Let’s Redefine Beauty. But I Would Not Like To Redefine Patriotism


First, there is a hugely important word not found in Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie’s “The New Thinking For Agriculture” and its accompanying “Eight Paradigms,” but it is there: Patriotism. (Patriotism image from CooINSmart[1]) About it, beloved American novelist & wit Mark Twain says of it:

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time
and your government when it deserves it.

I say patriotic is Manong Willie’s New Thinking, his all-out support for his country in the wide field of Agriculture; and being an obedient cabinet member to President Du30.

Senator Bong Go has proposed a nationwide program called “Balik Probinsya[2]” (Living & Loving in the Villages, my free translation). Manong Willie publicly supports it.

The are no details about Balik Probinsya, but surfing I found that in the time of Noynoy Aquino, already there was a “Balik-Probinsya Program” (BPP) [3].” For the BPP, the DA is the first in the list of government institutions coming up with the “National Convergence Initiative For Sustainable Rural Development.” The Initiative, says the proposed Executive Order, EO, “is a strategic development approach that can contribute to sustainable rural development through complementation of efforts with the local government units (LGUs) and other stakeholders.” For the LGUs, the EO says: “The convergence approach is a major strategy for meeting the informal settler’s shelter requirements while at the same time addressing livelihood, other household, and community needs.”

I say that if you are a patriot in the true sense of the word:

You are beautiful.

I will also say that in patriotism, there is the beauty of intentions.

The Covid-19 Lockdown made us all forget about physical “beauty” brought about by penciled eyebrows, rose-colored cheeks, red & lustrous lips, padded eyelashes, and beauty-salon hair and makeup. Thank God!

Above, Kulin Fernandez, once-upon-a-time our next-door apartment dweller, does not mention her source of the image, but I found it: Energising Souls[4]. Here is more from there:

Let’s Redefine Beauty
(27 April 2019)

Women, Girls, Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Friends, Aunties,
Calling all females…………
Let’s redefine beauty.
It’s not the outward appearance.
It’s what’s on the inside that makes you beautiful.
It’s your very essence that is beautiful.
When your heart & soul shines, that’s where your real beauty radiates from.

I accept all that. But I want more of Beauty!
Like:

Beauty of ideas. The 2nd month into his headship of the Department of Agriculture, Manong Willie launched “Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita” at the Food & Development Center in Taguig City[5]. Today, Kadiwa is welcome here and sought there, especially in the cities. It is borrowed; it is beautiful.

Beauty of Intentions – My intention as a writer for the new PH Agriculture is? Cultivate the beauty of people and places in the countryside. So, after everything I have said and done in the last 13 years, I am not perfect. I accept that. I accept what Amy Bloom says of it:

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed.
And you are beautiful.@517



[1] https://www.coolnsmart.com/patriotism_quotes/?cfilter=images
[2] https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1100982
[3] http://nci.da.gov.ph/images/DownloadableFiles/3_ProgsandProjs/3.4_BPP/3.4 BPP.pdf
[4] https://energisingsouls.com.au/2019/04/27/lets-redefine-beauty/
[5] https://www.facebook.com/secretarywilliamdar/posts/125159192184147

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