Your servant said it was urgent. Something about… a commission?

That is murder.

You are mad.

(standing, walking toward a globe) I would have you see . Look here – this globe. Europe, America, Asia. Where is the Philippines?

(taking the pouch cautiously) What is it?

(cutting him off) Reforms are bandages on a corpse. Your “form” – the Filipino – is already dead. What walks around is a ghost. (He picks up the skull.) This was a man. He wrote petitions. He believed in justice. They killed him anyway.

(End of article.)

A gift. A reminder that some forms cannot be changed – only shattered.

A commission, yes. I need a poet’s eye. (He holds the ruby to the lamp.) What do you see?

(firmly) I will not help you. I would rather be a fool with a clean heart than a wise man with a grave.

(without looking up) Yes. Close the door. The rain has a way of washing away good sense.

A small archipelago. But size does not measure worth.

No. But suffering does. For three centuries, you have been a form without substance – a Filipino face on a Spanish slave’s body.