Pardo Catholic Cemetery: A Thousand and One Lights on All Souls' Day

Indoctrination

Shoot whoever comes your way. Kill in whatever way whoever does not speak the way you do. That's the smooth path. Cleanse the way off dirt. Ease the pain. That's all I can teach you. So you could survive in my absence. So you could stand your way. Whenever guns are pointed at you. Guns not the same with yours. That's all I can teach and give. So you could feed yourself for a lifetime. Not with fish but ammunition. Eager to pulverize. Wrap your forehead with a band. So they will know you. That you are a cleanser of a man. Of a tribe. Of a land. Walk along the tombstones. Count the bodies you flagellated. Ones that decayed. Thrust your rifle on the ground. Urinate on the shaft. Own your kingdom increasing in number. That's all I can share. Multiply. Indoctrinate bereft mothers and children.

Poem by: Aloy Polintan
Photo by: Joemill Veloso Flordelis

Image: Talisay City, Cebu, Philippines

The Importance of the Hands that Toiled for Food

The city is as convoluted as the din, smoke, and stench emanating from every busy street and every nook and cranny too busy to care for the little things it is being survived by. The harvest too gilded for the hands, scorched and veined, that have toiled hard with sweat and tears, is, however, diluted to being inconsequential by the scatterbrains dwelling in rat holes. Food, for the oblivious, is a necessity more than it is a gift. That, that fact, kills a soul covered in comfortable porcelain flesh.

Image: Carcar City, Cebu, Philippines

The Crowd and the Mob: Sinulog Festival 2017

Images: Cebu City, Philippines

Music, Rhythm, and Dance: Sinulog Festival 2017

Images: Cebu City, Philippines