english

1. "ME AGAINST YOU"
I can't breathe in this white uniform. It's so tight.
Release me.
Well, Thank yo for your kind words. I know, right. I
already
expected this. I'm not surprised.
Oh! I haven't introduced myself to some of you. For
those
who don't know me, which only a few don't, I'm
Genuino Ontangco,
a smart young man or I should say, a genius. Do you
need someone
to answer your problems? I'm the perfect person to
approach. You
asked why? Because, I know everything. Give me
those equations, I'll
simplify it. Give me those problems, I'll solve it. Give
me that piece, I'll
correct it. Oh............ It feels good to be a genius
Sometimes I wondered, maybe if I was born a long
time ago, then
I would have created all the inventions in this world.
Maybe yes! Maybe...
..............yes! Why can't I? I know everything,
remember? Hahahahaha
My mother calls me Gene, my nickname. She has
been my inspiration,
or i mean assistant ever since. How can she be my
mentor? I know a lot more
than her! My father, Oh! i don't know him. I refuse to
know him. Some people told
me, he was a criminal, a thief, a man of pure evil, a
product which sent him to jail.
Some people told me, he has changed. I don't believe
them. I tend to react when
they connect him to me. I can't stand it.
I hate those people who stand in my way, and does
something without my
approval. Only I, know what's right.
"Mom!!!! Where's the documents in my table?" I
asked.
"Oh! I thought that's a trash, I already threw it away."
She answered
"I told you never to touch anything here, you stupid
moron!"
"I'm still your mother young man! You can't say that to
me"
"Why can't I? I know more than you coz you're a
brainless idiot!
Yes! That's true!"
Then, she slapped me in the face. I punched her
hard, and laughed as she dropped
to the ground. You should have seen her face while
she fought for her life! She's dead!
Hahahaha. What a relief.
Oh! Here they are again! Stop! I can't breathe in this
white uniform. It's so tight.
Release me! I should be free. Release me! Release
me!
Release me!

2. "Promise Land"
"Where am I?"
"Is this the real world?"
A lot of things are on my mind. I may be young and
innocent, but not ignorant. I can clearly see what's
present.
I can only imagine life when the world was first
created, a beautiful scene yet to be exploited.A dash
of green and blue then add the bright yellow sunshine
that lights up the day. God gave us a world full of
promise. He wanted us to use it, take care of it and
make sure that there is plenty for everybody.
The water is not blue as it was.
The air we breath is not healthy anymore.
The forest that used to be rich and full, nowhere to be
seen.
Dead
Denuded
Destroyed
"What happened to the promised land?"
"How dare we ruin it!"
"Look at it people! look at it!"
"If the world could only speak, it would tell us how
much it hurts."
"All of us can do something but not everyone is willing
to do it."
"Now, I can't imagine what the future holds."
Living
Hoping
Praying
The chances are getting thinner everytime. Time is
running out. We better do it now or pay the price later.
Let's rebuild this world and plant new life for a new
day.
A GLASS OF COLD WATER
Everybody calls me young, beautiful, wonderful. Am I? Look at
my hair, my lips, my red rosy cheeks and a pair of blinkering
eyes.
I remember, somebody says that I look like my mother that I
look like my mother. But that when she was young.
Now, I am much lovelier than she is. I’m a mortal Venus.
Oops! What time is it? I must get ready for the party!
Beep-beep…!A-huh! Here they are! Yes, I’m coming!
"Child, are you still there?"
"Hmp! That’s my mama"
"Child, are you still there? Will you please get me a glass of
cold water?"
"Mama, I’m in a hurry!"
"Please child, try to get me a glass of cold water."
"Mama, please, try to get it on your own."
"Please child, try to get me a glass of cold water!"
At the party, I danced and danced the whole night.
You see, I can’t leave the party at once. I have to danced
with everybody who proposed to me. At last, the party is over.
I’m very tired. Very, very tired.
So, I went home to tell mama what happened.
"Mama, I’m home! It’s very quiet. "Mama, I’m home!"
Nobody answers.
Where is she? I look for her in the sala, but she’s not there.
Where is she? A-huh! In the kitchen!
I saw my mama, lying down on the floor, dead. With a glass on
her hand. I remember, she tried to get it.
Oh, God, just for the glass of cold water! Mama! Mama! Oh,
Mama!

3. "Bad Girl"
Hey! Everybody seems to be staring at me..
You! You! All of you!
How dare you to stare at me?
Why? Is it because I'm a bad girl?
A bad girl I am, A good for nothing teen ager, a
problem child?
That's what you call me!
I smoke. I drink. I gamble at my young tender age.
I lie. I cheat, and I could even kill, If I have too.
Yes, I'm a bad girl, but where are my parents?
You! You! You are my good parents?
My good elder brother and sister in this society where
I live?
Look…look at me…What have you done to me?
You have pampered and spoiled me, neglected me
when I needed you
most!
Entrusted me to a yaya, whose intelligence was much
lower than mine!
While you go about your parties, your meetings and
gambling session…
Thus… I drifted away from you!
Longing for a father's love, yearning for a mother's
care!
As I grew up, everything changed!
You too have changed!
You spent more time in your poker, majong tables,
bars and night clubs.
You even landed on the headlines of the newspaper as
crooks, peddlers and
racketeers.
Now, you call me names, accuse me of everything I do
to myself?
Tell me! How good are you?
If you really wish to ensure my future…
Then hurry….hurry back home! Where I await you,
because I need you…
Protect me from all evil influences that will threaten at
my very own
understanding…
But if I am bad, really bad…then, you've got to help
me!
Help me! Oh please…Help me!
"Juvenile Delinquent"
Am I a juvenile delinquent? I’m a teenager, I’m
young, young at heart in mind. In this position, I’m
carefree, I enjoy doing nothing but to drink the
wine of pleasure. I seldom go to school, nobody
cares!. But instead you can see me roaming
around. Standing at the nearby canto (street). Or
else standing beside a jukebox stand playing the
nerve tickling bugaloo. Those are the reasons, why
people, you branded me delinquent, a juvenile
delinquent.
My parents ignored me, my teachers sneered at me
and my friends, they neglected me. One night I
asked my mother to teach me how to appreciate
the values in life. Would you care what she told
me? "Stop bothering me! Can’t you see? I had to
dress up for my mahjong session, some other time
my child". I turned to my father to console me, but,
what a wonderful thing he told me. "Child, here’s
500 bucks, get it and enjoy yourself, go and ask
your teachers that question".
And in school, I heard nothing but the echoes of
the voices of my teachers torturing me with these
words. "Why waste your time in studying, you
can’t even divide 100 by 5! Go home and plant
sweet potatoes".
I may have the looks of Audrey Hepburn, the
calmly voice of Nathalie Cole. But that’s not what
you can see in me. Here’s a young girl who needs
counsel to enlighten her way and guidance to
strenghten her life into contentment.
Honorable judge, friends and teachers…is this the
girl whom you commented a juvenile delinquent?.
My parents ignored me, my teachers sneered at me
and my friends, they neglected me. One night I
asked my mother to teach me how to appreciate
the values in life. Would you care what she told
me? "Stop bothering me! Can’t you see? I had to
dress up for my mahjong session, some other time
my child". I turned to my father to console me, but,
what a wonderful thing he told me. "Child, here’s
500 bucks, get it and enjou yourself, go and ask
your teachers that question".
And in school, I heard nothing but the echoes of
the voices of my teachers torturing me with these
words. "Why waste your time in studying, you
can’t even divide 100 by 5! Go home and plant
sweet potatoes".
I may have the looks of Audrey Hepburn, the
calmly voice of Nathalie Cole. But that’s not what
you can see in me. Here’s a young girl who needs

4. counsel to enlighten her way and guidance to
strenghten her life into contentment.
Honorable judge, friends and teachers…is this the
girl whom you commented a juvenile delinquent?.
"The Unpardonable Crime"
Only one living creature seemed to take any
notice of his existence: this was an old St.
Bernard, who used to come and lay his big head
with its mournful eyes on Christophe's knees
when Christophe was sitting on the seat in front
of the house. They would look long at each other.
Christophe would not drive him away Unlike the
sick Goethe, the dog's eyes had no uneasiness for
him Unlike him, he had no desire to cry: "Go
away! . . . Thou goblin thou shalt not catch me,
whatever thou doest!"
He asked nothing better than to be engrossed by
the dog's suppliant sleepy eyes and to help the
beast: he felt that there must be behind them an
imprisoned soul imploring his aid.
In those hours when he was weak with suffering,
torn alive away from life, devoid of human
egoism, he saw the victims of men, the field of
battle in which man triumphed in the bloody
slaughter of all other creatures: and his heart was
filled with pity and horror. Even in the days when
he had been happy he had always loved the
beasts: he had never been able to bear cruelty
towards them: he had always had a detestation of
sport, which he had never dared to express for
fear of ridicule: but his feeling of repulsion had
been the secret cause of the apparently
inexplicable feeling of dislike he had had for
certain men: he had never been able to admit to
his friendship a man who could kill an animal for
pleasure. It was not sentimentality: no one knew
better than he that life is based on suffering and
infinite cruelty: no man can live without making
others suffer. It is no use closing our eyes and
fobbing ourselves off with words. It is no use
either coming to the conclusion that we must
renounce life and sniveling like children. No. We
must kill to live, if, at the time, there is no other
means of living. But the man who kills for the
sake of killing is a miscreant. An unconscious
miscreant, I know. But, all the same, a miscreant.
The continual endeavor of man should be to
lessen the sum of suffering and cruelty: that is
the first duty of humanity.
In ordinary life those ideas remained buried in
Christophe's inmost heart. He refused to think of
them. What was the good? What could he do? He
had to be Christophe, he had to accomplish his
work, live at all costs, live at the cost of the weak.
... It was not he who had made the universe. . . .
Better not think of it, better not think of it. ...
But when unhappiness had dragged him down,
him, too, to the level of the vanquished, he had to
think of these things. Only a little while ago he
had blamed Olivier for plunging into futile
remorse and vain compassion for all the
wretchedness that men suffer and inflict. Now he
went even farther: with all the vehemence of his
mighty nature he probed to the depths of the
tragedy of the universe: he suffered all the
sufferings of the world, and was left raw and
bleeding. He could not think of the animals
without shuddering in anguish. He looked into the
eyes of the beasts and saw there a soul like his
own, a soul which could not speak: but the eyes
cried for it:
"What have I done to you? Why do you hurt me?"
He could not bear to see the most ordinary sights
that he had seen hundreds of times —a calf crying
in a wicker pen, with its big, protruding eyes,
with their bluish whites and pink lids, and white
lashes, its curly white tufts on its forehead, its
purple snout, its knock-kneed legs:—a lamb being
carried by a peasant with its four legs tied
together, hanging head down, trying to hold its
head up, moaning like a child, bleating and lolling
its gray tongue:—fowls huddled together in a
basket:—the distant squeals of a pig being bled to
death:—a fish being cleaned on the kitchen-table.
. . . The nameless tortures which men inflict on
such innocent creatures made his heart ache.
Grant animals a ray of reason, imagine what a
frightful nightmare the world is to them: a dream
of cold-blooded men, blind and deaf, cutting their
throats, slitting them open, gutting them, cutting
them into pieces, cooking them alive, sometimes
laughing at them and their contortions as they
writhe in agony. Is there anything more atrocious
among the cannibals of Africa? To a man whose
mind is free there is something even more
intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the
sufferings of men. For with the latter it is at least
admitted that suffering is evil and that the man
who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of
animals are uselessly butchered every day
without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to
refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous.—And

5. that is the unpardonable crime. That alone is the
justification of all that men may suffer. It cries
vengeance upon God. If there exists a good God,
then even the most humble of living things must
be saved. If God is good only to the strong, if
there is no justice for the weak and lowly, for the
poor creatures who are offered up as a sacrifice
to humanity, then there is no such thing as
goodness, no such thing as justice.
"The Plea of an Aborted
Fetus"
LET THIS PRECIOUS ANGELS LIVE !
"SET ME FREE. LET ME LIVE, I DESERVE TO BE
BORN, I WANT TO LIVE. FOR HEAVENS SAKE, HAVE
PITY."
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear fathers and mother,
listen to my plea, listen to my story. I could have
been the 17th Lady President of the Philippines
Republic, had you given me the chance to live, had
you not deprived me of my life, had you not taken
away my privilege to be born.
Some eleven years ago, a healthy ovum started to
generate in the womb of a woman with six other
children. My coming should be a herald of joy, a
symbol of love incarnate but to my mommy it was
a burden, a problem, an additional mouth to feed.
To Dad, it was a mistake, an effect of Mom's
carelessness for not taking the contraceptive pills.
One gloomy day in June, my unexpected coming
was confirmed. It was a painful decision. I could
sense the imminent danger as Mom got inside the
abortion room. I was an unwanted child. No one
loved me. No one cared. I was a rejected being, a
tiny lump slowly forming into human being with
human soul. I was already alive, kicking,
struggling. My heart was already beating and my
thumb had already the unique mark. As I was
holding to my mother's womb a splash of heat
came all over me. I writhed in extreme pain.
-- "Mom, why have you done this to me? Am I not
the flesh of your own flesh, the blood of your own
blood?"
The rubber suction caught my tiny limbs and
mercilessly twisted it slowly cutting it from my
body. I struggled for my life. 1,2,3 and the first
part of me came out.
-- "Mom, why have you permitted this? Am I not
Dad's pledge of love to you?"
Then it was followed by another rubber suction
sucking the other part moving it with force until
both were fully amputated.
-- "Mom, why have you done this to me? Am I not
God's image you promised to love and protect?"
Then i felt shaken once, twice, several times until
I do not know anymore what has been going
around. I gushed forth my last breath...
Then came the final blow, my head - the
abortionist termed as No. I was totally cut from my
torso: total annihilation.
GONE IS MY CHANCE TO LEAD A HEALTHY
NORMAL LIFE.
GONE IS MY CHANCE TO BEHOLD THE MANY
LOVELY THINGS GOD CREATED FOR US.
GONE IS THE PROMISE OF A BLISSFUL LIFE.
“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 that you
are all staring at me. Why are you whispering to
one another? Why? Do you know my mother? Do
you know my 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
indeed.
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

6. 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 his 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,”
said my father. “You 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… advocacy