(A Declamation Piece)

A Note Before the Piece

I wrote pieces like this once for young voices that weren’t my own — contestants I coached, trained, and sent to the stage carrying words I’d written for them. There was no greater satisfaction than hearing them reach the final line and say the title, and then my name, before the room. Those days shaped how I write even now: always for a voice, always for a stage, always for someone who will make the words theirs the moment they say them aloud.

“What’s For Dinner” continues that tradition — written in the spirit of BULPRISA’s declamation seasons, for whoever is bold enough to stand up, look their audience in the eye, and ask the question this piece asks.

Through this piece, I want to appeal to my countrymen with one question: Does taking sides in our country’s political upheavals bring food to your table?

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Same fight. Different night. Different bill, different senator, different hashtag — same two people, standing in the same kitchen, screaming across the same table I do my homework on.

“You still support that? After everything?”

“At least my side isn’t stealing us blind!”

“Your side wrote the book on stealing!”

I stood between them tonight. Again. Like I always do. But tonight, for the first time, I didn’t just stand there.

I picked up the rice pot — still half full, still warm — and I put it down on the table, hard enough that it rattled the plates.

“Is this what we’re eating tonight?” I said. “Or are we eating your outrage instead? Because I’m hungry, and outrage doesn’t have any calories.”

They both looked at me like I’d slapped them.

Good.

Do you want to know what I know about politics? I know plenty. Don’t mistake my anger for ignorance. I know what Papa’s senator promised, and I know he hasn’t delivered half of it. I know what Mama’s congressman voted for, and I know who paid for that vote. I’ve read the same news both of you scream about. I’ve seen the same corruption — on both sides, in every color, behind every podium. You want to know my political position? Here it is: everyone up there is stealing from us. Every single one. The only difference is which thief you’ve decided to defend like he’s family — which side has enough power to bury the other.

Meanwhile, your actual family is standing right here. Getting smaller every night.

Do you remember Lola’s wake? Six months ago? I do. I remember it because it’s the last time I saw both of you in the same room and not fighting — because for one week, grief was louder than politics. Then the week ended, and you went right back to it. Over her own casket, practically. I heard you, Papa, bring up the drug war while we were still folding the funeral programs. I heard you, Mama, answer back with the same three names you always bring up. Lola wasn’t even buried yet.

You want to know what I lost that week? Not just Lola. I lost the only proof I had that you two still remember how to be quiet together.

Last month, tuition was due. You know this. I know you know this, because I heard you both say, separately, on separate nights, that money was tight. And yet — Papa, you drove four hours to a rally. Gas money, food, a shirt with a name on it that isn’t ours. Mama, you spent six hundred pesos boosting a post. Six hundred pesos. That’s my project money for next week. That’s food for three days. That’s not a small thing to me, even if it’s small enough for you both to forget by morning.

Tell me — what did that rally buy us? What did that post feed us? Did the senator you cheered for pay our electric bill? Did the congressman you defended send rice to this house? No. He didn’t. He doesn’t know we exist. He doesn’t know my name. But you’ll fight for him like he’s blood, and fight against each other like you’re not.

I am so tired of being the only adult in this house.

I am tired of choosing which parent to sit next to at dinner based on who’s less likely to bring up politics tonight.

I am tired of loving two people who love their political tribes more than they love being married to each other.

So here is what I need from both of you — not a compromise, not a ceasefire, not “let’s agree to disagree.” I need you to look at this table. Look at what’s on it. Or what isn’t. And ask yourselves — what has taking sides ever once put on this table?

Nothing. It has cost us. It has never once fed us.

So choose a side tonight, if you must. Choose this family’s side. Because that’s the only side that’s ever once needed you to show up.