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Jose Luis Pablo


“My orders are to the police and military, also the barangay, that if there is trouble or the situation arises that people fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them dead.”
 
​
–President Rodrigo Duterte, during a televised address on April 1, 2020
 
Wash twenty times
Pass or fail
Online conference lag
Extended work hours
Broken body clock
Balcony city karaoke
Next door recital
Knitted a sweater
Watered the plants
Baked own bread
Whipped dalgona coffee 
Bedroom turned gym
Took ten selfies
Lip-sync obsession 
Weddings without guests
Canceled vacation flights
Riskier than Cesarean
Check your mindfulness
Binged every show
Twitter cancel parties
Neighborhood donation drives
Helped from home
Long-distance tribulation 
Protests for haircuts
Liquor ban withdrawal
Viral rant video
Cabin fever outbreak
Imagine celebrities singing
Joined volunteer caravan
Fought a troll
Read daily obituaries
Funerals without wakes
Spontaneous panic attacks

​


​“Footage of the incident . . . showed nearby residents trying to stop [Police Master Sergeant Daniel] Florendo from shooting Winston Ragos, a retired soldier who supposedly violated the enhanced community quarantine protocols.”
                                                                     –CNN Philippines, April 23, 2020
 
Doctors catching disease
Vending to nobody 
Relying on relief 
Walked five days
Infection across jails
Not martial law
Late night gaslight 
Kill the virus
Trust the badge
Law and order
Serve and protect
Shoot them dead
Shoot to kill
Quezon City checkpoint
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Ghosts of Marawi
Shouting and intimidating
Threatened the police
Searched his bag
Pulled a gun
He shot first
Arms in air
Raised in surrender
Who to believe?
Two warning shots
Found their mark
Dropped onto gravel
Made judgment call
Street death sentence
War shock slay 
War without victors
War with victims
Winston Ragos, 34 
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