By ALEXANDER SANGUINIS

A blue and yellow screwdriver was still embedded in the left temple of human rights lawyer Angelo Karlo“AK” Guillen when paramedics took him to a hospital in Iloilo City…Guillen’s colleagues and the human rights community believe the assailants had intended to kill the 33-year-old lawyer who has been red-tagged and represents 16 members of the indigenous Tumandok who were arrested in Capiz and Iloilo Provinces on December 30, 2020 for alleged possession of firearms and explosives and for alleged links to communist rebels.

– Nestor Burgos Jr. “Lawyer for red-tagged tribal folk stabbed; laptop documents taken” INQUIRER.NET

1.
Death shaped the tip
of a screwdriver plunged deep—
wielded as a knife

straight into the left temple,
the head’s frontier, skull bone’s
skin ripped open

in the middle of the night’s
deepening daze. A city’s peace
once more cracked, broken

by a heinous deed
against a barrister of a people’s
rights. Nothing to explain

this scheme than the desire
to kill the targeted brain.
How will this be judged

and remedied
when the Law
cannot protect itself

from blatant lawlessness?
Where does this lead us
when the lawful

is unsanctified, debased?
Bleeding, his blood—
dark liquid crawling

on asphalt and cement,
almost a fatality.
The Law—

stabbed
and gravely wounded, near-
death

in General Luna Street.

2.
Bloodied hole
in the left temple,

a stab wound.
Never a Divine

Will—God

was not even there

when it happened.
Never sanctioned

by Heaven –
you must

remember
that primeval couple

forced to flee
the Garden

ages ago
with their shame

newly discovered
and intact.

The screwdriver
in lieu of the shining,

sharpest blade—
a kitchen knife,

dagger or balisong.
The screwdriver

like those spectacles
used by a former bodyguard

of Michael Corleone
to puncture

an enemy’s neck.
The screwdriver

like those spectacles
is never made

for killing.
The mind can be

criminal. The hands
murderous.

And something
close to murder

is still murderous.
Shamelessly murderous.

Alexander Sanguinis is a pseudonym of the long published poet who is from the Hiligaynon-speaking Region (VI). The poet is an established writer in both languages of the Region and English. With anonymity, readers are enjoined to focus on the pieces rather than on externalities of the texts.