By Joffre Balce Wars are declared by those  Too scared and old to go and fight Too rich to lose their fortunes Too smart to miss opportunities Too powerful to leave their posts Too noble to get their hands soiled But they sacrifice the lives of others who are  Too naive that they will fight and die for free  Too foolish to realise they're being used Too young to even know life's purpose Too poor to generate more choices Too weak to protest for justice @Joffre Balce August 13, 2021

By Joffre Balce Would like to examine Jose Rizal as an intellectual more closely. He was not so much a journalist or philosopher like Karl Marx but shared his  belief in the equality of people in rights . His social philosophy was more guided by Robert Owen and  Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, based on his co-op endeavours in Dapitan. Politically, he is unlike the nationalists like fellow Latinos Simon Bolivar and Jose Marti but adopts a position where Filipinos are equal in rights with Spaniards under a federation of states or a Commonwealth of nations. As a literateur, Rizal put in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo elements of Victor Hugo's reflections on social justice and the moral struggles of humanity in Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. Crisostomo Ibarra and  his persona of Simon even resembled Emily Brontë's Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights. As a visual artist and sculptor, he was a scientist in his approach, concerned with capturing the substance, form and  func...