IN THIS age of fake news, lies from the bully pulpit, and the flouting of human rights in the name of an unjust and inhumane anti-poor war, some writers are joining the anti-tyrannos struggle through their art.
Enter stage left, a book of protest poetry that is “a response to what is happening in our country, from the subtle to outraged, in four languages,” says writer Alfred ‘Krip’ Yuson, in his introduction to “Bloodlust: Philippine Poetry from Marcos to Duterte.”
It is, he says, “our protest against the cavalier disregard of human rights and lives…from the long period of Ferdinand E. Marcos’ rule to what we hope to be a brief tokhang tenure by Rodrigo Roa Duterte.”
A collection Yuson co-edited with poet Gemino H. Abad, “Bloodlust” gathers poetry from Filipinos all over the world.
In it are works by National Artists for Literature Cirilo F. Bautista and Virgilio S. Almario; writers residing abroad, including Joel Vega (the Netherlands), Eric Gamalinda, Luis H. Francia, and Luisa A. Igloria (the U.S.), and Merlinda Bobis (Australia); and PH-based writers such as Joel Pablo Salud, Alma Anonas-Carpio, Marne Kilates, and Lourd de Veyra. Sixty-five poets contributed 133 poems.
“Here…in “Bloodlust,” says Abad, “our writers speak up and stand their ground!…it cannot be said that our writers since Balagtas and ‘La Solidaridad’ were ever mute. Without the writer, and poor and oppressed among us have no voice else.”
He also reminds us: “Our literature, wrought from whatever language, in whatever genre, is our people’s memory. A country is only as strong as her people’s memory!”
Bloodlust, then, is a documentation of that memory. In these pages are recorded the fear and loathing of tokhang, EJKs, fake news, creeping Chinese invasion and incipient dictatorship.
The “Bloodlust” poems also raise the curtain on the little-but-large heroisms and heartbreaking suffering of our fellow Filipinos.
Here are the voices of our poets:
From Abad’s “Scarborough Shoal”: On a day, and ever since/ “Out, out of Scarborough! Away!” Chinese coast guards warn. / “Hoy!” Etac yells back /as they point their rifles at him, “Where does it show you own the sea?”/ They move their vessels as to ram his boat —“Pesteng yawa!” he laughs at their incomprehension of his expletives, the dirty finger…”
From Francia’s “Requiem for the Common Tao”: “They did him in for /what he did, though / he had not. / Did him in, they did, didn’t / they, though he had no / sin, did he now. / for all he had / was running on / empty belly / empty veins / empty mind and pocket / empty in excelsis Deo!…”
From Igloria’s “Ghazal, with Rising Body Count”: “Newspaper stories of lifeless bodies fished out of / the gutter: too many now every day to number. / Their wrists are bound, their mouths sealed / with tape. Before they died, who had their numbers? …”
From Vega’s “A Sad Day in the Body”: “Say ’knock’, say ‘plead’ and the body drops to its knees under / the sky’s blue awning. Ground is no more ground, not bed / nor repose. A girl of seven stood on the road, by her father’s house / made of cardboard, beneath a flock of crows. They came in two’s, beaks of steel, feathers flecked with gunpowder…”
From Yuson’s “Populism”: “Uncertainty prevails. The winds / of touted change bring ogres / with guttural language. Harsh / are their sounds. They have long / been eerily quiet within the gates, / after all, but grown in numbers. / Now as barbarians unmasked, / they gloat with the odors of idiocy…”
There is no poem that seeks center stage; rather they weave in and out of each other as dancers do. Whether read in sequence or opened to a random page, the poems still cohere despite having different themes. All provide an emotional perspective in varying degrees.
In addition to being a record of these trying and troubled times, this book and other works of protest writing and art can also inspire to struggle, to resist, to act. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” said Edmund Burke, so when all has been said, then all must be done.
Perhaps after that we shall witness: Exit dictator, pursued by a bear.
Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.