
night has not claimed us,
we are the same. "

- Excerpted from "Maiden of the Sea"

Mabuhay ang Pilipino.
Kapayapaan sa Sambayanang Pilipinas.

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

My honored Filipino nation, a Filipino is not made up of looks, physical appearance does not make a citizen honorable; a true Filipino is all about heart and how that heart responds to the citizenship call of the one whole Filipino nation-state. It was never about what we look like but what our love looks like from the inside looking out. Our citizenship is not won by ink and paper but by fire and blood.