unfit even for their watchdogs,

packed in plastic bags and dumped

in piles outside their mansions.

The half-eaten hamburger,

perhaps bought  just an hour ago,

is a feast to my five-year old son

who gaily romps atop the piles of rags

collected and ready for selling

to the women of Libertad Street

who make rugs and carpets

resold at a pittance to the usurers.

Thus, I die every moment the steets

are clean, and garbage-less for the day.

like the rock at Amtadao waiting

for the rains, so it could grow moss

and gather water to slake the thirst

of the sunflowers of early summer.

You would stay awake

until I come safely home, a wayward

juvenile reveling in excessive freedom:

admonished by gentle rebukes

and frowns that veiled your love.

When I am home, you are home.

I miss your songs of salidum-mai,

your graceful sways of the tribal dancers.

The dirges of the old women have taken over,

mourning stories of your goodness.

You smiled at me in your deep sleep

as the eternal gardener planted your dreams

into the earth, crowning you with a rainbow

as I wished you well in your journey.

Hereunder is an account of the historian Howard Fry on why America invaded the Philippines (compare with its invasion of Iraq):

…”Even before the sinking of the US warship “Maine” in Havana, President McKinley had a strong desire for America to acquire the Philippines and have it as their possession for some years just as what Great Britain had done to Hongkong. After Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay, President McKinley after much thinking had the conviction that the Filipinos could not be restored to Spain, turned over to France, or Germany, or given their immediate independence, for which in his judjment, they were unfit, but the United States must take all the islands, and “educate the Filipinos and uplift and civilize and Christianize them” (Latourette, et al., 362).

A year before the sinking of the USS Maine, Commodore George Dewey, a US naval commander assigned to the Asiatic Squadron, at his own request, made an intensive study of the Philippines because he anticipated that war between USA and Spain was inevitable. He then sailed from Hongkong to the Philippines in April of 1898 and on May 1, 1898 he and his men engaged the Spanish Squadron in the battle of Manila Bay. Since the Spaniards offered little resistance, Dewey defeated them without a loss of a single man. His victory led to the US acquisition of the Philippines which made Senator Cabot Lodge to declare that the US now controls practically one side of the Pacific Ocean and that the position of the Philippines would make them the controlling power in the Pacific (Fry, xxi).

On April 4, the Schurman Commission issued a proclamation that, in part, said:

‘…..The supremacy of the United States must and will be enforced throughout every part of the Archipelago and those who resist it can accomplish no end other than their own ruin.’

Source: Kittong-Chaokas, Mountain Province: Past and Present, 2009.

like the bridge at Quiapo,

Both light to a thousand feet.

Are you listenning? Hello!

Solitude at the Mega Mall.

to slay the dragons of passion,

Songs prelude to the angelus.

inscribed in your tombstone

under the solitary pine tree,

facing the terraces that climbed

to your home in the heavens.

I remember your eyes moments

before you died in my arms.

What have I done to hurt you?

Had I not love you enough:

less than you had loved me?

Your eyes spoke your sadness

as I wrestled with my soul.

You will not feel the cold nights

nor the hot noonday sun,

nor hear the gurgling waters of the river

below the slope where you lie.

You will not hear me cry, nor sing

your favorite lullabye.

For we, together, have died.

For we, together, have died.

The son of Andrew, with Mt. Mayon at the background