(A Marihangin Rant in Verse)

We raise our hands—calloused, salt-stung, brown—
toward halls tiled crisp with marble shine,
while those inside sip policies like wine
and tell us, “Progress digs deep underground.”

But we have seen the soil’s open wound,
red rivers seeping where the mangroves stood;
we have buried children’s coughs in drifted dust
and tasted rust on once-sweet harvest moons.

Why must we bargain for clean breath?
Why must we plead that mountains stay whole?
Why do they quote a Mining Act—
chiseled clauses, gilded signatures—
as though a law can bandage grief
or notarize a forest’s soul?

In Marihangin nights we sleep on sand,
sentinels beneath a guard-dog sky,
blue guns pacing, landlords’ private brand,
their silence louder than our why-why-why.

They call it eco-luxury,
a paradise rebranded “for the few,”
while fisherfolk count tides like dwindling coins
and chalk tomorrow’s meals on boards of hope—
erased each time a dredge boat groans.

Why does gold out-weigh a grandmother’s lungs?
Why does nickel outrank a child’s first song?
Why are the rich allowed to mispronounce “home”
as “resource,” “reserve,” “return on investment,”
while we are told to whisper, “Thank you for the crumbs”?

Look—governance is not a ledger line,
nor justice just a corporate PR slide.
Good governance is rice unfouled by tailings,
rivers unbent by greed,
lands where elders plant tomorrow’s shade
and do not fear a cease-and-desist.

So we stand, loud in our barefoot dignity,
weaving petitions with the wind,
marching syllables into the streets,
hammering “Bakit?” against every plated door—
until the echo cracks the chamber walls
and even marble learns to bleed.

Why must we struggle?
Because struggle is the taxed heart’s proof of life.
Because silence is a permit they will happily approve.
Because each breath drawn in defense of the earth
is a stanza in the poem of tomorrow—
and poems, unlike mineral contracts,
cannot be revoked.