Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars

ISSN: 0007-4810 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcra19

“The guerilla is like a poet”

Jose Maria Sison

To cite this article: Jose Maria Sison (1980) “The guerilla is like a poet”, Bulletin of Concerned
Asian Scholars, 12:3, 9-9, DOI: 10.1080/14672715.1980.10405582

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.1980.10405582

Published online: 05 Jul 2019.

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 "The Guerilla Is Like a Poet"
by Jose MariaSison*
Th e guerilla is like a poet
Keen to the rustle of leaves
The break of twigs
The ripple s of the river
The smell of fire
And the ashe s of departure .
The guerilla is like a poet.
He has merged with the trees
The bushes and the rocks
Ambiguous but preci se
Well-versed on the law of motion
And the master of myriad of images .
The guerilla is like a poet
Enrh ymed with nature
The subtle rhythm of the greenery
The outer silence , the outer innocence
The steel tensile in-grace
That ensnares the ene my.
The guerilla is like a poet.
He moves with the green brown multitude
In bush burning with red flower s
That crown and hearten all
Swarm ing the terra in as a flood
March ing at last again st the stronghold .
An endless movement of strength
Behold the protracted theme :
The people's ep ic, the people's war.

* Sison is a Filipinopoet and historianwho has beendetained,torturedand held

incommunicado since November 1977. This poem was supplied by the Philip-
pine Research Center in Connecticut. U.S.A.
D ra mi ly in San Roque (Broad).

And once more, the company brought with it harassment and

destruction . This time , however, it was the PANAMIN main
office that sent,the orders to have the Manobos taken off their
land. PANAMIN, the supposed friend of the cultural minor-
ities , ordered their evacuation . And so they were trucked in a
BUSCO vehicle like cattle , and dumped at the Quezon public
school and Catholic chapel. Dumped and left there. With little
food , little medic ine, little shelter. It was there they lived for one
month. One long month .
Their promised resettlement did eventually come . They
were squeezed into the Dalurong PANAMIN reservation , a
1,300 hectare area which accommodated 200 fam ilies and was
to accommodate an increasing number of evicted Manobo s.
Here again , BUSCO is the winner . PANAMIN plans for Dalu-
rang include having the Manobos plant sugar cane on the sur-
plu s land (What surplus land? one wonders.)-and sell it to
BUSCO.
Justice?
Your lands, lands of years of life and death, grabbed by
BUSCO. And you, left to live and die in strange, new lands
while growing cane to feed the very mill that destroyed you .
9
Rufo (" Dodong") Honongan , leader of the farmers at San
Roque , sits on the wooden bench there in the kitchen . His feet
are bare. His pant s ragged . His face and arms deep brown from
the Bukidnon sun. A half-empty bottle of Tanduay stands in the
center of the table, stands in the middle of the five of us.
He looks at me . Our eyes meet and lock . " We will win,"
he says in slow, carefully enunciated English. His eyes flash .
His smile widen s. It is a grim but sure smile . "We must win for
our children .' ,
There is silence .
He take s a gulp from his glas s.
It is his voice that break s the hush. "I will die for my
c hildren 's future . " He finger s the glass, but does not lift it to his
mouth .
The voices seem to explode.
No, we will not allow the sacrifice of our children-of our
land-and of our heritage-and of our very existence-to
continue.
Our children are be ing kidnapped .
We must fight for them . '*