"Datuterte: Imagined Confessions, 2024" by Karlo Sevilla (WTF is this?!)

Trigger warning: various shocking contents. Read it here for FREE!

(Cover art by Kaleb Sevilla)

• Published June 10, 2024, this is the first of three individual poetry projects that I committed to complete as a 2024 International Human Rights Art Movement (IHRAM) International Fellow.
• What I wrote to IHRAM Executive Director Tom Block upon submission:

For this collection, "Datuterte: Imagined Confessions, 2024," I assumed the (despotic, brutal, chauvinist, misogynist, condescending, foulmouthed, etc.) persona of the previous Philippine president, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and via a series of portrait poetry and prose attempted a fictional autobiography which narrative arc begins and ends with his contemplation on his current situation: now that rumors are rife about the imminence of his arrest by the International Criminal Court over his alleged crimes against humanity, mainly the extrajudicial killings committed during his brutal “war on drugs” that claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Imagined but based on the subject’s actual statements and reliable news reports, the persona narrates his childhood, young adulthood, and his political career that began with his appointment as OIC vice-mayor of Davao City and ended when he finished his six-year term as president of the Philippines. In his stories, he speaks of the multitude of fatal crimes under his separate administrations as mayor then president; including the ones he purportedly committed himself – straight from his own mouth as factual statements, or tough talk to pander to his fanatical supporters, or both.

The fictional narration delves into the psychology and personal background of an autocrat, along with the social and political milieus within which each select slice of the storyteller’s life was lived, and the crimes he committed personally and/or under his leadership. Insights are also shared on how and why a significant number of a populace end up embracing fascistic propaganda and supporting tyrannical and (therefore) anti-human rights policies as possible solutions for social ills, preponderantly for the perceived or actual breakdown of law and order.

At the very least, I hope that this small collection will serve as a quick reference for any student of contemporary Philippine history, specifically about the administration of the 16^th president of the republic (2016 to 2022) that is now widely considered as the most murderous and with the highest number of human rights violations when it comes to state-sanctioned violence.

• A positive review from Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee poet Gretchen Filart:

If there is anything you will read today, make it Karlo Silverio Lagman Sevilla III's free digital poetry collection, Datuterte. It's a unique, honest, and powerful collage of first-person poems spoken from Rodrigo Duterte's viewpoint, using real-life statements during his bloody six-year regime as Philippine president. It offers an encompassing grasp of his violent political term and is a product of Karlo's fellowship at International Human Rights Art Movement (IHRAM).

And, again, you can read "Datuterte: Imagined Confessions, 2024" by yours truly here for FREE.

One-Minute Hirit 16: Direk Darryl Yap: ang Joseph Goebbels ng Malacañang...

Ang magdirek ng mga pelikulang pampropaganda na nagtatanggol at nagpapabango sa kuwento ng pamilyang Marcos na pasimuno ng pandarambong at paglabag sa mga karapatang pantao noong martial law – iyan ang showbiz career choice ngayon ng batang director na si Darryl Yap. 

One-Minute Hirit 15: Ang Dalawang Problema ng mga Magnanakaw sa NAIA ay ...

". . . ay una, akala yata nila ang NAIA ay hindi Ninoy Aquino International Airport kundi Ferdinand Marcos International Airport kaya okay lang magnakaw."

Alpas: Short Film and Website Featuring My Poems

The following is a revision of my LinkedIn post earlier today:

First, congratulations to InnTechGreat, a group of Bachelor in Multimedia Arts students at FEU Institute of Technology for their successful final thesis defense recently. Secondly, thanks to them for choosing my poems as material for their thesis on how to promote Philippine poetry via multi-media arts.

And their thesis is Alpas, a 1) "live-action and hybrid animated short film showcasing the art of poetry" (again, "incidentally," my poems) and 2) an accompanying website of a collection of (more) poems from the same poet (and, again "incidentally," it's yours truly).

The film's current version, November 2022.

The film’s story is about “a young adult writer trying to overcome his past trauma through writing poems,” and weaves through my three previously published poems. Below are the poems and the respective times when each appears in the film, with links to the original pages where they were first published):

• 04:39: First Shot of the Philippine-American War - Unlikely Stories Mark V, July 18, 2019 (This poem, for this film, was slightly revised from the original for historical accuracy and posterity.),
• 08:01: Because fighting was his element - I am not a silent poet, August 21, 2016, and
• 10:28: The Insignificant Other - Small Orange poetry journal and its first anthology, 2020.

Screenshot of website's homepage.

The website features my politically-oriented poems – all previously published, with the exception of one, in literary magazines and/or my first full-length poetry collection, "Metro Manila Mammal" (Soma Publishing, 2018). Here's the link to the sole exception, Atty. Hermon C. Lagman:, a rhyming quatrain in Filipino that I wrote last September in time for the 50th anniversary of the declaration of martial law in the Philippines. It is about a prominent human rights abuse/enforced disappearance victim during that dark era under the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The film can also be accessed through the website’s homepage.

And previously, I talked about this project in part 1 of my interview (October 3, 2022) with Thomas White for his poetry mini interviews blog.

Note: Both the film and the website are still works in progress. The panelists advised the students to make a few revisions on the film, and the website is still incomplete (a few credits are still missing, among others). Thank you and ever onwards for humanity – and poetry!