The Cost of Ill-health in the Philippines

While the moon cast its shadows

of mystery,I imagined
the skyline of a great city lights
and the dark shapes that skulk under,
crouching malevolently
within the territory
of my beloved motherland.


In the looking glass
I glimpsed.....
Reflections of indigents,
taking complete reliance
on herbals of the soil
they toil to cure their illnesses
and sadly oftentimes descent them into graveyard.


Why?.....


Without a centavo
vision of fare treatment past gone.
Most poor patients were untouched
because of their 'empty pocket' looks,
struggling from some apalling hospital crews.


I myself had witnessed few of these scenes;
How they struggled through the hurricane-force wind,
swimming the dangerous and chaotic seas
just for a tablet of paracetamol,
just to get a bed on the crowded ward
just to.....paint faint memories by candlelight.

They passed high foam-tipped waves
to survive the tempestous day.
But most of the time they painfully face
the cruel medical practitioners' ethos
of redundancy and self-sufficiency
that were designed for money,not charity