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The Gods We Worship Live Next Door by Bino A. Realuyo
BINO A. REALUYO's poetry collection THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR is an angry and powerful testimony to the centuries of deprivation and inequality that the Filipino people have suffered under the yoke of successive waves of colonialism and corrupt and ineffective governments.
Realuyo approaches his subject with an assertive touch and a passion for the country of his birth. There is a narrative quality to the poems and also in the chronological layout of the book. He deals with the lot of the migrant laborer and includes two poems to the two Filipino women who were convicted of murder in Singapore and Dubai and whose plight -- one was executed and the other subjected to imprisonment and 100 lashes -- symbolizes and illustrates the potential tragedy and human cost of this economic diaspora.
It is a fairly dark book, and there are poems about Spanish and American colonization and the Japanese occupation. He shows the effects on the culture and the very landscape: the change from an agrarian economy based on rice to feed the indigenous people, to one based on sugar for export and the enrichment of the colonizers. The legacy of American involvement is also tackled as is the fact that there are anything up to 50,000 so-called "GI babies", illegitimate offspring of American soldiers, living in abject poverty, picking through rubbish and living on the street is well highlighted in several poems.
The last poem in the book looks at the human cost of the continuing strife in some provinces where the ordinary people have been at the mercy of both sides in the continuing war first prosecuted under the banner of anti-Communism and now Islamic extremism and anti-terrorism. The simple villagers pay whichever side is winning. It is a sad testimony and quite painful to read.
Realuyo pulls no punches in this collection and writes with confidence and control, I do however feel that an acknowledgment that there are also positive things about the Philippines -- the great natural beauty and the energy and sunny upbeat disposition of the people -- would possibly give this fine work added poignancy.
David McKirdy
05/08/2006
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David McKirdy is a Hong Kong-based poet and an organiser of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. His work appears in the collection Accidental Occidental. |
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