By A.D. Capili

“President Duterte said kill the addicts, and the addicts died. He said kill the mayors, and the
mayors died. He said kill the lawyers, and the lawyers died. Sometimes the dead weren’t drug
dealers or corrupt mayors or human rights lawyers. Sometimes they were children, but they
were killed anyway, and the president said they were collateral damage.”
― Patricia Evangelista, Some People Need Killing

Father, you were supposed to send me off
back to a mercifully cooler side of the world
when we sat stuck in traffic and listened
to the crackling news
I commented on the killings
of allegedly addicted adolescent
boys–now dolled up and dressed
like politicians in cheap pine caskets
their framed portraits hugged tight
by their mothers, photographed haggard
and crazed by the papers
I was taken aback by your bark
about the obligation to act
and fight against our degradation
the righteousness of masked
motorcycled assassins
in taking already wasted lives
After your outburst there was
nothing
else in the car but the barrage of warm
artificial air, pairs of tightened lips, frogs
growing in our throats, itching to croak
–We gulped them down
at the airport, before we exchanged
our polite, obligatory goodbyes