Monday, August 11, 2008

On the Crisis in North Cotabato

KNOW THIS, my dear brothers: everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God.

- James 1: 19-20
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THE ANGER OF MEN does not serve the righteousness of God. Make your peace with each other before the setting of the sun, thus do you recognize and uphold our common human dignity, one with another, as common peers in common creation. By thus we do honor our Creator.

Prove unto your own selves that divine justice does not divide troubled hearts as in war but restore troubled hearts to our one common belongings in God's peace.

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There is only one solution to the crisis and it is not a cease fire or a truce but a mutual and permanent commitment to lasting peace which is obviously a greater good which should command the fidelity of those who are truly on the side of peace.

Let us define in our mind's eye some of the simplest characteristic of peace that can be discerned from our one people's more than 50 years worth of common suffering the insufferable tyranny of war.

Peace is patient. For peace, being sure of it's own truth, does not feel any need to oppose war. Peace is the fulfillment of itself by itself. War is the opposite, war seeks opposition in all things because war by itself is a lie and is therefore, incomplete. War seeks opposition because it needs to feed from opposition lest it starves and ceases to exist.

The illusion that peace is anti-war serves only the ambition of war. For peace is not opposed to war, peace is as a polar star that points the way toward authentic freedom which is the ascendant path that leads out of the gravity of war's insufferable tyranny.

Therefore, one can not be half and half when it comes to our national ambitions as a people, one can not swing from here to there at the slightest obstacle, one must be utterly and completely committed to gather with the peace or one scatters with war.

There can not be any lukewarm hearts among us where the cost concerns human life for to be Lukewarm in terms of things sacred as life most especially human life is a travesty to both honorable religion and our common humanity.

If one is really committed to the peace, then we shall see it by their fruits. One who is committed to the peace does not ignore the value of human life to which peace itself is completely dedicated for what for is peace if there is no one left to enjoy it's bounty? What is the use of flogging a dead horse?

Therefore, o my nation - my Filipino compatriots, one and all, let us be committed to the peace and seek to weaken by our commitments the chains of this ancient tyranny of war that have enslaved our nation for so long and for such a cost! The real enemy here is war itself.

For the battlefield can not be impartial. If it were, then all conflicts would have had a viable military solution at all places and at all times. But our sad history has shown us that this is not the case. This is why every and all conflicts that has broken into the common experience of our one nation have always had solutions that to be lasting must be found apart and distinct from the confusing din of battle. For peace can never be birthed from the rigors of the battlefield as peace always owes it's pure beginnings in our human hearts.

Let us be utterly committed to the peace that we might be a step closer into finding a negotiable solution to this instability that have for so long mired our nation, Mindanao in particular, in poverty, and deprived our one people - Christians, Muslims, Secularists, one and all, from our national ambition to provide for all Filipinos, one dawn, one destiny.

Stop the fighting in North Cotabato!

At all times, for those who are thus committed to the peace, to protect the lives, the livelihoods and the habitations of our common people on both sides of the one side of the peace; to enable their hopes, recognize their inherent human dignity, uphold their human rights and empower their choices.

Let us persevere in our democracy and play into it's intrinsic strength. Let us communicate with force of will the impartial truth that blames neither Republic nor MILF, being patient and never without hope, but condemns war first and no one else second. Therefore, no one on both sides of the one side of the peace may be excluded by any one of his common peers in common creation save he or she chooses to exclude himself or herself by forsaking their natural human patrimony as well as their supernatural divine destiny to freely and openly serve with the beast of war.

Let us work assiduously to establish a democratic dialogue between the local governments of the affected region and allow them to voice out their will while favoring nothing else but the interests of our common people as a whole - ONE WHOLE - and to communicate these interests to all the parties concerned with constitutional and juridical force.

Lastly, let us never betray our eternal remembrances and exchange not the noble sacrifice of our martyred past for cheap solutions that are beneath the dignity of our heroes, known and known to God alone.

Mabuhay ang Pilipino.
Mabuhay ang sambayanang Pilipinas.

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

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

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