The Igorot In The Photo Poem by Brian (Yaotzu) Bungcayao

Flipping through photos of my first trip to the Philippines
The igorrot catches my eye.
The getup seen as a gimmick to faded colonial whiplash

I was barely nine
When mothers eyes catches a photo opportunity.
A sigh released from my now matured mind
Staring into a photo of Bagio city littered with picture perfect flowers in bloom.
Kamutig lost to chrysanthemums, marunguy to marigolds.
What land is there to farm for a man that lives free.

Soil paved over by asphalt and concrete
To build scenic homes for the rich and non resident.
A new world where free man are still slave to the peso
Selling trinkets and photo poses
All to feed a families that land can no longer provide for without documentation.

I shame myself at the mockery that man in the photo faces
when it is our people that lost our culture to the foreign sword
made in the image of an unholy cross.

Teenagers wear Rizal on there shirts
Not knowing Rizals ultimate intentions
Words of independence unmatched to his name
But the shirt maker acknowledges no Silang,
No Tinio, No Aginaldo, No Pilar, …….

Our peoples dream
We’ve come so far
In the wrong direction