Editor's note: This piece was written in response to the poem The Story I Would Have Told You Had I Met You Yesterday by Filipino poet Lina-Sagarel Reyes (Handurawan : Antolohiya ng mga Tuluang Tumanggap ng CCP Literature Grants 1988-1989, Manila, 1990). It was part of Dr Merlinda Bobis's seminar paper 'The Story I Would Have Told You' : Reading/Writing With and Against the Grain, presented in Zaragoza, Spain (2009).
The poem is about Emmanuel Guterrez (1963-1986), a Filipino student activist, painter, community organiser and city partisan. He was killed by government soldiers together with three friends on 24 September, 1986 at high noon. He was twenty-three.