by: Rhian Tabuada
Copyedited by: Jeyana Sophia Caparros
Publication by: Chesca Domondon

Do you hear the people sing?

The people who sing the song are the angry men who walk along the roads with posters and cardboards raised above their heads. Do you hear them?

Do you hear me?

Do you hear my people as we walk through neck-deep floods, our bodies soaked from head to toe with polluted water, leaving us dirty in mud as we make our way to our destination? Tell me—do you hear us? Or are you like them? The ones who cover their eyes, the ones who cover their ears, and the ones who cover their mouths. Do you also wash your hands, convincing yourself and those around you that what I experience is not your problem?

Tell me.

Or will you continue to remain oblivious? We have suffered for far too long. How about us?

You who sit high and mighty in your golden throne, throwing scraps and pieces of whatever gold you spend, laughing away as you see us as pathetic and desperate as we chase after with what you can offer to give us.

We have been in poverty for so long. We can only suffer in silence as you take everything until you are finished and full, your pig belly as wide as the piggy bank that you keep—inside is the money that should have been for the people. The money that should have been for the country, for the children, for the needy.

I can only stare as I float through the muddy water, watching as you pass by with your precious chariot; your head up high as you only see what is at the top—the same thing that my people and I are chasing after.

How long will you remain cruel? How long will we remain submerged in these waters, drowning and unheard, only the bubbles from our choked-out gasps surfacing? You pop our cries and watch as we drift lower down to our demise, yet you soar through the sky.

I hope that you end up like Icarus. That soon your wax wings would burn, and you would suffer the same fate as us. In pain, drowning, and soon to be forgotten. May the masses utter the sentence of your crimes, that you shall be punished for your wrongdoings. My hands and my fellow men will eagerly accept your fall from grace, and we will drag you down with us.