LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Laon Laan,

I do not know who you are and where you come from. Why do you hidde behund an alias? Are you afraid of something or someone? Do you have difficulties to back up your own arguments? Are you acting on someone elses behalf? You are not helping yourself and your brothers with the same intentions. You are only creating a bigger mess. What you are accusing others for is matched by your own level.

From your mails and your deep interest in the Order of the Knights of Rizal Assume, that you are an active member of this Brotherhood.

I have been reading some nasty mails in the last few weeks. And I am more and more concerned, about the level of these mails. These mails are not improving the situation of our organisation and are not helpful to solve the difficult situation. With you last mail from Saturday 6th, 2007 you have reached the lowest possible level. A level which nobody who is serious minded on the matters of our Organisation can tolerate. You have reached a level that prohibits any discussion with you.

Even if you are not content with persons and circumstances you should argue and not insult. We as Knights of Rizal regard ourselves as followers of José Rizal, a gentleman from appearance, behaviour and thinking. If you regard yourself as a follower of Rizal and a person who has vowed to follow the Orders of the Supreme Commander and work for the improvement of our Order, you have vowed to propagate the heritage of Dr. Jose Rizal by personal behaviour with the approach to your brother Knights and you have vowed to keep camaraderie with your brother Knights.

Especially in times when you are not content with decisions, actions and persons, these virtues are most important.

I can only recommend that you apologize to the community of Brother Knights for your last circular.

As you perhaps do not know me, I may inform you that I am by no way content with the situation here in Europe and that the appointments on regional and even area levels are by far not wise and we here on the spot must have the impression that these decisions are based on personal relations, false information, and perhaps even worse conditions.

But we have to live with these appointments, we have to accept them until they are expired or changed by the Supreme Commander and his council.

All efforts to get different appointments are until now not yet successful. For my opinion too, Manila needs much time for decision and is one of the culprits for the sad situation here in Europe. I have allowed myself also to send letters to Manila to inform them about the different urgent problems from my point of view. As communication from Manila to members and Chapters is poor, I waited for answers and comments and only got them indirectly through brother Knights who have visited Manila. Surely many things we are suffering from have their roots in the old fractions of the Brotherhood, which a couple of years before split the Organisation. But because of the structure of this Brotherhood changes need a lot of time. We as members of this organisation can feel neglected and even not well enough respected, but still we must keep up a minimum standard in our interactions and discussions.

Something else we have to understand: The appointees on Regional and area level are not our representatives, but the representatives of the Supreme Commander. If he wants persons who are not respected by many active Knights, it his choice and if many things can not be realised it is not the chapters or the members fault, but the Supreme Councils. They have to realise that only through cooperation something can be achieved.

A representative of Manila, who has to spend his time on arguing about his role and personal background, has not much chance to achieve something. He can start new things and perhaps acquire new members but will not solve the pending problems.

I want to remind all, that the discussion about the problem of our Order needs a meeting during which all these problems can be discussed and where everybody has to open his files and proof his allegations.

We have also to start to discuss something much more important: About the future of our Organisation. If someone is asking you, what are the knights of Rizal standing for, what is your answer? (Promulgate and emulgate and study? Create new Chapters? What are you propagating? A historic person ore something important for the present?

These are the important topics of our Order. What doe the Knights have in Common, what is their role in society. What is the scenario for the Knights in the future? How do we generate members, who are not only triggered by the provision of a title? How do we acquire younger members, who will inspire the Order with new visions and ideas?

Dear Sir Laon Laan, perhaps you can with your next circular mails contribute something more important then your bad mood about persons.

I wish you a nice and reflective Sunday.

Sir Peter P. Plueckebaum, KCR

Member of the Bonn Chapter, Germany

Dear Herr Pluckebaum,

I hereby acknowledge receipt of your email of January 7. Thank you for your kind attention and consideration.

First of all, I'd like you to know that I'm not in anyway connected, directly or indirectly, to the Order of the Knights of Rizal as well as I'm not acting on someone else's behalf. In fact as a civic minded Filipino, I'm acting on behalf of the interests of Rizal with no ulterior personal motives whatsoever.

May I correct you that what you must have read in the blogs aren't so nasty as what you think personally if you would just care to see the situation closely and understand to whom they were directed. I do believe on the foundation and the framework to which the KOR was founded and conceived. Yes you're absolutely right that I should follow the superiors but not to the extent of desecrating and defiling the name and memory of Rizal together with his works and teachings only for their greed and self-serving motives for fame and power in the sole and final pursuit of their personal ambitions of inflating their ego for self-aggrandizement under the very nose and at the expense of Rizal!

For the likes of any Filipinos who are pathologically corrupt officials and are taking advantage of their title and authority in a highly honorable and respected organization like KOR just to wield their powers in order to manipulate and alienate those under them as well as their own countrymen should be stripped off of their official functions and be kicked out from the organization for good from their unscrupulous and unchilvalrous behaviors and misdemeanors of capitalizing on the most ignominious and counter-productive practice of "utang na loob" among them regardless of their personal and professional backgrounds. Why wait for their terms to expire? Why don't do it now and revamp the organization completely according to Rizal's ideals and teachings? I wish you would still be around by then!

I wonder if you have read thoroughly and digested the contents of "Who are they in power for" featured in La Solidaridad? If not, please read it again. Are these what you would ever expect from your area commanders? These are Filipinos of domestic origin with lower educational and professional backgrounds who lack tact and diplomacy in leadership than most of you. Among Filipinos of their level, they would like to get a kick out of being perverse just to show off their power over their Filipino colleages in a"pissing contest" on how they could order around the European knights under them! What a pat in their shoulders to have thumbed down an important burgermeister to insuate that he's afflicted with Alzheimer and doesn't perform his duties properly and at the same time criticized the embassy for placing an incompetent diplomat! Who the f--king hell are they? Please excuse my language! On the other hand, I remember how the Filipino area commander once stood up from a meeting when confronted to negotiate on a major issue but blurted out arrogantly that he had already made his decision and walked out in the middle of the session!

Contrary to what Rizal had stood and died for to win justice for his countrymen and the world at large, are these the kind of people you, yourself, would like to serve and deal with? Good for you, if you're such a masochist who would like to lick their butts while they're holding on your balls! I'm sorry this is not a very personal remark to you, but rather against them. For your information, I wasn't in a bad mood when I posted the picture. But wait ‘til you get me in my worst mood because you haven't heard my last word yet!

Herr Pluckebaum, the picture that you saw in the blog is nothing compared to the scandal that those people had caused irremediably to the organization and the shame that they have inflicted to the nation and the whole Filipino race! What had Rizal ever done to expect this but not as an "utang na loob" in return for just a simple respect from his own countrymen! I am very embarrassed to be called a Filipino among them! Fortunately, I have a European citizenship for which I'm very proud of! And you?

Well, if you think that I would ever discuss or negotiate with them even if I were a knight, I'd rather leave the organization with my honor and personal conviction on Rizal still intact and untainted from their madness and “folie de grandeur”! Perhaps, you should consider it as your best alternative, in the end!

If ever they were the ones who asked you to write me and intervene on their behalf because they don't have the balls to confront their own fellowmen without their usual pretext or subterfuge of "racial discrimination" then you should be too fool or stupid to be "used" and practically taken for a ride. Even though they have already betrayed the concept of the organization, please believe and trust Rizal instead!

Please don't try to discover or know who I am. As Laon Laan which means "long have I yearned to serve," Rizal had penned this name so that he could communicate freely with his countrymen to save them from tyranny, oppression and injustice against the colonizers. But whatever I'm doing now is to uphold his name and memory and to carry on and foster his works and legacy!

Yours most sincerely,

Laon Laan