THE BLOGGER AS POET-JOURNALIST WRITING ABOUT THE FALL OF A PHILIPPINE BUREAUCRAT

Poetry is the art of saying mouth-fulls in so few words. It delivers its message in a special kind of language and the poet, as communicator, uses literary devices such as figures of speech like simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy. Rhyme and rhythm, imagery and symbolism, meter and other elements are part and parcel (not necessarily all) of the genre. The poet, as an observer and through this special language, can create or show a mood,  demonstrate a viewpoint, tell a story, and reflect his personality--all this in one sweep of the pen.

The journalist delivers his message in direct and precise language--he can be brutally frank--but the poet can be subtle, hides his anger and other emotions in metaphors and similes and you have to read his poem several times to get the meaning of what he is saying in the lines and stanzas. We are presenting the following poem in connection with our criticisms against this Philippine agency whose personnel hide anomalies, a practice that seems to be imbedded as culture in the Philippines.

 (Remember the P10-billion scam involving Philippine senators and congressmen? Is that true Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr.-- the blogger's bet for President of his country?)

TODAY ARRIVES THE NEWS ABOUT THE FALL OF DOLOROSO DANS*

it's a wet morning, but a promise
of sun lingers on the glass panes.
the room is too small for these
public men dissecting omissions
of the boss now gone to nowhere
to celebrate alone his fall.
(was it the absent magazine message
that triggered his disaster?) we are like
conspirators revising the plot in some
alleyways dark with hate and violence.
a, brutuses recreating cesar's gory death.
no matter, the joy is ours now
and we shall jot in our diaries this day
of victory.

basil valdez on tape wails out
a song sans end (requiem to dead rat?)
the waxed floor is littered with crumpled
tissue papers and cigarette butts.
the rubbish can wait, sings the janitor,
baring a set of tattered teeth as he joins
in the banter and the laughter (ha-ha-ha-ha,
the fetters broken?)

indeed, this people's domain needs
cleansing cream, new manners, new minds
that, in pursuit of the sun, shall burn
the night with liquid fire of gods and nigh
ambitions. no more ruins to tread this
mid-noon of our separate lives: the swan song
and the recorder is broken forever.
(did he not know, did not the cabal
that fed him with parables of lies
hear the funeral songs of gentle souls?)

the typewriters are silent, the whir
of electric fans lost in the cacophony
of sounds. like cattle loosed from a corral,
we excite the air and our voices reveal
kinship with roman assassins. no matter.
this joy is ours now. permit this stupidities
for soon our ship shall move again and
blaring trumpets shall in distant shores
announce our arrival.

        *Included in the anthology of Ilokano and English poems, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger," with introduction by Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.