A PRESIDENTIAL CENTO PANTOUM BY RODRIGO DUTERTE

by Melissa Alipalo

On March 11, 2025, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in the Philippines on a warrant by the International Criminal Court. The Philippine media and human rights groups estimate his war against drugs resulted in the murder of more than 30,000 people over a 6-year period.

Forget the laws on human rights. 
I am a man of many flaws and contradictions.
That is true. That is very true. 
I am not the man I am portrayed to be by some. 

I am a man of many flaws and contradictions.
If I make it to the presidential palace, 
I am not the man I am portrayed to be by some. 
I will do just what I did as mayor:  

If I make it to the presidential palace, 
You drug pushers, hold-up men, and do-nothings 
I will do just what I did as mayor
I’ll dump all of you into Manila Bay and fatten all the fish there. 

You drug pushers, hold up men, and do-nothings
Do the lives of 10 of these criminals really matter?
I’ll dump all of you into Manila Bay and fatten all the fish there. 
I have done this before. Why would I not do it again?

Do the lives of 10 of these criminals really matter?
If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter, and I will throw you out. 
I have done this before. Why would I not do it again?
Whoever said I hated the media?

If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter, and I will throw you out. 
Give me salt and vinegar, and I’ll eat his liver.
Whoever said I hated the media?
Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination

Give me salt and vinegar, and I’ll eat his liver.
Fate has many faces
Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination
If you’re a son of a bitch.

Fate has many faces
And if you hang me for all that I did, go ahead. 
If you’re a son of a bitch
Relax. God will somehow enlighten me.

And if you hang me for all that I did, go ahead. 
Many are asking what my credentials are and what I can do for the Philippines. 
Relax. God will somehow enlighten me.
I do not know. 

Many are asking what my credentials are and what I can do for the Philippines.
I really do not know how to solve the problem of the Philippines. 
I do not know. 
I cannot be the savior of this republic.

I really do not know how to solve the problem of the Philippines. 
Forget the laws on human rights.
I cannot be the savior of this republic.
That is true. That is very true. 


(Sources: Online media reporting of press conferences, campaign rallies, and interviews with Rodrigo Duterte)  

Melissa Alipalo is a writer, teacher, and international development consultant. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine and an MSc in Social Development from Ateneo de Manila University. Melissa spent nearly 20 years living in the Philippines, where she worked in journalism and development. Now based in Maine with her family, she is completing her first poetry collection, which reflects on their urgent departure from the Philippines in 2017 and the experience of resettling in the U.S.

SUNDAY MASS IN OUR ARCHIPELAGO

by Karlo Sevilla

On January 24, 1571, feast of St. John the Baptist, the Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi founded the city of Manila . He earlier took possession of Maynilad, the native settlement of Rajah Matanda and Rajah Sulayman on May 19, 1571 and firmly established Spanish authority in the newly conquered and untrammeled turf. The historic day happened to be the feast of Santa Potenciana and to honor her, she was made patroness of the new territory. Armed with the Spanish sword and the Cross, Legaspi, in his role as conquistador, apportioned a parcel of land for the church of the new settlement under the patronage of La Purisima Inmaculada Concepcion. —History of Manila Cathedral

Nearly 500 years after papal decrees were used to rationalize Europe's colonial conquests, the Vatican repudiated those decrees on Thursday, saying the "Doctrine of Discovery" that was used to justify snuffing out Indigenous people's culture and livelihoods is not part of the Catholic faith. —NPR, March 30, 2023


Another Sunday morning
inside the cathedral;
Baroque, built centuries ago.
First reader quotes a passage
about a people’s liberation
from coerced construction work:
 
And I have promised to bring you up
out of your misery . . . into a land
flowing with milk and honey.
          —Exodus 3:17.
 
Soon, the contrite and otherwise
partake in Holy Communion.
Finally, the priest bids us,
 
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
 
We sing along to the final hymn,
then file out of the hallowed cathedral:
a proud Spanish heritage
from The Empire’s clergy,
built by dint and dirt
of our ancestors’
forced labor.

Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines is the author of the poetry collections Metro Manila Mammal (Soma Publishing, 2018) and Outsourced!... (Revolt Magazine, 2021). His poems appear in Philippines Graphic, Philippines Free Press, Protean, Poets Reading The News, Line Rider Press, Radius, Unlikely Stories Mark V, I am not a silent poet, and elsewhere. 

WE ARE UKRAINIANS TOO

by Jonel Abellanosa

"What love is greater than the wholesome and heroic love of your own country? What other love? Nothing else." In this detail from a painting by Carlos "Botong" Francisco are the words of Andres Bonifacio, one of the founders of Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangan Katipunan ng Anak ng Bayan (KKK or Katipunan), a secret society organized in 1892 to gain independence from Spain through a revolution. Source: travels withcharie

Our ancestors knew subjugation forced

into throats where no words break, silence

sharp as bayonet, glass shards shimmered.

The noose gripping the tongue, expressions

of words deprived of sounds, fall and thud

turning choked air into death’s white light.

 

The garrote spells our history’s strangulation

in the hands of war criminals. Our heroes

and martyrs tell us we, with our rich lands

and seas, have to keep vigil how the heroic

unfolds where sunflowers are eternal as their

land. Our flag has their yellow and blue,

 

our dreams vast as their barley and wheat fields.

Ukrainians show, by their love for freedom,

they are Filipinos, too, their rights and reasons

to be free seven thousand as our islands.

They are our countrymen. Across our archipelago

bordered by disputed waters, we are also Ukrainians.    

Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, The Philippines. His works have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Dwarf Stars and Best of the Net Awards. His poetry and fiction have appeared in hundreds of magazines and anthologies, including The New Verse News, The Cape Rock, Muddy River Poetry Review, Chiron Review, Invisible City, The Lyric, The McNeese Review, and The Anglican Theological Review. His poetry collections include Songs from My Mind’s Tree and Multiverse (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, New York), 50 Acrostic Poems, (Cyberwit, India), In the Donald’s Time (Poetic Justice Books and Art, Florida), and Pan’s Saxophone (Weasel Press, Texas). He is a nature lover, with three companion dogs—Yves, Donna and their lovechild Daisy.

UNSENT LETTER TO HIDILYN DIAZ, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST

by Jonel Abellanosa

How much more weight

should you lift off our poverty

of belief, how much more heavy lifting

before we know ours is the golden

heart we lost before birth?

 

We pine, nostalgic for the home

we never knew, strangers to our own

archipelago. The beauty we see hidden

in plain sight, stolen long before

we’re old enough to question.

 

Long our memory of plunder,

recall homeless when the monsoon

season rages. We’re too preoccupied

to remember. How much the dearest

question we learn to ask, dear

 

as restless days at a high cost, heaven-high

anxiety we can’t wrap to give our children.

How much, how much more? Enslaved

to more, we open our chests, shocked

our hearts have been stolen.

 

Nor do we have the chest to live by

during months when rain drains all warmth.

How many of us don’t know you emerged

victorious against the heavy burden?

How many of us are still searching

 

for the heart that elsewhere beats

the way living in comfort beats and makes us

hear music, the pursuit of happiness

a birthright equal not just for the few?

For the shortlasting you found our hearts.

 

For a moment

wear it

like a medal

for us

all.

Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, The Philippines. His poetry and fiction are forthcoming in The Cape Rock and Poetry Salzburg Review and have appeared in hundreds of magazines including The New Verse News, Thin Air, Chiron Review, The Lyric, Poetry Kanto, and The Anglican Theological Review and have been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net and Dwarf Stars prizes. His poetry collections include Songs from My Mind’s Tree and Multiverse (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, New York), 50 Acrostic Poems (Cyberwit, India), In the Donald’s Time (Poetic Justice Books and Art, Florida), and Pan’s Saxophone (Weasel Press, Texas). He is a nature lover, with three companion dogs, and three other beloved dogs who have passed on beyond the rainbow bridge. He loves all animals. 

PRIORITIES OF A TYRANT WANNABE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

unfinished notes from the Philippines 

by Leo Cosmiano Baltar

wordplay (or what to name incompetence)

a. lockdown

b. community quarantine 

c. enhanced community quarantine 

d. modified enhanced community quarantine 

e. general community quarantine 

f. modified general community quarantine

travel ban (except China) 

 ̶f̶a̶c̶e̶ masking his political intentions 

police and military over medical frontliners

Bayanihan to Heal as One Act 

(or more special powers that will be abused) 

mass t̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ arresting 

COVID-19 public address past 1 am 

(or late night tantrums on televisions 

with unlimited cursing) 

social [class] distancing 

money money money 

(or public funds that did not materialize 

& other trillions of debt)

mañanita fiasco: a party gathering 

involving a police chief and his 

cops even when it is not allowed 

but they will not be arrested 

according to the president

jeepney phase out under the 

guise of modernization

[not] listening to doctors & experts

taxing online sellers

more cops to shoot the virus

 ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶ tracing the communists 

(or red-tagging advocates & activists) 

media  c r a  c k d o  w n 

exhibit a: ABS-CBN network 

exhibit b: Rappler 

exhibit c: alternative media

anti-terror law (or daily martial law) 

House Bill 4953, declaring the balangay 

as the national boat of the Philippines

̶f̶l̶a̶t̶t̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶u̶r̶v̶e̶  & other delusions

changing an airport's name 

bullying effective local leaders

quarantining basic civil and human rights 

& other fascist dreams

Leo Cosmiano Baltar is a Filipino writer, a poet, and an activist. He is currently taking his bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of the Philippines Diliman. When he is not writing, he is thinking of what to write next. 

DARK SHADOWS

by George Salamon

"President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that he would like to kill millions of drug addicts in the Philippines, defying international criticism of his country's bloody war on narcotics and escalating his rhetoric with a reference to the Holocaust." —The New York Times, September 30, 2016

From Germany's ashes in 1945 we witnessed
A phoenix struggling to rise.
One wing whipped up the cinders as
The other remained rooted in the fires.
Finally, the peacock's shining plumage
Spread its light against a grey Northern sky.

And now, seven decades later and
Six thousand miles from Europe's bloodlands
Hitler's yardstick of death continues to
Measure our species' resolve
On self-extinction.

George Salamon taught German literature and culture at several East Coast colleges, served as staff reporter on a business journal and senior editor on a defense journal. For he past five years he has written from St. Louis, MO.

LAST DAYS: A RANT

by George Held

Between November 9–11, 2013, a large iceberg finally separated from the calving front of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. Scientists first detected a rift in the glacier in October 2011 during flights for NASA’s Operation IceBridge. By July 2013, infrared and radar images indicated that the crack had cut completely across the ice shelf to the southwestern edge. New images now show that Iceberg B-31 is finally moving away from the coast, with open water between the iceberg and the edge of Pine Island Glacier. --NASA

                          The watchword to my remarks [on halting global warming] is urgency.
                                                      –Bill McKibben, Brown Alumni Monthly


How few dare face the fatality we face:
Our electrified, motorized civilization
Pollutes the planet; mammoth enterprises
Fight for scarce resources, including water,
“The new oil.”

Will your grandchildren have a pure drop
To drink unless your children
Can afford to pay hundreds of dollars
Per gallon? Will the poor, driven mad
By thirst, revolt with Kalashnikovs,

IED’s, machetes to seize water supplies
for their families? All that storm water flooding
and drowning Kansas and the Philippines,
Bangladesh and the Jersey Shore
And not a drop to drink.

Scientists report time is short, even Al Gore’s
100 years sound far too optimistic,
Yet what are you doing right now to stem
Our reliance on fossil fuels and advance
Our shift to renewable, sun and wind, power?

Right now what are you doing to save Mother
Earth from the ravages of global warming,
to keep air breathable, water drinkable,
Life livable? Do it, right now, for the last days
Are near. Tomorrow is too late.


An occasional contributor to The New Verse News, George Held occasionally blogs at www.georgeheld.blogspot.com