The real Bata in billiard

Efren Bata wannabe with innovative billiards table and stick made of madre-de-cacao branch. Photo taken in Salay, Misamis Oriental.

Child Play

Child play in fishing community is fun and food. Photo taken in brgy. San Jose in Talisayan, Misamis Oriental. In the background is Sipaka Point.

Sunset in Gingoog Bay

Panginhas or seashell gathering in Luyong Baybayon in Talisayan town, Misamis Oriental. In the background is the island paradise, Camiguin.

Sunset in Gingoog Bay
By BenCy Ellorin

Waves gently kissing the beach
on an ebbing sea,
In the horizon the sun waving goodbye
Even Sipaka which proudly stands
in this side of the bay
is cooling down,
as fogs gently hug its peak.

Sound of outriggers rings in the air
as the amihan breeze
starts to touch the senses
in the distance,
fishers start to silhoutte
behind the waves,
their flickering lights
bringhope to their loved ones.

(Written sometime in 2003 by the writer while working as community organizer in the coastal communities of Gingoog Bay in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. Sipaka point is the northwestern tip of Gingoog Bay. Amihan is vernacular of northeast monsoon wind.)

Expressions

Expressions

If my hands were gifted
I would have drawn an
image of my feelings.
But I am a writer
I express it in words
with a pen and paper.

(written on May 22, 2004
at 31,000 feet above sea level,
on a flight to London)

Consequence

I am the consequence of who I am.

Diminishing democratic space

Diminishing democratic space

With almost everybody, except perhaps to authoritarian regimes like Burma saying that human rights are being run roughshod in our beloved Pinas by the spate of extra-judicial killings and political persecution by the GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO Administration, our democratic space have been diminished to the minutest.

Economic opportunities are slacking and lacking. About twenty or thirty years ago, a hundred thousand Pinoys going out of the country for that proverbial green fields is already called a MASSIVE BRAIN DRAIN.

Now twenty seven years or so after Martial Law, we have a Justice Secretary who denies that the more than 800 lives and counting of political activists and journalists sumarily executed by hooded motorcycle-riding human beings are not summary execution by but are merely "unexplained murders or execution." Pray hell on high waters, this official is not denigrating into the abyss of his once brilliant mind that those responsible of killing fellow Filipinos for their political beliefs are aliens.

Our democratic space after Martial Law have been diminished largely due to one person's intent at self-preservation after serious allegation had been hurled forward about her winning legitimately as the president of beloved Pilipinas in 2007. Now she thinks that killing her political opponents is fair game. And anybody who thinks she did not win in the 2004 presidential election are targets like lameducks worth only an assasins bullet.

The Phoenix is landing

The Phoenix is landing

A firebird believed to have nestled from a volcano

to fly with its golden plumage for a thousand years.

The golden drip of its quill a testimony of its flight

and a reflection of life,

and burn in sweet cinnamon twigs.

It is hello and goodbye,

The Phoenix is landing…

Till the next Phoenix and its new flight.

-Alberto Vicente, 08-23, 2007