WHEN YOU NEED A NEWSREPORT

WHEN YOU NEED A NEWSREPORT

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

If you’ve gone through a commotion

Or an accident of sorts

And you feel the urge to summon

Newsreporters to the scripts

Ah! Don’t ever waste your sweat

On thick layered phone directories

To call on foreign newsmen to the fore

For these souls today are hounded

On cryptic suspicions of support

They give to rebels on the hills

You might as well call up the hounders

Who are craftsmen of psywar ars

Who don’t matter if 1,000 differs from 10,000

Or whether Mr X didn’t or did commit Action Y

For as long as reports serve the purpose

Of fueling more wars and battle gores

And inflate the raison d’etre

Of brave regimentation and war mania

[Writ. 06 June 1988, AUF, Angeles City, Pampanga]