The President
The White House
Washington D.C. 20500
Cc: Vice President Biden, Prime Minister Brown (UK), Prime Minister Rudd (Australia), Prime Minister Berlusconi (Italy), Chancellor Merkel (Germany), President Sarkozy (France), President Medvedev (Russia), President Arroyo (Philippines) and Secretary Teodoro (DND, Philippines).
Dear President Obama:
I have for so long kept in my heart much of these things which I now must relate to you.
It concerns the hope that we share in common as human beings all of which I will attempt to bring out in this letter.
I appreciate your time and shall use whatever time you shall have given this letter in a manner that is most efficient.
Therefore, I must first ask you, Mr. President, to please forgive me for I shall try to speak forthrightly about these many things.
I shall begin by summing up the message of my correspondence:
The peace of our world though imperfect is upon this season and upon this time; a hope that is not just within our reach, it is a hope we must build together towards.
For the longer term nature of the next age shall be decided by what we shall in common believe, upon this season and upon this time, both as human beings and as human nations together for ill or good, we must choose.
I must now provide the burden of proof. Twofold is the nature of this proof, one derived from Sacred Scripture and the other gathered from events that parallel Sacred Scripture.
Let me first confess to you, Mr. President, that though I am completely devoted to my Roman Catholic faith, I am the most skeptical of persons. I know to utilize both faith and reason not to deny me my own sense of reality but to deepen it and though I am a believer in great miracles, I have never sought any nor felt the need to have recourse to them for above all, I am more inclined in myself to appreciate the smaller graces of everyday things.
I would have been the last person in the entire planet to deliver a message like this to you, for I am neither a saint nor a great person - I am but a repentant sinner and a common citizen of my own Republic of the Philippines.
But the LORD our God has formed me even as my Savior Jesus Christ has called me from out of the darkness of myself, it seems, to become a witness of the very message that I am now hoping to humbly share with you today through this letter.
Having held on for so long to this, like a seed in my heart, it has grown over many years to a point where I feel I must share it now with you, dear President Obama. And I say I must only because I now feel that I am able to more completely express this message where in the past, it would have been difficult.
Hence, let me begin providing the first half of the burden of proof, the Sacred Scriptures. For it is here where we shall draw our fixed references which like landmarks upon a map will guide us as we move into the second half which is the current state of our planet and the evil sufficient for our days which I shall attempt to clearly describe to you.
Then, we shall return again to those fixed reference points we have made in the first half in order to complete the one whole burden of proof.
Please understand also that firstly, these are my personal interpretations of Sacred Scripture which I shall share with you only because they are also referenced by the other half of our burden of proof which are current events in the larger context of the precarious state of our planet.
Please refer to the following Sacred Scripture passages:
Genesis 3: 16-19, 23 - The Divine Requirement
This is the requirement to tame our earth in order that it may provide for our humanity, the provisions that meet our human needs.
Genesis 3: 22, 24 - The Order of the Nations
The casting away of Man from Eden and the Divine Requirement necessitated the binding together of the generations of the children of Mankind, for the Divine Requirement may only be carried out after Eden as a human community - this need to provide for the life of our generations has established from the throne of God in eternity, the order of the nations of Mankind.
This order of the nations binds together the hope of our generations as well as the ascent of our nations against the procession of the interior seasons - beginning from the autumnal dusk of faded Eden - it is this order that accompany the march of our nations together through exile time and also the birth of each new nation emerging into time from the deep of eternity. For each new nation upon earth is neither born by random chance nor necessitated by any will of evil - there is a rhythm and a will behind the purposes intended within and among our nations and these purposes serve only the good and the common good.
Mr. President, it is where the purpose of our nations have been in the darkness forgot that evil itself exploits to gain entry into the life of our nations - this forgetfulness which is wrought by the darkness of our times is a manifest need in many of our present day nations - each of which must complete each their own sacred remembrances in order to see clearly once again, the eternal vision of each them selves as they are meant to be and become.
A nation divided against itself will first manifest this division as a weakening of the will of Country, a lack of drive toward peace, and as the widening discord within its own internal dialogue between the nation and its state, the dilution of the sense of national identity shall soon follow as the trusts that have bound together its common people for generations become lost in the breaking up of its internal communities, this shattering will exactly result in absolute darkness - it is the same when the native sky above all earth was shattered to become the void whence all conflicts draw their source, all things living and whole when by internal strife become shattered result in absolute darkness, and this darkness is an indication of the gravity of itself, a sure and certain descent into anarchy and eventual annihilation of the sheltering spirit of a people. Where this sheltering spirit of a people is by war vanquished, the picket lines of the Devil shall by piecemeal or the beast of war shall by wholesale, rip into the numerous and diverse vulnerabilities exposed in the people in order that all of hell may devour them body and soul. All of this may seem far-fetched, and I do admit I have to some extent utilized my own imagination, but if we shall take a closer and more careful examination about the troubles that plague the peoples of our nations, we may see some parallels to this mostly unseen reality - it is why sacred remembrance is always by heaven prescribed and by our LORD God commanded of all of those who are yet willing to listen who have ears to do so.
Genesis 9: 1-17 - The Noahide Covenant
An accounting of each other and of all of sacred life and the entrusting of all of lower creation of the visible universe to each and every leadership lineages of our nations who are the original executive lines integral to the state - these lines have been decimated over the millennia by the will of war and where these lines yet remain, these lines should be preserved - neither have they lost their original purpose nor the potency of their mandate, their will evolved to meet the present day affairs that guide the well being of each their Country, the many Republics that fill our map is testament to the many fallen lines of our leaders and kings of old who whether by internal or external strife have been vanquished by the beast of war. It is important to say here that their hopes, even as the human hopes of all human beings of all places whose times have passed us away still remain with us.
This hope is an integral part of sacred remembrance and shall form part of a separate work dedicated to the same.
This covenant made each of our nations kindred to each other as a family of nations - an interdependent community required more than just to coexist - but to exist together in peace.
It is no surprise to say that our present world is full of nations who are strangers to each other - for it is to be expected of the will of war to also exploit the bonds that make each of our nations, keeper and friend to each other - bonds that by will of divine covenant, are bonds intended to make a family of friends out of all of our nations - for only in this way can the regental presence of our shared humanity become fully and completely present to our planet as one planetary whole, for the ascent of the unity of the wholes is not an ascent if it does not lead to unity and the one planet requires this ascent if we are to effectively address the troubles, besides the main siege of war, that is now plaguing our world as a whole.
These planetary troubles will have far reaching effects right through the 21st century, troubles that shall profit only war if we do not learn to reach out in peace with each other, upon this season and upon this time.
Whatever profits war benefits only death and darkness in the end but peace always adds to life.
Genesis 22: 16-18 - The Abrahamic Covenant
This covenant is central to the divine promise of hope for our present times.
A large part of the gains upon which war have established an existential siege upon our world completely depend on the inability of the numberless stars descended from the holy Patriarch Abraham of old to respond to the calling of the divine promise by which we shall bless the communities of Mankind - this communities of Mankind is nothing less than the one family of the nations of Mankind as a whole.
Nations who at no other time in the whole of human history find themselves in no greater need of the peace than we are at the present time, and this necessary peace being also the defining salutation of each of our great Abrahamic religions is the peace that is by divine promise required of all of us, who are called to by faith and promise, in order to bless the nations of Mankind.
Now, more than ever, Jews, Christians and Muslims together must lead this badly broken world into a future that is fit for the dignity of our wounded humanity - if we shall fail, or if we shall fail to see what is coming, no other force on earth shall prevent the darkness that is to come - and this darkness is not hard to conceive given the obvious trending of our world - therefore, all of the numberless stars must as one firmament allied with all honorable religion and with all persons of good will guide our world into the eastward way of the one Peace and away from the midnight darkness of war into a new dawning of a new age of peace for all of the nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
Upon this is built all our other hopes for a better world.
Daniel 12 - The Contrast, the Time and the Seasons
The choice for peace is a choice that took thousands of years to mature for it has paralleled the maturation of the beast of war - this contrast and an understanding of the natures of both war and peace, darkness and light, good and evil is what is indicated by a time, times and half-a-time - time being one thousand, times being two thousand years of lukewarm gray and many millennia of shadow, and half-a-time is a necessary requirement to see by way of contrast the difference between gray and shadow and split this difference into halves of the one wholes of war and peace, darkness and light, good and evil and weight the absolute and irreversible choice between two paradigms. This requisite choice is given further and a more deeper emphasis in Revelation 3: 14-19
The numbered days below I must ask you to trust me indicates this year 2009 as the beginning of the favorable season with which to build upon our hopes, the seminal foundations of a brighter, better and kinder world for all of the generations of life. It is a progression that leads into hope and requires that we work together as responsible partners, human beings as well as human nations, towards the promise of peace that open the right door into a better world.
Revelation 3: 14-19 - The Choice
To be lukewarm is to be dead to all hope and is worse than being the enemy of all hope - because this unmade choice when it remains unmade in the face of an overwhelming reality is not only damnable, it is worse for where the evil that dwell in hell are the evil who, by willful collaboration with the will of the Devil, have made their choice - where any unmade choices of the sin of omissions are cleansed by purgatorial fires, this one particular unmade choice is actually a choice to effect a complete denial of our humanity - but still a damnable choice made more terrible because it is in will of that person unmade, and therefore, that one unrecognizable path that lead to hellfire - (this one unmade choice of the lukewarm heart and the duality of the reflected image and the reflection, may be further understood in the context of the mystery of iniquity.)
Revelation 12: 7-9 - The War in Heaven
If war itself found no place in heaven and was thrown down upon earth, shall we allow it a place? As war was from heaven thrown down, it must on earth be denied - it must be driven into the void which is its oblivion.
We need not look up into the heavens of the visible universe to look for this war, this passage of Sacred Scripture is a revelation of a spiritual reality and so therefore, we must realize that the locus of this passage is in the human heart where time and the timeless intersect into one seamless human experience.
The timeless void is the space between the heaven of our LORD's eternity and our earth - and it is across this void where war is "thrown down" - To "throw" indicates a certain distance and so "throwing down" indicates the presence of that space between which is the timeless void, the sink of oblivion - the timeless, finite, unseen realms that was the natural domain of the angels and also the blanketing of the golden blue of the native sky of earth, resplendent with a multitude of living lights which were all conscious as well as conversant to our First Parents before the closing of our Eden at the fall of Mankind. This sky is shattered, there is nothing but darkness and conflict there now, it is the source of all conflict and also the nearest, most direct experience of the reality of the timeless to any human heart absent to the presence of God in eternity - prayer indeed, is battle - so the Catechism of my Church teaches us - it requires an ascent, indicating effort - but the fruits of prayer are numerous indeed.
Having witnessed the unfolding of many events that only seem to parallel and confirm for me those things above written in Sacred Scripture, I have long ago ceased to question why it is that I follow, I follow because I am in need and I know I am in need because it is my Lord Jesus Christ Who calls me.
Most of the current troubles of our world, dear President Obama, I am convinced are reflected in those passages and the necessary passage that shall lead our world into the dawning of the new age is also reflected in those passages - what peace is promised is an imperfect peace but it is through perfect acceptance of the imperfect that we are allowed to grow, and so I must hold on to this hope and do everything that I can to continue to effect this necessary change in myself above all and do what I am able to do from my state of life and within my own vocation to live these things in my life as well.
Lastly, it is important for me to reiterate that these things are things that pertain to human hope and not to faith nor to any particular faith - faith indeed has a large part to play here but the application of the fruits of honorable religion more than anything else is what is being required by my Lord Jesus Christ of all Christian and by our LORD God of all nations most especially all of our Abrahamic kindred in promise and faith hereupon this favorable season, upon this time of hope.
I should also like to include some of my own thoughts as regards to the Middle East in general and to Israel and Palestine in particular.
A Prelude to Middle East PeaceBegin with the Right Expectation
Peace is an observance of hope - it is never a thing that is understood in motion (therefore, peace in and of itself is not a process) but must be a thing understood at rest, it is an observance of the concrete, material fruits of hope and a growing sense of the appreciation of the same.
Peace is abundance of life. For peace quickly leads to the prosperity of peace. And hope as a way of sacred remembrance leads into peace.
The Middle East, engulfed by the darkness of war, requires first that peace be restored and it is this restoration which is a process. It requires perspectives that are patient as well as committed in the long term to the hope of peace.
Many hearts might believe to the point of hurt that peace is a process and so expect with the expectation of peace unto tears. My dear friends shed your tears not for lies but for the reality of your hopes together.
And do not blame those who desire to see you happy and secure in your happiness - you must understand there is a darkness that blankets our world - a darkness from which none of our nations belong, a thing which must remind all our sides that there really is no side that separates us when it comes to war - for war is its own dark side.
Having said all of that, let us shed away the past and now proceed with the right expectation which must be begun from what is absent in the darkness of war instead of what is present in the peace. This absence breeds hope and this hope fuels sacred remembrance.
Let us each be mindful that the process that returns the nations of that region, particularly modern Israel of our elder Israel and unborn Palestine, to the path of peace is not the desired destination itself that shall restore that troubled region to peace and the prosperity of peace.
Therefore, let us ground our expectations upon two distinct stages - the restoration of the peace as a process - and the expectation of the peace as an observance.
Like a way and a vision, let us perceive them in our hearts, and prepare for them in our understanding, steadily adding force to the conviction in our will to press forward together into our hopes.
Stage First: The Restoration of the Peace
This is the most difficult stage, my dear friends, let me tell you now - but the expectation of the peace that is the stage to come after this should help us to keep our chins up and our spirits buoyant even if the enveloping darkness that invisibly eclipse the joy of your lives can not deny any of us this vision of hope in the horizon, past barren deserts, past mountains, past empty wilderness, that we must together cross from within ourselves to get through to this most difficult stage.
I should reiterate that this stage requires perspectives that are patient as well as committed in the long term to the hope of peace - and this hope, my dear friends, is real so this labor that we now must undertake is no longer a labor of tears that bring naught but grief but one of hope that leads eventually to the realization of dreams.
Justice
Restoration is a word synonymous with the virtue of Justice and Justice is that which restores all things unto the truth.
Breaking down Hatred
The turning away from war require the application of Justice and Justice which is a virtue proper to heaven for no other light can illumine the eastward way but the one Light above all others - hatred must yield to an understanding of itself for hatred exists only for a love offended - it is this love which bears understanding and not the hatred itself because hatred defies all forms of understanding having denied all reason prior to its existence - what offends love that love is grieved? This will stay all hate but the false which is naught more than empty words spat by the lying tongue of the wicked will of war - this is malice and must be vigorously contended against. Hatred is the greatest obstacle to Justice for anger serves not the righteousness of God. Therefore, it is hatred, first and foremost, difficult though it may all be, that we must address. For if we do not and we ignore the blindness of hate, it will only feed into those same things that we are now trying to address, miring us in war and the poverty and the despair of war - hate that is true must find redress in the love that is grieved while hate that is false must by Justice be extinguished to prevent it from further consuming the life of our nations.
Hatred prevents understanding and where understanding is prevented; there is no room for anything else but contention.
Let us make sure that hatred is broken down, at least from among a democratic majority of our peoples, to prepare the way for an understanding that leads toward common ground.
The redress of Justice, we shall apply along the way - it must also be said that Justice is not the only virtue that effects a restoration to the truth - Mercy, Magnanimity and Charity are each in themselves also capable of effecting the same restoration and for those same reasons also cooperates with Justice not a few times in pursuit of the same. What is important when it regards virtue is every resultant action which must be both right as well as truly good - for all people, for all time.
Truthfulness
If we are to take upon ourselves, the mindset of peace, we must learn to speak in the language of peace - this is the exercise of truthfulness - for our hopes may only be properly expressed in this language and it is our hopes more than our grievances that shall lead us, step by step, toward the path that shall eventually lead us to the vision of peace.
Acceptance and Surrender
The reality of every present time is reality only because the will of Divine Providence has allowed it to become so - we must therefore be careful not to fight against things which constantly guarantee defeat and nothing defeats a man more than a pride that goes against the will of the Almighty God.
There is a way to effect change but never must it go against the will that establish for all Mankind the shape of present things, all that is present to our humanity must be all that is accepted, first and foremost, without condition - this is the first requirement of faith in Divine Providence.
If we are seeking for good things, we must also establish our seeking upon grounds that are good - for good things lead to good things and evil things lead to evil things. Never can the good be sought from means that are evil - human weakness excepted - for malice is the exact opposite of beneficence.
We can not obtain peace by contending in war - peace is only obtained by the acceptance of itself. War leads to more war unless Mankind seeks peace and seeks peace completely. And this seeking is sought only upon paths of sacred remembrance.
For a good tree can not but bear good fruit and a bad tree can not but bear bad fruit - but a young tree is neither of the two and therefore, must allow itself to be formed.
We human beings are like trees that are ever young and as regards to this particular similitude, it is the will of Divine Providence that we must allow to form us into good trees bearing good fruit. This is how surrender is discerned and it is this discerning surrender which is the second and last requirement of faith in Divine Providence.
Surrender to the good leads to growth and transformation in virtue and truth. Surrender to evil deviates from the good and leads to poverty and annihilation.
Hope
Therefore, if we shall desire peace, we must gain it through ways that are established in the good - the good of people in the community, the love of our families, the camaraderie of our friends, the goodness of our LORD God, the hopes that we keep and the hopes that we share with other people, all of these are valid reasons to make remembrance meaningful and a remembrance that is meaningful imparts a strength that is lasting and necessary in the ascent to the truth. For we must have recourse to prayer, my dearest friend, having founded the basis of our reason upon things that are good, we will see by what is evil in our days what change we must inspire. And drive towards this hope, flying to our LORD God for the grace to achieve through our instrumentality, our LORD's own will of good.
For hope is always a lineage, it is a strong anchor that grounds us upon the present good which is its object and also the wings that lift hearts of prayer and faith unto eternity - the act of hope itself, an expression of trust in the one Giver of all good things. So we strive for good on behalf of all good things - this is the action of hope - it is the only way to effect the necessary changes that help to overcome the evil sufficient for us in our days.
False hopes, being neither strong anchor of truth nor agile wings of surrender to the truth possess neither substance nor solidity - save for the evil in evil things which is always empty of promise - sink in the mire of the void. If we are to contend against the will of Divine Providence, and seek to change things with either reckless abandon or blind hatred, we shall find ourselves constantly and consistently defeated and overwhelmed by the crash of realities that are - in the very first place - absolutely beyond our control.
Like a furious tempest we shall utterly and completely spend ourselves as waves breaking against the immovable will of the Almighty God until all of time is spent or all of our lives have dissipated into the four winds.
Restlessness is the destiny of the false but peace is what we know in our hearts we have always strived for - and so let us do this striving together this time, my dear friends. For not only does our days call us, our hopes impel us, and our LORD God compels us, our lives and the lives of many other human beings completely depend on us, indeed, our one planet rely on our ability to deliver on what has always been our common and long-standing hope of peace in this region.
What is different this time is that this time is NOW - it is the favorable season for peace - so we shall by our common contributions to peace be a generation defined and a labor long remembered - if we answer, answer responsibly and answer responsibly together to the common calling of our times.
The Question of Capital
Jerusalem must remain undivided. However, Jerusalem must also be honored by the virtue upon which this city is founded - peace. Let us not make of this city an obstacle to the very truth upon which she is known to God, to the angels of God and to all the nations of Mankind - I cry in my heart for the sheer hypocrisy of it!
If we honor what is true in all of ourselves, we must know also to honor what is true in all those things about ourselves - this city must neither be a hypocrisy nor an obstacle to the very thing she stands in eternal remembrance of, if she must be a capital, let her be a capital of two faithful brothers and not of two hated rivals - let her be a common capital to two nations that she may bind them together to herself and allow them to discover through her the ways of our LORD's peace. To divide this city, I do not know but all of this city I know is called peace.
A secondary strategic capital must be found and established to make distinct the seats of the two states but to Jerusalem we must all yield - and work of ways to possess her together in peace. I can not tell you how strongly I feel for this one particular question, my dear friends - this city is not an obstacle, she is and have always ever been a help. Therefore, we must allow her to remain as she is, Jerusalem.
Stage Second - The Expectation of the Peace
Nothing that we can say will ever be able to either add or subtract from the joy of the peoples where we have finally achieved this stage - joy more than anything is also a form of strength and shall be enough to lead them all the way.
I thank you very much for you time, dear Mr. President, and consideration and I salute you and all your loved ones with peace, may our LORD God lead us across into the safety of new shores and the shelter of a better world for all of our generations.
