Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Women wailing,
Children moaning,
The noise! the noise!
Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Can you not survey the field of battle?
There! Dancing in the field, Opportunities Hidden in the Numbers!
Can you not see the the starving and the dying?
the poaching and pillaging pensions?
Can you not feel their anguish?
We’re here! We’re here!
The bell it tolls and you stand there,
in your neutrality lamenting great expectations lost,
in your ivory towers wailing Political Cowardice!
Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!
We’re here! We’re here!
Ride Uruguayan thoroughbred! Ride racehorse!
Carry our Yellow rag!
Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!
NO!
The Yellow Rag waivers,
The Yellow Rag falls,
Raise it! Raise it!!!
Do you hear the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The Orange Darkness rolls,
Great mother of storm!
It comes! it comes!
Will the storm swallow our tomorrows whole?
The Yellow Rag bloodied, dirtied tattered!
Raise it! Raise it! Fly it!
Stand loose, we stand lost,
Stand together, we stand free!
For whom does the bell toll?
It tolls for our raison d’être,
For whom does the bell toll?
It tolls for thee, can you not see?
For whom does the bell toll?
Clang! Clang! Clang!
It tolls to start Requiem,
We come to bury our tattered Tomorrows.
Popularity: 1% [?]
“The Orange Darkness rolls,
Great mother of storm!
It comes! it comes!”
Huhuhuhuhuhu, we’re doomed.
The Bell tolls for Noynoy Aquino’s Presidential Ambitions.
Doomed by an INCOMPETENT campaign.
While it is ideal to have a self-actualizing electorate, it is rudimentary that economic needs (especially basic) are first satisfied, before political rights are understood really well.
Who was it that said: provision the soldiers first, then feed the people; lest they rise up against the ruler…
Hmmm, I wonder what Manny Villar’s message to the armed forces and police would be:
“Sikad at Tapang”
provision the soldiers first, then feed the people
Phil, my good man, I hope you realize how creepy that sounded. I wouldnt want to live in that country.
provision the powerful first
then the people I owe favors
then my family
then the soldiers
then those I know
and the church
and the surly government staff
and the rest can take care of themselves
on what is left
JoeAm: Makati Business Club dudes (a few of them, or maybe a large number of them) would do “… me/my family first; then the people I owe favors to or will want favors from; then three more groups; then a scholarship here or there; then the poor after the family vacation.”
The poor are kind of saying “.. hey, we are hurting here!!!” So between “anti-corruption” and “cares for the poor”, the poor prefers the latter — cares for the poor just about two to one.
Survey says.
Of course, the poor always do that — to say “..we are hurting here, we need candidates to help.” Same in USA as it is in Pinas. Big difference is Pinas has a large number of very poor and their votes cannot be ignored.
UP n,
The poor I know are excited about the election because they can sell their vote and get some money.
Joe
Someone should help the poor of Biliran get better-organized and then for Biliran should promise to deliver all their votes to Teodoro if they get 4P. 4P is good money — a household with three qualified children shall have a subsidy of P1,400 per month or P15,000 annually as long as they comply with deworming and other conditions. Seriously, de-worming is a condition. Also that 6-14-year-old children enrolled in elementary or high school must attend at least 85 percent of the time. Also that 0-5-year-old children must receive regular preventive health check-ups and vaccines.
A few Makati Business Club folks won’t like 4P to be institutionalized as a government program. Philosophical grounds. 4P is just dole-out.
I put in a smiley face :) and it vanished.
How does this piece relate to: “The choice is between life and death. The choice is between the vista of hell and the glimpse of heaven.” – De Quiros
Neil,
lolz. it does not.
But my post for tomorrow might. :D
-C
From the start, this particular election was never about elections. It was about bondage and freedom, oppression and liberation, despair and hope. Why the hell should people see it as an election? An election presupposes a natural succession. How can you naturally succeed someone who has been ruling for a decade without a mandate? If this was an election at all, it was the same as the snap election of 1986, a choice not between the relative virtues of Cory and Marcos but a choice between light and dark, heaven and hell, hope and despair. – CdQ
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100209-252282/Still-good-vs-evil
You’re right, let’s wear black and sing the dirge, for the time has come to bury our tomorrow. There’s no hope among the presidential bets. Even Noynoy, has knelt before the men in robes. Alas, we need a Bonifacio and Jacinto who will rewrite the Kartilya and spread the teaching to the mass of our exploited countrymen.
Bad poetry…
Lolz don’t I know it!
Yes…!
I have been hearing it, far too long.
Or else, we won’t hear it at all.
And yes, we are poor and let me explain.
What makes Philippines poor. Though we may have highly educated individual, but their intellect makes poor and, lack of judgement. Their decision making in politics, pinoy[ay]-in-pinas contemplate who, to cast their vote[favor] for. Be it wise, yet, they are poor in retrospect.
What causes these division? Ethnically, are the major cause of their decision factor. Too many of us, kapampangan’s, visayan’s, caviteno’s, ilocano’s, cebuano’s…[...] and many more. These, are some of the few, who can not come to conclusion, rightfully. I truly hate to say, but we are confusing society, we backbite and we wrestle with each others, who’s at best. In the country like Philippines, ethnically becomes pervasively indifferent.
Politically correct, we should be. But we are not. Pinoy[ay]-in-Pinas, get your act together, put your pride aside and establish a common ground, take time, to make that one legitimate choice, for our Presidentiable Elect. If we dont, our culture is out of WHACK. Then…[...]
This is the island I was born into, the foundation and my rock. Please, don’t ruin it for me. My parents use to tell me, back in early 60′s and 70′s Philippines is like, what Singapore, is today. What the Hell happened to Pinas…!
I’ve been collecting old photographs, many taken over a hundred years ago, and what really struck me were pictures taken by foreigners of the typical Filipino farmer and his carabao pulling the “araro”. This scene is still very much around in the barrios that are just a few kilometers away from Manila. So it should not come as a surprise that the Philippines have been importing rice since the Spanish times, and now we are the world’s biggest rice importer. And yet we have good agriculturists, engineers and craftsmen who should be able to correct this deplorable state. Gov. Taft once said to a group of eager-beaver Filipinos who were asking permission to organize a political party that they should forget politics first and concentrate on increasing the harvest in the farms.
macapili, ask PGMA what little has she done to improve the irrigation systems in the country.
A super water reservoir project embracing the Candaba swamps all the way down to Calumpit, drowning several barangays, was in the pipeline,to be funded by a Japanese loan, with Philippine government counterpart fund. The project was intended to collect the floodwaters that ravages every year bringing destruction to crops, animals and property, and provide irrigation during the dry season. But successive administration paid no attention to the project and is now aborted because the government was unable to put up its counterpart fund. While the pork barrel is regularly funded,important projects are denied. We can see the kind of priorities our politicians have. That’s why I have no qualms abolishing the batasan and the senate.
Whaaaat? Abolish batasan and senate only? Why not malacanang? PGMA is there more than 9 years already, isn’t she in-charged?
What happens now that Acosta is number 1 on the printed ballot list for the presidency?
1. Aquino won’t enjoy the “ballot order effect” (University of Vermont study).
2. Acosta can be confused with Aquino (a la Eddie Gil vs. Bro. Eddie in the 2004 election and Pepito Cayetano vs. Peter Cayetano in 2007).
So, it’s possible that some Aquino votes will be shaved off.
gloria’s comelec hasn’t disqualified Acosta yet as nuisance candidate. Well, the common denominator is that the nuisance candidates are Marcos loyalists (KBL).
We all know the tie-up between gloria and the KBL in the past (the Oliver Lozano capers during impeachment season). What prevents them from doing the same now? It’s part of the gloria’s “cover-all-bases scheme.”
But wait…isn’t the scion of Apo Marcos under the fold of the Evil Liar man?
Who gets to benefit the most when the formidable contender to the presidency will lose some votes? Of course, it’s VILLARROYO!
Olé!
@Coy, it’s a striking piece, a great reminder. The funeral bell has not rung and the race it has just begun. Sound the alarms, but the bell it shall not ring.
No comment on the ivory towers, but you know my stand that demanding more from our leaders, does not exclude us from taking action and making a difference to create and be part of the solution ourselves.
This is a moving piece @cocoy, but I don’t believe in the foreshadowing, the future, it’s always there to be shaped and molded, and fought for. As I will often say, we must act not because it is promised to us, but because it is the right thing to do.
And yet, it will be a constant reminder, so you do well to write this piece, in the days when the campaigns are about to go into overdrive.
i’m sure you’ll do the right thing.
yeah, the future is shaped. but it is staring at us right in our face. i fear if we do not act. then it will be another six years of the same torrid hell. where then will this nation be?
Coy,
I fear the bell tolls for us :((
it does.
I understand your point but it’s really bad poetry.
lol. don’t i know it. it really *is* bad poetry. you don’t have to tell me that. haha. i think it is universal consensus.
Why should we expect good poetry from a political commentary? This piece by cocoy is very well written, straight to the point, and straight through our hearts, most of us love like it. Maybe cocoy is not a John Donne but he’s a pretty darn good writer himself, a likable fellow too.