By George T. Calaor
On the first breath
of the year
the sky betrayed
the earth.
Helicopters tore
open the morning…
steel throats
vomiting command…
bombs falling
like verdicts passed without trial.
Mindoro’s mountains rose to protest
but the sky
answered
with bullets.
Fields of cassava,
corn, and memory
were declared
enemies of the State.
Farms were
mapped
as targets…
homes were
rewritten as
coordinates.
This is how
power speaks
in rotor-blade
hymns…
in fire
that forgets
faces.
They call it precision…
but the bombs
do not distinguish
a rifle from a plow…
a rebel from a child…
a battlefield from
a kitchen floor.
The law of war
is buried first
under the roar
of aircraft.
Jerlyn’s body
learned the cost–
illness tightened
by terror…
breath stolen
not by fate alone…
but by a sky
that would not rest.
Her name now marches with the wind…
a banner stitched
in grief and rage.
Before the bombing…
eyes in the dark…
boots at the door…
hands bound–
bodies broken…
leaders hunted…
forests occupied…
militarization crept
like a disease
then erupted
like flame.
This is not defense!
This is domination!
This is the old empire’s habit–rule the land
by terror!…
silence the poor
with altitude.
But Mindoro is not empty terrain.
It is Mangyan blood
and river-song, and
ancestral soil that remembers resistance–
mountains trained
in survival.
From the craters
voices rise…
Stop the bombing!
Pull your battalions
from our lives!
No more skies
of death
over people
who plant food
and not fear!
We reject a peace enforced by bombs!
We answer
helicopters
with solidarity…
strafe lines
with defiance…
occupation with organized will.
Let the sky
return to blue.
Let the guns
fall silent.
Until then…
the people remain
wounded, yes,
but unbroken…
standing beneath
the fire
refusing
to disappear.
Freedom!
= = = = =
Jerlyn Rose Doydora, a student leader and youth researcher from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM), who died on January 1, 2026, during military operations in Abra de Ilog, Occidental Mindoro.
