MEYCIPriSA: “Moving Forward as One”

MEYCIPriSA : “Magka-agapay sa Pagsulong”

Official Contest Piece for DECLAMATION

PRE- ELEM

A Child’s Prayer
by Socorro Rio

I.
Mom and Dad are both working
In a city far away
They have to leave the house early
To beat the traffic each day.

II.
We seldom talk to each other
Only “ We’re leaving “. “Be good!”
“Goodbye”
Because I’m still in bed
When they leave; when they arrive.

III.
Only on weekends and holidays
That I feel their loving arms
We talk and dine together
Enjoying the day that’s full of fun

IV.
They tell me their stories,
I gladly tell them mine
We play and laugh together
How I wish for longer time.

V.

Before the day is over,

I pray to God to stop the clock
And make each day a holiday
For my busy mom and dad.
MEYCIPriSA: “Moving Forward as One”
MEYCIPriSA : “Magka-agapay sa Pagsulong”

Official Contest Piece for DECLAMATION

Elementary Level – 1

It Is Raining

It is raining.
Where would you like to be in the rain?
Where would you like to be?
I’d like to be on a city street
Where the rain comes driving down
Trying to make things neat
As it washes the houses, roof and wall
The taxis, buses, cars, and all.
That’s where I’d like to be in the rain.

It is raining.
Where would you like to be in the rain?
Where would you like to be?
I’d like to in tall tree top
Where the rain comes dripping drop, drop, drop,
Around on every side –
Where it wets the farmer, the barns, the pig.
T cows, the chickens, both little and big.
Where it batters and beats on filed of grain.
And makes the little birds hide from the rain.
That’s where I’d like to be on the rain.
That’s where I’d like to be.

It is raining.
Where would you like to be on the rain?
Where would you like to be ?
I’d like to be on a ship at sea
Where everything ‘s wet as can be
And the waves are rolling high.
Where salors are pulling the ropes and singing
And winds in the rigging and salt’s sprays stinging
And round us sea gulls cry
On a dipping, skimming ship at sea.
That’s where I’d like to be on the rain.
That’s where I’d like to be.
MEYCIPriSA: “Moving Forward as One”
MEYCIPriSA : “Magka-agapay sa Pagsulong”

Official Contest Piece for DECLAMATION

Elementary Level – 2

VENGEANCE IS NOT OURS, IT’S GOD’S

Alms, alms, alms. Spare me a piece of bread. Spare me your mercy. I am a child so young,
so thin, and so ragged. Why are you staring at me? With my eyes I cannot see but I know you are
all staring at me. Why are whispering to one another ? why ? Do you know my mother? Do you
know your father Did you know me five years ago?

Yes, five years of bitterness have passed. I can still remember the vast happiness mother
and I shared with each other. We were very happy insread.

Suddenly, five loud knocks were heard on the door and a deep silence ensued. Did the cruel
Nippon’s discover our peaceful home? Mother ran to father’s side pleading. “Please, Luis hide in
the cellar, there in the cellar where they cannot find you, “I pulled my father’s arm but he did not
move. it seemed as though hid feet were glued to the floor.

The door went “bang” and before us five ugly beasts came barging in. “ Are you Captain
Luis Santos?” roared the ugliest of them all. “ Yes are Under arrest,” said one of the beasts. They
pulled father roughly away from us. Father was not given a chance to bid us goodbye. we followed
them mile after mile. We were hungry and thirsty. We saw group of Japanese eating. Oh, how our
mouths watered seeing the delicious fruits they were eating,
Then suddenly, we heard a voice call, “Consuelo. . . . Oscar. . . . Consuelo. . . . Oscar. . . . Consuelo. .
. . Oscar. . . .” we ran towards the direction of the voice, but it was too late. We saw father hanging
on a tree. . . . dead. Oh, it was terrible. He had been badly beaten before he died. . . . and I cried
vengeance, vengeance, vengeance! Everything went black. The next thing I knew I was nursing my
poor invalid mother.
One day, we heard the church bell ringing “ding-dong, ding-dong!” It was a sign for us to find a
shelter in our hide-out, but I could not leave my invalid mother, I tried to show her the way to the
hide-out.

Suddenly, bombs started falling; airplanes were roaring overhead, canyons were firing from
everywhere. “Boom, boom, boom, boom!” Mother was hit. Her legs were shattered into pieces. I
took her gently in my arms and cried, “I’ll have vengeance, vengeance!” “No, Oscar. Vengeance,
it’s God’s,” said mother.

But I cried out vengeance. I was like a pent-up volcano. “Vengeance is mine not the Lord’s”. “No,
Oscar. Vengeance is not ours, it’s God’s” these were the words from my mother before she died.

Mother was dead and I was blind. Vengeance is not ours? To forgive is divine but vengeance is
sweeter.  That was five years ago, five years. . . .

Alms, alms, alms. Spare me a piece of bread. Spare me your mercy. I am a child so young, so thin,
and so ragged. Vengeance is not ours, it’s God’s. . . . It’s. . . . God’s. . It’s…
MEYCIPriSA: “Moving Forward as One”
MEYCIPriSA : “Magka-agapay sa Pagsulong”

Official Contest Piece for TULA

PRE- ELEM
Official Contest Piece for DECLAMATION
Junior and Senior High School

LAND OF BONDAGE, LAND OF THE FREE

Once upon a time, the tao owned a piece of land. It was all he owned. But he
cherished it, for it gave him three things, having which, he was content: life, first of
all, and liberty, and happiness.

Then one day the Spaniard came and commanded him to pay tribute to the crown
of Spain. The tao paid tribute. And he was silent — he was certain that he was still
the master of his land.

The Spaniard became rich. But with riches, evil entered into him and he came to the
tao a second time. He read to the tao a formidable document saying: “According to
this decreto real, which unfortunately you cannot read, this that you have been
paying me is not tribute but rent, for the land is not yours but mine.” The tao paid
tribute and said nothing … He ceased to be a freeman. He became a serf. Still the
tao held his peace. The rent went up and up. The tao starved.

And this time at last he spoke. Not in words, but with that rustic instrument with
which he cleared the land once his own — the bolo. He transformed it from an
instrument of tillage to an instrument of death, and with it drove away the stranger.
Then he returned to his field saying: “Now indeed shall I again be master of this
land, once my own, but stolen from me by the trickery of quicker wits than mine.”

But the tao was wrong. For the land had another master. This time not a stranger,
but his own countryman grown rich. The tao had a new name, kasama, which to us
means partner, but which to the tao meant still a slave, for once more he suffered
from his countrymen the same things he had suffered from the stranger: the rents,
the usury, and all the rest of it.

Yes, the tao returned to his field thinking that he was free. But he soon discovered
that he was still a prisoner. His prison, a two-room shack, rent by every wind,
without any comforts, except that three families have there the privilege to starve.
The tao’s home has become his very prison. Its doors, if you can call them such, are
wide open. It is a prison nonetheless. For the tao is bound to it, not with chains of
steel, but with a stronger chain — his honor. To this day, the tao remains a slave, a
prisoner of the usurer.

No wonder, then that tao, being a slave, has acquired the habits of a slave. No
wonder that after three centuries in chains, without freedom, without hope, he
should lose the erect and fearless posture of the freeman, and become the bent,
misshapen, indolent, vicious, pitiful thing that he is! Who dares accuse him, who
dares rise up in judgement against this man, reduced to this sub-human level by
three centuries of oppression. The tao does not come here tonight to be judged —
but to judge! Hear then his accusation and his sentence:

I indict the Spanish encomendero for inventing taxes impossible to bear.

I indict the usurer for saddling me with debts impossible to pay.

I indict the irresponsible radical leaders who undermine, with insidious eloquence,
the confidence of my kind in our government.

You accuse me of not supporting my family. Free me from bondage, and I shall
prove you false.

You accuse me of ignorance. But I am ignorant because my master finds it

profitable to keep me ignorant. Free me from bondage, and I shall prove you false.

You accuse me of indolence. But I am indolent not because I have no will, but
because I have no hope. Why should I labor, if all the fruits of my labor go to pay an
unpayable debt. Free me from bondage, and I shall prove you false.

Give me land. Land to own. Land unbeholden to any tyrant. Land that will be free.
Give me land for I am starving. Give me land that my children may not die. Sell it to
me, sell it to me at a fair price, as one freeman sells to another and not as a usurer
sells to a slave. I am poor, but I will pay it! I will work, work until I fall from
weariness for my privilege, for my inalienable right to be free!

BUT IF YOU WILL NOT GRANT ME THIS … If you will not grant me this last
request, this ultimate demand, then build a wall around your home … build it high!
… build it strong! Place a sentry on every parapet! … for I who have been silent
these three hundred years will come in the night when you are feasting, with my cry
and my bolo at your door. And may God have mercy on your soul!