AND SO THE BELL SHOULD NOW TOLL FOR THEE
Alexander Martin Remollino

“(What is happening today by way of human rights abuses) is nothing compared (to what we have experienced. What is happening under the Arroyo regime today) is so tiny that it is a mere speck.”

-- Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Archbishop of Manila, 26 March 2007

You are not having the bell toll for them.

"A mere speck of blood," you say
of the bloodbath that they in the Palace
have brought upon this nation.
Close to a thousand innocent lives seized
in just a little more than six years --
that, to you, is "a mere speck of blood."

Do you hold human life so cheaply
as to scoff at the slays of hundreds of innocents?
Just one such murder is too much,
and here you have hundreds, hundreds --
and still you have not found it fit
to cry for a stop to the killings.

You are not having the bell toll for them.

Is there a heart that beats in your chest?
It would be no surprise to find none.

And so the bell should now toll for thee.