The Pawns

Philippines Graphic
By Philippines Graphic
Illustration by Jimbo Albano

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Every step I make on board

I am ensured a duty

A little chance to defend my King

To prove him my fealty

And every box I step ahead

Going to the other side

They promise me a promotion

That may help turn the tide

So on and on I marched ahead

Avoiding other pieces

If I am patient I sure will

Be enjoying all my riches

No matter how small the step they say

I should never surrender

I shall persevere persistently

In this service that I render

But as I had been left behind

In the middle of the board

I see the Bishop and the Knight

Taking all the hoard

Even the Rooke who has always been

Such a straightforward guy

Has decided to cover the King

And protect Him as he hides

A few more steps and I will be

Promoted to a Piece

When I had seen our Queen attacked

And by the enemy would be seized

Instead of taking that step further

The hands of fate decide

That I shall take the fall instead

And in that game, I died

And when our King survived that match

Unscathed, unbruised, untouched

I realized for the life of me

I mattered not that much

For as long as the game stays the same

And this system goes on and on

No matter how hard one tried in life

There will be Pieces, and there will be Pawns.

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Started in 1927, the Philippines Graphic is the longest-running printed magazine of national circulation that provides relevant news and features and promotes Philippine literature.

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They who wrote for the Philippines Graphic

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“Our sense ... of our country is a sustained act of imagination. From that vantage, it can be said that our writers and artists, who are men and women of imagination, create our country (italics mine). That is to say: they evoke those images of ourselves as we live life day and night, those images of ourselves which we share and by which we recognize our nativity. We are our own best interpreters of our history and culture because it is we who have lived through that history and created our own values by which we live.” —National Artist for Literature Gemino Abad