January 28, 2011
Jose Corazon de Jesus

By RICHARD R. GAPPI
Bulatlat.com

At the town’s main hub will stand

high-rise buildings, luxury resorts

and a new hall that will mark heads and pockets

with “THIS IS SAN JUAN: A GREAT TOWN,”

at the expense of helpless babies and kids

suffocated by the demolitionists’ tear gas.

How many feeding bottles were dropped?

How many feeding bottles drowned in canal?

How many bottles of innocence

were broken by violent fascistic ways?

How many?

Give me an answer, gentlemen,

before you count and sum up how much

your earnings and mark-ups will be

largely due to your immoderate

greed and anti-poor practices

masqueraded by development programs.

If there is none, however much the amount

you hold in your hands, there are bottles

broken that will cut and incise

deeper and deeper into the recesses

of your mind, into the core of your soul.

(Translated by Angelo Ancheta January 27, 2011)

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