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The poem poignantly recounts the heart-wrenching dialogue between a father and mother of an impoverished family where the breadwinner is prevented by enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) restrictions imposed by the Duterte administration at the onset of and during the height of the pandemic from plying his trade or earning a livelihood. Most likely, he lost his job because a lot of businesses closed down at that time, compelling him to ask existential questions that beg for urgent answers in the midst of hunger, deprivation and bleak hopelessness that beset our country’s poverty-stricken masses during those trying times and that continue to afflict them even to this day.

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The unnamed persona of the poem is the father of a destitute family who worries about whether he would have enough food to feed his family while in the grip of a total lockdown. He asks his wife, Gina to check if the rice would be enough to last the day and explores ways of stretching the staple until the following day by skipping meals, or eating less, or adding more water to the rice gruel (“lugaw”).

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The tone of the poem is embodied in the persona’s seeming hopelessness about his plight and the quietly seething anger underlying the litany of questions that comprise most of the poem’s body - a dissatisfaction that threatens to boil over and erupt any time in response to the prevailing social injustice that has reached its pinnacle during the pandemic.

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What are the images used in the poem? What meaning is conjured by important lines in the poem and how do they contribute to the poem’s meaning?

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What are the images used in the poem? What meaning is conjured by important lines in the poem and how do they contribute to the poem’s meaning?

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Imagery is the poem’s strongest suit. Visual imagery can be gleaned from the old Fita bin, the poor’s counterpart of the rice dispenser owned by the more privileged classes, and literary devices that embody certain distinctive features of a calligram which is defined as “a poem, a phrase or a word that is arranged in a design that creates an image or a visual representation of the subject of the text” (What Is a Calligram?, 2022). Blank spaces intersperse the line, “What if we        skipped        a few meals?” evocative of the family lunch or dinner which they plan to omit if only to prolong the remaining supply of rice. The poet utilizes the same visual imagery of dragging out the family’s patience, faith, body and limits, as conjured in the ninth line of the poem, where the persona stretches these four objects of endurance and the pain and uncertainty that attend the process of extending oneself beyond his confines - another illustration of effectively combining “poetry and visual art” (Ibid.). Auditory imagery is likewise evident from the phrase “the belly aches” which serves to underscore that not only the spirit but also the very body deprived of vital sustenance protests against this forced deprivation and want.

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Diapana employs an aposiopesis when she purposefully leaves a blank space in the thirteenth line between the phrases “for the dizzying tide of hunger” and “to go away?” caused by an inability to continue speaking (Aposiopesis, 2017), resonating a hunger-induced fainting spell that causes the persona to pass out momentarily, only to regain consciousness a while later, hoping in vain that the pangs of hunger and discomfort will eventually subside and go away.

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From the fourteenth to the sixteenth lines, a pervasive dread envelops the persona that emanates not only from fear of catching the disease but also the specter of police authorities ready to pounce on and apprehend them for violating the strict ECQ regulations, symbolic of brazen abuse of government power as may be gleaned from the ominous phrase “waiting for people in all states of ‘wrong’.”

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A tone of hopelessness and despondency permeates the first seven lines of the poem. However, in the eighth and ninth lines, the persona expresses pent-up frustration and resentment from the realization that it is not physically and psychologically feasible to sustain this extended period of involuntary hunger. Part of the tenth until the twelfth lines underline the family’s listlessness, despair and ennui of having to shift from chair and sofa to bed in the cramped confines of their house in an endless waiting game. More tellingly, the tenth and succeeding lines signal a deliberate shift in tone from desperation and wretchedness to impatience, discontent, bitterness, indignation, urgency and rage accompanying the barrage of existential questions he unleashed towards the end of the poem, issues which remain unanswered to date not only by the State but also by the rest of humanity.

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Following these changes in tone, the mood evoked in the reader correspondingly shifts from initial pity and commiseration with their sordid plight to indignation at the government’s use of brute force in ensuring compliance with lockdown restrictions that end with a certain feeling of unease and remorse that we have not done enough to alleviate the suffering of our less fortunate brothers, that the questions propounded by the persona were actually directed at us who have been indifferent, if not callous, to the life-and-death issues that the persona and his family have to struggle with every single day of their fragile and vulnerable lives.

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What does the poem tell us about the world? How is our world reflected in and by this poem?

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What does the poem tell us about the world? How is our world reflected in and by this poem?

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The poem is a biting commentary not only on the ever-widening chasm between the haves and the have-nots exacerbated by the pandemic, both in the local and international spheres, but also on repressive totalitarian regimes of populist leaders such as the Duterte administration. “After removing relatively unchanged in 2015” “global hunger numbers” jumped to 9.3% of the world population in 2020 and 9.8% in 2021, comprising 828 million people representing an increase of approximately “150 million since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic” (UN Report, 2022). “Severe hunger rose from 1.5% in December 2019 to 2.7% in May 2021”,   translating to 4.2 million Filipino families suffering from involuntary hunger amid the pandemic (CNN Philippines Staff, 2020), effectively doubling “the country’s hunger rate from 8.8% in December 2019 to 16% in May 2020”, the highest since September 2014. The pandemic has resulted in more starving Filipinos who have lost access to basic food and nutrition due to the debilitating lockdowns which have devastated not only economies and businesses but especially the tenuous lives of the marginalized and the powerless who lost their jobs and means of livelihood thereby making them even more vulnerable to food insecurity (Malindog-Uy, 2020). Duterte’s strongman leadership suppressed public criticism against the mishandling of the pandemic crisis such that the poem constitutes a scathing protest against the grossly incompetent and inadequate government response to said health catastrophe marked by the exercise of brute force, corruption, partiality, scandals and its blatant crackdown on civil unrest initiated by those living in the fringes of society.

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What are your personal thoughts, comments and reactions to the poem you chose? In what ways does your chosen text resonate with you?

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What are your personal thoughts, comments and reactions to the poem you chose? In what ways does your chosen text resonate with you?

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As dramatically presented in the poem, the pandemic has turned our lives upside down inside out. Some say it is the greatest equalizer and that we are all in the same boat because it has struck fear and anxiety in the hearts of everyone (“when is it ever going to be safe to go outside now that there’s disease”). But are we really in the same boat? I submit that some of us are in better boats than others (Haley, 2020).

My chosen poem highlights a sad reality unraveled by the pandemic - the glaring disparity between the wealthy and the poor in this country, a reality that we are all acutely aware of. We enjoy the luxury of ordering food, medicines, clothes and groceries online, and attending virtual classes using the latest gadgets, safely cocooned in our clean and spacious homes without having to work to help our parents support the family. Contactless digital payments, work-from-home arrangements and video conferencing have become the norm for us who have ready access to state-of-the-art technology in every imaginable field of human endeavor, all designed to give us an edge to survive this viral onslaught unscathed. But what about the rest?

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It is most unfortunate that the travails and tribulations of the voiceless in our society, to which the persona belongs, are exacerbated by the massive destruction wreaked by the twenty or more typhoons that annually visit our country without fail, rendering thousands of our countrymen dead, hungry and homeless such as the calamities that severely flooded Samar and Misamis Occidental last week. How do you feel about this?  Is it with apathy and resignation that you have long accepted, that the status quo is a given which will continue to fester through the years that you just have to live with? Or is it with a sense of powerlessness that even though you feel strongly that our government is not doing enough to adequately address the wicked problems of poverty, unemployment, informal settlements and other issues closely intertwined therewith, you would rather not get involved for fear of being red-tagged because you are merely one voice in the wilderness which will not make any difference? Or do you regard the plight of our less fortunate brothers and sisters with empathy and compassion such that their problems become your own, sufficiently compelling to move you to do something concrete and life-changing?

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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Diapana’s poem poses a challenge to all of us. As students whose consciousness has been raised and heightened by our Jesuit education, we do not only have an option but a MORAL IMPERATIVE to help those in need, especially in a beleaguered Third World country such as ours. The extent and manner by which we shall discharge this obligation are addressed to each one of us as we traverse through our unique modalities of rumination and discernment -  whether it be by way of taking the solemn vows of the clergy, providing gainful employment as a socially responsible employer or by engaging with an NGO directly involved in community empowerment or by working in the public and private sectors where one can strive to transform their culture and orientation into more socio-ethically responsive endeavors. Indeed, there exists a limitless number of possibilities by which each of us can best respond to the plight of our less fortunate brothers and sisters as we bravely accept the challenge of treading the path less traveled on our ever-evolving journey of personal growth, self-actualization and maturation towards other-centeredness.

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One thing is certain though. I am at a crucial crossroads as I enter college during a time of pervasive cynicism and uncertainty, deep divisions and despair. In the course of my search for the elusive answers to the gut-wrenching questions posed in my chosen poem and those that I raised earlier, I  would know if I have indeed lived wisely and if I have responded  generously to the cries  of  the  oppressed  and  the  powerless  living  in  the  peripheries  of our class-torn society. Have the commitments we have forged in our lives made us more human and humane? Have I done my share in filling the persona’s old Fita bin? Have we built better boats for others?

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What Is a Calligram? (2022, December 24). Musical Expert. https://www.musicalexpert.org/what-is-a-calligram.htm

Aposiopesis. (2017, September 27). Literary Terms. https://literaryterms.net/aposiopesis/

UN Report: Global hunger numbers rose to as many as 828 million in 2021. (2022, July 6). https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2022-un-report--global-hunger-numbers-rose-to-as-many-as-828-million-in-2021

CNN Philippines Staff. (2020, May 22). SWS survey reveals 4.2 million families suffered involuntary hunger amid COVID-19 pandemic. CNN Philippines. https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/5/22/sws-survey-four-million-families-involuntary-hunger-covid-pandemic.html?fbclid=IwAR2KTgj1DiV1PPQPKXV4rw58xvltlV8BW5gDjzxWc0GvRPm2_djG8Frsyg4

Malindog-Uy, A. (2020, October 25). More Filipinos Starving Amid The Pandemic. The ASEAN Post. https://theaseanpost.com/article/more-filipinos-starving-amid-pandemic

Haley, E. D. (2020, June 9). We Are Not in the Same Boat. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/we-are-not-same-boat