text: The stream of water made a *tink-tink-tink* as it slowly filled Philip’s bucket. It was made from scrap metal, from sheets of aluminum skin salvaged from wrecked aircraft and riveted together tightly so that water would not leak from the gaps. Philip’s bucket was made from the wing of a Bronco, an American airplane. Philip’s Uncle Andre knew all about airplanes, and taught him all he knew about them. The Bronco, Uncle Andre said, was an attacker, which meant that its job was to knock out ground targets like entrenched soldiers, vehicles, and even buildings. The skies above Cavite were clear, like a blue sea with islands of clouds. “We’re fortunate to have clear skies,” Uncle Andre said one day. “If this were Samar, you would see Broncos flying low above the ground like great, buzzing eagles, carrying bombs and rockets in their talons.” Philip turned off the water and carried his bucket back to Uncle Andre, who lived in a bamboo house on his farm at the edge of the village. Everyone else had houses of concrete with roofs of steel, so that when the rain poured the water did not get in. “Why *did* you build a house out of bamboo, then?” Philip had asked when he was little. “Out of consideration to other people. Other people need the concrete more, Philip,” Uncle Andre replied, puffing on a rolled tobacco leaf. “For example, the Army.” “Why would the Army need concrete?” Philip pressed, filled with the curiosity characteristic of children his age. “They need concrete to make bunkers and ammunition depots and field hospitals,” Uncle Andre explained. “There’s a war going on.” At another point in his childhood, Philip set his bucket down in Uncle Andre’s backyard kitchen after filling it with water, a chore that earned him twenty pesos per trip and that he had been doing for almost a decade. Twenty pesos used to be worth a lot more in Uncle Andre’s time, but at the present could not buy anything more valuable than candy. “Uncle Andre, why did you make a bucket out of scrap metal?” “Everybody makes buckets out of scrap metal,” Uncle Andre replied, scraping the scales off a river catfish while puffing on a rolled tobacco leaf. “Not just buckets, but washbasins and dippers too.” He took a long drag before continuing. “We used to have those things made from plastic. It was lighter and cheaper than metal, and it didn’t rust.” “Well, why don’t people use plastic anymore?” “Plastic is made in big factories that used to be owned by companies that sold buckets and washbasins and dippers. But other people need the plastic factories more, Philip. For example, the Army. So they bought the plastic factories from the companies.” “Why would the Army need plastic factories?” Philip asked, noticing a trend. “They need plastic to make parts of guns and tools and radios,” Uncle Andre explained. “There’s a war going on.” It was as if whoever controlled this whole war business also controlled the things Philip could and could not have, and to Philip this seemed terribly unfair. Nobody seemed to be sure why the war started, or what the bigger picture looked like. The only pictures anyone saw were the posters plastered to lampposts and the walls of buildings, printed in bright, garish colors and depicting uniformed men and women ready to go to war for their beloved country. These patriotic images were often accompanied by slogans urging the reader to support the war effort by enlisting in the Armed Forces, or by purchasing war bonds and donating broken electronics to government recycling depots. Philip wasn’t quite sure how giving away your useless junk helped the war effort, but he assumed the Army needed it more. Sometimes, at movie theaters, shoehorned in between the trailers would be some update on the progress of the war. They announced victory after victory against the invading Americans in Surigao, Ormoc, and Tagum. This gave rise to a question Philip had not been able to find a decent answer to for fifteen years: if the Army was winning, why did they need our concrete and plastic? Political folks, particularly among the intelligentsia, liked talking about the war. The nationalists supported it, the opposition were against it, some oddballs from both sides protested otherwise, while some even declared that there was no war at all, and that the entire thing was a sham to take everyone’s concrete and plastic. Other people like Uncle Andre were apolitical, and liked to smell the flowers and just keep on living. Political folks hated people like Uncle Andre. Apolitical folks, they said, lacked the enthusiasm or interest to concern themselves with important matters. “But worst of all,” Uncle Andre warned, “are the fickle folks. They pretend to be political folks, but in reality do not have any convictions, and only wish to be seen as intelligent and concerned members of society. They have no spines, no principles, and no loyalty!” I am an apolitical farmer. I am loyal to my farm. Today I tend to my farm, and tomorrow I will still tend to farm. Fickle folks, on the other hand, are loyal to *no one.* Today they are loyal to the nationalists, but tomorrow they will be with the opposition, and the day after that, they will be among the Communists, and by the day after *that*, they will have joined a doomsday cult!” Philip set his bucket down in Uncle Andre’s backyard kitchen. Uncle Andre wasn’t there, only the faint odor of tobacco smoke. One moment, all he could think about was the water in his bucket; the next, all he could think about was Uncle Andre. “Are you looking for your uncle?” Philip whirled around. A girl roughly his age was standing at the edge of a banana thicket. She had wavy, dark hair that fell to her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face, with stunning eyes the color of the sunset. She had a lithe figure draped in a floral sundress, a tribal scarf covering her shoulders like the wings of an eagle. One moment, all he could think about was Uncle Andre; the next, all he could think about was this girl and how pretty she was. “They took him. I saw.” Philip snapped back to reality. Uncle Andre. “Who’s they?” “The police,” the girl said, fingering a pendant around her neck anxiously. “They found anti-government propaganda in his drawers and -” She took a staggering step forward before flinging her arms around him, sobbing. Philip patted her on the back in an attempt to comfort her, wishing he could do the same to himself. “They shot him?” The girl shook her head, buried it in his shoulder. “No. They beat him over the head with their rifle butts, and when he wouldn’t cooperate they - they *bayoneted* him to death. I’m so sorry.” Philip’s knees felt like they were dissolving in concentrated lye. It was the girl’s turn to support his crumpled mass, dripping in tears. She wiped them away with the hem of her scarf. “Come on - sit,” she said, guiding him over to the bench Uncle Andre had carved by hand. “I lost my father the same way.” Philip swallowed the lump in his throat and looked at her. “He worked for the government, but they went after him once they suspected him of being a dissident,” the girl went on. “You know Aling Linda?” Philip nodded. “The old lady with a limp?” “She was hacked in the leg protecting him. They shoved her aside before moving on to him. I was there to see it. I know how you feel, it’s just awful.” “War is awful.” “This entire mess is awful.” “That, we can agree on.” Philip’s days of carrying water for Uncle Andre were over, since he couldn’t carry water for a dead man and still expect twenty pesos per trip. This left a gaping hole in his daily activities that he spent thinking about Uncle Andre and the cruel circumstances of his death - at least, for the first couple of days. One morning a foil-wrapped package showed up on Philip’s front step. He assumed it was empty until he accidentally stepped on it to find it had something soft and squishy inside. It was a chocolate bar, something only the family of a government employee could possibly afford. Taped to the back was a small note. I live in the house down by the river. Come visit when you’re free? Rachel Philip still wasn’t certain about many things, like why Uncle Andre had to die and why the Army needed so much concrete and plastic, but at that moment he was certain he was free.