The Games of the Devil

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

Let me tell you, gentlemen—
the devil does not need
a return ticket to hell.
He walks among us,
riding shotgun in tinted SUVs,
whispering in committee hearings,
smiling through clenched jaws
at ribbon cuttings
and campaign sorties.

His games—
they are played in Manila traffic,
in the backdoors of city halls,
where permits are delayed
until palms are greased
with the sweat of the poor.
They are played in the barangay,
where relief goods vanish
like ghosts during elections,
where promises multiply
only to die
on the floor of empty gyms.

No fire needed,
just a handshake.
Just a favor owed.
Just a child left hungry
while a congressman
builds a resort in Palawan.
Just a storm that floods
not because of nature,
but because funds meant for drainage
were siphoned through fake NGOs
and shell bids.

These are not sins of hell.
These are sins of habit.
Of forgetting that governance
is not a game
for those who can afford to lose—
but a lifeline
for those who never had enough
to play in the first place.

And the devil?
He does not deal in fire.
He deals in delay.
In denial.
In development plans
that never leave the blueprint.
He is here,
in the archipelago of amnesia,
where justice is slow
and memory even slower.