Jia Tong Xie

ASAMST 175
April 2, 2014
Professor Barrios-LeBlanc

Humans Right, a privilege for some of us

Geography Lesson is a poem written while Roxas was tortured by the Armed Forces of the
Philippines on May 19, 2009. The poem describes vividly the first-person experience of being violated,
striped of human rights. Cheryl Daytec, a Filipino human rights lawyer's poem His House Was Raided
By The Army written on November 2008 on the other hand describes the mental torture of living under
such a government. Together these two poems paint a clear picture of the suffering of the people in the
Philippines. Human rights violations mentally break down the society just like how they physically
destroy the victims.
In Geography Lesson, Roxas underwent ineffable physical torture just as a village can lose hope
in the face of injustice in His House Was Raided By The Army. In Roxas' experience, her knees are
broken repeatedly, so that when blood dries into dark scabs and then crack into a thick brown soup.
This is a very standard torture method to first break a person then apply more pain a wounded part of
the body. This serves to accentuate the pain of the victim. However, more than a brutal physical torture,
this process makes the victim believe that the torture will never stop, which helps breaking down a
person's mentality, first by drawing blood then repeatedly applying pain until the victim's mind rot into
soup. A similar experience was described in Daytec's poem, where a village full of innocent people
who are hopeful slowly breaks down into a deserted prison. The poem can be broken down into four
parts: the mentality of the people in the village slowly erodes after the line then his house was raided
by the army. This line was repeated three times throughout the poem. As shown in vivid imagery, the

village first firm[ly] stood on the ground of justice. After the first raid, the village experienced a
flash of light [that] unsettled Darkness. The village went from firm to unsettled. Then after the
second mention of the raid, the village became barely held together with promises of hope [that
people] sometimes disbelieved. The keywords sometimes and disbelieved capture the feeling of
doubt and worry about the outlook of the future. Then finally, after the third and final raid, the villagers
meander with despair and some faint notion of hope, expecting that another house will be raided
by the Army. The form of torture Roxas described is primarily a physical aspect, while Daytec
describes the effects of torture mainly on a mental level. However, in both cases, the use of repeated
oppression and aggression is employed to break down the victim. While the army focuses on breaking
down a person or a small group of individuals, more than just the victims are affected, as shown that
the whole village suffers from the fear, just like the victims. In many ways, these two poems show that
oppression against an individual is a way to oppress a nation.
Another common theme between the two poems is that human rights violations wound a person
or a nation for a long period of time. Roxas made it abundantly clear that she will never be able to
forget what had happened to her through her diction. The title of her poem is Geography Lesson. The
word lesson implies that this is something that Roxas have learned to heart, which makes it difficult
to forget. The word geography accentuates this feeling that her wound have been carved into the
landscape and the landscape is almost impossible to change. Roxas, in her poem, describes the maps
on [her] body by showing the readers her bruises, [her] brittle bones and [her] brittle breast.
Although physical wounds can heal, Roxas know that she will never be able to erase the maps that
have been implemented in her mind. On the other hand, Daytec describes what the villagers saw: the
face of life from death, hope from trepidation and people hoping that the torrent of fresh blood will
dry on the road... blasted by terror, entrenching doom. The words doom and death are
entrenched in the villagers, who survived the raid. Entrenched implies that the fear and horror have
seeped deep into people's minds, no longer just grappling to [the] surface as described in the

beginning of the poem. Both poems really focused on the long term effects of the government and
army's wrongdoing. The parallelism between the damage done to the victims and the nation are
extremely similar. Although the villagers did not experience the pain and horror first hand, they will
never forget the experience just the same. The two poems highlight the idea that once terror has been
committed, things will never be the same.
One person (Simon Parabaras) commented on Daytec blog Then the Army said: 'Apologies for
any mistakes I did. And I promise everything's gonna be alright.' The comment is sarcastic and tries to
make light of the situation. However, as shown from Roxas' Geography Lesson and Daytec's His
House Was Raided By The Army, both the victims who suffered the physical torture and the nation
which suffered from the mental oppression are traumatized by the Philippine government, because life
for them will never be the same. Although written from two distinct points of view, the poems share a
single sentiment.