A Filipino voter's psalms and lamentations

The "trapo" politician has long pretended to be my shepherd. That is why I am always in want, hungry, homeless, jobless, and hopeless. The trapo leads me along the crooked and wide paths laden with snakes, scorpions, and serpents of malice, greed and impunity. I always thirst and the rivers, lakes, and springs are all polluted by the "trapo's" ceaseless ravishing of Mother Earth. I am paid pittance in wages for my work that are below the levels set forth by law. The trapos protect the exploiters of labor and the perpetrators of casualization and contractualization of labor. These anti-labor businessmen are the financiers' for the "trapos'" campaign.

The "trapos" keep on troubling my soul, vexing my conscience and inflicting pains and sorrows into my heart. Yes, I still walk in the darkest valley of tears and of fears, of sufferings in poverty, injustice, and neglect, And I am engulfed in endless anxieties, anguish, and despair. I look forward to no salvation from the "trapos" whose only motive in entering public service is self-aggrandizement and insatiable hunger for power. The corrupt, the inept, and the incompetent traditional politician controls my life. He buys my votes, dictates on me what to write in my ballot, and terrorizes me if I refuse. I have no peace in his foreboding presence.

The ''trapo'' shepherd prepares for me a table of poison and illegal drugs, of pollutions and stinking garbage. He anoints my forehead with the oil of curse and condemnation in the presence of my enemies. My cup overflows with disillusionments and discouragement. The ''trapo'' hits me with the staff of his lies and deceits and the rod of his high-handed arrogance and domineering impositions. He has grabbed all that I have and destroy my future and my destiny. He imposes his own family in political dynasty that refuses to give a fighting chance to his rivals and electoral opponents. I am now completely doomed and without any hope.

The ''trapo'' insults me with too many lies about his performance and deceives me with bloated statistics and perjured testimonies. He misleads me with outrageous claims of fake achievements and grandiose plans. He thinks that I am stupid like what he thinks about all the people all the time. His political ads are full of masks and disguises, projecting himself as the savior of the people from poverty and social injustice and neglect. The truth however he refuses to accept that it was he and no one else is the proximate cause why people are extremely poor, and why there is no social justice in the real sense of the word.

The trapo is my forcible shepherd and I shall always want.  I hunger for freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom from hopelessness. I am always lost and he never seeks me out because to him, I am considered a burden that he must carry in his journey to grab political power through bribes, bullets, and blurred plans and programs. He insults my dignity through his blatant deceptions. He overwhelms the airwaves with tales of his alleged credentials, and his supposed passionate love for country. He however cheats on taxes and commits plunder in manners and extent that defy human comprehension. And yet, he is the leading bet about to claim the throne.

With this kind of impostor to the seats of powers, poverty, injustice, ignorance, and disease shall follow me till the end of my days. And I shall dwell in the squatters' squalor forever.