If Kabunian gave you a land of milk and honey <br />and ordered you to take care of it for posterity <br />What will you do if intruders want to take <br />it away? <br /> <br />I imagine that you will fight <br />For they who do not are ungrateful to <br />Kabunian; they value not His gift <br />They ignore his command to defend the land <br />in the name coming generation thousands of years from now <br />They who do not, spit on the graves of their ancestors <br />who preserved the land for them <br />For land is life <br />For life is the land <br /> <br />If you were in our place <br />You will fight <br />You will fire your guns as we raise our spears <br />You will probably pay your way to the justice system <br />that does not understand our ways <br />For that is what you did to grab the lands of people <br />Like us on the other side of the mountain <br /> <br />So do not be stubborn in your ignorance of <br />Why we refuse to vacate the land which had <br />always been our home <br /> <br />We are the Palestinians in Palestine <br />The Lumads in Mindanao <br />The Mangyans in Mindoro <br />We are the Martians in Mars <br /> <br />Go away. Let our people sleep in peace <br /> <br />Tonight. And the night after. <br /> <br />(Macliing Dulag was the indigenous hero who led the opposition against the establishment of the Chico River Dam in the Cordillera, Philippines- a project conceived without the knowledge of the affected indigenous peoples. He was killed by the military on 24 April 1984.)<br /><br />Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/macliing-dulag-s-warding-off-speech/
