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THE CINE

THE CINEMA ISSUE

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CHARO SANTOS INTERVIEWED BY R I C K Y L E E

SUCKER PUNCHED! BARON GEISLER VS KIKO MATO S: THE FULL S TORY ON THE CH A R A DE T H AT UP S TAGED T HE ELEC T ION S

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SEX ROMPS, POWER SUITS, AND WHITE COLLAR BLUES T H E M A K I N G O F I S H M A E L B E R N A L’ S W O R K I N G G I R L S

ROGUE MAGAZINE / 250 PESOS

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CONTENTS No ve m b e r 2 0 16

COVER STORY

82 STATE OF GRACE Fresh from her return to the screen and glowing reviews at the Venice Film Festival, Charo Santos speaks with the screenwriter Ricky Lee on her comeback film and her unparalleled four decade-long career.

4 NOV E M B E R 2016

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARK NICDAO

ISSUE 104

CONTENTS No ve m b e r 2 0 16

Kiko Matos getting ready for his bout with Baron Geisler.

FEATURES 66

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SUCKER PUNCH DRUNK The rumors are true. The Baron Geisler-Kiko Matos feud was a setup that turned the eye of a nation from political turmoil to a mixed martial arts promotion. Paolo Enrico Melendez draws the line between perception and reality with the creative forces behind Beast Mode.

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN A masterful dissection of the corporate landscape, Ishmael Bernal’s Working Girls captured the mood of its time. Jerome Gomez examines the people and forces behind the creation of this beloved ode to the working women, circa 1984.

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THE SUSPECT The brutal murders of film critics Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc is a case long gone cold, with the media fire dying away and little consolation to be had in the police investigation. Writer Laurel Fantauzzo revisits the fallout of the crime, seven years later.

THE FORCE AWAKENS When it was first released, Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank was a critical and surprising commercial success. The sequel, which plays on the tropes of Pinoy romantic comedies, sees Eugene Domingo reprising her role as well, herself. Chris Martinez gives us a sneak peek.

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FILM FATALES The silver screen has famously been a man’s to fill with whatever he pleases, but the game has changed now that more women have entered the frame, on and off camera. Rogue sits down with nine of film’s finest females about what it means to be a woman in contemporary cinema.

LINES DRAWN ON WATER In matters of territorial dispute, the Philippines is the underdog. But away from the action in the West Philippine Sea, a crew of Navy soldiers foisted a flag on an island in the middle of nowhere to prove a point. Criselda Yabes recalls her time on the treacherous expedition.

6 NOV E M B E R 2016

PHOTOGRAPHED BY GELOY CONCEPCION

ISSUE 104

CONTENTS No ve m b e r 2 0 16

Wong Kar Wai (in blue) with Leslie Cheung.

SECTIONS 17 AGENDA Acclaimed film critic Philbert Dy chats with FDCP chairwoman Liza Diùo about what kind of change is coming to local cinema; Rizzoli publishes a dazzling retrospective on the works of esteemed auteur Wong Kar Wai; Samantha Lee’s debut full-length film Baka Bukas is, first and foremost, a love story.

39 SPACE Kenneth Cobonpue sped his retro Jaguar E-type through the roads of Bohol for a 3-day race; street art veteran Torrick Ablack A.K.A. Toxic talks about the wildlife of 80s New York and crossing over to the world of galleries; the color blue, when utilized properly, can greatly improve the look of your living space.

49 THE EYE Rafe Totengco returns from a decades-long hiatus from apparel for a collaboration with Bench; Luminox honors the US Navy Seals with a precision timepiece made to withstand the harshest conditions.

57 THE SLANT Bernardo Bernardo takes us behind the scenes of Manila By Night, and how Ishmael Bernal pushed the actor to the limits of his craft; Dwight Gaston recalls the mortifying experience of going naked on camera for the first time; Paolo Enrico Melendez describes how to survive hunting for bootlegs in Quiapo.

8 NOV E M B E R 2016

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Executive Editor JEROME GOMEZ Deputy Editor JONT Y CRUZ

Managing Editor JACS T. SAMPAYAN

Associate Editor PAOLO ENRICO MELENDEZ Design Editor DEVI DE VEYRA

On the Cover Agenda Section Editor JAM PASCUAL Founding and Contributing Editor JOSE MARI UGARTE

Editor at Large TEODORO LOCSIN, JR.

ART Senior Art Director KARL CASTRO

Junior Designer MARK SANTIAGO

Photographer at Large MARK NICDAO

Photographed by Mark Nicdao Styled by Pam Quiñones Makeup by RB Chancho Hair by Jeffrey Aromin Art Direction by Karl Castro Stylist Assisted by Cath Sobrevega, Riri Verano, AJ Duyo Photographer Assisted by James Bautista, Phil Nicdao Charo Santos wears a Vania Romoff neoprene top and Balenciaga leather jacket

Photographer STEVE TIRONA

Contributing Writers APA AGBAYANI, BERNARDO BERNARDO, PATRICIA CHONG, KENNETH COBONPUE, PHILBERT DY, L AUREL FANTAUZZO, PAULO FERRER, DWIGHT GASTON, EMIL HOFILEÑA, SHANE L AURON, CHRIS MARTINEZ, VICTOR PL ATON, MITZI DUQUE RUIZ, DJONG TAN, MIHK VERGARA, CRISELDA YABES Contributing Photographers & Artists JOSH ARGOSINO, GABBY CANTERO, PATRICK DIOKNO, JL JAVIER, CENON NORIAL, BJ PASCUAL, IANNA RALLONZA, CJ DE SILVA-ONG Interns CARLO NEMO PUBLISHING Publisher VICKY MONTENEGRO / vicky.montenegro@roguemedia.ph Associate Publisher ANI A. HIL A / ani.hila@roguemedia.ph Publishing Assistant MADS TEOTICO / mads.teotico@roguemedia.ph Senior Advertising Sales Director MINA GARA / mina.gara@roguemedia.ph Account Managers VELU ACABADO, FAYE DELIGENTE Advertising Traffic Officer & Production Coordinator MYRA CABALUNA Associate Circulation Manager RAINIER S. BARIA Circulation Supervisor MARK ROLAND LEAL

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ISSUE 104

THE EDITOR’S LETTER No ve m b e r 2 0 16

Marcos is not a hero

12 NOV E M B E R 2016

or ‘Magpulutan na lang tayo sa kangkungan.’ I think that’s a fair enough sentiment, in the heat of this moment.” The status was accompanied by a photo of the indignation rally held hours earlier at the University of the Philippines. “That’s a banner of Marcos that’s about to be burned,” Eric said. “The guys holding the torches are Martial Law victims.

They’re your father’s age. They sound like my mother. They have the wrinkles of years and tears and a good long fight. Imagine how long they’ve been at it. What they’ve given. What our history will continue to ask them to give. So go ahead and give up for now, but consider picking things up, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. Because for some people, giving up is not an option.”

It was an appeal for some fragment of sentiment, some form of empathy from those that have surrendered hope. Like myself. Which made me think: feeling nothing is one thing.

Feeling nothing and leaving it at that is giving up.

Feeling nothing does not erase facts. It does not extinguish our other faculties, topmost of which is our ability to think, to process, to distinguish what is right and what is wrong.

This ability to ascertain what is right from wrong is a quality I have always admired about the two directors who make their presence felt in this our Cinema Issue: Ishmael Bernal and Lino Brocka. They may have explored libertine ideas in their films in various ways, celebrated them even. They may have personally lived those ideas themselves. But they knew injustice when they saw it. They knew wrong from right and

were not afraid to call it, in their movies, on the streets—despite real threats to their livelihood and existences.

Maybe because life in this country has been difficult for much too long. Maybe because we have been duped, punched and kicked so many times these past months, terrible things piling up on top of each other, our hearts can no longer distinguish what necessitates a certain degree of anger, what triggers another degree of pain.

But like Bernal and Brocka before us, we must acknowledge the injustices that we see—no matter what. Letting another country trample on shores that are rightfully ours is wrong. Taking the lives of suspected pushers without giving them the benefit of defending themselves in court is wrong. Allowing Ferdinand Marcos a burial among men who valiantly fought for this country is wrong. We need to know what is right and what is wrong and keep repeating that to ourselves and in public. Because people are revising history as we speak and only when we keep repeating the facts will truth—that thing that’s supposed to free us—survive.

Je ome Gomez Executive Editor

PHOTOGRAPH BY JR AGRA

A

s I write this note on November 8, 2016, the Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of allowing the body of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani.

Nine of the 14 high court judges voted to dismiss a petition submitted by human rights groups challenging the burial. I want to pinch myself.

Considering having someone slap me in the face just to check if I am still indeed living. Because I do not feel anything. No anger. No fury. Not even a speck of disappointment. To think that just several months back, at the height of the election campaign, after reading the exhaustive investigation on the Marcos wealth by The Guardian’s Nick Davies, I vowed to myself that the next time I encounter another Marcos in this lifetime, I will look at him or her with utmost contempt. But here I am feeling no emotional connection to the Guardian piece. The report that said that while the dictator and his family flew out of the country in 1986 bringing with them an accumulated sum of $15 million which included various jewelry, clothing and freshlyprinted Philippine peso notes, Ferdinand’s acquired wealth over his 21 year rule is actually 650 times greater—up to 10 billion US dollars by the estimation of the Philippine Supreme Court.

A few hours after the SC ruling on the burial sent the online world ablaze, Rogue’s associate editor Eric Melendez posted a Facebook status.

“I see a lot of people,” it began, “expressing hopelessness. Refrains of ‘Let it burn’ or ‘I give up’

ISSUE 104

THE GUEST LIST No ve m b e r 2 0 16

Dwight Gaston is a Negrense actor and writer known for starring in Erik Matti’s The Arrival and cowriting the screenplays for the films Yanggaw, Pa-Siyam, Rigodon, and Red. This month, he tells the story of how he was bullied into going nude for Peque Gallaga’s Oro Plata Mata.

14 NOV E M B E R 2016

Laurel Fantauzzo’s work recently appeared in the New York Times. Her debut nonfiction book The First Impulse (Anvil Publishing 2016) explores a love story and a mystery in Metro Manila. She teaches at Yale-NUS College and lives between Singapore and Quezon City, Philippines.

Geloy Concepcion is a professional photographer, born and raised in Pandacan, Manila.

Having been exhibited internationally, in countries such as Japan, Singapore, India, and Australia, he is currently based here doing freelance editorial assignments.

Philbert Dy is one of the country’s most influential film critics, churning out weekly reviews for clickthecity. com. This month, he grills newly appointed FDCP chair Liza Diño and annotates the republished cinema wishlist of the late Alexis Tioseco.

Kenneth Cobonpue is an award-winning furniture designer who has made waves in the global stage. In this issue, he takes us through his experience racing a vintage Jaguar at the Tour de Cebu, with his son, Andre as his navigator.

Bernardo Bernardo is a familiar face to many, appearing in numerous theater, film, and television productions over a career that’s lasted more than 40 years.

The critically acclaimed actor was most recently in the films Purgatoryo, Singing in Graveywards, Whistleblower, and Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis. He shares an excerpt from his upcoming book, Myth Pa Po Ako! in this month’s Slant.

Ricardo Lee is best known for his work as a scriptwriter, having written over 150 produced film scripts since 1979.

Many of them, such as Himala, Jose Rizal, and Karnal, are classics in Philippine cinema.

More recently, he wrote the scripts of Iadya Mo Kami and Ringgo: The Dog Shooter. He is slated to come out with a children’s book this December.

Chris Martinez broke into the scene as a director with the Cinemalaya film 100, which won him numerous awards for his direction and writing. Since then, he has distinguished himself with his signature humor in films such as Babae sa Septic Tank and I Do Bidoo Bidoo: Heto nApo Sila!

No ve m b e r 2 0 16

E DI T E D BY

JAM PASCUAL

AGENDA

F O O D + E N T E R TA I N M E N T + C U L T U R E + T R AV E L

Amidst raised eyebrows and concerns about the place of local cinema in the Duterte administration, Liza DiĂąo hit the ground running since her appointment as chair of the Film Development Council of the Philippines. Critic Philbert Dy (yes, that guy on the right) grills the actress and one-time beauty queen to find out if the controversial Digong appointee gets his prized five stars.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PATRICK DIOKNO

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AGENDA ART

CHOICES OF THE CHAIR We asked Liza Diño about her top three local films

INSIANG I am a Lino Brocka fan and Insiang is my favorite film. It explores social realities about the Philippines but not in a sensationalized way. Well acted, simple story, every frame pinagisipan. Walang eksenang itatapon.

IN NOMINE MATRIS Ok lang naman siguro to love your own. This film really challenged me to push myself and dig deep, so it’s personal and very close to home.

Since it was my 3rd film with Direk Will Fredo, he knew how to push my buttons, how to extract those needed emotions. Also, if I didn’t win Best Actress for it during MMFF, I wouldn’t have stayed in Manila and eventually reunited with my husband Aiza.

T-BIRD AT AKO Nora and Vilma Santos on screen—total riot. Love the screenplay. As an LGBT advocate, this was a very brave film that pushed the envelope on gender sensitivity. The novelty of seeing them together onscreen is priceless.

18 NOV E M B E R 2016

AS OUR FILMS shift to more nuanced narratives and take on broader genres, the industry’s supporting institutions are due too for some changes. Film critic Philbert Dy sits down with Liza Diño, newly appointed chair of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), to talk about the role of government in movies, the growing relevance of regional cinema, and preserving our film artifacts.

How much did you have to deal with FDCP prior to taking on the job? What was your experience before working with the agency?

Did you identify problems that needed to be addressed in dealing with FDCP? My very first encounter with FDCP was when my film, Ringgo: The Dog-Shooter, got into the World Premieres Festival Philippines this year.

We were one of the finalists in the Filipino New Cinema section, and that was the first time I personally encountered FDCP. But I heard of FDCP during our consultations with President Duterte, when he very informally asked us if we could help him out with arts and culture. So we took it upon ourselves to do some consultations with cultural groups, not specifically and primarily for film—but siyempre, film is very much in the realm of arts and culture.

Marami kaming na-encounter, and maraming mga recommendations and suggestions on how FDCP can be strengthened or empowered, or transformed into a film commission. At the time, we didn’t know who was going to be the next FDCP chair; all we had was this agenda that we wanted to present to the incoming FDCP chair. So, when it turned out to be me, advantage na siya kasi alam ko na yung mga kailangan nila eh so ‘yun talaga ang unang-una kong hinanap at ginawa, the very first day I came into office.

quota law, na kailan ganitong number of foreign films lang ang puwedeng pumasok at a certain period of screening. Hindi tayo makapag-dictate ng ganun and hindi tayo makapag-recommend ng mga ganung klaseng policies kasi yung mga treaties na signatory ang Philippines hindi na-ratify sa Congress. So eto muna yung inaayos namin, meron tayong recommendation sa mga cinemas na assured ang ating mga local films of a certain period of play dates, and hindi sila mapupull-out sa sinehan just because mahina yung sales.

Filipino films are very intimate, deeply-rooted stories that reflect our culture. That’s what we want to tell the world

What are your plans regarding film archiving?

Does your administration intend to pursue previously proposed plans for a larger archiving facility?

Yes. Actually, we just had our budget hearing a week ago, and nag-propose na kami ng initial funding for the archives facility. Kasi what we have now is very limited. Ang liit-liit lang nung vault namin. But of course what the government wanted was a bigger plan kasi yung plan namin dati na from previous FDCP chairman Briccio Santos pa. Nagkaroon ng problema with the land, and isa sa mga requirements talaga ng government is kailangan yung land, donated. Either government property, or donated, para yung You said you consulted with members of the structure na lang and the building of the archives film community to try to get their feel of the itself are what will be shouldered by the FDCP. FDCP. What came out of that?

Ah well, ang pinakac-concern ng industry is hindi Nagkaroon ng problema, but we are pursuing it, we are currently looking for a facility, a place kasi masyadong in-explore ang policy-making. where we can build. I just had a meeting with the There are no existing protectionist policies, National Commission for Culture and the Arts marami tayong kinakaharap ngayon na kailangan and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and ng isang cultural and national policy. Yung they’re ready to surrender their library and their concerns [ng industry] hindi talaga “kailangan archives. During the previous years, very hesitant mabigyan kami ng grants,” hindi ganun eh! It’s sila, kasi hindi strong enough yung memorandum more like protectionist policies para doon sa of agreement, and siyempre sa kanila you have mga films na andyan sa market ngayon. How to make them feel reassured. Ayokong tanggapin can they be protected? How can we protect nang wala kaming facility dito. Kung magdadagdag our local industry from foreign films, from the distributors themselves who choose these films to kami, mas gugustuhin ko na talagang isang established facility na siya. So it’s in the works. be exhibited in the local cinemas?

We’ve also approved a new set of films to restore. Personally, I believe that hindi lang kasi What specifically are these policies?

Signatories tayo sa maraming bilateral agreements, classic films ang importante. Importante ang cinema heritage. So even the films that are not but ang problema is that Congress has yet to commercially viable, the classic Filipino films, ratify any of them. So it’s hard for us to really will be up for restoration. I think importante adopt cultural policies, like anti-trust laws na anything that pertains to the history of cinema. puwedeng i-adopt ng industry to protect our I think it’s important for our audience to have films or to protect the local industry. Kasi hindi access to them. tayo puwedeng makapag-sabi na, [like] the film

PARTNER PROMOTION

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T

WORDS BY PATRICIA CHONG

he sensation of an airplane taking flight is familiar joy to any seasoned traveler. But just as familiar are the anxiety of missing a flight and the ache at the soles of your feet as yet another line at the airport—be it check-in, immigration, or security check—refuses to budge.

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your luggage via Bluetooth. When a digital tag isn’t in use, you can opt to have your name and address displayed instead through the app, or you can simply leave it off.

From there, you can check in to your flight via the airline app. Rimowa’s digital update is currently partnered with Lufthansa and EVA Air, but other airlines such as United, Condor, and Thomas Cook are already in their testing stages.

Once you’ve checked in through the Rimowa app, you can send the digital tag to your luggage—again via Bluetooth. And like magic, all of the appropriate barcodes and information appear on the luggage’s display.

When you get to the airport, simply drop it off at the airline’s drop-off station and walk away. Feel free to flash a smile at the long line at the check-in counter as you stroll by to immigrations.

AGENDA ART

Are there any specific films that you’re thinking about?

Kasaysayan ng Lahi? (Laughs) Kasi today ito yung mga— Yung mga may historical significance— Yes! Actually at present nakikipag-collaborate din kami with ABS-CBN Archives. They expressed to us the films pa na gusto nilang i-restore, and I’m amazed by the move of ABS-CBN to continuously restore, pero siguro maganda rin na mag-umpisa na rin kami to digitize and restore yung mga films of historical significance. Kasi kami lang ang gagawa niyan eh, ‘di ba? Hindi gagawin ng iba yan but us, and I don’t think ABS-CBN would take the risk of restoring these materials na hindi naman nila puwedeng, you know, to make profit out of it.

As FDCP chair, are you considering funding the making of local films?

Well, yung budget namin is limited. If ever we’re going to fund films, it’s going to be through a film lab. There’s going to be a call for submissions, so that all filmmakers can have access to it. I’m very particular about giving opportunities to the regions. We have a lot of talented regional filmmakers who are not given opportunities to show their films in the same way the Manilabased filmmakers and their works are being given importance. So I hope that we can level the playing field somehow and give them the opportunity. If we’re going to have a call for submissions for film grants, we’ll make sure there are slots for regional filmmakers. In terms of the individual grants, I don’t think we’re going to do that this year, only because of the limited budget of FDCP. Why not take a step further and only offer grants to regional filmmakers?

Yeah, well, we can do that. (Laughs) I would love to, kase sa totoo lang, to be really blunt, I feel like it’s their time to shine. Especially with this move now to decentralize and empower the regional film communities, ang daming puwedeng i-explore with their storytelling. Their films are so exclusive and unique to their locality and I would love for our audiences from Manila and the rest of the regions to be able to see them. That’s why we partnered with Cinema Rehiyon. It was our first venture, a partnership between NCCA and FDCP, for this particular Cinema Rehiyon XIII. How do you plan to promote Filipino cinema abroad?

For the longest time, we have been hosting a lot of embassy festivals. Cine Europa has been around for the last 19 years, as well as the Silent Film Festival. In my almost two months as FDCP chair, I’ve attended eight festivals already, kasi it’s festival season, and the one thing I always ask each country is, “We’ve been hosting your festival, have you hosted a Filipino film festival in your country?” And yun ang sinasabi nila, hindi pa 20 NOV E M B E R 2016

MORE THAN MANILA

One of Liza Diño’s goals is to promote and expand the reach of regional cinema. “Their films are so exclusive and unique to their locality and I would love for our audiences from Manila and the rest of the regions to be able to see them.”

nila nagagawa. So with our films winning awards left and right, we know that there is an audience beyond the Philippines. So what we’re doing right now is we’re working with the Spanish Embassy to organize an international festival, like the Madrid International Festival, and then have a Filipino section as a part of the festival.

Part of the job of selling Filipino cinema abroad is presenting a brand for Filipino cinema. I feel like that’s a failure of Filipino cinema in general, being able to project a brand to the rest of the world. How would you brand Filipino cinema?

I’m basing it from the catalogue that we just put together for the Busan International Film Festival. We wanted to put together a catalogue wherein each genre [is represented] sa bawat isang booklet, but we ended up with 60 percent drama. But I think we should embrace that. I think we should embrace that being Filipino, very intimate ang stories natin, hindi tayo big on effects, it always boils down to the humanity of each individual story and how it touches a global audience. Siguro that will be the core: Filipino films are very intimate; they are very deeply rooted human stories na nagrereflect dun sa mismong culture natin. And that’s what we want to tell the world, na it’s this diverse. Puwede siyang about poverty, pero puwede rin siya about middle class na hindi kailangang mahihirap pero meron din struggles. I’d like to think na ang mga Filipino, madali tayong mag-pick up sa mga nangyayari sa pang araw-araw na pamumuhay natin dito sa Pilipinas. Hindi lang talaga natin

nabibigyan ng atensyon.

One last thing: Every now and then you hear one of our films getting into foreign festivals and the filmmakers can’t go because they don’t have the funds. Does your administration plan to address this constant problem?

Yes! Actually, a week into my being in the office, naka-receive na kasi kami ng mga requests. We now have a travel assistance program as part of our international promotions and marketing support to filmmakers who are competing and having exhibitions abroad. What we did is a standardized travel assistance program na merong implementing rules and regulations. Pag big film fests like Venice, Cannes, and Berlin, meron assistance for them. It varies from airfare to including accommodations. Kasi dati, individual requests eh. So mahirap kasi hindi nabibigyan ng chance lahat. So now, as long as your film is qualified, you can get the assistance. All you need to do is, of course, go through the requirements.

But isa sa mga in-add namin was, part of the deliverables for these filmmakers who are given grants—at the end of the day, pera pa rin ‘to ng taong bayan and these are privileges na binibigay ng gobyerno sa kanila—to commit to a mentorship program. All the nine delegates in Busan who are provided with this travel assistance program become nine possible mentors who are going to commit to some sort of outreach program to the communities or trainings and workshops. We have a lot of people from the regions waiting to be able to work with them. Excited kami kasi there’s the chance to give back.

AGENDA CULTURE

WATCH AND LEARN With the advent of the video essay, an emerging media form that combines intellectual rigor and emotional depth, comes a new breed of film critic. We present the movement’s top four content creators WORDS BY EMIL HOFILEÑA / ILLUSTRATION BY IANNA RALLONZA

LESSONS FROM THE SCREENPLAY Synopsis: The channel wears its influences on its sleeve. Creator Michael Tucker frequently references other screenwriting books that have helped him, using them as jump-off points to analyze the writing in individual films. Tucker’s videos are all focused case studies that break down elements as they move from page to screen.

The Teaser: “Creating the Ultimate Antagonist”—which discusses The Dark Knight and the character of the Joker—is a perfect example of the video essay form: visually stimulating, highly academic, and yet surprisingly emotional.

THE NERDWRITER Synopsis: Instead of sticking solely to film-related videos, the man behind The Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak, frequently discusses other forms of art, popular personalities, and the social sciences— displaying a keen interdisciplinary intelligence with each entry. Listening to Puschak talk feels less like class, and more like being told a story.

The Teaser: One unforgettable video essay is his piece on The Fellowship of the Ring, entitled “How Music Elevates Story.”

Here, Puschak helps you understand the emotional function of composer Howard Shore’s music as a storytelling tool.

CHANNEL CRISWELL Synopsis: Lewis Bond creates long form content about broad concepts in filmmaking (like composition and the French New Wave) and major overarching themes in select films. His video essays are like the best university lectures you remember: beginnerfriendly and organically structured even as they address nested topics. Definitely for the more patient viewer, but extremely rewarding to those who stick around.

The Teaser: “Colour In Storytelling” is a great introduction to Bond’s style; it efficiently explains various films in 16 minutes while providing gorgeous visuals that are impossible to look away from.

EVERY FRAME A PAINTING Synopsis: The secret to Every Frame a Painting (EFAP)’s popularity lies in the way Tony Zhou infuses his personality into his videos; his humor makes his essays come off like vlogs. EFAP is accessible, never pretentious, and always inviting to those seeking analyses deeper than standard movie reviews.

The Teaser: Zhou’s take on Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children and “The Lateral Tracking Shot” illustrates the unconventional ways cinematic techniques can be applied.

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AGENDA BOOKS

HONG KONG DAYDREAMS The most complete retrospective on the acclaimed filmmaker’s oeuvre, WKW: The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai traces two decades’ worth of cinematic genius

FEW FILMMAKERS HAVE

had careers as divisive as W Wong Kar Wai’s.

He has been called the world’s most romantic w helmsman for his rich, unforgettable visuals.

His movies, cast with glamorous, tragic characters and shot like hazy dreams, have enthralled audiences and influenced directors the world over.

At the same time, his near-improvisational filmmaking style—starting a project with no complete script, writing scenes hours before they have to be shot, burning through financiers’ money—has earned him notoriety in the industry. Other critics are quick to say that the emperor has no clothes; that his work is all style, no substance.

For the chaos of Wong’s work, there is an undeniable, almost exasperating magic to his

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films that has left audiences wondering what makes the man tick. In WKW: The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai, a new book written by Wong and Vogue film critic John Powers and published by Rizzoli (rizzoliusa.com), we get a glimpse into the enigmatic director’s process.

The book is structured into six conversations between Wong and Powers, where they dissect the director’s oeuvre. The sumptuous images accompanying the text take us from the dizzying world of Hong Kong gangsters in As Tears Go By, to the delicate tragedy of the two lovers from In The Mood For Love, to the muted elegance of The Grandmaster.

Throughout these conversations, we come to a deeper understanding of Wong’s cinema, both the silliest stories behind the scenes (leaving his producer behind in Manila as collateral for payments during the production of Days of Being Wild) and the intentions Wong had behind every film (Happy Together’s subtle commentary on the British handover of Hong Kong to China).

One of the things Wong addresses is the controversial intended ending for In the Mood for Love, possibly his most beloved film. Powers presses Wong on the ending that would have painted Tony Leung’s character as a villain and changed the meaning of the film entirely. The ending was never shot, only because Wong ran out of time.

As bewildering as his response is, it is also the very thesis of his philosophy as a filmmaker.

“When you make films like I do, you realize that a story doesn’t go just one way. All along you keep having choices—does the character do this or that? And each of those choices leads to more choices later on. The possibilities seem endless,” Wong says.

“In the end, you wind up with one film, the only one you could have, yet somehow it didn’t have to be that film. To an extent, making a film is like offering the audience a deep drag off your cigarette. The drag is what’s left onscreen. The rest is just ashes.”

IMAGES COURTESY OF RIZZOLI

WORDS BY APA AGBAYANI

AGENDA ART

GATHERING THE PIECES Through a highly personal process of composition, Jel Suarez takes recognizable objects and renders them alien and unfamiliar WORDS BY JAM PASCUAL / PHOTOS BY JL JAVIER

AT ITS MOST elementary, a collage is about the juxtaposition of various images—sometimes inherently connected, other times disparate. But turn that creative process up a bit, and the act of reconfiguration becomes more complex. Images that are easily recognizable by themselves, in a vacuum, become unfamiliar in a finished collage.

Subtle hints of their origin slip through, but the source is otherwise untraceable. You are gazing upon something entirely new, a visual version of jamais vu.

Jel Suarez is incredibly adept at this kind of gestalt configuration. Her art betrays the impression that she settled into collage-making with ease; it also draws inspiration from the inherent potential of the form and how it relates to herself and her growth. “I’ve always thought of my work as a continuous exercise,” she says.

“This ongoing process of learning the medium has made me more discerning, and has helped me discover a lot of things about myself.”

This journey of learning is the main focus of

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her upcoming exhibit Yet We Continue to Build There, the Structure, at Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery (2135 Chino Roces Avenue, Makati), a collection of works which she describes simply as “a convergence of the images or things I’ve been absorbed in through the years I’ve been making collages.” There is no singular, overarching mood or sentiment that governs the show. Rather, it is a culmination of constant study, a salutation to method.

Do not, however, mistake Suarez’s art as mere experimentation. The creative vision of collagists shines through with the way they select images.

Suarez is drawn to images of classical art and artefacts—beautiful things from a different era. And with those images, those vehicles of meaning, she blurs the line between the natural and the artificial. “As my process developed, I discovered that the images which have always captured my interest could be harnessed into making landscapes, forms, and structures.” This approach affirms her view of the power of the

CUTOUTS AND CONCEPTS

From top: 14.2” x 18.9”, collage; Of her art, Suarez says: “The work I produce is I guess a constant reflection of myself—an approach to making in favor of a sensual, intuitive relationship between me and the images I choose.”

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Anatomy of a Tall One San Miguel revives draft beer culture with its Lifestyle Brews line

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BY MAKING THEIR Lifestyle Brews available in classic draft format, San Miguel continues the forward momentum of the development of their brands, but also celebrates the tradition and culture of beer. How most enjoy beer today—in bottles and cans—was once a luxury that could only be afforded by wealthy customers who preferred to drink privately. Before the dawn of industrialization, however, draft beer hand-pumped from kegs was the norm. Draft beer is now perceived as the more sophisticated format, given the specific procedures involved in pouring and tasting it.

Following this reputation, San Miguel Lifestyle Brews Draft Beer asks consumers to take charge of their drinks.

Pouring an ideal serving of draft beer requires precision — from holding the glass at a certain distance from the tap, to coordination between pouring and tilting so the recommended amount of foam can gather above the beer.

Afterwards, draft beer can be regarded in the same way as fine wine: one can guarantee freshness and quality by analyzing the beer’s color, swirl, aroma, consistency, and

flavor. But draft beer still accommodates casual drinking, of course; down one glass, and the keg will always be there for more servings.

San Miguel’s Lifestyle Brews include the smooth and fullbodied San Miguel Premium All-Malt, the crisp and clean San Miguel Super Dry, and the Cerveza Negra with its rich caramel undertones. Their draft variants enhance taste and the overall drinking experience through the freshness and foaminess that naturally comes with hand-pumped beer.

The Lifestyle Brews Draft Beers are brewed in small batches and available only in select bars and pubs throughout Metro Manila—this exclusivity preserves this delicate and unique practice of brewing, and guarantees a heightened appreciation for an alternative style of drinking that was once on the decline but is now rediscovering its audience.

Now available at The Keg (Fort Strip), The Sugar Factory (Shangri-la BGC), Snaps Sports Bar (Sofitel), Buffalo Wild Wings (Conrad, Glorietta, Estancia and Uptown Mall), Bugsy’s Makati, The Belle and Dragon (Makati), Mike & Jen’s Gastropub (Marikina) and Stella & Rocketroom (Bonifacio High Street)

AGENDA ART

There is no singular, overarching mood or sentiment that governs the show. Rather, it is a culmination of constant study, a salutation to method.

FRAGMENTED

In Suarez’s studio which she shares with her framers.

Here she sits surrounded by pieces of her source material.

Below: Two fragments from a larger catalog of small collages, 50 x 65 cm.

collage, in that her images are “dissected in an attempt to persistently unearth ways of how it can form into another thing, or occupy a space in a totally different way.”

This is evident in some of the finished pieces of her show. Some of her collages, made from pictures of stone sculptures, look more like ancient coral. Others resemble landscapes, and again the line is blurred, but this time between the idea of object and environment. The result is an interesting play of contradictions: her works are twodimensional, but never flat; not technically sculptures, but still possessing the qualities of objecthood.

Things had to fall into place for Suarez to become a collagist. First she quit her day job as a preschool teacher to dedicate herself full time to her art. Then she attended her first formal exhibit—How Still, How Fast by collagist and contemporary Carina Santos, who herself is an expert at the form. While Teppei Kaneuji, Scott Zieher, and Leigh Wells are influences, it was that exhibition that pushed Suarez to pursue her art, despite a lack of formal training (which, by the way, isn’t obvious).

It’s a little cheesy in her estimation, but it also takes courage. In her words, “Sometimes, things are just complex in our heads because we don’t do it.” But once we do, the goal is to take that complexity and translate it into something fantastic; something beautiful, in its unfamiliarity.

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YET WE CONTINUE TO BUILD THERE, THE STRUCTURE WILL RUN FROM NOVEMBER 19 TO 30 AT VINYL ON VINYL. VISIT VINYLONVINYLGALLERY.COM FOR MORE DETAILS.

AGENDA FOOD

WHERE’S THE SMOKE Troy Conine brings bona fide American barbecue cooking to Poblacion, Makati WORDS BY JOSE MARI UGARTE PHOTOS BY GABBY CANTERO

FIVE YEARS AGO, Troy Conine became a disciple of the worldwide church of barbecue, with a keen focus on the venerated learnings of smoked meat. “Barbecue is the best thing I ever ate,” he proclaims boldly, and what followed was an expected and naturally developed obsession with this traditionally American style of comfort food cooking.

It’s true—walking into The Smokeyard (G/F Menakor Building, 5666 Don Pedro Street, Poblacion, Makati), the hot new BBQ joint Conine recently opened with partners who share his taste for Yankee-style grilled meat, and taking in the appetizing aroma of fire and smoke, is as comforting as it gets. Be it ihaw, yakitori, or asado, feasting on meat cooked from an open fire makes you feel like you’re eating in the manner that God and nature intended you to.

You can expect a casual atmosphere at The Smokeyard, which is a good first impression, because when you eat at a barbecue joint, you want to make sure that it’s exactly that: a joint.

Not a fusion gastro-pub resto-bar or whatever.

It’s a simple dive that makes you feel like you’re eating in someone’s backyard in Memphis or North Carolina. Though he doesn’t hail from Texas or Kansas City, Conine lived a good portion of his life in New York, which exposed him to all the different styles of American barbecue, honing his palate in places with names like Arrogant Swine, where pitmasters smoke whole hogs every day.

The professional pig-out begins, and I order everything, served on wooden trays and white paper. Let’s start with the chicken wings, which are sopped with a deep red sauce that’s spicy, but not enough to annoy you. The beef and pork ribs are decent, but as with the wings, it just doesn’t seem right to eat them without one of Conine’s three special barbecue sauces. There are three exceptions to this rule of thumb, however: the pulled pork, smoked lamb, and point brisket.

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AMERICAN BEAUTY

From top: A spread of Smokeyard’s various offerings, which include their baby back pork ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork, dirty rice, coleslaw, mac and cheese, and smoked beans; the U.S. Brisket Sandwich, which comes with a generous serving of kamote chips.

AGENDA FOOD

IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT

From left: Brisket being seasoned; mac and cheese and chicken wings.

When you eat at a barbecue joint, you want to make sure that it’s exactly that: a joint. Not a fusion gastro-pub resto-bar or whatever. The Smokeyard is a simple dive that makes you feel like you’re eating in someone’s backyard in Memphis or North Carolina.

But The Smokeyard’s real revelation is its great point brisket, which bursts in flavor compared to the other less marbled cut, the flat side. The succulent beef is soft, fatty, and peppery, and does not require the aid of any sauce except a good appetite. I must point out here, however, that this doesn’t mean the other items in the menu are not as good—they just taste a whole lot better with the barbecue sauces, which is actually the objective of barbecue to begin with. Whether you’re a sauce person or not, The Smokeyard’s got you covered.

But before I wrap this up, I cannot write further about this place without mentioning its other revelation: the side dishes. The ones they serve at The Smokeyard are about as perfect as it gets. Pinto, black, and red beans cooked to a gooey, molasses-colored bowl of southern love that pays close attention to the yin and yang of sweet and savory. The macaroni with four cheeses has that trailer park quality I demand from any barbecue joint Mac and Cheese (leave the truffles and lobster to the gastro-pubs), yet its flavor 32 NOV E M B E R 2016

is sophisticated enough to be more than just a main dish accessory. The coleslaw is very fresh, balanced, creamy, and tastes like it’s got a touch of melon. Then you have the camote chips, whose wonderful crunch provides a perfect contrast to all the other textures. And if that isn’t enough, order a plate of chicharon sprinkled with Conine’s secret rub and served with a sweet sauce on the side.

But even when it comes to the sides, I still have a favorite, and being a Filipino, what else could it be but the dirty rice? It reminds me of a really good American sinangag, with barbecue drippings instead of garlic.

Now that my meal is over, my belly is full, and my brain reaches that alltoo-familiar fork in the road that either leads to siesta or fiesta, I conclude that although the Filipino palate may look for slightly louder flavors at The Smokeyard, Conine and Company should not give it to us. What they do offer is authenticity, integrity, and meat that is righteously and properly smoked.

AGENDA FILM

In her new film, Baka Bukas, director Samantha Lee dives head first into heartbreak to tell her universal love story WORDS BY EMIL HOFILEÑA / PHOTOGRAPHED BY BJ PASCUAL

DIRECTOR SAMANTHA LEE wattches

over er crew as they make final adjustments. She s a portable music player in her hand; somet mes it plays a Carly Rae Jepsen song, someti s Death Cab for Cutie or M83, butt now it just tries to compete with the sound of rainfalll. e production manager calls for silence, and ee turns off the music player. She takes her p e in front of two monitors where f otage plays of Jasmine Curtis-Smith quietly putting down her bags, taking a seat on the mattress, and looking out into the rainy skies.

Lee and her crew pump their fists quietly into the air. It’s a good take. They let Curtis-Smith sit for a little longer before the director calls cut. Then the music is back on, and the crew scrambles across the room, prepping for another shot. Lee tells Curtis-Smith to stay seated.

She brings out a camera from her back pocket and, smiling, takes a photo of her lead actress.

Baka Bukas is Lee’s first foray into directing and writing a featurelength film, one that will be screened at t iss year’s Cinema One Originals festival from November 14 to 22. While the fi mmaki g experience was mostly enjoyable, the pro ess off editing was heartbreaking. “I went throu h a use the ottheerss phase where I was really sad becau d would just slash some scenes, and I would be like, ‘You don’t know how longg it tookk me to write that sequence.’” It was an aspect f movie making that her previous experie cees didn’t prepare her for. Despite directing Agos, her documentary thesis, and working wi h Jerrold Tarog and Quark Henaress, Lee sayss she didn’t expect to be heartbroken during t e

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making of her own full-length film m. “I tweet a lot about heartbreak now, and people thinkk it’s ut the fi about a person, but it’s really abou n The story of Baka Bukas—a young w man falling in love with her actress be t friend—iss loosely based on Lee’s own exper ences. She recalls the moment when she felt motivat d too , pursue the project. “I was living in Melbo I had a stable job and a stable dating life. B

I felt so empty, because I heard someone fro the Philippines say something homophob c..

I thought, ‘How come people in Manila an’t have what I have?’ I felt I had to do some hingg about it so I could live with mysellf.”

Back in Manila, Lee wasn’t surre how she would go about addressing the issue. But h filmmakkin ng when the option of feature-length p presented itself, she gathered a tigght-knit grooup mattes of collaborators—many of them her h schooolm pines, all from the University of the Philipp nd they got of them either women or gay—an n to work, keeping busy with pre-prroduction before finally getting a grant from Cinema One to turn Lee’s script into a moovie.

Lee is the opposite of the brooding, yelling director. Her set is one of constant, equal collaboration and, above all, fun. “If there’s something dumb happening on set, I’m probably behind it,” she says, referencing the inside joke of putting a Mrs. Potato Head figurine into as many shots as possible. “You have to create an environment where your crew members feel good, or else they won’t be able to do their jobs properly.”

Still, if there was one thing she was serious about, it was her subject matter. She gave her actresses pointers on how to talk to media about playing a lesbian, so as not to offend the LGBT community. Lee also had to do some acting herself, placing herself in the same emotional space as her actresses for each scene. Lee even went as far as downloading an app to retrieve some particularly painful texts she deleted—so she could read through them again and relive the moments with her cast.

Despite Lee’s courageous efforts to capture her truth, she knows that some sectors will label her work a “lesbian movie,” even if she believes it is much more than that. For now, she and her crew have been using Baka Bukas’s social media accounts to emphasize it as a romantic movie, not just an LGBT film.

While she acknowledge Baka Bukas won’t single-handedly change the landscape for gays and lesbians in Philippine cinema, she ultimately hopes her story helps “young gay people come to terms with themselves,” and validates the identity of a community of people who, like Lee, her friends, and her characters, do not have to be invisible to society forever.

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HAIR AND MAKEUP BY SARI CAMPOS

AGENDA CULTURE

HERE’S THE PITCH

A COUPLE OF months ago, a new Ang Panday y show aired on TV. It’s perfectly okay if you didn’t know about it, or let alone care.

The truth is, over the last decade there’s little to get excited about when it comes to our classic pop culture characters and their stories. On the one hand, local superheroes like Darna made household names out of actors Angel Locsin and Marian Rivera; on the other hand, middle-aged senators are tapped to play the legendary Panday.

But there is hope. Based on its initial trailer, director Erik Matti’s upcoming Darna movie promises to give a fresh and modern take on the beloved heroine. Until then, we enlisted three writers to see if a good idea can breathe new life into age-old icons. —JONTY CRUZ

With superhero blockbusters and high fantasy TV shows raking in viewership and big bucks these days, do our local heroes and heroines stand a similar success? Three writers attempt to revitalize classic Filipino characters ILLUSTRATIONS BY CJ DE SILVA-ONG

ANG PANDAY

BY PAULO FERRER, ASSOCIATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT ACE SAATCHI & SAATCHI AND HEAD WRITER OF JASMINE

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Set in an alternate version of Metro Manila where mysticism, magic, and technology live side by side with extreme poverty and violence, Kalawang Sa Bakal stars Lovi Poe as Isa, a streetsmart welder of Baklas, a gang of scavengers who raid old government junk shops for supplies for their ORIGI N families living in the subterranean mega slums of Tondo.

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In a routine raid on one of the junk terminals, Isa and her young friend Tukmol are N A severely injured by government troops called JR ND O POE buwaya, who mercilessly massacre the rest of their crew. Isa is tortured, sexually assaulted, and left for dead in the garbage pits. They take Tukmol away to be indoctrinated back at the capital. .

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Meanwhile, a raving old vagrant named Kaloy rescues Isa and nurses her back to health using a mysterious metal ore that begins to glow when it touches her skin. As Isa slowly regains her strength, she is consumed by visions of the ancient power of the ore. By the time she can stand up, she is obsessed with the visions. Doubting her own sanity and seemingly possessed by the power of the ore, Isa makes her way back to her gang’s hideout and there, she begins pounding the ore, fashioning it into what looks to be a crude dagger.

Back at the capital, the evil dictator Supremo (who is rumored to be hundreds of years old) also sees Isa’s visions. He takes a special interest in her and orders the buwaya to find her, kill her, and bring her dagger to him.

Fueled by revenge and the desire to save Tukmol, Isa travels to the capital. Along the way, she defeats the buwaya and saves a village of elders. They regale her with tales of the Supremo’s violent rise to power. She learns that the Supremo was once a simple man, the second burdened with the mantle of Panday. Corrupted by his own power, he transforms into an immortal tyrant.

Can Isa harness the power of her dagger and save Tukmol?

Is she worthy to be the new Panday? What is her connection to Supremo? To find out, fund this movie and get Erik Matti to direct it.

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KUMANDER BAWANG

BY MIHK VERGARA, DIRECTOR OF PATINTERO: ANG ALAMAT NI MENG PATALO

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A refresher: Kumander Bawangg tells the tale of Tikboy, a bumbling kid who finds out that his father was a great aswangg slayer. Through a garlic-shaped pendant, he becomes Kumander Bawang, ang kalaban ng mga aswangg a colorful costumed hero dedicated to stopping the forces of evil. What’s interesting about the premise and the original movie is that Kumander Bawangg is first and ORIGI N foremost a comedy, with a blue-collar Everyman in the titular role making the best of the abilities given to him. Though he wasn’t the best, he just did the best he could.

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ABS-CBN’s Super Inggo bears a re-watch just so everyone rediscovers the Power Academy, the school for gifted youngsters in the Inggoverse. It was home to a bunch of old fantasy-action properties, including Kumander Bawang.

Here’s what the magical what-if reboot machine came up with: Play it like Ash vs. Evil Dead. Kumander Bawang is already a lighthearted, playful romp; add a dash of Raimi-esque splatstick and we’ve a potential cult comedy horror hit. Hitting that sweet spot between genuine chills and comedy, a redesign of the costume, and the removal of flight sets up Bawang to be a fun monster-of-the-week affair.

What’s great about the Bawang mythos is that it is insular, the legacy of Tikboy’s father is only in that town. Bawang isn’t the hero the town needs, or the one it deserves—he’s the only game in town. Think of it as the town with only one electrician, and he’s super shitty at his job. We have a blue-collar aswang hunter who barely understands the forces he’s fighting and the powers given to him. Give him a hole-in-the-wall office support team and rivals in the form of local tanod, a visiting love interest, and low pay per kill and we have a season’s worth of fun.

With Ketchup Eusebio as the lead, this thing will write itself.

DARNA

BY PHILBERT DY, FILM CRITIC

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Darna has been done so many times by so many different people that one really ought to start with the possibility of considering her a legacy character, the magical stone passed down from one Narda to the next, each of them driven by destiny towards their ORIGI heroic ideal.

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Our new Narda starts the movie by saving a bunch of kids from some sort of disaster. Her little brother is paralyzed in the incident. Cut to a few weeks later, and Narda is accompanying her brother to an event where IO the governor of the province is giving away wheelchairs.

ROSAR The governor, who might as well be played by Vilma Santos, takes notice of our new Narda and entrusts her with the stone, at the same time warning her that power isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.

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Narda and Darna have always been played by one actress, but there might be merit in using two different ones. It might be interesting to have an identity crisis as part of the narrative. Maybe Darna is played by an actress considered more conventionally beautiful. Or to put it bluntly, maybe she’s whiter. Maybe it’s Anna Luna turning into Bea Alonzo. And maybe Narda is starting to hate being herself, drawn not just to the literal power that the alter ego brings, but the soft power implied in just looking different in an increasingly superficial society.

The villain of the piece is a guy who knows about the legacy and wants to steal the power of Darna for himself. He plays the benign love interest for most of the movie, but eventually reveals his real agenda. He steals the stone and becomes a dark version of Darna, co-opting the power of her femininity for evil ends, like men have done. But Narda was a hero before she got the stone, and in losing the stone, she realizes she’s stronger than she’s ever been.

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ISSUE NO.

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DEVI DE V EYR A

DESIGN + INTERIORS + ARCHITECTURE + TECHNOLOGY

While on a three-day race through Bohol, the most famous Filipino furniture designer rediscovered the renegade spirit of his youth

PHOTO BY GENNA GENIO

WORDS BY KENNETH COBONPUE

SPACE MOTORING

Charlie Pages in his 1962 Karman Ghia traversing a bridge in Sierra Bullones.

Below, from left: The distinctive steering wheel of a Morgan 3-wheeler driven

by Mike Aguilar who was accompanied by his friend, Oscar Medalla. Previous page: Jay Aldeguer’s 1972 silver Porsche 911 on the ferry back to Cebu.

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I believe that cars, no matter how valuable, are meant to be driven.

PHOTOS BY ERWIN LIM

AS A KID, I was always on the lookout for new thrills. Rolling down a steep hill on a rusty, pedalpowered toy car I fixed myself got me grinning ear to ear, fascinated that a crude steel box could propel me faster than my legs. I crashed a few times which only emboldened me to go up again to try a new trick, then come hurtling back down, faster and wiser. It was a feeling I almost forgot.

Taking part in the Tour de Cebu was a chance to revisit that childhood memory and drive through Bohol across some of the most beautiful views in the country. The catch? My car had to be a 1972 model or older. That means trusting something older than me, without airconditioning, power steering, airbags and reliable brakes, much like the metal pedal-powered bucket of my youth. But this time, the stakes were real.

For this race, I drove with my son, Andre. We were adamant about bringing our Jaguar E-type because of its rarity and value. I believe that cars, no matter how valuable, are meant to be driven.

That’s how I found myself at the Port of Cebu in the morning of October 14. A slew of classics filled the huge ferry that took us to Tubigon in Bohol: 911 and 914 Porsches, Datsun 240Zs, a pair of Morgans, British MG roadsters and a rare Toyota S800. After disembarking, curious onlookers cheered us on as we sped off for day one of the race.

PARTNER PROMOTION

Living Well Tom Dixon’s accessories line is a tribute to delicate everyday pleasures

BRITISH DESIGNER TOM Dixon focuses on the fine details that lift our moods. His accessories collections remind us to take a pause and enjoy life’s little pleasures. The Plum barware series, which includes sensuously shaped pitchers, mugs, a tray, shot glasses as well as an elegant wine bucket, enhances the drinking experience. The Hex series amps up the glamour with its hand-beaten copper surfaces present in the plates, bowls and champagne bucket that doubles as an elegant trash can, if you wish. Dixon’s Brew collection is a sparkling tribute to the rituals of coffee drinking that comes with all the accoutrements one needs to enjoy a satisfying cuppa. Keep the mood dreamy with candles and diffusers from Dixon’s Materialism Oil and Scent Elements collections. All these are the little things that make a world of difference.

Materialism Oil candle, reed diffuser and wax diffuser

Hex champagne bucket and bowl

Plum barware

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Brew coffee set in polished copper finish

SPACE MOTORING

Newly paved and devoid of cars, Bohol’s roads seemed like a private racetrack. The humming sound of the Jaguar’s six cylinders rose and fell as the road dipped and snaked around the province’s stunning vistas.

Andre, my navigator, pored over the map, calculating the time and speed necessary to win this stage since we needed to finish each leg at a pre-determined time; being late or early is severely penalized. Darkness fell followed by the raindrops of an impending typhoon. After four rally stages and almost 300 kilometers, it was time to call it a day.

The second leg took us through Jagna, Ubay and the plains of Sierra Bullones. I still felt uneasy going fast with my Jaguar. But the 42 NOV E M B E R 2016

beauty of classic sport cars is that you don’t have to go fast to feel fast. Once the pedal hits the floor, the engine roars to a crescendo that echoes through the thinly insulated cabin.

Metal panels shake, wind rushes in, gears crunch and noise decibels rise and shatter the stillness of a childhood memory.

Years ago, I was a kid on top of a hill strapped to my tin can ready to roll down, fearless and carefree. There I was at the race, tense and uptight thinking about everything that can go wrong. My son’s voice rose over the noise, telling me to go faster; a green Karman Ghia

was nudging close to my rear. It was then that I decided to break free.

I steered the Jaguar into a tight curve, and halfway into it, floored the accelerator. The car blasted out of the corner. With my eyes glued to the road, senses on full alert, I went faster and faster, corner after corner. Like a fine steed, the E-type kept up with the pace never missing a heartbeat. We finished seven minutes too early at the finish line but it didn’t matter. Giddy with joy, I had learned to let go and be the fearless child that I once was.

We covered more than 300 kilometers on the last day of Tour de Cebu, but everyone more. As I looked at the Tubigon harbor from the ferry on our way home, I had learned an important lesson.

They say that 10,000 hours is what you need to be a master of any craft or sport. At Tour de Cebu, a thousand kilometers in 72 hours bonded me to my machine. By throwing my fears to the wind, I had rediscovered my younger self on Bohol’s paved paths. The next day, I went back to work, ready to take on new roads.

PHOTO BY GENNA GENIO; ERWIN LIM (KENNETH AND ANDRE)

Above, from left: A German 1962 Karman Ghia, a British 1959 MGA, an American 1966 P0ntiac GTO and a Japanese Datsun 240Z parked by the gothic Calape church. Below: Kenneth and his son, Andre, in their prized Jaguar E-type Roadster which was also judged Best in Show for the second time. Father and son finished 5th in a field of 32 participants.

STREET WISE Ex-graffiti artist Toxic journeys from the streets of New York to Europe’s top galleries and museums WORDS BY DEVI DE VEYRA

Clockwise from top left: The artist, Torrick Ablack, a.k.a.Toxic, in his studio; the backdrop is called No Toys Allowed; the artist makes his mark on his personal spray paint; a wallpaper named Eighty Thirty, a collaborative project with Pierre Frey.

44 NOV E M B E R 2016

A CITY ON the brink of bankruptcy served as the incubator for hip-hop and its cultural twin, graffiti. Both flourished in the streets of the Big Apple from the 70s to the early 80s. Without the means to stop the city’s discontented and restless youth, New York’s administrators watched helplessly as its trains, subways, and public walls blossomed with spray-painted tags and murals. Dance crews faced off with their roboting, popping, and breakdancing moves in the famed block parties—hip-hop’s spiritual birthplace.

It was an exciting era, and artist Torrick Ablack, a.k.a. Toxic, (toxtds.com) was smack in the middle of it all. He started tagging at age 13 together with his homies. “Probably not getting caught and hanging out with my friends, those were the two things that influenced me,”Toxic told Rogue from Paris, his second home.

His friends included Rammellzee—the hip-hop legend and enigmatic founding father of TMK, or Tag Master Killers, a consortium of street artists—and the tragic painter Jean-Michel Basquiat who, together with his then girlfriend, pre-breakout Madonna, captivated culture snoots and New York’s snorting, free-basing, heroin-shooting nightclub posses.

Torrick’s friendship with the painter and the hip-hop pioneer is immortalized in Basquiat’s Hollywood Africans, a term they coined for themselves during a trip to LA. The artwork featured the three in Basquiat’s stinging socio-political commentary on the stereotypical roles available to African-American actors. “I wonder if you’ll write that,” Toxic said. He experienced the same prejudice in the art world. “If you’re black American, it’s like you’re still not considered American,” he lamented, “but young, white Americans are cool street artists, and we were vandals. But we are artists. It’s crazy, right?”

In the 1980s, Toxic had already exhibited in some of New York’s progressive spaces such as Fun Gallery and Fashion Moda when he found himself at a crossroads. “It took me about two years to realize that either I was going to jail, or get into a lot more trouble,” he shared. He thought of going back to school, but then an opportunity to show his works in Italy waylaid his plans. Later, he realized that “this painting thing was fun and I got to travel around Europe, and that’s it.

“I think graffiti, at the time when I did it, riding and bombing the trains and stuff like that, has nothing to do with what I do now,” he said. Since leaving New York, Toxic has produced works on canvas that have been exhibited in galleries worldwide. A few have been included in important exhibitions such as Graffiti.

New York Meets the Dam, which showed the late artist Martin Wong’s extensive collection at the Amsterdam Museum. “My paintings have been in museum collections since the 1980s,” Toxic revealed, “and I find it almost offending to still be called a street artist. It would be nice to be just considered an artist.”

Europe has provided opportunities for Toxic to expand his practice, which includes collaborating with wallpaper company Pierre Frey (pierrefrey.com). The project brought him back to his graffiti days where sharing is a big part of the culture. “Artists and designers tend to hang out with other creatives,” he said, “so it’s not really a new thing. There’s this growth together as artists, and that exchange is extremely beautiful.”

Launched last year, Eighty Thirty is a commemorative print that celebrates Pierre Frey’s 80th anniversary as well as Toxic’s 30 years of painting. It is accompanied by another work titled No Toys Allowed. The exuberant colors and graphic forms point to Toxic’s street art roots, which when transplanted to fabric and paper, and with the dark knots of agitated strokes notably absent, lose the subversive context of his earlier works.

Accepted and recognized, Toxic has made peace with the establishment he’s previously waged war against. Through his art, he shows the viewer that he has moved on.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PIERRE FREY

SPACE DESIGN

SPACE DESIGN

Medium tones, accents of black, and minimalist lines bring to mind the discreet aesthetics of Scandinavian design. Maxi brass pendant lights, Anglepoise at MOs Design.

CODE BLUE

A color scheme of icy blues against white combined with pure silhouettes give this space its futuristic vibe. Nautil sofa and Radian occassional table by Roche Bobois.

Its darker tones connote authority and dignity, while its middle, brighter range signifies cleanliness and strength. It may have different cultural associations (more than half of the world’s national flags have it, in various shades), but you can’t deny how calming and cool it feels to walk into a room awash in its hue

Return to the comfort of classics with timeless indigo and traditional forms. Durham sofa

by Crate & Barrel.

46 NOV E M B E R 2016

Black and blue ain’t all that bad in a room—it’s strong, sleek and just a tad mysterious. Stockholm Table Lamp

by BoConcept, at MOs Design.

PARTNER PROMOTION

Crystal Clear Zwiesel is one of the glassmaking industry’s biggest names, and for good reason

GERMAN-BASED CRYSTAL glass manufacturer Zwiesel has made a specific name for itself in its industry.

Similar glassmaking companies, and even glassblowing craftsmen, often create their products with interior design in mind.Detailoriented in aesthetics, generally utilitarian.

Zwiesel, however, is a trusted brand for sommeliers, titans of the hotel industry, and those in the world of gastromony. This is because Zwiesel is unmatched in making crystal glasses.

Their Air and Air Sense glasses, which were conceptualized by design duo

ZWIESEL IS AVAILABLE AT RUSTAN’S DEPARTMENT STORES

Bernadotte and Kylberg, prove the brand’s superiority in wine-related needs. “Air,” because the glass is practically weightless. Air and Air Sense come with glasses of different sizes and shapes—designed specifically for red wine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, champagne, and other drinks with high standards for the containers they fill. Air and Air Sense also come with wine decanters—a fitting item for anyone interested in drinking wine properly.

The only difference between Air and Air Sense however, is that the latter comes with its own glass decantation sphere, which means Air is better suited for daily use, while

Air Sense is the kind of collection you bust out when the guests come over. In either case, Zwiesel has made it a priority to elevate your drinking experience.

The glasses themselves are evidence of Bernadotte and Kylberg’s genius, Scandinavian design sensibilities, and the fact that Zwiesel’s has been honing the strict attention to quality since the late 1800s. The result of all these factors is a product that demonstrates elegance and timelessness, taking the form of something delicate and unmistakably modern. Let Air and Air Sense be the collections that lighten your load.

PARTNER PROMOTION

The New Femme Roger Dubuis’ new collection proves that excellence comes in three’s.

WORDS BY JAM PASCUAL

S

wiss brand Roger Dubuis has been leading the charge of watchmaking excellence since 1995, boasting the unique, twofold approach of creating each timepiece with both state-of-the-art and unconventional aesthetic sensibilities.

The Black Velvet trilogy, Roger Dubuis’ latest collection, emulates this thesis perfectly, but with a twist—to glorify the feminine.

What each timepiece accomplishes is that it subverts the masculine perceptions attached to its main material, carbon, thus rendering the whole timepiece—embellishments and mechanisms and all— unmistakably feminine and, because of that, tough as nails. The Black Velvet woman, in turn, is equally resolute and deliberate in action and conviction. Rebellious, intriguing, top notch.

The trilogy is made mostly from gemset carbon, which is ten times lighter than gold and applied with a patented technique, though each model prides itself on its own distinct characteristics. The first piece is an all-carbon no-nonsense timepiece, with one version of it unveiled at this

year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie Genève possessing a halo 66 Paraiba tourmaline gemstones. The second iteration is a little more playful, sporting a white mother-of-pearl dial enclosed by 66 black spinels. The third watch goes for pure and pristine—mother-of-pearl, white diamonds, and an immaculately white strap. Roger Dubuis didn’t stop at beauty, either, making sure that each timepiece fits comfortably on the wrist.

Today’s woman expects infinitely more of her watch than just a pretty face—however original and appealing it may be—and the Black Velvet thus beats to the 28,800 vph tune of a 172-part mechanical self-winding movement. Finely adjusted in five positions and delivering a 48-hour power reserve, Calibre RD821 is adorned with rhodium plating, CÔtes de Genéve decoration and Poinçon de Genéve finishes.

Superior in utility and aesthetic, any of the timepieces in the Black Velvet Trilogy make a suitable companion for the contemporary woman.

ROGER DUBUIS IS AVAILABLE AT LUCERNE, GLORIETTA 4, MAKATI, 728-2828; LE TEMPS, SOLAIRE RESORT AND CASINO, PARAÑAQUE, 822-1058; ROGERDUBUIS.COM

No ve m b e r 2 0 16

ISSUE NO.

E DI T E D BY

JACS T. SAMPAYAN

104 FA S H I O N +

ING

INTERVIEW BY JACS T. SAMPAYAN | PHOTOGRAPHS BY CENON NORIAL

Rafe Totengco returns to his design roots, collaborating with retail giant Bench to create apparel for the first time in 27 years

THE EYE STYLE

IT'S BEEN ALMOST three decades since Rafe Totengco designed clothes.

After closing shop on Schizo, his apparel brand which became a cult favorite of Manila society in the 80s, he moved to New York City and built an eponymous handbag label. In time, his coveted minaudières and clutches were being carried by everyone, from Demi Lovato and Sigourney Weaver to Elizabeth Hurley and Olivia Palermo.

The Bacolod-born designer recently had a chance to return to his first love when he partnered with Bench for a capsule collection for men and women. Totengco met with Rogue a day after the successful presentation of his collaboration with the local retail giant to talk about the limited edition line, learning how to say no, and the city that fuels his creative juices.

How did the collaboration start?

Very casually, over a meal with Ben Chan. He said, “Oh, let’s do something fun!” And I was like, “Sure!” I’ve seen what he’s done, and I knew he was going to do it right. If anyone can, it’s him. I said yes in a New York minute.

Less, actually.

Does it follow the same aesthetic as your bags?

Not necessarily, because I wouldn’t look at a minaudière and think of it as like, relaxed, right? I would say that the look probably, more than anything, comes from my personality.

I would like to think I’m quite relaxed.

So how did the conversation on what the collection will look like go?

Well, the best part was, Ben said, “Bahala ka! Do what you want!”

I could have been inspired by Rio, or Shanghai! I could’ve done whatever. The more difficult part for me was self-editing; I sketched so many things! And it’s been ages since I’ve sketched a person. It’s always been a tote, a clutch, or a minaudière.

But there are some elements there, like you mentioned earlier, that are similar.

Well, yeah. I love prints. I love geometry, an obsession that probably stems from the fact that I’m really bad at math. And, for me, New York will always be a source of inspiration. Just when you thought you’ve seen it all, there’s more. There’s another restaurant, another show, a new building, another exhibit! It’s like it is never going to change, but it is always changing. And there’s always an influx of people; you’re always going meet someone who just moved there. And I think that’s always kind of exciting because you can see the city through their eyes. You get sort of affected by that excitement. They’re like, “Whoa, oh my God, I’m here!” and you’ll be like, “Oh hello, yes, yes you are here, welcome!”

How would you describe this collection?

Instinctive. Personal. Relaxed.

You get energy out of it.

Yes. All of a sudden you’re seeing it through their eyes. How can that not affect you? It’s a city that I love because I think, more than anywhere else in the world, I’ve really discovered who I am, what I can do and what I can’t do, what I’m good at and what I’m not good at in New York. And it’s also the city where I learned to say no.

Because Pinoys don’t say no.

Never.

We say “Maybe...”

Or, “I’ll try...”

No one says no. There it was like, “Yes or no? Okay, no.” (Laughs) “Okay, yes.” Right? So to me that was kind of a life-changing feeling.

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

Totengco's love of prints and geometry come out in this capsule collaboration, which is inspired by the designer's take on the city he has lived in for three decades, New York.

Above, right: Rafe Totengco wearing his own designs.

How would you describe the man who’ll wear this collection?

He is someone who is interested in fashion, but not obsessed with it. He likes to look cool. He’s not afraid to be different. He’s ready for something new. And he’s confident. And when I look at the clothes, I think they’re easy.

They’re very interchangeable. I

mean, the inspiration for the men’s pieces was work wear. Images of Sears catalogues from the 40s.

Kind of industrial?

Yes. I wanted things that make use of fabrics that will get even better over time, as you wash it, as it gets stained, as it gets rugged and faded. I mean, there are some things that I have from years ago, like APC denims, that I still wear because they look even better with age. Like old Levi’s. I mean, may butas na pero even better! And thank God it’s back. It’s the stuff that you never part with. And I would personally wear all of those pieces. Actually, I’m kind of worried that that’s all I wear now (Laughs).

I mean I used to wear the jacket all the time when I was in Paris.

How would you describe the difference between how you dressed back then and how you dress now?

I’d probably say that I’m a little less flamboyant. I mean, certainly back in the 80s, and, again, it was the 80s, so you’ll have to forgive me…

(Laughs) It was allowed.

Yes. And listen, failure was an option! (Laughs) Right? How would you learn if you don’t make those mistakes?

Exactly.

And at that time, I felt it was the right thing! Of course now that I look back, I’m like, “Oh my God! What was I thinking?” But you know what? I’m glad I lived to tell. (Laughs) You get to laugh at yourself. And if you can’t laugh at yourself, who will, ‘di ba?

So, what’s next?

The possibilities are endless.

POWER PLANT MALL, ROCKWELL DRIVE, MAKATI; 756-5029; SHOP.BENCH.COM

THE EYE STYLE

TOKYO STORY Sneakers are given a more luxurious spin with this cult favorite WORDS BY JACS T. SAMPAYAN

HENDER SCHEME IS AVAILABLE AT UNIVERS D’HOMME ET FEMME, GROUND FLOOR, EAST TOWER ONE ROCKWELL, MAKATI; 553-6811; HOMMETFEMME.PH

A

ccording to Hender Scheme founder Ryo Kashiwasaki, the thesis of his brand’s name and aesthetic rests on gender fluidity and fine craftsmanship. Since opening in 2010, he has interpreted this through his artisanal use of carefully tanned leather, a process that takes months per piece. Their shoe lines are especially covetable, with die hard sneaker heads willing to reach deep into their pockets to procure pair after pair of its rose-tinged patina. While the Japanese label is best known for its Homage collection, where it interprets classic shoe silhouettes with the Hender Scheme touch, its full line goes beyond footwear, anything from small pouches to fans to bike locks. “I just want to make goods that reflect the honest manufacturing and design processes that we utilize,” the elusive head tells Hypebeast. “We want to make sure that our handmade goods are produced in a harmonious manner and with lots of passion.”

THE EYE WATCHES

TIES THAT BIND Luxurious leather meets precision timekeeping in a collaboration between Italian shoe company Santoni and Swiss watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen WORDS BY MITZI DUQUE RUIZ

WHAT COMPELS TWO successful and long-running brands to embark on a creative collaboration?

A shared commitment to excellence and perfection as well as a love for fine craftsmanship, formed the basis of the partnership between Swiss watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen and upscale Italian shoe company Santoni in 2011. Using its luxurious leather and employing trademark artisanal touches like hand-made stitching, an“anticatura” painting technique, and orange leather lining, Santoni fashioned exquisite straps exclusively for IWC’s timepieces, beginning with its Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days model, the flagship of the classic Portofino watch family.

In time, the shoemaker’s straps would complete other Portofino watches like the Portofino Hand-Wound Monopusher, Portofino Hand-Wound Day & Date, and the Portofino Hand-Wound Big Date.

While the watch straps were mostly in classic black and dark brown, the unveiling of the Portofino 37 collection

52 NOV E M B E R 2016

in 2014 saw the debut of straps with vibrant colors like raspberry, blue, green, and orange.

Through the collaboration, the Italian shoemaker has kept in step with every milestone marked by the Swiss watch company. For the 75th anniversary of the Portugieser collection in 2015, Santoni adorned the latest iterations of the watch model with handsome alligator leather straps.

Soft calfskin straps, meanwhile, were used on this year’s collection of Pilot watches.

Naturally, everyone’s a winner in this collaboration: while Santoni (Shangri-La at the Fort, 30th street corner 5th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; 654-4610; santonishoes.com) is able to apply its expertise with leather on accessories other than shoes, IWC (Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati; 756-0821; iwc.com) elevates the look and feel of its watches with straps meticulously made by hand.

The real winner, though, is the man who invests in this heirloom-worthy timepiece.

THE EYE STYLE

The Sporting Life Two English brands renew their partnership for Fall/ Winter 2016 with a throwback to life at the pitch WORDS BY JACS T. SAMPAYAN

N

igel Cabourn, the sartorial icon who for almost half a century has built a name for himself for his inventive take on outerwear, combines his love for classic sports and training gear to his collaboration with Fred Perry.

It is a team up that has remained seamless; over the years both English brands have made vintage casual clothing timeless and enticing with their clean lines and throwback hues. For this season’s line, Cabourn is inspired by Fred Perry’s original tennis kits, his own personal collection of 50s British sportswear as well as football uniforms from five decades back.

Washed black, Stadium Red, French Navy and Washed Navy dominate the collection that features training pique shirts in heavy cotton, the edges of which were intentionally faded to give it a more authentic vintage feel. Meanwhile, the long-sleeved goalkeeper’s shirt—a position that Cabourn craved as a child— has the number 1 emblazoned on the back. Crew neck sweaters and half-zips in wool and cotton complete the collection, which as a whole gives “straight from the locker room” a polished and fresh look.

NIGEL COBOURN X FRED PERRY IS AVAILABLE AT FRED PERRY LAUREL GREENBELT 5, AYALA CENTER, MAKATI; 729-0949; HOMMEETFEMME.PH

THE EYE WATCHES

A SPECIAL BREED Luminox and the US Navy SEALs honor a long-standing alliance with timepieces that withstand the toughest conditions WORDS BY DJONG TAN

IN 1993, NICHOLAS NORTH, research, development, test, and evaluation officer for the United States Navy SEALs (Sea, Air, and Land) Team, was at a trade show searching for a watch that could withstand the rigorous conditions that he and his men encountered on special operations missions. Different watches were put to the test in the kinds of situations that are par for the course for every Navy SEAL. At the end of the grueling evaluation, the only timepiece that survived was a Luminox.

Twenty-three years later, the alliance between the Swiss-made watch brand and the American elite force remains strong. To honor this partnership, Luminox (Glorietta 5, Ayala Center, Makati; 551-3041; luminox. com.ph) created a Special Operations Challenge (SOC) collection featuring two sets: the 44mm 3053.SOC. SET is encased in carbon-reinforced polycarbonate

54 NOV E M B E R 2016

with tempered scratch-resistant mineral crystal and a signature black PU strap; and the 45 mm 4223.SOC. SET, which comes in a black PVD-plated stainless steel case, anti-reflective sapphire crystal, and signature PU strap. Both boast quartz movements and the renowned Luminox self-powered illumination that lasts 25 years, a detail that impressed North more than two decades ago.

Each set is presented in a tactical box and includes an extra webbing textile strap and changing tool.

Luminox loyalists who want to get the full-on Navy SEAL experience, however, can do more than wear the watch. In 2017, the Luminox Spec Ops Challenge will put select everyday men through a demanding eighthour training program supervised by an authentic Navy SEAL Officer. While this may not earn participants the illustrious Navy SEAL Trident, it will forever make them a part of that special breed of warriors.„

NOV E M B E R 2 0 16 / I S S U E 10 4

THE ROGUE ARENA Promotions and relevant items, direct from our partners

EXPANDING HORIZONS Swiss quality manufacturer Victorinox unveils the Spectra 2.0, a flexible travel companion for jet setters

From left: The Spectra 2.0 Extra Large; The Spectra Expandable Compact Global Carry-on.

From the company that brought us the original Swiss Army Knife more than a century ago comes yet another companion for whirlwind adventures: the Spectra 2.0 by Victorinox. The line recently won the coveted Red Dot Design Award 2016 for its product blueprint and performance-based innovation.

The line comes in armor-plated carry-on tempered with 100 percent pure Bayer polycarbonate, a material that makes it practically impervious to airport hazards, let alone a few careless scratches. In true Victorinox fashion of bringing Swiss quality craftsmanship to the world, the Spectra 2.0 is engineered to be lightweight without sacrificing durability and style: it comes with protective corner guards and a timeless matte finish available in black, red, and navy. Easy access pockets on the handsome organizational panel keep personal effects neatly in place and within reach, and smooth-rolling dual-caster wheels will get you out of the arrival area in no time.

The Spectra 2.0 is equipped with an integrated expansion system that allows travelers to customize the case to the size they need. The depth of the Spectra Global Carry-On can be expanded to an additional 3 cm (1.2 inches) of inside space, while the Spectra Medium Expandable offers up to 11 cm (4.3 inches) of room, giving the case 47 percent more packing capacity. Believe it or not, it grows to almost half its size, while its exterior compression straps hold everything together.

Victorinox (The Travel Club, 2nd Level Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati; 895-2034; ttc.powerplant@primergrp. com; victorinox.com) also came up with the CheckSmart 4.0 Luggage Tracker, which can help travelers avoid hassles.

Located in a dedicated compartment, the nifty device accessed through an app in your phone pinpoints your suitcase’s exact location anywhere in the world with one tap. —CARLO NEMO

No ve m b e r 2 0 16

E DI T E D BY

PAOLO ENRICO MELENDEZ

THE SLANT OPINIONS + IDEAS + PERSPECTIVES

O

CELLUL ID

LEVEL

LOVE

“The absurdly right little moments.” These are what we seek movies for, according to the critic Pauline Kael. The following are tributes told by three who have been consumed by that pursuit of film: the performance of it, the sacrifices for it, the risks and gains in the indulgence of it.

ISSUE NO.

104

Bernardo Bernardo ON HIS MENTOR, ISHMAEL BERNAL

Lights, Camera, Soul A filmic milestone, Manila By Night was also a pivotal project for many of its actors. Its unlikely star, Bernardo Bernardo, in an excerpt from his upcoming book Myth Pa Po Ako! (Acting with Legends), gives us the view from ground zero

CITY SLICKERS

I

had no idea what the movie was about. The first time I heard the title Manila by Night,I imagined images of sleazy documentary films of the 1960s such as the World by Night and Mondo Cane series—blockbuster grab bags of exotic travelogue vignettes and bizarre cultural practices around the world tacked together to shock the sensibilities of curious Westernized audiences.

I did not care.

Even when the powers that be at Regal Films made it clear that they were less than enthusiastic about Ishmael Bernal’s decision to cast me, for example, by offering me the heart-stopping talent fee of P15,000 to portray the major role of Manay Sharon, the successful gay couturier, opposite such big-name stars as Charito Solis, Alma Moreno, Rio Locsin, Lorna Tolentino, Cherie Gil, and Gina Alajar.

All right, maybe my ego was slightly bruised and I vacillated. For half a second.

I would have done it for free. For Bernal. But Bernal, sensei that he was, said: “Do it for me. And do it for P15,000.”

So, I did.

Last century, when Ishmael Bernal and I became friends, people actually still talked to each 58 NOV E M B E R 2016

other. There were no cell phones, no e-mails, no Facebook; heck, Mark Zuckerberg was not even born yet. It was 1971 and I was delighted when Bernal deigned to come down from the pantheon of Café Los Indios Bravos’s Algonquin-style Center Table— composed of the likes of Virgie Moreno, Nick Joaquin, Jose Garcia Villa, et al.— to make chika with me in a dimly lit corner table set for ordinary mortals.

We hit it off almost immediately over totally plebeian chugalugs of San Miguel Beer. We were both nicknamed Bernie. And we laughed louder than anybody else in Ermita. We were both larger than life—tall, with booming voices—we had presence and we knew it; and we knew how to make an entrance with certified tongue-in-cheek theatricality, quick in dishing out the bon mots over anything culturati or vulturati and everything decidedly sward (1970s for “gay”).

However, I kept a secret for the longest time.

I had been secretly waiting for a chance to work with Bernal since Pagdating sa Dulo (1971). We were friends. But not really close. I mean, not close enough for me to even jokingly hint: “Bernie, isali mo naman ako sa next movie mo.”

So, almost 10 years after we first met, and after

Bernal had already completed 28 films, I was still waiting in the wings. Understandably, when the phone finally rang in 1979 with Douglas Quijano (celebrated talent manager and in-house royaltycum-project coordinator for Regal Films) on the other end, saying Bernal wanted me for his next movie, anyone should forgive me now for snatching a cringe-worthy descriptor from Jerry Maguire: He had me at “Hello.”

Of course my role had to be that of a duplicitous, bitchy, sharp, manipulative, well-intentioned gay couturier, Manay Sharon, who loves to direct people’s lives on a whim and just as quickly dump them when they somehow manage to live up to his self-fulfilling prophecy that these ingrates will lie, steal, and take advantage of his goodwill.

But who’s complaining? What serious (read: ambitious) stage actor would not want to cross over from the decidedly limited, Makati-centric Pinoy Broadway theater world kuno to the relatively more glam, prestigious, notorious, and raucously celebrated social activism during Martial Law of Bad Boy Bluebloods, the likes of Bernal, Brocka, et al.? It was a big deal in the 1970s to be working with Bernal. I mean, he was on a roll; a critically acclaimed director and scriptwriter, he had back-

ILLUSTRATION BY MENEER MARCELO

The author in a scene with Rio Locsin who played the blind masseuse. “Why a gay character as the conscience of the city?” he asled Bernal. “Why not?” the director shot back.

to-back nominations at the Gawad Urian and the FAMAS, and his films were big box-office hits.

I was among the last actors to be cast in Manila

by Night and, consequently, attended only one preproduction meeting. It was very informal. As I remember, we were seated on the floor of Bernal’s apartment, along with production designer Peque Gallaga and his wife Maddie, costume and wardrobe mistress Bing Fabregas, some members of the staff, and Bernal himself. Initial focus was my look as Manay Sharon. I was casually informed that the color motif would be all white; and so that I didn’t look too butch, my hair would have to be dyed a lighter shade. They would also have to shave and shape my eyebrows. Okay.

Importantly, Bernal, who was also writing the screenplay, made sure that I understood that we would use an outline instead of an actual script, a sequence guide, if you will, and that his approach was going to be ensemble-focused and improvisation-driven.

I was not sure what that meant but I nodded in agreement anyway.

Technically, Bernal explained, Manay Sharon would thread the episodic multi-narrative—the cinematic device linking the lives of several key characters. All of them living on the edge, literally and figuratively, on the darker, seedier side of Manila by night. More importantly, in Bernal’s own words, Manay will be “the conscience of the city.”

Of course, I had to ask, “Why a gay character as the conscience of the city?”

Bernal’s response, unblinking behind a cloud of cigarette smoke, was short, sweet, and indisputable: “Why not?”

Additionally, Bernal stressed that Manay Sharon was not going to be anything like the stereotypical perya queen often seen at the time in Filipino movies. The inscrutable Bernal look he gave me signaled that the role demanded more than a modicum of complexity in characterization and that a certain gravitas was going to be expected. Check.

No red flags. I had complete trust in Bernal.

Even when he blithely neglected providing me with a character background of Manay Sharon.

A well-annotated script is every insecure actor’s indispensable crutch. Instead, all I heard was the sketchiest overview of the plotline when I was itching to get my hands on a character study.

Zilch.

Bernal’s trust in me became evident when he gave me the freedom to cast my personal friends to play my barkada. He knew I would be more relaxed and natural that way. I quickly suggested longtime friends who were not butch types, and who

would have the bitchiness, humor, and fortitude to parry Manay’s ripostes: choreographer Bobby Ongkiko, character actor Manny Castañeda, and designer Ube Abeleda. For added realism, Bernal cast a relative outsider to my inner circle, Jun Macapinlac, as my designated alalay. A logical choice, since Jun’s character also works for Manay as a seamstress in his Malate shop.

Now, why would Bernal give me so much freedom? As I told Joel David, noted film critic,

Bernal was looking at me directly when he coldly uttered: “Nothing’s happening.”

That’s all it took. A few words and a facial expression so sullen it said: “Bernie, celluloid is expensive. You’re wasting time. And money. . .

AND you’re not giving me anything I can use.

CREATE something.”

Mentally, I quickly sorted out what Bernal was trying to tell me. And it just hit me. He did not want me to perform right after he said “Action!”

He wanted me to experience the moment. He did not want to hear dialogue. He wanted to listen to a conversation.

Bernal was not about to direct my every move. I had to be more inventive. And real.

Fast. I did not have the luxury of fleshing out a character in a play. So, I stepped up and improvised, in this scene and the ones that followed.

Bernal’s approach was not about media coverage, but capturing something happening—a truthful human behavior occurring logically and believably from moment to moment, from choice to consequence—in order to push the story forward.

With Bernal firmly at the helm encouraging me to create a character, I began to appreciate the set as a safe, collaborative arena where I could explore and experiment during rehearsals under my director’s watchful eye. With the complete mutual trust of true collaborators. I would ad lib during blocking rehearsals to bookend the philosophical riffs of Manay that Bernal would provide, enabling me to me to give the dialogue a more conversational, spontaneous feel.

I also began to quickly read his body language and the subtext of short directorial prodding. He was very sparing with words, saying only what was needed; flicking his wrist, with a lit cigarette between his fingers, to punctuate a reminder such as: “Bernie, too macho” (the New Year scene where I attack Alex outside the Sumpak Gay Bar).

Evoking a Hollywood silhouette, for my kissing scene with a reluctant Orestes Ojeda (Febrero).

Arching back “like Susan Hayward in Back Street.”

Harking back to Ancient Greece with arms akimbo while plumbing the depths of anguish, “It has to be a cathartic cry—of Greek Tragedy proportions” (as a preparation for Manay Sharon’s nervous breakdown outside the funeral parlor).

It was fun. I felt empowered and secure. And the creative journey that was Manila by Night remains as one of the major highlights of my career. Robert Altman’s Nashville was Bernal’s avowed inspiration for the film. And I’m proud to say I saw Bernal at his Altmanesque best.

What we eventually wound up with was part

A few words and a facial expression so sullen it said: “Bernie, celluloid is expensive. You’re wasting time. And money . . . and you’re not giving me anything I can use. CREATE something.” author, and scholar, in a Millennial Traversals interview: “Maybe Bernal saw in me a reflection of his own or Manay’s personality. That we were actually sisters under the skin, so to speak, with a shared capacity to display barbed taray, droll humor, reckless promiscuity, bullheadedness, and irrational distrust for romantic relationships.

“Or, maybe he realized I was what he had in mind all along. Maybe. I am reminded of what Hollywood acting coach Larry Moss once said, ‘Ninety percent of directing is casting. So if you cast someone that you believe can do the role, then get out of their way…. Trust your actor.’ ” In retrospect, I don’t think anybody in the cast really knew what we were getting into. I’m almost sure what we all thought was that this was a Bernal movie. A prestige film.

As fate would have it, I screwed up on the first day of shooting. It was a big scene. A folk house filled to the rafters, and on a mini-stage, a deliciously hunky William Martinez as folk singer Alex, lip-synching to Boy Camara’s version of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song, “Teach Your Children.” There was a lot of action going on in the frame, separate threads intertwining: Alex’s family proudly watching, a rugged lesbian Kano (Cherie Gil) surreptitiously pushing drugs, a coterie of gays encouraging Manay to flirt with Alex, then a sudden stampede triggered by a random gunshot.

My first take was supposed to be the exposition of Manay Sharon’s fixation with his prospective boy toy Alex. It was a master shot of Manay with his entourage in playful girl-talk while eyeing “the prey.” Baklaan time! We were in the midst of gaily carrying on when we suddenly hear a booming, “Cut!” We all froze and turned to the imposing silhouette of Bernal standing beside the camera.

Then, deathly quiet.

NOV E M B E R 2016 59

BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY

Bernal put his unwanted Urian down on the Holiday Inn carpet and gave it a dramatic kick.

“Who wants to win a Best Screenplay trophy?!” reality show, part melodrama, part film noir, part satire, part philosophical discourse, part soft core porn, part social commentary, part Robert Altman, All Bernal.

It was queer vision at work; unblinkingly defiant. Spoken like the true conscience of a country in turmoil, during the Martial Law years.

I am now reminded of an article written by Pablo Tariman years later, after the demise of Bernal and Lino Brocka, where he quotes Marilou DiazAbaya on the artistically incisive roles that two great Filipino film directors, Brocka and Bernal, had played in Philippine cinema and history.

As Diaz-Abaya succinctly stated: “They both made films in the most challenging times and they responded with valor. Their kind of artistic nobility is now dead.” And, of course, they both happened to be gay.

In Bernal’s Manila by Night, gay ruled. And in that queer world, you couldn’t take the gay out of the city and you couldn’t take the city out of the gay. Queerness propelled the narrative.

Manay Sharon, whose queer interests drove him 60 NOV E M B E R 2016

to insinuate himself into people’s lives as the city’s well-intentioned meddler, took it upon himself to guide people toward bettering their lives.

Ultimately, however, Manay revealed himself to be a flawed conscience, a duplicitous do-gooder who betrayed the people he supposedly cared for because they failed to meet his moral standards (from which he appeared to be exempt). For the Queen of Denial, drug addiction and infidelity were unforgivable, but the worst sin of all was deceitfulness. After all, Manay did not lie; he just did not tell the truth.

We started out with a rather sketchy blueprint.

But were basically shooting in sequence, chronologically, and the characters were evolving as the story unfolded with its dynamic twists, turns, and interaction of opposing desires. It was like shooting a documentary, as events happened.

And it has become one of the best Filipino films ever made. Noted critic Noel Vera calls Manila by Night Bernal’s “masterpiece.”

Some people actually thought that the film could not be made during Martial Law. Bravely,

Bernal’s film presented Manila as it really was— rife with drugs, prostitution, poverty, miserable housing conditions, and unemployment—a vivid representation of pessimistic city dwellers feeling trapped, paranoid, and suspicious. Pressed upon by a pervading anxiety caused by an unendurable system that Bernal skillfully avoided blaming directly, but somehow presented in a manner that was so graphically powerful that the former First Lady of the Philippines and Governor of Metro Manila, Imelda Romualdez Marcos, took offense and had Manila by Night censored within an inch of its life.

The title of the film was changed to City After Dark, and all references to Manila were edited or bleeped out. After being butchered (the local dish bopis comes to mind), the film that was supposed to run two hours and 20 minutes long was reduced to only 90 minutes. Worse, toward the end of the film, a deus ex machina type of “developmental transformation” was arbitrarily inserted: a cinematic collage of the lead characters in disjointed snippets of celluloid where a sonorous voice-over solemnly intoned how the wretched have decided to forsake their sinful ways, atone for past mistakes, and effectively transform their lives. Hallelujah!

Topping injury with insults, still being the norm at the tail end of the dictator’s rule, a yearlong ban by the Martial Law era censorship board also effectively kept the film’s participation as competition entry to the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival—this, in spite of the critical acclaim and the strong buzz that Manila by Night was going to win the Golden Bear. The film already had German subtitles.

And I had my passport ready, for heaven’s sake!

But in spite of the relentless entreaties of top tier film stalwart Marichu Vera Perez-Maceda, seconded by presidential daughter Imee Marcos, the Immovable Madame Marcos of the City of Ma’am said No. Locally, as expected, the FAMAS Awards was already on automatic Imeldific mode and didn’t give Manila by Night a single nomination.

Unfortunately for them, I was a guest in the TV talk show of Alfie Lorenzo and Douglas Quijano at the same time that top FAMAS board members were promoting their upcoming awards night and touting their illustrious nominees. They got a mouthful from me as I gradually morphed into Manay Sharon live on air. In so many words, I asked the board members how they could possibly ignore such a critically acclaimed motion

COLOR PHOTO COURTESY OF PEQUE GALLAGA; OTHER PHOTOS FROM THE URIAN ANTHOLOGY 1980-1989

Clockwise from top: the author (second from left) at the 1981 Urian where he won Best Actor; in a scene with Orestes Ojeda; with Locsin and Sharon Manabat; a poster announcing a screening at the Manila Film Center.

THE ARTIST AS CITIZEN More than 30 years later, Lino Brocka’s speech for the Ramon Magsaysay Awards continue to remind cinema artists that their roles go beyond the movie set

IMAGE COURTESY OF PANDAYANG LINO BROCKA

picture that took so much courage to film: a movie invested with the blood, sweat, and tears of our people, with a group of celebrated talents taking risks to bring darkness into light? Sensing a controversial confrontation, the studio decided to extend the show. Cooler heads intervened.

Happily, Manila by Night got the 1980 Gawad Urian for Best Film. I was handed the Best Actor Award for the role of Manay; Peque Gallaga won for Best Production Design; Bernal was given an award for Best Screenplay. It would be an understatement to say that Bernal was disappointed. Later, during the post-award party at Holiday Inn, Bernal put his unwanted Urian award down on the carpet and jokingly gave it a dramatic kick, saying: “Who wants to win a Best Screenplay Trophy?!?”

Mitch Valdes and Peque Gallaga broke into laughter and Bernal and I laughed along with them. Then Ryan Cayabyab, who was hanging out with us, turned to me and very generously announced, “You know, tonight is really Bernie’s night.” And he was referring to me, the Other Bernie. A grateful, relative newbie in showbiz who managed to sneak past Dindo Fernando (Langis at Tubig) and Phillip Salvador (Bona) to snag the Best Actor trophy.

The Urian trophy, along with boxes of photos, reviews, and press clippings, has long been washed away by Typhoon Ondoy. But a priceless takeaway remains: Manila by Night was my first real lesson in acting for the camera. Of course, 36 years later, with the wisdom of hindsight, it is so much easier to describe the subtle alchemy that had transpired.

Experience has provided me the language.

Previous to Bernal’s Manila by Night, I appeared in five other films. However, it was only with Bernal where I began to fully appreciate two things: that the camera is an audience of one, and consequently, that it is my obligation as a film actor to live for that lens. Before Bernal, I was adept at acting out emotions or thoughts, instead of actively pursuing intentions or objectives; knowing how to cry, instead of, for instance, why, how much, and for whom?

I am forever humbled and honored that my first tentative steps towards becoming an authentic film actor began with Bernal’s Manila by Night. I learned how to think, prepare, and behave as a film actor/character/storyteller should, while in the process of creation.

And the lesson continues. Learning how to breathe, move, and have my being through clearly thought-out and very specific arrangement and selection of physical and verbal action. All seemingly discovered, experienced, and expressed for the first time. Fresh and new for each and every take.

Thank you, Ishma!

The filmmaker, like his peers in other media, now realizes that the artist is also a public person. He no longer isolates himself from society.

Instead of working in his ivory tower he is a citizen of the slums, of the streets, of the battlefields if need be. The artist is becoming a participant. He tries to be true, not only to his craft but also to himself.

What he says on the screen, he also says in the streets. For it is the supreme duty of the artist to investigate the truth no matter what forces attempt to hide it. And then to report this truth to the people, to confront them with it. Like a whiplash it will cause wounds but will free the mind from the various fantasies and escapist fares with which “the establishment” pollutes our minds.

To the best of our abilities, and even if we oftentimes fail, we must produce films that will hurt, films that will disturb, films that will not let you rest. For the times are bad and, given times like these, it is a crime to rest. We cannot rest, and should not, while there is a Filipino starving in Negros, an Aquino crying for justice, a victim of police killing lying in a garbage heap. Although it is the duty of the artist to work for what is true, good and beautiful, first we must expose and fight what is wrong.

In these times, when the government-controlled media hide the truth, when most of what we get is silly gossip, pretty flesh and sensationalized crime, we must go to the streets to find out what is happening. We must listen to those who dare risk their lives and livelihoods, who reiterate once more the utmost duty of the artist, that he be a committed person, taking the side of any human being who is violated, abused, oppressed or dehumanized, and that he use whatever instrument is his—the pen, the brush or the camera.

I accept this award for all such artists, dedicated persons whose names may never be known or published, doing their share, whether in the streets or in prison camps. Some of them may even have died, or at this very moment be fighting for their lives. This award then is for these artists.

They may gag and blindfold you, silence and imprison you, but they will never be able to destroy what made you an artist in the first place— your brave and continuing dedication to the human race.

Together with you I thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for telling us that we should continue our work.

NOV E M B E R 2016 61

Dwight Gaston ON GETTING NAKED IN ORO, PLATA, MATA

The Reluctant Nude It should surprise nobody that one of Philippine cinema’s most somber masterpieces was the backdrop to a hilarious tableau of crafty directors and naked actors

62 NOV E M B E R 2016

And then…that damnable group bath.

Our base of operations was this wonderful pre-war mountain resort in Mambukal, and in its bathhouse—the very same bathhouse that figured in the movie’s bloody finale—there was, well, a bathhouse, with huge pipes gushing water from hot springs. One day, some of us guys decided to take a group bath, all naked, the traditional way of taking a hot bath here. Joel Torre took one look at me and remarked, ‘Uy kay Dwight kadaku o!’ to much hooting laughter and derision.

I decided they were fucking with my mind and promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to a couple of days later. Gallaga approached me and said, “Oy, Dwight, I heard dako ka kuno. Could you play one of the bathing guerrillas?” He was kidding, right? I said no way and went about my stressed business. And then the others started coming on, asking me to do it, it’s just a one-time thing, and the scene needed authentic-looking men, blah, blah. I told them to go look for authentic-looking macho dancers and leave me the fuck alone.

What followed was a week of ostracism

from the guys, and loud mutterings about “unprofessional actors” and “being afraid to follow Art” and other bullshit. Peque went up to me one more time and promised that the entire sequence would be shot in a really super remote river high up in the fastness of the mountain jungle, only a bare minimum skeleton cast and crew present. One shot only of us disrobing. Plus he dragged out the names of other ninnies in the production who were stupid enough or harassed enough to agree to appear in the scene, including said twin BFF Fergus and even DP Rody Lacap’s shy gaffer. So to stop all the bullcrap, I finally said Yes. On the week of the shoot, a humongous typhoon brought torrents of muddy water down the mountain river, rendering the location useless for shooting. And—of course!—the substitute river they chose for the shoot was a river that was not only not remote, being only three kilometers away from the city, but was also right next to our family farm.

So on the day of the shoot, we arrived, and there, on the set, were almost all the cast and

ILLUSTRATION BY MENEER MARCELO

L

et me be clear about one thing: it’s not as if I wanted to get naked for the movies. I was bamboozled, ostracized, and bullied into the deed. When it happened, I was a naïve, postpubescent youngling, and the ghastly experience would have left indelible scars on my sensitive, Byronic soul if it hadn’t been so goddamn funny.

Why get naked in the first place? I’m no hunk.

Are you shitting me? When it came to my body, to say I had issues was an understatement. At the time, I looked like a goddamn concentration camp survivor. I weighed about 25 pounds with my clothes on, and my Adam’s apple looked like a rock had been wedged into my windpipe.

My chest was flatter than my rib cage. When I took off my shirt, my ribs protruded like some grotesque H.R. Giger tent, all veins and bones stretched over pale skin. I was bowlegged. An acquaintance said my knees were the knobbiest she had ever seen. So there was absolutely no way in hell I was going naked in public.

But then along came that damn film, Oro, Plata, Mata. I worked there as a PA-slash-bit actor-slash-transportation captain with another BFF, half of one, actually (being a twin), hustling sleepy actors, crew members and shell-shocked Scout Ranger escorts fresh from Mindanao massacres into awful modified machines manned by sometimes-vicious drivers into the dark jungles of Kanlaon. I was getting two hours of sleep daily and enjoying every goddamn minute of that incredible experience.

But besides the production work, I was also cast as the Singing Guerrilla. You can hear my twangy voice singing a dirge during the massacre scene and an antique ditty during the guerrillas’ bathing scene.

Oh yeah. The naked guerrillas’ bathing scene.

Of course I had read the script and I knew that the scene was there somewhere, but I always thought that director Peque Gallaga would cast hunky macho dancers, lavishly oiled and preening, for this scene. After all, another BFF, our assistant director, already had the most enviable assignment in the world: auditioning beautiful women for the diwata role, chiefly by asking them to take off their clothes, all of them, to check for any imperfection. . . ergo, if they were casting beauties for that role, then it was logical to think that I was to be a Singing Guerrilla and no more.

crew, who had gathered because, according to some, “They wouldn’t miss it for the world.” They tried to act cool but when they thought I wasn’t looking they started rubbing their hands and giggling in anticipation. But that wasn’t what got the hair rising on my puny arms: there were about 200 gawkers lined up on the opposite bank of the river. About three dozen of them were people I had grown up with, being farm workers of my family. They spotted me and started yelling out my name at the top of their voices. “Toto Dwight! Toto Dwight!”

Beeeeelatibay ya.

I looked around at my fellow victims. There was the gaffer, eyes as round as saucers, frozen in a fight-or-flight pose. There was my friend’s boyfriend, pale as paper, repeatedly swallowing dry spit. There were several others whose names I cannot remember; what I remember was the fear on their faces. We were huddled against each other like so many tethered goats awaiting slaughter.

Only Ronnie Lazaro seemed relaxed, the freak. Jimmy Fabregas was not only calm, he was downright jocular.

Fine for him; he wasn’t going to take off his clothes and swing his schlong for everyone to see. Bastard.

Speaking of schlongs, I looked down at my so-called daku. To my horror, it had shrunk to the size of an overcooked Vienna sausage.

I saw Fergus staring at his own dick inside his pants. He had the same expression on his face. We nodded to each other and hid behind some banana trees. Only our groins were hidden from the onlookers but that was enough. We grabbed our shrivelled chorizos, trying to shake/ jerk/spank the damn things into some form of turgidity. Grow, swell, tumefy, damn you! But it was hopeless. Post-typhoon cold and sheer terror had diminished my rod beyond the state of mere flaccidity into a microcosm of its old self. A pin prick, as it were.

We hurriedly buttoned our pants as the Devil himself slithered into our midst. Of course it was only Peque, but at that point I saw no difference.

He explained the shot. Across the river was a group of women. We were supposed to arrive from the jungle and freak them out by taking off all our clothes and approaching them. Too late will we realize that they are actually kinswomen and neighbors; our attitude will change and we will become the shy boys we actually are. Or something like that.

Everything was ready. We gathered at the very edge of the river. If someone had taken a photo of

us at that moment, we would have looked exactly like those World War II pictures of villagers about to be massacred. We grabbed each other, pushing and pulling, desperate to avoid being the first in line.

And then: “Camera…rolling! Sound…

Speed!...And…” Showtime! Ronnie took the lead, singing bawdy songs. Fergus and I were in front. Our pathetic knee-jerk urge to entertain kicked in and we gyrated and clowned around like adrenalinecrazed monkeys while flinging aside our clothes.

And finally—yes—we were stark naked. We were the first to jump into the river—and it was only three feet deep. The water boiled yellow… the goddamn spot was a turugban wallowing hole for carabaos and was full of their shit. But who cared? We were concealed! We crouched, blissfully wallowing in yellow crud up to our necks. Behind us, the others realized their

People were rolling on the ground, screaming and laughing hysterically. These included the gawkers. None of us victims were laughing. And suddenly, the laughter changed into cries of worry.

It was the gaffer. He had stumbled and fallen in the middle of the river, where it was shallowest and the current was at its most rapid. He was drowning. His body was horizontal. He was holding on to a large rock, his head under water, bubbles coming out of his nose and mouth.

There was no doubt about it, he was drowning.

In two feet of water.

People were shouting, “Get up! Stand up!”

Incredibly, we saw him shake his head. I knew exactly what he was trying to say. Fuck you. He would have rather drowned and died than expose his dick. Finally our flamboyant art director came to the rescue and waded over to the gaffer with a blanket. The water was barely over his knees.

Effectively shielded, the gaffer stood up, coughing and sputtering. People cheered. We all breathed a sigh of relief. The ordeal was over.

And then I heard Peque’s voice saying, “Okay, go back to the starting position for our next shot.”

So it went. The second shot turned into the third, and the fourth, and closeup this and closeup that until everything blended into one banal humiliation. Even the gawkers got bored. Then the movie finished and everyone went on to Manila and I was left alone to finish my studies and face the hordes of hooting audiences on my own when the movie came out in Bacolod.

To this day whenever the movie comes out, I freeze in temporary panic, thinking “Is this the PG or the R-rated version?”

So the next time a director tells you to take off your clothes for just “one shot,” the proper response is to say, “BEGONE, BEELZEBUB! MAY THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPEL THEE!” preferably with a good spattering of holy water.

And was I wise enough to take my own advice?

No, because several decades later I said yes again to a different Horned One. I mean, director. But that time, thanks to my harrowing experience in Carabao Wallow River, I knew that it would take more than one shot. The location really was a remote mountain river, with a skeleton crew. And I was the lead character. For showing my butt cheeks and hairy balls, I was nominated for Best Actor in the Urian Awards.

So there. I’ve committed this incident to paper, and now old age will not take this funny memory away.

Gallaga approached me and said, “Oy, Dwight, I heard dako ka kuno. Could you play one of the bathing guerrillas?” He was kidding, right? I said no way and went about my stressed business error: by hanging back, they were the ones now exposed. Friend’s boyfriend has his pants only down to his knees but he couldn’t stand it, he had to get into the water. So he staggered to the bank and dove headfirst and got his head buried in the muck. The rest piled into him, burying his head deeper. Thankfully he managed to wriggle and surface.

Meanwhile, Fergus and I were halfway across the river. At a signal, the women started to recognize us and we in turn began to act mortified. We were supposed to get shy and cover up our nakedness. I had my eye on a large blanket one of the women—who happened to be Peque’s wife—was washing. But—curses!—Fergus grabbed it first! He wrapped it around his waist.

I searched in frenzied desperation for something.

There! The palo-palo of one of the women! I grabbed it by the handle and covered my groin area with it. I felt relieved.

If only I had known. You see, the palopalo was the usual flesh-colored tool with a rounded handle at the end that looked like an uncircumsized penis. This was what was poking out of the water. So I acted out the scene, oblivious to the fact that it looked exactly like I was grasping my supot dick out of the water the entire time.

Finally, thankfully, I heard the word “Cut!”

NOV E M B E R 2016 63

Paolo Enrico Melendez ON THE LOST THRILL OF QUIAPO DVD HUNTING

Black Market Days Tangential discoveries. Brushes with the underworld.

Stories as wild as any DVD commentary

T

here was a time when I frequented Quiapo to buy DVDs. I was employed by a nearby university, and while the work wasn’t toxic, I found that diving for discs was a great way to decompress.

In Quiapo were classics and new releases.

Rarities and no-brainers. Boxed sets you couldn’t get in the fanciest bookstores or record bars. I went there for the rock documentaries, though: an extension of a long-held habit of looking for bootlegs in nearby Recto, where the vendors knew more about their merch than the average guy at Tower Records. Or you, for that matter.

“Di mo magugustuhan yan, ser,” they would tell me as my free hand strayed to the emo pile after going through the Meshuggah and Minor Threat discs.

Like my trips to Recto, going to Quiapo was a feat of logistics. Planning ahead, I hit stalls on the days I reported for work, and only when Quezon Boulevard wasn’t choked with churchgoers. I had to strategize where on my body to stash my cash. Other risks abounded.

You could have the vendor check your disc, but there was always the chance that your player at home couldn’t read it. The disc may skip, or hang altogether. And if you were really out of luck, your copy of The Clash: Westway to the World would turn out to be burned onto a rewritable disc of Michael Learns to Rock: Live in Seoul.

What made up for all the trouble was that the sorties always meant stories, because they would almost always involve friends. This writer, that painter, those directors. A National Artist even, at one point, whom we had to physically support, because while he obviously still had the spirit of adventure, he couldn’t risk a hip-breaking fall on Quiapo’s perpetually slick sidewalks.

Consider these two quick examples. In the first, the host of a popular children’s show is spotted browsing adult DVDs. He is heckled by kids. “Tao lang ako,” he screams at the middle distance. In the second, one writer asks the vendor if his Battle Royale DVD came with subtitles. A voice behind the writer snaps that the movie doesn’t need any. It turns out to be another writer, who wasn’t wrong about the movie, but was also exhibiting the snarkiness for which her peers avoided her.

Going to Quiapo thus felt like an event. The actual DVD became tangential, a bonus. What 64 NOV E M B E R 2016

mattered were the accidental discoveries, imbued with import, and worth remembering. Every sortie meant craving noodles at a nearby Chinese resto. Chancing upon a tubao handkerchief from the deep South, the colors as striking as sunlight on seawater. Or spotting handsome leather goods on the cheap. Every purchase was a prospect of encountering the Quiapo version of that Recto bootleg vendor, who will likewise discuss with you point-by-point why one documentary is legit, and why another is swill.

If you were really out of luck, your copy of The Clash: Westway to the World would turn out be burned onto a rewritable disc of Michael Learns to Rock: Live in Seoul Case in point: I remember going to Quiapo once with two people I will not name because they are respected media and academic figures.

We browse, having no particular title in mind.

One of them jokes that we are looking for smut, using the word “scandal.” The people around us suddenly tense up and move in. We are invited, implored, herded bodily by a ring of vendors that appear from nowhere. Past the stalls of

aluminum cookware and hand tools and brooms. Past noodle joints and fishball carts, to an alley running beside a nearby estero. We are wordless as we are led down one set of stairs, then another, yet another: morsels swallowed by downtown Manila’s hungry mouth. The sunlight disappears and we stumble into an area that even cops will not enter, one I had only seen on sorties of a more narcotic nature. All around us are men who look acclimatized to subterranea.

We go into what is by description, if not by geography nor geology, a cave, its walls lined with cover after badly printed cover of porn. Four monitors, one on each corner, play highlights from a skin flick, the lips always thick and imploring under bad lighting.

The three of us still do not speak, mill about awkwardly, always with one burly man by one side, our writerly joke now blowing up in our faces like hackneyed money shot with hackneyed background bassline. We are street-smart enough to know that we have to buy a disc each before we are allowed to leave.

So we do. Each disc is thrice the going rate outside. We pay and are led out. We have no more money for warm noodles, handsome tubao, boastful leather goods. We only start talking when the sights become familiar.

Cookware, tools, pansit. And we talk about everything but the bowels from which we have just been excreted.

Eventually, scoring bootlegs in other places got too easy. Streaming got better with broadband. And because the market eventually adjusted its pricing, archival impetus replaced boho stinginess; more than any other antipiracy campaign, a distributor easing off on its mark-up proved most effective. Against all this convenience, my trips to Quiapo didn’t stand a chance. I haven’t gone there to look for documentaries since leaving my academic work almost a decade ago.

Paradoxically, with this cynicism has come a stubbornly romantic view, that those were “The Days,” never to be recovered, turn down that racket and get off my lawn while you’re at it.

My two friends feel the same way. The three of us still talk about our porno den misadventure whenever we run into each other. It’s at once running joke, tireless sentimentality, and ongoing therapy. I’ve just never gotten the same with a download.

FOOD MUSIC HEALTH FILM + TV ART + DESIGN

Come meet everyone.

theneighborhood.ph

Now it can be told: the highlypublicized feud between actors Baron Geisler and Kiko Matos really was orchestrated. PAOLO ENRICO MELENDEZ goes on location with director Manuel Mesina III and writer Mixkaela Villalon to uncover the full story behind Beast Mode, a problematic but exceptional project about entertainment, media manipulation, and omnipresent but spectral state violence

Media transfer.

It’s one hell of a drug.

We see a movie or TV show, hear a song or podcast, and confuse the real for the scripted. It makes us beatify the teeny-bopper, idol-worship the tough-talking politician. When we think of love, we think of the poet and not the poem. And when on-screen bad boys fight, we call for real world blood.

Pop culture savant Chuck Klosterman, in a book largely about this phenomenon, wrote that life isn’t about what happened, but what we think happened. It’s a terminally bourgeois idea. In the context of the Baron Geisler-Kiko Matos feud, it’s also spot on.

So here’s the lowdown on that: the rumors are true. It was all a set up, excepting the Universal Reality Combat Championship (URCC) promotion and its result. This whole drama, which upstaged the national elections, pushing the online mob from frothing at the mouth to

shoot at an abattoir in Montalban. It’s early in the evening, so it’s a slow time yet for the place. Some employees are asleep, on benches and tables and in between the counters used to hold individual animals for processing. Most surfaces are clad in ceramic tiles, their clear finish chipped where tile meets grout; scarred chopping blocks are hard stops to the narration of white. The flooring is exposed aggregate concrete. I see hip bones spewing bile from the liver. This spectacle that long dry, a styrofoam cup still bloodied, knuckles had rubberneckers straining harder than the hacked off at the joints sticking out of blood sight of drug pushers being paraded in Tanauan, encrusted in the gutters. I count three fattened Batangas’s foul parody of the Flores de Mayo. cats, indifferent to this venue of slaughter.

This conflict that divided observers into camps It is in this atmosphere that I talk to Beast more neat than those for and against the burial of Mode’s main creative forces in turn: director a dictator among national heroes. It was all staged by a handful of soft-spoken theater and film cats Manuel Mesina III, and writer Mixkaela Villalon.

Our conversation is punctuated by the sound no taller than most current high school seniors.

And that’s not even the big reveal, yet. Because of steel being sharpened and the occassional lethargic grunt of a pig. the people who called it staged thought it was When they tell me how the project started, some banal marketing stunt, done for profit. the conflicting nature of the details becomes Nope. It was done to see how much of an inciting immediately apparent. The accounts converge idea— state violence and its many forms—we and diverge in a murky swirl much like the would forget when presented with the kind of circumstances of most things viral. distraction that is built upon the spectacular and What’s consistent, however, is the impetus for violent. And it turns out, the answer is all of it. the work. Mesina and Villalon were both alarmed (See Sidebar 1.)

I am made privy to all this on a rainy weekend by how confrontational the election discourse was becoming. Ditto the ferocity with which national issues were being pushed back in favor of the burlesque show that is personality politics: education, health care, public infrastructure, the right to dissent.

This atmosphere helped ripen an earlier idea of Mesina’s, which was to stage a mock fight as an interrogation of our consumption of entertainment. With Villalon and the rest of the team, they refined this to include our very participation in it.

A THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Beast Mode’s lead actors could not have been better chosen.

Both Matos and Geisler possess formidable acting chops, making their feud believable. It also helped that both have colorful reputations.

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nd there’s that pesky media transfer again. I used “conflicting” to describe Beast Mode’s details and realize now that I was inaccurate. More fair to say slippery, which is how postmodern critics have defined reality as we currently experience it: narratives of decentering, and therefore localized accountability.

Which brings us back to how the project was planned. The team cite two major inspirations.

First, professional wrestling as a form of televised theater. You knew it was staged, yet not only accepted but participated in it. Second, social media’s violent rhetoric. “Bangayan,” Villalon says.

“So naisip namin, suntukan, except as play,” says Mesina. He pitched the idea to the organizers of the Karnabal Festival, a regular event in which the lines between performance art and theater are blurred. They were given the green light.

Their first problem was the fighters. They couldn’t be nobodies—traction would be possible, but only temporarily, and limited only to a small core of fight fans. Enured to violence, people wouldn’t care if the names weren’t big.

The story becomes slippery again. One version has the Beast Mode cast begin with a chance encounter between Mesina and Geisler at an event at the UP Bahay ng Alumni. Another

MARICON MONTAJES TAYSAN 3

PLOT TWIST

Geisler and Matos acting out their planned confrontation at Tomato Kick in Tomas Morato. The Beast Mode team didn’t count on the crowd’s intervention. Both actors had to improv on top of their improv.

version has it starting with Mesina going all the way to Laguna to pitch the idea to Geisler. One actor claims to have been on board first. The other makes the same claim.

The story only converges when we begin to talk about the form. There were to be two phases: the viral phase, and the reveal, which would be made through a documentary. Phase One was to have three public acts (See Sidebar 2). What happened behind the scenes—the planning, meetings and rehearsals—were to be the secret of the team, which by then had expanded to include the production company Monoxide.

“Ibubudol-budol namin,” Mesina says of the whole scheme.

The team was aware of the challenges inherent in purposely blurring what was staged and what was real. So to them, documentation was key.

Three teams handled that: one to research, one to conceptualize, and one to record. It didn’t matter that their tools were make do. Tablets, smartphones, old DSLRs, the occassional Go Pros. Every stage was documented.

AND THE

A review of these records shows an engrossing tension between planning and spontaneity. For instance, in the first viral video, it was Geisler who initiated the events, but it was the team that crafted the statement that was posted on Facebook. The episode at Tomato Kick had everyone prepared for what was to go down.

The team pretended not to know each other, and executed a crafted series of reactions to each other’s presence. “Uy si Baron, o.” “Uy andito ka!” went the chatter. What those in the loop didn’t prepare for was how the other bar patrons intervened in the fight. Or how quickly that second gained it’s own momentum; I think it was a masterstroke that they decided to send the video as a scoop on the Mocha Uson Blog.

Matos and Geisler bore the brunt of this tension. They had to stay in character, even to their families. They had to improvise. For instance, it was Matos’s idea to splash beer—reported as urine—on Geisler during their prefight weigh in. Sure, the team briefed the actors, but those briefings were largely limited to “Bangayan pa rin.”

This whole drama, which upstaged the national elections, pushing the online mob from frothing at the mouth to spewing bile from the liver. . . was staged by a handful of soft-spoken theater and film cats no taller than most current high school seniors.

Beast Mode’s Act Two was timed to happen during a benefit concert for three young political detainees.

Overwhelmed by the spectacle of two celebrities fighting, the detainees were barely mentioned in the news reports that followed.

Here’s their full story At Three A.M. on June 3, 2010, elements of the Philippine Air Force’s 743rd Combat Squadron descended on the farming community of Mabayabas in Taysan, Batangas. Surrounding one of the residences, the soldiers fired their weapons as a warning to the homeowners and their three guests: farmer Romiel Cañete, Anakbayan member Ronilo Baes, and UP mass communications student Maricon Montajes, who was in the community for her undergraduate thesis.

The three guests were taken away shortly after. Injured by shrapnel, Montajes was taken to a military hospital.

Cañete and Baes were led straight to interrogation, and allegedly tortured.

Montajes was later taken to the Batangas City Provincial Jail, where she and the other two detainees faced charges of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, illegal possession of explosives, and violation of the election season firearms ban. This marked what was to be six years of detention for the group that later came to be known at the Taysan 3.

Montajes was 21 at the time of her arrest, making her one of the youngest political detainees in the country since Martial Law. Born in Davao on February 25, the anniversary of the first People Power Revolt, Montajes first attended UP Baguio before transfering to the Diliman campus, where she joined the student org UP Sining at Lipunan (UP SILIP).

In March of this year, six years after the arrest, the Taysan 3 were finally allowed by the Rosario Regional Trial Court to go free on bail, after it found insufficient evidence for prosecution. Bail for Montajes and Canete was set P400,000, while bail for Baes was pegged at P500,000.

Human rights watchdog KARAPATAN reports that, as of December 2015, there are still 557 political detainees currently being held under criminal charges—a tactic that once again dates back to the Martial Law years.

NOV E M B E R 2016 69

What they hope for . . . is that the project mimics how the state itself conducts its own violences, and the entertainment that obscures these. “Perya,” Villalon says.

ART IMITATES LIFE

Above: Matos and Geisler rehearsing a confrontation. The actors were not given any script, and had to draw from their own experiences getting into fights. Below: The team documents the Tomato Kick scene. Opposite: Matos on location in Montalban.

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NOV E M B E R 2016 71

Take the public side of the Geisler-Matos feud and you have hackneyed macho melodrama and mercenarial opportunism. Take the undisclosed side and you have a socio-politically charged project that is problematic because the

WHAT WE SAW

THE KILLING FLOOR

Director Manuel Mesina III and the Monoxide production team, on location in Montalban. The team chose sites of violence as a backdrop for the documentary’s many interviews.

B

east Mode the documentary, this project’s second, and public, phase, has three narratives: what you saw, what you didn’t see, and what you chose not to see. The team decided that Geisler and Matos would again be the focal points in the documentary itself. They chose locations that highlighted the political undertones of the project: locations of violence such as a cockpits and abattoir.

The team expects emotions to get high over the subterfuge, hence their decision to let the stories marinate for about a quarter of a year before releasing the documentary. “Parang may ex ka, tapos magkikita kayo later, at pagtatawanan ninyo na lang yung mga shit ninyo. Sana ganoon,” Mesina laughs. “Sana.”

There have been many rumors about Beast Mode being a social experiment. There is even one particularly impressive blog post that unpacks the events and the people involved. This never worried the team. Their belief was that as long as they didn’t confirm it, nobody would believe it. “Speculation lang iyon without any statement from us,” Mesina says. It’s straight out of the totalitarian state’s playbook.

And nobody has guessed the political dimension of the film. The primary reaction

ACT 1

has been to assume that, should the events turn out to be staged, then the primary motivation will have been money. Which is the first telling thing about Beast Mode, this middle child of Aquino apathy and Duterte fanaticism, born as it is in this interstitial cultural space in which one assumes that another acts solely upon monetary motivations, with “Bayaran!” as the prefered call out.

Villalon tells me about an activist friend of theirs who had wondered if this was a new, more insiduous form of entertainment, not knowing that he was talking to the very instigators. The team itself shies away from hard definitions.

“Whatever this thing is that we’ve come up with,” is how Mesina himself describes Beast Mode.

What they hope for, at once simply and grandly, is that how they staged the project mimics how the state itself conducts its own violences— demolitions, dispersals, extra-judicial killings, a host of others—and the entertainment that obscures these. “Perya,” Villalon says.

At various points, the team have asked themselves, “Mapapatay ba tayo for our film?” It’s a fair enough question, given the alarming way artifice has been spilling over into real life, lately.

The three of us get to talking about a police chief who, facing surrenderees to Oplan Tokhang, says about people who resist: “Bakbakan na!” That happens to be the URCC tagline.

Was there ever a point that you wanted to stop? I press. And they reply in the negative. “The more we saw, the more we had an urge to complete the project,” Mesina says.

May 15. A video surfaces of Baron Geisler assaulting a couple of young individuals.

In the accompanying narrative, the inviduals describe themselves as film students at work on a school production for an unspecified advocacy, to which Geisler was invited as a guest actor. The confrontation begins when a supposedly tired Geisler arrives on-set without receiving his script. Geisler assaults one student, and the resulting video goes viral. The term beast mode—a pop culture term describing a state of elevated aggression—is used. Accompanying news articles make no reference to the advocacy, instead referencing Geisler’s long record of misbehaviors. The students gain popular support against Geisler.

ACT 2 May 25. A video goes viral of Geisler and Matos in an altercation at Tomato Kick in Quezon City. In it, Geisler is seen hogging the stage during a benefit gig. Matos calls him out, and what begins as a shouting match degenerates into a full-on fight arrested only by the mediation of other fundraiser attendees. Geisler approaches Matos to apologize; Matos shakes his counterpart’s hand, only to sucker punch him midway.

Few of the reports that followed, both online and off-, mention the fundraiser’s details. Popular support swings in Geisler’s favor.

ACT 3 Online and offline media continue coverage of the feud. Both Geisler and Matos give multiple interviews, both claiming to be the misunderstood party in events that have been “Taken out of context.”

The suggestion to end the dispute in a grudge match surfaces. Local MMA promoter (URCC) offers to produce the event; Matos and Geisler agree, on condition that the fight purse be donated toward the bail money of select political prisonsers. In the lead up to the June 25 fight, Matos pulls several stunts that earn him the nickname Cheap Shot King. The highly-publicized fight ends in a draw and the public reconciliation of Matos and Geisler.

content is so readily obscured by the form.

But together, Beast Mode results in an astonishing—and alarming—social commentary that is greater than the sum of its parts. Here’s a side by side accounting

WHAT WE DIDN’T The first act of Beast Mode, in which the characters are introduced. Geisler and Kiko Matos are contacted by director Mesina specifically for the project. Both agree to the role. And a role it certainly is. While it is true that Geisler goes to the shoot in an exhausted state, he senses that it is a good time to stage the first act.

“Ano, sapakin ko na ‘to?” he asks permission from Mesina, who then alerts the student production. As the video goes viral, the term beast mode is used as a sort of tagline. Matos is told to stay on standby for the second act. Succeeding interviews mention that the advocacy is for the release of political prisoners.

Beast Mode’s second act, timed to coincide with a fundraiser for political prisoners detained in Batangas under extrajudicial circumstances since 2010. Prior to the event, Geisler and Matos spend an entire day discussing how things would go down, intending for the staged fight to come to real blows. The Beast Mode team informs the bar’s owner, who agrees on condition that nobody is hurt. As the video continues to spread, the actors deliver lines they had written to play up the feud. “Mahal kita, pero bibigwasan kita,” for Geisler, “Face me, don’t Facebook me,” for Matos.

The last act of Beast Mode. The team’s original plan was to stage their own fight, at once unsanctioned and demanded for, at UP. After URCC’s offer, the actors and the team disclose the project to the fight promoters. “URCC had the right to know, because they were about to put money into the event,” the team says. All parties agree that no fight will have a predetermined result—inside the ring, the actors, like the other fighters, were on their own. The only plan is to have the winner grab the mic and, in what was to be the closest public admission to the project, say “Are you not entertained?” a pop culture reference to a movie about gladiators in ancient Rome.

A

s of our interview, Beast Mode is on post-production. The documentary is set to be launched at the UP Film Institute on November 16, which interestingly is the anniversay of the Hacienda Luisita Massacre. The team is banking on one last burst of interest in the GeislerMatos dynamic, “Usiyoso lang muna,” Mesina says, to carry viewers through to the buried political message.

That may be unlikely to happen, if reaction to the teaser is any indication. The short clip, shot guerilla style, has been received as real. Friends tag each other, people make un-captioned Shares, which means that the teaser is taken at face value.

The team has even received messages asking how to sign up.

This highlights one of Beast Mode’s many problematics. Its chosen form risks further alienating people from the message it wants to surface. If affect distracted people during Phase One, isn’t it reasonable to expect that that will happen during Phase Two as well? What happens, then, to the advocacy that Beast Mode intended to publicize?

Questions of artistic accountability are also inevitable. Does an artist have the license to instigate violence in order to make a statement against it? I raise this point with the team after hearing how easy it was for them to sway the public’s favor, first against Geisler, then against Matos. “Sobra. Sobra,” they say when I ask if this alarmed them.

Was there ever a point that you wanted to stop? I press. And they reply in the negative.

“The more we saw, the more we had an urge to complete the project,” Mesina says. He explains that that Beast Mode is an outside lense through

IN THIS CORNER

Geisler and Matos face off during their URCC headline fight. The Beast Mode team insisted that the fight be unscripted. Inside the octagon, the two actors were on their own

which everyone can see their own reactions, or question their reactions.

Another fair point. The team admits to having their own expectations undermined at various points in the project. For instance, when the Tomato Kick fight went down, the team was surprised that the crowd intervened. They hadn’t planned for that. This put the actors in a weird position: how to continue the violence that they assumed people were to lap up?

And there lies what to me is Beast Mode’s hardest punch, the quality that makes this entire project not just relevant, but required.

It’s easy to see it as an exercise in contemporary cynicism, but it says a lot of good things about us, too. It says that, at least among creatives, one’s word is still binding. There was after all no non-discloseability contract to the whole project. Just actual pinky swears, which is a remarkable thing for a project that hinges on ambiguity. It tells us that, in the analog world, where we can look ourselves in the eye, there will always be those who will try to calm the baying for blood.

It is perhaps premature to call it before the documentary is even launched, but I’m tempted to think of Beast Mode in its entirety as a bold move in a cowardly time. It’s a flawed but powerful project that could very well blow up in its creator’s own faces. It’s about reality entertainment except it’s not really about entertainment but about our penchant for consensual oppression. And that mirror that Mesina mentioned earlier? I have looked into it, and have seen the ghoul of my own media transfer, because in my effort to put together 3,000 or so words about a remarkable artistic achievement, I wrote no more than a couple of sentences about people victimized by violence we choose not to see.

The Suspect 74 NOV E M B E R 2016

Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc were two young film journalists deeply in love. Alexis was the only child of his Filipino-Canadian family who chose to live in the Philippines.

He wrote an open letter to Nika asking her to join him in his country.

So she did, leaving her homeland, Slovenia, behind.

On September 1, 2009, four intruders murdered the couple in their Quezon City home. Alexis was 28 and Nika was 29. Their tragedy rippled across the Philippines and the world, leaving few answers in its wake.

In 2010, I traveled to the Philippines after spending my life in the US. Like Alexis, I’m a mixed-race Filipina raised abroad who felt pulled back to Metro Manila. When I learned about Alexis’ and Nika’s unsolved case, I was instantly and irreversibly haunted. So I began an investigation of my own. I felt that what had happened to Alexis and Nika—their love story, their bond with film, and Alexis’ commitment to the Philippines—spoke deeply about a nation’s wounds and hopes.

For six years I interviewed dozens of people in the Philippines, and then in Canada and Slovenia, documenting how individuals had been touched by the crime. I learned how the failing justice system of the Philippines perpetuates a horrific secondary violence against innocent Seven years after the murder of film citizens in the aftermath of murder. critics Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc, In a country where killing is close the exact details of their death remain to becoming a celebrated national shrouded in mystery. In this exclusive policy, it is my hope that looking very excerpt from her upcoming book The First Impulse, LAUREL FANTAUZZO retraces closely at two murders can illustrate the days before and after the tragedy, the galaxies of grief, affection, and paints a portrait, through the story outrage, injustice, and resistance that of the first suspect, of the disheartening arise from every brutal, unnecessary police investigation that has offered loss. We must see, and say, that the neither closure nor glimmer of hope justice systems and institutions of policing have failed, and continue to fail, the citizens and visitors of the Philippines. I hope the intimacy of Alexis’ and Nika’s story teaches readers, as it has taught me, how important it is to continue to call for better governance, so that the mechanisms that enable mass violence and the destruction of the individual may one day cease.

NOV E M B E R 2016 75

At first, Danilo Jomoc does not know

Danilo Jomoc is 46, with an eighthgrade education. His body is wiry and weary. The angles of his face seem carved by a severe hand; his hair is dark, long, and mussed. In certain lights he could seem menacing; in others, haunted, or merely tired.

He has been with Agila for two decades. His first boss, Leonardo Tioseco Sr., was a tightfisted, watchful boss, but the salary he gave was fair and reliable, and his steadiness engendered a reciprocal steady loyalty in his staff. Most of them—mechanics, household help, and drivers—stayed with Agila for years, as Danilo had chosen to do.

76 NOV E M B E R 2016

In the front seat, the officers talk loudly enough for Danilo to hear. Perhaps they are joking to scare him, but perhaps they are serious.

“When we get to the bridge, let’s throw him out.”

Danilo worked closely with Leonardo, in the earlier days of Agila, and the elder boss trusted him explicitly in return. In the late 90s, Leonardo made Danilo the leader of Agila’s drivers, an authoritative point person to advise Leonardo on news of their behavior and needs. A hard but fair man; as Danilo remembers Leonardo, good. And his family was also good.

Danilo and his coworkers were used to the presence of his younger sons, Alexis and Chris, the pale, black-haired boys from Canada. Then, when Chris returned to Vancouver, there was only Alexis, the quiet youngest, the bunso whose Filipino was slowly improving. In 2004, Leonardo made Alexis plant manager.

Danilo and the other drivers decided to approach Alexis one day in July with a request: the tires of Agila’s trucks were growing bald. Perhaps they would need to be replaced.

Danilo learned then that Alexis was a pro-employee advocate; if he heard a concern from the lower ranks of Agila, he would take it directly, immediately, to his father. At this first concern, the elder Tioseco balked, reminding his son to balance his sympathy with budgetary realities.

Perhaps the drivers were looking for an off-color way to gain more wages.

Perhaps the trucks were fine. “Check first. The tires are probably still usable.

And remember,” he warned Alexis, “be on my side. We’re the managers.”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTIAN YAMBING

what The Investigators want, when they arrive at the Agila grounds in Tandang Sora. It’s September 3, 2009, about 36 hours after the murders.

The Investigators demand to know where Danilo’s locker is. Danilo shows them. He does not own much. When the officers open Danilo’s locker, they find no extraneous possessions; only the essential tools associated with his duties for Agila.

There are the two cell phones Danilo uses to correspond with his wife and the company foreman, Ador Antonio, on his drives to Batangas and back to the trucking plant in Metro Manila.There is his watch, so he knows when to catch a few moments of sleep in the front cab, and when to arrive at each filling station expecting him. And there is his wallet, containing his savings in cash, since, like other low-income Filipinos, he has no use for banks, which will demand high fees from his large family’s precarious budget. In the wallet is P14,000; about $300.

The Investigators take care to disorganize the contents of his locker with force.

“Where’s your truck?” they ask.

Danilo shows them the industrial-sized Agila truck. The Investigators glance through the cab.

There is a huge knife Danilo takes with him on each drive,for protection and utility, on his four-hour drives south to Batangas, where he transported hundreds of LPG tanks for Alexis Tioseco.

“Where were you last night?” The Investigators demand.

The company records and gas station receipts the Tioseco family will show a presiding judge weeks later confirm what Danilo says on September 3, 2009. He tells the officers, who already seem angry, that he spent the day of September 1 driving to Batangas, five hours south of Metro Manila, picking up LPG gas tanks for restaurant and household use. The truck Danilo used broke down in Batangas, so he waited for its repair. While waiting, he fell asleep in the driver’s seat.

At 6 a.m. on September 2, an Agila company mechanic woke Danilo by phone. Their boss, Alexis Tioseco, had been killed with his girlfriend Nika.

Danilo burst into tears.

He began work four hours later, at 10 a.m., driving the five hours to Quezon City. He kept tearing up throughout the day.

In response to Danilo’s story, The Investigators take everything: his cell phones, his knife, his wallet. Then they shove Danilo into the back seat of their car. They force his head down close to the floor so that he cannot see out the windows. He tries to orient himself, thinking of his wife, his children, and his young, murdered boss.

He realizes, then, with a sense of fear and resignation, that he has been arrested for killing Alexis Tioseco. In the front seat, the officers talk loudly enough for Danilo to hear. Perhaps they are joking to scare him, but perhaps they are serious.

“When we get to the bridge, let’s throw him out.”

YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS

Bohinc, a fellow film critic that shared Tioseco’s love for Lav Diaz movies, moved to the Philippines to be with her boyfriend.

Alexis assumed leadership of the business when Leonardo died in 2006.

When his older sisters, Bettina and Paola, visited him from Canada, they would stand before the white board in the kitchen at 39 Times Street, encouraging Alexis to set a company schedule, to visit the plants away from the office. They would draft a plan together, but Alexis would inevitably drift from it. He visited the plant where Danilo worked perhaps twice a month, and at the moments when his foreman Ador told him his presence was essential, for his Tioseco signature and his final business decisions.

Alexis did not try to expand or diminish the business his father had built.

To support his family, to continue his father’s legacy, and to bolster his career as a film critic, he maintained what his father had already set out for him.

One day in early 2008, Danilo waited nervously for Alexis’s arrival at the trucking facility in Tandang Sora. He entered the air-conditioned office alone and asked to speak with the boss. Alexis beckoned him to come and sit near his desk. He listened to Danilo intently, and responded in slow, accented Filipino.

The truck driver shyly explained. Danilo’s daughter, Dieza, was a firstyear undergraduate student at New Era University. The private Christian school had delayed the release of her scholarship for the year—P10,000, a little over $200. If Alexis would advance 10 drives’ worth of his salary, Danilo promised he would repay his employer quickly, once the scholarship money finally arrived.

In his letter to Nika, Alexis gently mocked his teenaged, Canadian self—“I protested to my parents that I wanted nothing to do with a country that was so class conscious and so corrupt (though I didn’t mind going there for vacation . . .) . . . so much for my 16-year-old defiance of class consciousness.”

With his light, retrospective tone, Alexis already sensed, at a young age, the harsh requirement of the Philippines. Living with the everyday risks of deeply destructive class divisions. Witnessing how the maintenance of narrow, stratified wealth enforced and maintained poverty, in a country that paid some of the lowest wages in the world. When Alexis, years later, chose his place in the Philippines, and preserved what his father built, he accepted the inevitable economic realities that would play out daily, under his roof, and in his business.

Someone like Danilo Jomoc would never reach Alexis’s class status, without a history of family money or political power to drive him forward.

The systems of the country gave him no choice and no chance, except to stand before someone like Alexis and ask, then wait for kindness.

If the kindness did not come, Danilo would do what the rest of the poor would do: cope, exhausted. He would remove his daughter from school,

perhaps, and tell her to try and find work as a shopkeeper, or a fast-food chain employee, or a maid. He might ask for a loan from a private usurer, with interest of 20 percentage points or more. The office of the school might turn a deaf ear to him, might see his work-worn face and dismiss him at the service window. He already made four to six long drives per week for Agila, and could take no other job.

But in this case, Danilo did not have to wait. Alexis opened his own wallet and gave Danilo cash: P10,000.

“Keep it,” Alexis said quickly. “Don’t pay it back.”

Danilo protested. He had not expected a gift. But on this point, his boss was stubborn and clear. The cash was not a loan.

When Alexis handed Danilo the cash, he was not finished. He asked about Danilo’s family, how his wife and other children were. Danilo mentioned his younger son in elementary school, already earning good grades. To Danilo’s surprise, Alexis opened his wallet again.

“Here,” Alexis said, pressing more cash toward Danilo. “Buy your son a bike.” Danilo said the boy already had a bicycle; he felt impolite accepting more. After a quick protesting back and forth, Danilo refused. Alexis relented and put the bike money back into his own wallet.

They talked more. It was a long talk: about the business, about how Danilo felt things were going, about the absence of Leonardo. Alexis warned Danilo not to tell the other staff ff members about the gift; it might create resentment among them. Danilo agreed to keep his silence. Alexis looked intently at Danilo, asking for his faith. Alexis shook Danilo’s rough hand.

“Trust me,” Alexis said. “You have my cell. Just text me, if ever there’s anything you need.”

At the jail on the night of September 3, 2009, Danilo Jomoc stands inside a room, looking at a tinted mirror. He turns and turns, showing the mirror his profile. He turns to show the mirror his back. He does not know that on the other side is Carlito Claro, the security guard who saw three men emerge from Alexis’s stolen car.

When the police take Danilo out of the room, he hears officers talking about his wife, Jessica. “Release her,” they say. “We already have the suspect, anyway.”

They had kidnapped his wife, Danilo realized, and brought her to the jail as a kind of insurance. To make sure Danilo would come without complaint. Investigators present Danilo with a sketch drawn from Carlito’s memories of the men disembarking from the car across the street on the night of September 1, 2009. One sketch is a face carved with workaday exhaustion. It looks like Danilo.

“Admit it,” The Investigators say. “You were the getaway driver. Tell us the names of the other two who were with you. Give us your accomplices.”

“I don’t know anything, po,” Danilo protests quietly, politely. “I don’t know.”

On September 6, Bettina and Paola Tioseco receive text after text from The Investigators.

The Tiosecos have just come from their family mausoleum in north of Metro Manila, in their father’s native province, Pampanga. In the overcrowded graveyard, they stood with their brothers and their mother in the relatively spacious marble structure of their family tomb.

They held Alexis’s urn in their hands.

Nika’s father, from Slovenia, stood behind them, in the Philippines for the first and last time in his life.

The siblings joked, through their tears, that they would put Alexis right against the wall of their father’s resting place, so their brother could hear Leonardo Sr.’s lectures and warnings again in the afterlife.

They set a photograph of Nika and Alexis in front of the urn, before they set Alexis’s tombstone to cover his resting place.

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CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

Throughout the burial, the texts from The Investigators keep arriving.

Bettina and Paola rush back to Manila to hear news on the case. They sit with three Investigators in the lobby of a hotel.

“We have the suspect in custody,” The Investigators tell the sisters in English. “So we must press charges.”

The Investigators say the name Danilo Jomoc. The driver their father and their youngest brother had trusted for decades. Bettina and Paola know the Jomoc family. They have seen Danilo’s gray, cement-brick house on the grounds of Agila. They know their brother held birthday parties for the children, and that their father arrived each Christmas with gifts.

The Investigators repeat what they want the sisters to believe. An eyewitness, a security guard, had helped come up with a sketch of the suspect. Danilo Jomoc had traveled the four hours from Lipa, Batangas, to Quezon City, to kill and rob Alexis and Nika, then had returned to Agila for work the next day. The eyewitness had positively identified the suspect in a lineup. Paola and Bettina should produce the second eyewitness, Manang, to have her make an official statement about Danilo Jomoc’s guilt. With this, the crime would be solved, justice would be fulfilled, and their brother’s memory would be honored.

Bettina and Paola ask: Had The Investigators caught the missing maid, Criselda Dayag? Had they matched any DNA or fingerprints to the crime scene? The Investigators grow dismissive and angry at the women asking questions.

“If you do not press the charges against Jomoc,” one Investigator finally says, “it looks like you don’t care about your brother.”

“Stop,” Bettina and Paola say.

Paola begins to weep. She and Bettina are frightened and unsure. But they do not relent. They recognize a performance at work. The Investigators are under pressure from the media, from their own family, from their bosses, to produce a suspect. So they had produced one and wanted to be done with the whole effort. The other men, and Criselda, no longer matter to The Investigators. They do not want to spend resources looking for Criselda in her home province of Cebu, or in the slums near the airport, or in the slums along EDSA, or along Manila’s Pasig River waterways. The Investigators are fixated on Danilo Jomoc.

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In the Philippines, physical evidence is not required for the conviction of suspects. Most cases are decided by the testimonies of those individuals a judge considers a reliable witness. But, as the Ateneo de Manila Law Journal points out, “Physical evidence, under which forensic evidence falls, is an unbiased body of evidence.”

It is not the security guard who could identify the killers from memory, nor is it Danilo’s denials that would secure his innocence. These objects alone would speak with certainty: DNA on the cigarette butts the murderers tossed in Alexis’s kitchen. The terrible trajectory of the bullets. The size of the bloody footprints they left on the tile floor of the house. Hair samples in the black knit cap the men left on the front seat of Alexis’s stolen car.

Fingerprints on the steering wheel; fingerprints on the door handles.

But the Investigators do not speak of inanimate objects or of trace evidence. They only speak Danilo Jomoc’s name, and they lose patience with the women asking questions about their methods. One Investigator calls his superior on his cell phone.

“Masungit sila,” he says into the phone. “Putang ina.”

Paola and Bettina look at the officer in disbelief. They were born in this country. They may no longer remember how to speak Filipino, after their years in Canada, but they know that they’ve just been called stubborn and difficult, and they remember that putang ina is the strongest curse: a dirty shortening of ‘your mother is a whore.’

“We can understand you,” Bettina says angrily in English. “We know what you’re saying.” But The Investigators continue complaining.

Days later, on September 8, 2009,The Investigators repeat their demands to the Tiosecos. The Tioseco family should bring them Manang, the maid the three men hogtied. They will present Danilo Jomoc to Manang for positive identification as a suspect.

Manang refuses to go to The Investigators. She says she knew Jomoc well, and would have recognized his voice. He did not even speak Visayan, the language all three men spoke while they chatted with each other and waited for Alexis and Nika to return home.

Danilo Jomoc, by now, has learned some facts of life in a Metro Manila jail. He counts the number of men in each small cell the guards move him to: 32 in one room, 45 in another. There isn’t enough room for all the men

PHOTO BY SHANNE LAURON

Investigators arrived two hours after receiving the report of the murders at the Tioseco home in Times Street, a crime scene that was haphazardly and halfheartedly contained that fateful night on September 1, 2009. Opposite: Jomoc photographed by the author at the Agila grounds in 2012.

When the police take Danilo out of the room, he hears officers talking about his wife, Jessica.

“Release her,” they say.

“We already have the suspect, anyway.” They had kidnapped his wife, Danilo realized, and brought her to the jail as a kind of insurance.

To make sure Danilo would come without complaint.

to sit or even rest at the same time. The prisoners have devised a system: they take turns sleeping in shifts. The standing and sleeping rotation takes place each day at 2 p.m.

Danilo eats a little rice and vegetables the guards offer him once each day. Then he washes dishes and cleans the toilets and cell floors at the guards’ command.

He prays. He follows the strange daily routine. He goes where the authorities tell him to go. He does not hear updates for a long time.

He gives a statement to The Investigators. He appears before a judge three separate times in a crowded courtroom. He meets with an attorney the Tiosecos have sent for him. His wife, Jessica, visits, too, at the attorney’s side. Danilo learns about the VIP Prisoner status. Prisoners who pay P500 to their prison guards—about $12—are excused from chores. They can sleep wherever and whenever they want to. Fish is added to their meager daily portions of rice and vegetables.

Danilo’s brother-in-law visits him. The fee to receive visitors is P20, about 50 cents. He provides the money for the visit, and also pays the guard to secure Danilo’s VIP Prisoner status. Danilo eats fish now, sleeps when he can, and waits.

September. The judge reviews the evidence, finally, and frees Danilo.

The Investigators are incensed at the family’s interference. They do not continue searching for the three other suspects involved in the murders.

No court will release a warrant for the arrest of Criselda Dayag until June 2010, nearly one year after the murders and her disappearance.

In late September 2009, a few weeks after Alexis and Nika are killed, Typhoon Ondoy strikes Metro Manila. The clogged floodways of the city—forever in disrepair, neglected while too many municipalities fight over their fate and control—force water to the tops of telephone poles in huge swaths of the megalopolis. Ondoy brings the highest level of rainfall in the city’s recorded history. Nearly 500 Filipinos drown in flash floods.

Investigators halt virtually all work on all criminal cases to cope, they say, with the disasters—with the bodies showing up downriver miles away, with the stranded residents of the slums,with even the wealthy and middleclass residents waiting on the roofs of their flooded homes for rescue.

Danilo Jomoc returns to work at Agila.

As

Danilo’s

hearing

approaches,

Alexis’s friend, Gang Badoy, helps collect receipts from the gas stations and tollways Danilo visited on September 1 and September 2. She asks to check the Agila drivers’ logbook. The Investigators refuse to do it themselves. They continue in their insistence that Danilo Jomoc was the chief culprit.

The time stamps—the physical evidence—confirm Danilo’s claims of innocence. He has signed his name, accepting the LPG tanks in Batangas, 115 kilometers from his boss’s home on Times Street, at the same time as the murders.

The Tioseco family presents the documents before a judge in mid-

His wife Jessica washes the family’s clothes in water contaminated by the Ondoy floods. She bathes, too, in the same waters. She grows sick. She avoids the nearby hospitals, fearing the high cost of treatment, and fearing, more, the inevitable needles for medical injections.

The contaminated water, as Danilo observes it, goes to Jessica’s brain. She is never well again. After a year of decline, she falls into a two-week coma.

She dies in August 2010. Her death certificate reads: MENINGITIS. The Tioseco family advances Danilo P30,000 for Jessica Jomoc’s hospital fees and her funeral. Chris Tioseco refuses Danilo’s repayment plan. The money is a gift, not meant to be returned.

In March 2012, Danilo’s daughter—the scholar Alexis Tioseco funded, the day he quietly handed Danilo P10,000 in cash—graduates from New Era University.

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The Tioseco family presents the documents before a judge in midSeptember. The judge reviews the evidence, finally, and frees Danilo. The Investigators are incensed at the family’s interference.

Q U E S T I O N S FO R T H E IN V E S T I G AT O R S When Nika Bohinc’s friends called you that morning from Slovenia, why did you tell them that the shootings were a simple, interrupted robbery?

Were you finished by then?

If so, can you explain why the three killers waited two hours for Alexis and Nika to return home, instead of rushing away with the goods they wanted?

Why did you arrive past midnight, when the shootings were reported to you, by your own recording, at 10:40 p.m.?

Why did you drag Alexis and Nika from the original positions where they fell?

Why did you let strangers come in and out of the scene?

Why did you allow a press photographer to leave his footprints in Alexis’s and Nika’s blood, lean close to their bodies, and snap a digital photo for the press?

What, exactly, did you gain?

Why did you take Alexis and Nika to a private morgue, rather than a public hospital?

Why did the morgue resemble a rickety outdoor store?

Why were Alexis’s and Nika’s autopsy reports only two pages long?

Are you aware that medical reports involving multiple gunshot wounds typically require 20 pages?

How did you lose the clothes Alexis and Nika died in?

Did you burn them?

Why, or why not?

Do you know what truths those clothes could tell us?

Do you know the dead still have truths to tell us?

Do you know that you misspelled Nika Bohinc’s name four different ways throughout your reports?

Why did you choose to mark the date of their deaths as September 2, 2009?

Do you know that Nika’s gravestone in Slovenia still bears that error?

Why did you refuse to immediately release your autopsy reports to Chris Tioseco and Alexis’s close friend Erwin Romulo?

After Chris left the room, why did you detail to Erwin every graphic injury inflicted upon Alexis’s body?

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Why did you smile?

Why do your manuals tell you to identify the suspect and then conduct an investigation?

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Why, or why not?

Why did you rely on eyewitnesses instead of physical evidence?

What did you do with the rope the murderers held? What did you do with the bottles they drank from? What did you do with the cigarette butts they smoked from? What did you do with the steering wheel of the car they stole? What did you do with the tape they wrapped around Manang’s head? What did you do with the bullets they shot?

Why did you threaten to throw Danilo Jomoc from a bridge as you were driving him to jail, before he had been formally accused of any crime?

Why did you detain his wife, who was not a suspect?

Why didn’t you check the drivers’ logbook that showed Danilo Jomoc was in Taguig the night and morning of September 1 and September 2, 2009, 20 kilometers from the crime scene?

Why did Gang Badoy and the Tioseco family have to check for you?

Why did you ignore Manang when she said she knew Danilo Jomoc did not speak Visayan, the language the killers used that night?

Why did you dismiss Manang as old and forgetful, when she said she would have recognized Danilo Jomoc’s voice from her hogtied position on her bed?

Why did you pull Alexis’s older sisters, Bettina and Paola, from Alexis’s funeral to claim that Danilo Jomoc was the killer?

Was it because Manang and Bettina and Paola are women?

Were you angry they didn’t speak Filipino?

Were you angry that the wealthy foreigners refused to accept your offer of a culprit?

Were you angry that they expected better of you?

Do you feel capable of better?

Why, or why not?

Do you prefer to perform a Hollywood version of justice, rather than the work of real justice?

Forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun says this: “We Filipinos are not really that serious when it comes to finding the truth.”

In your experience, would you agree with this statement?

If so, what feels impossible about the truth?

What feels dangerous about the truth?

When you look at your backlog of murder cases, what do you feel?

What do you say to the surviving family members and friends?

What do you say to yourselves?

What do you need to be better?

What do you need to pursue the truth?

Do you need our help?

How much help? What kind of help?

Do you need money?

How much money?

Do you need time?

How much time?

What is your time worth?

Alexis had 10,429 days.

Nika had 10,932 days.

How many days will we have?

Are we complicit in your failures?

How have we collaborated, consciously or unconsciously, to your injustice?

Do you feel valued? Do you feel supported in your work?

Why, or why not?

Do you, in fact, feel?

Or do you shrug?

Which act is easier?

Do you believe the dead have rights?

Do you believe the living have rights?

Do you believe the dead might ever return to claim their rights from the living?

Do the dead ever visit you in your dreams?

If so, what do they say?

Or do they stay silent, watching you?

THE STATE OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA In July 2008, Rogue published Alexis Tioseco’s wishes for Philippine cinema.

This year, we asked PHILBERT DY to check if any of his friend’s wishes came true.

Eight years after the wishlist was originally published, there’s actually some movement on this. The new FDCP Chairperson Liza Diño actually seems invested in making the most out of these festival trips.

Feedback on the Philippines night party at the Busan International Film Festival has been good.

Genghis Khan has been digitally restored, but from a print with the English language soundtrack.

All we have left of Juan Tamad is a shooting script, which is on display at the FDCP.

Amazingly, 2016 was a year where we got two relatively big-budget Lav Diaz films, both distributed into commercial cinemas by Star Cinema. Wonder what Alexis would have thought of that.

He’s reportedly working on one.

They’re still not in the broadsheets, but eight years later, it feels like that might be a step down. Oggs writes for Rappler and the CNN Philippines website. Richard does stuff for CNN as well. Dodo turned out to be one of our most exciting filmmakers.

We do. The FDCP CInematheques and Cinema ’76 are proving that there’s a viable market for alternative cinemas.

Raymond Lee, now better known as Moira Lang, continues to be one of the most important forces in Filipino Cinema.

They haven’t. They never will.

And now they’re releasing Lav Diaz films. So here we are.

Having been in the selection committee, I’d argue that it never really was in the hands of the MMDA. Turns out it was in the hands of much more nefarious entities. But that’s changed. Let’s see if this works out.

I witnessed this firsthand. There’s no math. It’s all just bullshit.

He hasn’t, but the work that he’s been doing on the Internet and on TV has been pretty remarkable.

He’s trying, Alexis. I wish

Oo nga.

I wish that the Film Development Council of the Philippines would understand the value of the money they’re given and consider going to Paris and spending P5 million of their P25 million allotment for a showcase given by a young festival an investment, and not just a vacation.

They support filmmakers with finished films to go abroad to festivals for the pride they bring their country—I wish instead they would support their films locally, and help them get seen by a larger Filipino audience.

I cry for the loss of Manuel Conde’s Juan Tamad films.

I cry for a country that can’t convince that one Filipino-American who owns the only known print of Conde’s Genghis Khan in its original language to return (i.e. sell) the film back to his mother country.

I mourn a heritage that has allowed through neglect the prints of Mario O’Hara’s Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos and Peque Gallaga’s Oro, Plata, Mata to turn flush sepia.

I wish Cinemalaya, which, thanks to the media and the government’s press mileage behind it, has a great festive excitement, would actually put their efforts in the service of Philippine cinema, and not their own selfinvolved attempt to start a micro-industry.

I wish filmmakers would stop listening to Robbie Tan. I wish Lav Diaz would have larger budgets to maneuver and shoot with.

And would work with the ace production designer Cesar Hernando once again.

I wish Raymond Red would get to make Makapili and/or return to making fantastic shorts in the experimental mode.

I wish Raymond Red would still get to shoot on celluloid.

I wish Mike De Leon would make another movie… please.

I wish younger filmmakers would understand: Lino Brocka compromised when he had to because he had to, and perhaps even, at times, too much. You are living in a different time. The excuse that Brocka made more than 60 films therefore you can afford your own mediocre ones does not hold water.

I wish more of the Manunuri actually reviewed films instead of just giving out awards.

I wish the Young Critics Circle were actually young.

I wish Francis ‘Oggs’ Cruz, Richard Bolisay, and Dodo Dayao would get space in the broadsheets, because they’re far more interesting than anyone writing there regularly.

I wish we had a Cinematheque.

I wish Khavn De La Cruz would get to make his musical EDSA XXX. I wish Raymond Lee’s UFO success.

I wish we had more regional feature films, and more support for regional filmmakers.

I wish someone, anyone, would make a good, thought-provoking film about the Philippine upper class.

I wish Star Cinema would stop—just stop.

I wish the MMFF were not in the hands of the same people who install public urinals (admittedly useful).

I wish I could see how “commercial viability” was computed.

I wish R.A. Rivera would get to make his first feature soon.

I wish Quark Henares refrains from selling out again, because if he doesn’t, he has the potential to be one of the important ones.

I wish Rogue Magazine would cut down their featuring of foreign films in the gallery section when there is so much to write about locally that doesn’t get covered in other media beyond sloppy journalism.

I wish Philippine cinema all the success in the world. . .

The FDCP Cinematheque is a good first step, but we’re still nowhere near where we’re supposed to be.

Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos got a video release, amazingly. Oro Plata Mata was among the first restoration projects of the ABS-CBN Film Archive.

Robbie Tan is gone, but it’s hard to say if Cinemalaya is any better this far in.

None of this happened, sadly.

The excuse continues to not hold water.

Nope.

They’re getting older.

He did! It’s nuts!

This has been happening. More than anything, I wish Alexis could have seen the growth of the film scenes in Cebu, Zamboanga, Bicol and Pampanga.

I wish he could have seen the films of Arnel Mardoquio, who speaks so eloquently about the violence in Mindanao. I would have loved to talk endlessly about these films with him.

Marie Jamora’s Ang Nawawala and Mario Cornejo’s Apocalypse Child are films that take place within the context of the upper class, its characters largely untouched by economic concerns.

They instead struggle with all the truths that they don’t want to confront. Both movies star Annicka Dolonius. I don’t know if they’re the kind of films Alexis would have wanted, but they’re great.

You and me both, buddy.

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OF

GR AC E

Photographs by Mark Nicdao / Styling by Pam Quiñones

STAT E

After 17 years of respite from the big screen, Charo Santos-Concio surprised everyone—maybe even herself—with a remarkable return via Ang Babaeng Humayo which clinched this year’s plum in Venice. Speaking to screenwriter RICKY LEE , the media titan talks about Lav Diaz’s “rock and roll” style of movie-making, the highs and lows of a 40-year journey in pictures, and her complicated relationship with the spotlight.

YOU

C OU L D 4 0

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M A K I N G .

The first time Charo Santos-Concio sat down with Ricky Lee for a magazine article, he was starting out as a writer, the boy from Bicol who did odd jobs before landing in the world of movie writing, both for print and screen. And she, the beauty from Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, was making her first movie, Itim, which Lee co-wrote (although his name would not make it to the credits). SantosConcio was then an ingenue at 20, fresh from winning Miss Baron Travel Girl of 1976, three years after the Bachelors Club picked her as one of Manila’s Five Prettiest.

As Lee would soon discover, the pretty face was just the initial come on. Word got around that the girl was especially smart, a real pro, and a very good actress. Quietly glamorous with a deep gravitas.

Lino Brocka spotted her in Ang Lola Kong Baduy while watching TV one night, and quickly dialed the number of his friend, director Mike de Leon, who was set to make Itim and was looking for an actor to play this barrio lass possessed by her vengeful sister’s ghost. It was the role that ended up on Santos-Concio’s lap, gave her the Asia’s Best Actress award, and opened doors to a tremendous number of movie offers. As early as then, Lee had taken note of the woman who knew what she wanted from the world she found herself in: she wanted to be an actor, not a star. She wanted to learn the ins and outs of making films. She wanted longevity.

That was 40 years ago, in an old house in San Miguel, Bulacan, where she told Lee, “I don’t want to discriminate between a bakya and a high-class audience,” and where she had already, by the time of the interview, spent a good part of the previous month shooting Itim and scaring herself shitless in the role of Teresa, the film’s hapless medium.

Over the course of four decades, he would write movies she would star in (Brutal, Gumapang Ka Sa Lusak), or movies she would produce (Himala). She’s hosted and done field work for a documentary show he used to write for (Isip Pinoy, a left-leaning TV show in the pre-People Power days, with episodes helmed by Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Chito Roño). In more recent years, of course, he’s worked under her as creative manager at ABS-CBN, the mammoth media network she was president of for seven years.

Just recently, like the time he met her for that article 40 years ago, she impressed him yet again with her comeback acting vehicle, Lav Diaz’s Ang Babaeng Humayo, in which she plays a wrongly accused woman who comes out of prison after 30 years, only to find out her husband is dead and her son is missing. Lee is in agreement with most everyone who watched the film: Santos-Concio is amazing in it. As a testament to how comfortable they are with each other and their mutual respect for the other’s opinion and work, the writer pulled the actress aside after the film’s screening—basically cordoned her off from the rest of the attendees—and for a good 30 minutes, told her nonstop what he thought about the film and her performance. And classic Santos-Concio, she listened.

Thirty minutes, of course, is much too short to discuss a four-hour film loosely based on Leo Tolstoy’s God Sees The Truth, But Waits. We at Rogue are only too happy to have them talk some more—and listen in, as these two titans of cinema discuss not just the making of Ang Babaeng Humayo, not just the last 40 years of her career, but her life before that, and her life now.

Throughout the two-and-a-half-hour conversation, they laughed and joked and psychoanalyzed.

As always, she remained her poised self, giving in only to expressions of feigned agony when discussing her first few days working with Diaz. But mostly, she was calm, almost serene, a new state of being Lee would take note of once or twice. Maybe because they have worked together in several projects. Maybe because they share the same highly talented friends, both living and dead. Maybe because they come from the same humble beginnings: two small-town kids who loved movies and ended up making them. —JEROME GOMEZ

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SACAI WHITE LONG BUTTON-DOWN FROM UNIVERS. PREVIOUS PAGE: LCP GREY SWEATER

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SACAI WHITE LONG BUTTON-DOWN FROM UNIVERS

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ricky lee: May ipapakita ako sa iyo. Forty years ago, may sinulat akong article tungkol sa ’yo. I interviewed you sa set ng Itim!

charo santos-concio: Oh my god. I was reading Helter Skelter at the time!

Yes, Helter Skelter. Charles Manson.

Yun nga ang gusto kong tanungin, bakit Charles Manson murders? The investigation and the lurid details.

I have a fascination with what makes a person go astray, berserk, weird. I’m fascinated by the goings-on inside a person’s mind. I want to understand these people, because I don’t look at them as weird or as outcasts. I look at them as human beings.

Even the ones na ganito ka-twisted at kasama? Pumatay ng buntis!

I want to understand. Why? What led you to this?

And up to now ganyan ka.

Hanggang ngayon ba? [laughs]

I didn’t like the limelight. Lino Brocka once told me, “You know Charo, you are in showbiz but you are not of showbiz.”

That was early on in my career. “Sayo trabaho lang ito—”

Kahit na pinakamataas na tao, pinakamababa. Pinakamasama, pinakamabuti.

But I do remember that book. And I could visualize it. Kasi it was very descriptive of the murders.

Lurid details, graphic. The author was the prosecutor.

Yes, that’s right.

Ang reputasyon mo noon na nakakarating sa aming mga writers, napaka-intelligent na artista. Beauty queen and yet intelligent, nagbabasa kesa nakiki-chismis. Sabi ni Mike de Leon, lagi kang may baon na libro.

This was when you and Mike got to talking.

Yeah, and very impressed siya. But it was Lino who recommended you to Mike, kasi napanood ka niya sa Lola Kong Baduy sa TV. Originally, sa Itim, the original choices to play the lead were Alma Moreno, and then Hilda Koronel.

Yes! And they were stars! I mean, Alma was at her prime.

Eh ikaw, bukod sa Baron Travel Girl, actually unknown ka in the movies.

I was on the sidelines. Modeling. Pa-beautybeauty queen. [laughs] Which turned out na mas maganda for the film, that you were unknown.

And then reading that article again, nakita ko na even at age 20, you were sure about your objectives in life.

Why, what did it say?

Nakalagay diyan na sinabi mo na interested ka rin matutunan yung technical and production side ng pelikula. Hindi ka naniniwala na may pelikulang bakya at pang-mataas, dapat pare-pareho silang naa-appreciate. And then ayaw mong matawag na star, gusto mo actor ka. So parang at that age, you were already sure about your objectives, what you wanted, and klaro sa’yo yun, and na-achieve mo.

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Oo nga.

After forty years, actually na-achieve mo lahat.

These ideas have always been in my subconscious.

Parang napaka clear-sighted mo na even then. Lagi bang malinaw ang objectives mo sa’yo? And you pursue it?

Now that you’re bringing back my beginnings, I realized that early on I was listening to my heart.

I’ve always listened to my heart. And when I don’t listen, that’s when I fall.

Baka you listen well.

Baka. 80 percent of the time, I followed my instincts. I’m a highly intuitive person, so I would listen to my intuition. And it’s when I don’t listen, doon ako naliligaw. Or sometimes, it’s clear to me that I have to accept all these movies because I have an objective. I have to be pragmatic. The movies I did, they were not all necessarily fascinating projects, right? I mean, there are projects you have to do because you’re making a living. Hindi ka nagiging pihikan at times. I never went, “Excuse me, ito lang ang pwede kong gawin.” Or “I’m Asia’s Best actress, excuse me lang.” In a way, I’m pragmatic. I’m grounded. How often can you come out in a Mike de Leon film? How often will Lino Brocka offer you a project? Or Ishmael Bernal, when you’re not even a Nora Aunor or a Vilma Santos or an Alma Moreno? So when I was young, being a leading lady to a lot of the action stars was also welcome. I didn’t have a condescending attitude toward anything or anyone. I worked with the award-winning directors and award-winning writers but I also worked with the action directors.

Na at that time ang tingin sa action directors, mababa?

Trabaho. It was all work to me. I may not have

the same passion for the material, because you’re just the leading lady. In an action feature, the story does not revolve around you. That was clear to me.

Sa isang 20-year-old na cum laude and valedictorian, napaka-intellectual, usually ang tendency may condescension sa masa. Pero ikaw, doon sa article, wala kang condescension.

Because I’m a movie fan! My introduction to media or to the world of entertainment was thru radio. Before the onset of TV, nakikinig na ako kay Tiya Dely. Kay Kuya Cesar, kay Ben David.

Gabi ng Lagim! Gulong ng Palad. So early on I think I was exposed to the human drama. I had a natural inclination to listen to the struggle of being human.

Isang quality mo up to now, you really listen. Baka even when you’re listening to TV or radio or watching movies, hindi ka lang nae-entertain or nag-e-enjoy. You listen to the human struggle. You connect.

And I get lost. I get lost in the story. I imagine the hero and the heroine as I listen to their voices, as they do their voice acting. Now I can say it is “voice acting.” But back then, it was real to me. Kahit sa transistor radio ko napapakinggan, sa akin, buhay na buhay sila!

They were really good.

Kaya how can you condescend, di ba?

So all the other characters, even in Ang Babaeng Humayo, the mambabalot, the townspeople, they were all presented in those radio dramas.

Everyone. Hindi naman gaganda yung bida kung walang karaniwang tao.

They were similar to the radio characters .

And even then, my sense of imagination had a lot to do with it. Radio was the only source of entertainment, so you have to be the one to make the voices alive and real. Andoon siya sa imagination ko. And for somebody who grew up in the province, who had no dolls nor toys, ang mga laruan patpat, mga bato, mga dahon, mga halaman...

Malakas ang storytelling instincts mo because you had to imagine.

I remember the voice of Augusto Victa back in the day. He was my idol. Tignan mo, radio pa lang, sumulat na ako— Kanino?

To him! “Dear Augusto Victa...” I asked for a photo, because to me, he was Prince Charming.

Then TV eventually came along, but before that, there was also comics. Magazines. Nagbasa ako ng Heidi, Tubog sa Ginto. All of the Lea Productions movies based on comic novels, Ricky, sinubaybayan ko. My gift for storytelling started there, I believe.

And the empathy, the imagination, started there. And the not-being- condescending attitude. Kasi in a way, mundo mo sila.

And you were not looking down at them.

No. We’re all equals. Early on I recognized that we all have feet of clay. We’re all imperfect.

Hindi cardboard ang tingin ko sa kanila. Even

if I was introduced to princes and princesses— because I did stageplays. Cinderella, Snow White, in school theatre.

Ano ang nag-iba? 20 years old ka noon sa Itim, and then 40 years later, kung haharap ka doon sa 20-year-old self mo, na may clear objectives at grounded sa comics and radio and imagination and all that, pero very intelligent also, and after you’ve gone through all this, 40 years.

I’ve become wiser.

In what way? May mga pinalalampas ka na?

Yes, you choose your battles. You become more aware of your ego. You become more mindful.

When you’re young, you have a fragile ego, right? You live life based on the expectations of the world. And somehow you’re harder on yourself. My body language was so tense. You know, when I see my old movies I think, Charo, you’re so tense!

You had to please your director.

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But then later on, you realize, Hey, I cannot get that affirmation from the world, I cannot get that affirmation from my director. I have to find that affirmation within me. Kailangan alam ko kung saan ako magaling, kung saan ako mahina, saan ako hihingi ng tulong. And I have to be comfortable with that. I have to be at peace with that, because I am not perfect. I have to be kind to myself. So, being kind to myself made me a lot more relaxed.

So, you can say na sa edad mo ngayon, you’re in a better place?

Yes. You’re able to say “I have been there.”

You become more compassionate, more understanding, less judgmental. If not kinder.

More accepting of the world? Yung pagiging accepting mo, it shows in your face and the way you move now. Compared to more than 10 years ago, or 15 years ago. Sa nakikita ko, sa mga thoughts mo, parang relaxed ngayon. When you accepted the role for Ang Babaeng Humayo, you had fears, anxieties?

Definitely. Magagampanan ko pa ba?

Ilang taon ka bang hindi umarte?

Seventeen years!

Seventeen!

So I did my homework. I went to the correctional, I talked to some inmates, I interviewed people. I had a workshop with Malou De Guzman. Kasi lalo na magto-tomboy, magdi-disguise yung character. I read the story

by Leo Tolstoy. I had discussions with Lav Diaz.

And I think the most important thing that I did was I became honest to how I thought I saw Horacia, my character in the film. Yung totoong pagkaintindi ko kay Horacia, yun ang binigay ko.

Hindi base sa kung ano yung sasabihin ni Lav o iisipin ng iba. This time it’s how you saw Horacia. And how did you see her?

I saw her as very human, struggling. I understood her as somebody who was struggling with good and evil, but at the same time I saw her as an inherently kind person. I saw

her as somebody who believed in the inherent goodness of man. And that is really how I see humanity, with all its ugliness.

started asking them about their story. I saw a young, innocent girl in them who had to survive, who didn’t have any love.

Parang ikaw as a person, that’s Horacia.

Oh my gosh. [laughs]

Ang nakikita mo yung tao sa loob niya.

That’s you, and that’s Horacia.

Kasi sa pag-uusap natin kanina, sabi mo you will not condescend maski may kuba sa harap mo, maski may epileptic.

It resonated, no? Horacia resonated with me within the first twenty pages of Lav’s script. Pero doon sa prison pa lang, kilala ko na rin siya.

That’s how I see everyone. We all are wounded because of the randomness of life. There are certain things that happen in our lives, there are certain people who cause us pain. But I believe in the inherent goodness of people, so that when I was talking to the inmates, I did not see their crime. When they were talking to me about their crimes, of course I would ask, “What are you doing here? How old are you?” “24.” [looks shocked] In my head, Did you know what you just let go? What are you doing here? And then I

That’s another aspect of Horacia that’s also you, the teacher.

I think so! [laughs] The mentoring side! So Horaciang-Horacia ka.

Oo nga ano.

Ilang taon siyang nakulong pero hindi nawala yung mentoring side. And the mentoring is not just literally nagtuturo ng ABCD, but mentoring in life.

NOV E M B E R 2016 89

But Lav didn’t know me before writing Babaeng Humayo.

Baka the universe Lavs you!

[Laughs intensely] I think ang importante, sorry for using the word again, is that you listened.

You heard yourself in Horacia.

Dalawang beses ko lang nakausap si Lav, before he made that offer. The first time was when he made a pitch with Paul Soriano in the Star Cinema office. The second time was over dinner for the staff of Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis, to celebrate the movie. So walang intimate na ganito. It was a party. When he told me about a possible project for me, I just said “Direk, kung interesting yung character, sige why not. I’ll give it a chance.”

The heart of Horacia, in a way, or in a big way, is your heart. The wanting to teach, to mentor, or to help. But at the same time there’s a moral sense. Kailangan mo pa rin balikan yung nagkamali sa’yo.

Hindi ka naman martir na tao. You would

want to right things. But, I don’t think you can pull the trigger. [laughs] But you will take the steps kasi when you feel a sense of “nagpaloko ako, bakit naman ganito?” Hindi ka naman tatahimik.

Oo, dahil may itatama ako. But yes, I will not go to the extent of pulling the trigger.

Okay lang ba na magbanggit ka ng two instances when you did not listen to your heart? May maaalala ka?

Madami naman. [laughs and pauses] Okay lang if we cannot talk about that.

But I suppose they made you more human. And they made you listen better the next time. And empathize more.

I also discovered a lot more about me. It’s not the nice things that make you confront your real issues; it’s when the not-so-good things happen.

The seriousness in how you confronted those “not-so-good things,” that is part of the reason why ngayon kaya mo nang harapin lahat. In so many ways, nag-grow ka doon.

Yes. When you realize you don’t have a monopoly to pain. You think the world of yourself when you are young, and you think you are the only one hurting. Then when you look outside or when you’re wiser, or when you become more in touch with yourself, that’s when you realize, Hey, this is not just about me, this is also about other people.

And I suppose mas mahirap ,yan in your case na hindi maging self-centered kasi you were very beautiful and very intelligent at a young age. Kumbaga, talagang naka-sentro yung attention sa’yo. I mean you were a valedictorian, cum laude, and so on, Baron Travel Girl.

It’s so easy to be deceived into thinking na, “I’m really the center of the world.”

It had a different effect on me.

Ano?

I felt the world was not fair.

Why?

Because why is the attention on me? Bakit ganoon? Bakit ganoon kayo tumingin?

Kinekwestyon ko na ‘yon about the world.

Kasi ang next question ko is, saan mo ba nadevelop ang art mo? Maybe from there.

Baka may sugat na ako—dahil nasusugatan ako. Kaya ako yung nagtatago. I didn’t like the limelight. Lino Brocka once told me, “You know Charo, you are in showbiz but you are not of showbiz.” That was early on in my career. “Sa ‘yo trabaho lang ito.”

That’s why you wanted to go into the technical and production side. You wanted to learn filmmaking, hindi mag artista. Bakit ka pumasok sa Baron Travel Girl? Was it for the money in order to feed the family?

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No. Maybe in order to please my mom. Because it was a dream of hers. And it was interrupted when she married my father. She wanted to become a singer. Kasabayan siya nina Mercy Oria, Pilita Corrales. And my uncle was Jimmy Navarro, the programming head of Geny Lopez of ABS-CBN in the 60s, for television. So andoon na siya sa status na ‘yon. And she fell in love with my father, who was very conservative.

I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to please her. Joining Baron Travel Girl was a show of support. There’s this child that’s torn: on the one hand she shuns the limelight, on the other hand she loves her mother so much, and adores her mother so much, and wanted to please her.

Did you feel that in a way you were acting?

No. I think I was very sincere with wanting to please my mother. I wanted to see her happy.

Obedient daughter ako. Lahat ng sabihin ng magulang ko, sinunod ko. My father was a government physician, remember? At sa gobyerno, magkano lang ba ang sweldo? Basta, ang sabi lang niya sa amin, na wala siyang maipamamana sa amin, edukasyon lang at magandang pangalan. We just rented one apartment after the other. Kaya naipangako ko sa nanay ko na, “Basta mommy, bibigyan kita ng bahay.” In one year, noong nag-artista ako, binilhan ko siya ng bahay. I did thirty movies

that year.

Thirty? Wow. [laughs in awe]

To be able to pay off a debt of 80 thousand pesos.

But you made your mother happy.

I made her very happy. At may salita akong binitiwan, di ba, sa bangko? Na isang taon lang ‘yan. So I paid it off in one year.

Ginampanan ko. Nagtrabaho ako. Hindi na ako natutulog. From the movie set, I would go straight to Channel 7, because I was always a guest on Kahapon Lamang, and on Armida Suigon-Reyna’s Kwento ng Pag-ibig, remember?

This was three years after Itim and you became very busy. Mabilis kang sumikat after that movie.

My father died in 1978. We shot Itim in ‘76, right? Pinalabas yung movie noong October of 1977, tapos hindi ko naman alam na isinali pala nila sa Asian Film Festival. I got an unxpected call from Baby K. [ Jimenez, the writer] at three in the morning and said, “You won! You won!”

Huh, what?

“Best Actress in Asia!”

Kukunin na ako dapat ng Eat Bulaga! noon.

They were just about to launch. Kinuha ako ni Tony Tuviera. “You’d be the co-host of Tito, Vic, and Joey.” Because I did a TV show with them. But then I won Asia’s Best Actress. So I thought to myself, “I want to do movies first.

I don’t see myself in a daily noontime show.

Gusto ko munang mag pelikula.” So the offers started coming in in ‘78. Through the whole of ‘79, I worked on paying off the house.

I did one movie with you.

Gumapang Ka Sa Lusak.

Oh, yeah!

Doon, sabi ni Lino, “Uy, ang husayhusay nitong si Charo, gawin na nating mas Imeldific ang role niya!”

Oo, he wanted to do the Imelda thing that time. Sabi niya, “Ikaw lang, ikaw lang ang pwedeng gumawa ng life story ni Imelda!” And Lino was the one who took me to a different direction. “I’ll get you out of that stereotypical sweet image.” Ginawa niya akong scheming na producer sa Kontrobersyal. That’s when I started exploring offbeat roles.

Anong feeling mo noong dinadala ka niya doon?

Okay.

Okay lang?

I wasn’t a star in that sense that I had a PR machinery behind me. I never had a personal PR, I never had a manager. Wala nga ako sa star system, Ricky.

Hindi ka talaga star in the conventional sense. But you did thirty films in one year! [laughs] It was work.

I guess it was my reputation as a professional.

When you get me, I give my word, I’m there on time, I never give the producer any trouble,

It was my reputation as a professional. When you get me, I give my word, I’m there on time, I never give the producer any headache, I will deliver.

And no matter how difficult the circumstances are on the set, I’m there, without complaints.

I deliver. And no matter how difficult the circumstances on the set, I’m there, without complaints.

Sina Lino, sina Bernal were saying: You’re easy to work with, professional, intelligent pa, bukod sa mahusay. At maganda.

Kahit bundok. You know, even if the location is out in the wilderness, no tent, no seats, I just look for a place to sit. I never felt entitled. That Carlo J. Caparas movie I did with Dante Varona, we were in the mountains? Ang hamog-hamog na, alas dos ng madaling araw, magbubukas lang ako ng payong. I never demanded for any special treatment.

Again, why? Is it wanting to please? Or you didn’t feel entitled? Or you just basically understood the humble arrangements?

All of the above, I guess. Kasi payak naman ang kinalakihan kong buhay, Ricky. Payak, probinsya.

At tsaka naalala ko yung kuwento na nagkaroon ka ng damit na makeshift lang, or tagpi-tagpi?

That was for Manila’s Five Prettiest. My contemporaries would go to Pitoy Moreno, Ben Farrales, Aureo Alonzo. But I came from the province. I didn’t know anyone. Sa modista lang ako pumupunta. Tapos kung wala, bibili ako ng art paper. Our outfits had to look 40s era. So I thought, “Pag nilagyan mo na yung skirt na ‘yan ng polka dots, okay na.” So I bought art paper. Then I used a coin—I can’t remember

which kind, the large ones back in the 70s—as a guide for the art paper cutouts. Tapos dinikit ng glue sa skirt ko. Costume na! [laughs] Hindi ko kinakahiya yun. I think that’s something that I got from my father, and I’ve always been proud of that. Sabi niya noon, “Ang ikinahihiya, ang kasamaan ng ugali.” We lived among barrio folk—farmers, Mangyan, people from the tribes.

They would go down from the highlands when they needed to consult with my father.

People might be curious kung ano na ang buhay mo ngayon after retirement, now that you’re 60. What makes you smile these days?

My granddaughters! And my sons; I have good sons.

Ano’ng ginagawa nila—ng granddaughters mo—that makes you smile?

Oh, they tell me stories. They sing a lot. They love to perform. I love their antics and their candor. They’re very honest. They make candid remarks about the world.

Good food makes me smile these days, too. I think I never lost my sense of adventure. I’m still as curious as ever.

What else would you want to do?

Anything! I was in Boracay this one time, and then I saw some guys parasailing. I thought to myself, why don’t I try that? So I tried it. I’m conquering my fears. I continue to face my fears.

And I don’t mind falling flat on my face for new things that I want to try. Pero hindi naman ako nagpapaka-superwoman. I just go for things that I want to go for—to enjoy, not to prove a point.

That’s nice because you seem so free. May naalala ka ba na recent na nangyari na you were so happy? Maybe you were dancing, or singing?

The Olay launch! [laughs] Bakit?

Because my granddaughters sang.

They sang! Ano’ng kinanta nila?

Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I like it that they sang it with purity and innocence. They don’t have the technique yet. It was all very sincere. It was really just all from the heart.

You’re tough. How would you define your being tough?

It’s important for me that I pass on knowledge or wisdom. I will not exchange the opportunity to be able to teach a value over hurting my or other people’s feelings. Kahit masakit, titiisin ko.

Isang aspeto talaga ng pagkatao mo ay yung pagka-teacher. At work and in life.

Saan ko kaya nakuha? My mother was also a teacher. And you, Ricky, you’re also a teacher.

Saan ba nanggagaling yun?

Wanting to share one’s learnings. At tsaka kung nasa creative work ka, you should be a sharer, because you tell stories. So ang naging buong buhay mo, sa trabaho, in a way is sharing. And now you’re acting again.

How am I sharing?

NOV E M B E R 2016 91

With your acting? Making people understand people, like by playing Horacia.

You’re teaching us empathy, and so on.

[In the Lav Diaz movie, Horacia was imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit.

After 30 years in jail, she was set to exact revenge on the man who wronged her].

Actually someone had approached me, some people who have seen Ang Babaeng Humayo.

“Alam mo,” they said, “hindi namin malilimutan yung kindness ni Horacia!” They would say, “Diyos ko, kaya ko ba yun?” “Kaya ko ba yung ginawa niya?”

Kasi even while she was psyching herself up for revenge, kinupkop niya lahat yung downtrodden. At the same time sa puso niya may galit. Kung masama siya talaga, ang dali naman niyang patayin yung nagkamali sa kanya. Puntahan na lang niya at barilin. Hindi bale na makulong siya ulit. But she kept delaying it. She kept trying to grow in the process.

And Lav never game me instructions. All he would say was “O, hawak mo na yung baril dito, iniisip mo na, gusto mo na siyang patayin, bahala ka na.” Ganoon, Ricky!

Let’s talk about specific scenes. There’s this beautiful scene na nag-“Putang ina” ka, hawak mo ang baril na parang pinapraktis mo yung gagawin mong pagpatay. Pakwento nga noong scene.

ulit yung bahay mo. Tinitignan-tignan mo yung bahay. Ikaw, bahala ka na.”

But you were supposed to cry, right? You knew that much.

My intepretation was, My God, I need to cry 30 years’ worth of anguish. Thirty years. Tapos wala na akong binalikan. My husband was gone. My son is missing. It was a mix of regret, anger, pain, and guilt.

At umiyak ka rin kasi di ka niya binigyan ng instructions! [laughs] Pinabayaan niya ako dito!

Tapos tahimik lahat. Cut! Then silence. He went out of the house. When he went back inside, all he did was tap me on the arm.

Actually yung sinabi ko sa ’yo noong napanood ko yung movie, you’re a very intelligent actress and yet nagawa mong i-humanize nang hindi nakaharang yung intelligence mo sa performance. May mga actors na ganoon, yung alam mong may sinusunod silang method, o iniisip nila, and you see them doing it. Sa iyo we don’t see it. You’re just being it.

I just become the person, the character.

Even do’n sa nagtomboy-tomboy ka?

I struggled with it. I knew Horacia was not evil.

Even if she lost thirty years of her life and was struggling with her anger.

Because I trusted my heart. And maybe because after seventeen years of not acting in film, ang dami nang tinakbo ng buhay ko, Ricky. I lost many of my previous fears, I lost many of my expectations. I became more relaxed. These days, I just go with the flow. I told Lav early on, “Direk, kaya ko ba ‘to? Magdi-disguise akong tomboy? Are you sure you’re casting me for the role? Sigurado ka, Direk?” Sabi niya, “Oo, tomboy, magdi-disguise ka.” I said, “Direk kasi reklamo ng directors ko ‘yan sa akin, masyado daw akong mahinhin. Tapos ngayon gagawin mo akong tomboy. Baka nagkakamali ka. May time ka pang mag-back out.” He said, “Kaya nga disguise Charo, you’re not it.”

So this was on your mind, before the take?

(laughs)

And during the actual take.

“Kung may pilantik ka pa rin sa daliri, totoong Horacia ka pa rin naman,” he said. “Aaralin mo lang. Inaral mo lang. Exposed ka lang for thirty years sa lahat ng tomboy.”

That was all he said. “Nakabili ka na ng baril.

Nakuha mo na do’n sa gun dealer.” And then he said, “O, basta eto na yung eksena, the day before na pupuntahan mo na ‘yung nagkamali sa’yo. Okay, bahala ka na.”

So what did you do? Did you have to change the timbre of your voice?

But did you rehearse?

No. Walang rehearsal si Lav. Nagsasabi ba si Lav after the take na, “Ang husay, congrats”?

He is the kind of director who trusts that you know what you’re doing. You are expected to be a responsible actor who studies your character.

Masyadong cool, masyadong chill. So were you anxious, o hindi naman?

For the first three days, maybe. I felt so incompetent. But after a while, I got used to him not saying anything.

Does he have a way of expressing his approval?

Sasabihin lang niya, “Rock and roll”. Or he would just [taps the back of her arm] in highly emotional scenes. And only on highly emotional scenes. Otherwise, he doesn’t say anything. Like when I broke down by the banister, near the staircase—all he said was, “O, thirty years kang nawala dito, bumalik ka, first time mo makita 92 NOV E M B E R 2016

That reassured me. Sabi ko, “Okay sige, Direk.”

Because the joke was, Naku, lakad model na naman. Probinsyana ka dito. He said, “Charo, let’s just have fun.” That changed everything for me.

You had fun?

When someone tells me to have fun, I have fun.

What was the scene where you had the most fun?

That impromptu scene with John Lloyd.

[In the movie, Charo’s character meets another lost soul, the tranny, ex-Japayuki Holanda played

by John Lloyd Cruz. While she plans to exact her revenge, she also takes Holanda under her care, nursing him to wellness after some thugs beat him up. In the scene Charo is describing, he encourages her to sing with him.].

Impromptu ‘yon? What was in the script?

Up to the point when he was talking about his

Japan days, that was in the script. “Nami-miss ko yung Japan eh,” Holanda is supposed to say.

The improv starts when he starts pushing the table. He pushed the table, and said, “Kanta pa tayo ulit.” I didn’t know what John Lloyd would do, from that point on. I think they played me during that scene, Ricky! John Lloyd and Lav played me. Because before that, I was in my room and I could overhear someone singing, “Sunrise, sunset.” And then I overhard someone say “Kung gusto mo, mag-Donna Cruz ka.”

Pero some of the words came from you. Inimprovise mo ‘yon?

Dumating na lang ‘yon. Right there and then, Ricky.

Sa script ba nakalagay na kakanta ka?

Ang alam mo lang kakanta si John Lloyd.

And I was just supposed to be happy. Happy that he was being spontaneously happy.

Remember, he had just been beaten up. And now he was felling better. That was all I knew about the scene.

Pero hindi ka kakanta.

Hindi ako kakanta. So when he started singing that Donna Cruz song, Kapag Tumibok Ang Puso, I was embarrassed. Teka sandali, di ko alam ‘yan! Totoong nagulat ako doon.

And then nag-improvise ka na.

And you sang na matagal-tagal.

I could see Lav from my peripheral vision, while we were doing the scene. He was watching. Ang body language walang intent na mag-cut. Relaxed. He was watching intently.

He locked in his camera; binitawan niya eh!

Naaaliw siya. So I thought, this is a roll, this is a roll.

Natural na natural.

Pero bakit “Somewhere” ang pumasok sa ulo ko?

Bakit nga ba?

As I was singing it, the lyrics resonated with me as Horacia. [sings] There’s a place for us, somewhere a place for us, peace and quiet and open air, wait for us. Kaya nung huminto si John Lloyd, nung sinabi niya, “Uy iba naman,” sabi ko, “Bagay sa ‘tin ang kanta!”

When we were in Venice for the film festival, I said, “John Lloyd, I have never cried in all my movies. In fact, I squirm in my seat.” Because when you’re watching your movie, you’re hard on yourself. You’re never really content. You’re judging yourself. “I could have done this better.”

Or, “I’m so stiff there.” Laging ganoon. You never really appreciate yourself. I told John Lloyd, “I have never cried in all my movies but for the first time, I cried in this movie.” Sabi ko, “Hanapin mo kung ano yung eksena. Hanapin mo kung kailan umiyak ako as a viewer.”

As a viewer.

So nanood nga siya. Sabi niya, “Tita, alam ko na kung saan ka umiyak. ‘Yung sa ‘Somewhere.’” Sabi niya, “Tita, sayang, hindi di ko alam ang lyrics. Sana kung alam ko yung lyrics sana tinapos ko.” Sabi ko, “Huwag na, huwag ka na mag-sana. The scene was

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“I continue to face my fears. And I don’t mind falling flat on my face for new things that I want to try. I just go for things that I want to go for, to enjoy, not to prove a point.”

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I’m content. I deal with life as it comes.

So when someone asks, “What’s your next next project?”

I say, “I’m sorry but I don’t obsess about my future.”

beautiful. Ganoon dapat. Kung ano lang ang nangyari.”

Hindi ka umarte for seventeen years, and you became a creative executive and so on—and you’re particular sa details, sa karanasan ko sa trabaho ko dito sa ABSCBN. And you remember the details hours after may nag-pitch or nag-kwento sa’yo. At pag nanood ka rin ng pelikula or teleserye, pag inupuan mo yung director, yung writer, you see all the details. Ngayon artista ka, at nasa set ka, and so many details are around, you’re able to focus na artista ka lang?

Hindi lumalabas yung napapansin mo yung lighting dito, at yung ganito—wala yon?

Wala, pero matanong ako. Like, “Direk, anong ilaw mo? Available light lang? Street lamp?

Ito lang? Direk, paano yan?” I’m fascinated by the details. “How did you frame this? How do you know, Lav, that your camera is in the right position?” He would say, “I never know. I never truly know.” Sabi ko, “Ha? Di mo alam? Lagi kang, Tama ba ‘to? Tama ba ‘to? Ay, di pala tayo nagka-kaiba, Direk. Gano’n din kami bilang artista. Ginawa ko ba ng tama? Tama ba? So sabi ko, ano ang pinapakinggan mo sa huli? Sabi niya, “Maniniwala ka na lang sa puso mo. At the end of the day, you have to go with what your heart says.”

You never considered directing?

It has never entered my mind. I think it’s a different art altogether.

If somebody asks you to direct, maski short film.

audience. I just want them to journey with the characters the way they perceive it.” Hindi ba dapat, nagbibigay ka ng sariling interpretation base sa kung ano ang alam mo sa buhay, kung ano ang alam mo tungkol sa humanity? Sabi ko, “Naiintindihan na kita, Direk. Hybrid ka ng dokyu at mainstream. Ng fiction at dokyu. You document real life pero your characters are in the context of a narrative.”

Paano pinaliwanag ni Lav sa’yo yung last scene? Yung ikot ka nang ikot in one place.

Sabi ko, ba’t mo ako pina-ikot ng pina-ikot? [laughs] He said, sometimes we think life goes on, but it never really goes on because we see ourselves staying in the same place. Ikot lang tayo ng ikot.

What was the most difficult scene for you?

It was delivering the poem. I couldn’t change the words because its poetry and I had to keep to a certain rhythm. My goal was to make the viewer imagine what I was saying, as I was reciting each of the lines, each of the words: yung lugar na masikip, yung mga bubuwit na lumalabas sa mga sulok-sulok. Yung experience ko habang nakikinig ako ng radyo.

[Laughs]

So that’s another adventure, if ever.

Why not? Ang dami mong natutunan kay Lav, can we talk about what you learned from your other directors?

Would you compare yung first acting experience in Itim with your acting experience in Babaeng Humayo?

Siyempre takot na takot ako no’n sa Itim, at saka 20 years old ako no’n! Like Lav, Mike de Leon wasn’t breathing down the neck of his actors. He was also the type of director who allowed his actors to give their own interpretation of the characters. But he would rehearse. He knew how to tell a story. He had a command of the visual interpretation of his story. Lino on the other hand was an actor’s director.

He would squeeze the best performance out of you.

Ishmael Bernal was like that, too. Ishma was an intellectual, but at the same time, his emotions were very raw. Hindi siya staged. Very raw, very honest.

Do you ever scream?

I do, but I don’t scream at people.

May reputation ka sa labas as laging poised. Ano sa tingin mo doon?

Nung bata ka.

Kalmado talaga ako.

Nung bata ako. Na pag may sinabi yung mga radio talents, nai-imagine ko.

Kahit mahirap na problema, you’re poised. Actually sa’yo, it’s not being poised, but being calm.

So my motivation in that scene when I was reciting the lines, was to be faithful to the lines, so that I could stir the audience to imagine. I wanted the audience to imagine that world that I’m talking about.

I am graceful in my ways. But I think my spirit is calm. I really am calm.

So what else do you want to know in the following years?

May mga reviews na nagsabing you were a force of nature. How do you react to it?

I don’t know. I’m open.

Yes.

I would ask him questions. “Ba’t hindi gumagalaw camera mo?” “Bakit ang haba ng mga eksena mo?”

Sometimes in the morning, when the staff of Lav would send me the links, I would feel really stunned and speechless while reading through the reviews. I would say, Oh my God. [shakes her head]. And I would go to my husband and tell him, I think it’s time for me to go on a retreat because this can get heady. I have to ground myself. You know you’re reading too much of a good thing. So you always have to be mindful and say that, Just enjoy the moment.

That there are, again, mountains to climb. Dapat makurot mo sarili mo. [laughs] And not think the world of yourself. And look for another challenge, or look for another opportunity for learning.

Ano ang sagot niya?

Right.

Sabi niya, “Di ba pag nag-iisip ka naman sa totoong buhay, hindi yan one second, o two seconds?” To the best of his ability, he tries to capture real time.

Kanina may nagsabi sakin—si Mickey [Muñoz].

Ma’am, I’m sending you a script for theatre.

[suddenly, the sound of thunder interrupts the conversation] May kulog, the universe is telling you something! Haha!

Hindi ko pa talaga napag-isipan.

Because you’re so curious about all these details and everything sa proseso ng filmmaking.

Pero mata ‘yan. At the end of the day, it’s your vision that counts.

Kung si Lav ‘yan, sasabihan niya, look with your heart.

Yung flow ng real life.

He also said, “Well, I don’t manipulate my

Theatre?

Sabi ko, “Why? For us, for ABS, to produce?”

Sabi niya, “No, they’re offering it to you to act in it.” Oh!

You’re at peace now?

It shows in the way you move, in the way you look, the way you talk.

I’m content. I deal with life as it comes. Kaya nga pag tinatanong, “Anong next project mo?” I say, “I’m sorry but I don’t obsess about my future.” I’m just open to what the universe has to offer. I will listen to my heart.

In the end it’s back to your heart. You were saying kanina na ayaw mo ng limelight, ayaw mo ng all these when you were starting. But all throughout, yun yung kind ng life mo, in the limelight.

Yes, so at a certain point I also had to be comfortable with that, and accept that. Not run away from my truths. Hindi pwede yung takbo ka nang takbo, tapos diyan ka naman balik nang balik.

There’s dissonance. You’re not allowing yourself to bloom. Tinanim ka pero kahit anong fertilizer ang ilagay, parang ang liit mo pa rin kasi nilalabanan mo.

So at a certain point you just have to relax, right?

Just go with the flow.

Makeup by RB Chancho / Hair by Jeffrey Aromin / Art direction by Karl Castro Stylist assisted by AJ Duyo, Cath Sobrevega, Riri Verano Photographer assisted by James Bautista and Phil Nicdao

In front of the lens or calling the shots behind it, this new breed of women-in-film is steering local cinema to bold new directions. Here, they talk about carving a path in the ever-shifting motion picture landscape

film fatales Photographs by Patrick Diokno and JL Javier

andi eigenmann

MAKEUP BY DINO LAZARO FOR MAC COSMETICS, HAIR BY MARK BAQUIRAN

Actress — Ma’ Rosa, Camp Sawi

“I realized that there were certain types of roles that I portrayed in the past that I didn’t agree with, and that if I were offered those roles now, I probably wouldn’t have accepted them. For example, I feel like the whole topic of mistresses, being something people actually like watching, is really degrading to me as a woman. I don’t understand: why do we have to peg women to be catty and fight each other over a guy?

I just don’t want to entertain our audiences, I want to help educate them, too. And I guess as a woman, I want to be able to tackle more issues that are about women, or empower women more than put them down just for entertainment’s sake.”

One could say it is in her name, or perhaps in her blood. It’s more likely, however, that it is Andi Eigenmann herself who’s carving her own name as an actress, with the steps she’s begun to take from the confines of the gardenvariety soap operas and kontrabida roles. Her deglamorized turn in Brillante Mendoza’s Ma’ Rosa opened new doors—“a chance to begin again,” she says—for her career, and she has since searched for more challenges to her mettle as an actress. Proofs: her return to television in the family drama The Greatest Love (where she isn’t antagonizing anyone, to her relief ) and her empowered role in the dramedy Camp Sawi. —PATRICIA CHONG

shiel calde Junior Creative Head for Reality Entertainment, Assistant Director — Honor Thy Father, Seklusyon

“The film industry is going to keep going in the same direction unless the women behind the wheel decide to drive it to new horizons.

I hope one day we can love our own films more than we do foreign films. I want us to be able to look back and proudly say we’re a part of something amazing rather than a bunch of stuff you can’t tell apart.”

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MAKEUP BY RIA AQUINO FOR MAC COSMETICS, HAIR BY RACHEL TORRES

The controversy surrounding Reality Entertainment’s Honor Thy Father at the Metro Manila Film Festival was punctuated with little strikes—one of them being Erik Matti’s acceptance speech for Best Festival Director. Climbing onstage, however, was not Matti, but Shiel Calde, whose job description tells you this: she is (typically) anywhere, everywhere in the production but in front of a camera—liaising with actors and chasing down crew members, making sure everyone and everything is exactly where it should be, helping construct the production’s full image. And true to that, Erik Matti’s speech would have fallen flat on its face had it been anyone but her running the show. —PC

stacy bascon General Manager and Associate Producer for Reality Entertainment — Honor Thy Father, Seklusyon, upcoming On the Job series, Buy-bust

“In the past few years, the audience has been developing its preference for films, thus the emergence of more genre films. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter if the leaders of the industry are either men or women; what’s more important is audience development.

With regards to how women are portrayed in films, the roles for women are becoming bolder and more diverse. The audience is ready for that, and I think the producers, directors, writers, and industry leaders realize that.”

MAKEUP BY JOHNSON ESTRELLA FOR MAC COSMETICS, HAIR BY MARK BAQUIRAN

A quick look into her Instagram will get you a glimpse into the workings of Reality Entertainment itself—her desk’s organized clutter, too many laptops out at a Saturday meeting, work on a Sunday, director Erik Matti meeting with his actors, a finished set of a church, Anne Curtis getting her hair chopped short for Buy Bust, and Bascon herself hiding from the heat during the filming of Honor Thy Father. Such is the life of someone who oversees every stage and snag a film hits, armed with a cellphone and a youthful zeal—because she is young, having graduated university only three years ago. —PC

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oducerr — at Th n Called dha h na, la Saa H w ng H is, En we w ntro

,

“In mainstream cinema, women are still treated as mere decorations to men. There’s a sick culture of portraying women—mistress roles, women who are rebellious then get tamed by a man. We are still in a very chauvinistic era of storytelling.

We don’t need to have overly feminist roles. I’m just saying, stop glorifying stories where women have to be conquered or how normal and acceptable it is to be a mistress, and how women are always trying to find their one true love, which seems to be their only mission in life. The phallus is not the center of the universe.”

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MAKEUP BY MARTIN ALONZO FOR MAC COSMETICS, HAIR BY RACHEL TORRES

Her big break was less a resounding smash and more a series of jabs that led to a knockout. After she’d tried just about everything else in the film industry, from production assistant work to assistant direction to production management to cinematography apprenticeships, she found her niche as a producer—despite the constant reminder that it was a role “for men.” It was and still is her talent for finding stories that has propelled her work past Philippine borders after her first stint as a producer for her friend Pepe Diokno’s Engkwentro. From there, her laundry list of heavyweight productions has only grown with no limit to plot or genre. —PC

If there is anything to say about the camp of director Joyce Bernal, it is that those who have come out of it know exactly what they’re doing. Exhibit A: Antoinette Jadaone. Exhibit B: Irene Villamor, whose work with Bernal as an assistant director and as a writer dates back to the olden days of Marimar, when Villamor was still a university student looking for on-thejob training. After co-directing Relaks, It’s Just Pag-Ibig with Jadaone and writing numerous comedies, she took the reins of Camp Sawi solo (she was co-writer Bela Padilla’s handpicked director) and surprised no one with her sheer focus on bringing every character from the page to the screen. —PC

irene villamor

MAKEUP BY JOHNSON ESTRELLA FOR MAC COSMETICS, CHAIR FROM OPEN HOUSE

Writer, Director — Camp Sawi

“I guess what we can do is write better stories of [and for] women. Na kahit stereotype siya, makikita mo yung humanity. Ibang anggulo sa luma at paulit-ulit na character. Which is what we tried to do in Camp Sawi. We were looking for some truth, or an authentic emotion even within the box. Then I guess the next move is to go beyond the box.

The industry can only get stronger in terms of the woman’s voice. Wala namang reason not to, [especially] with women directors and writers growing in numbers. I just hope that the stories and the characters that we write be real enough, be authentic sa mga totoong nangyayari bilang babae ngayon.”

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corinne de san jose

The beauty in the work of Corinne De San Jose is in the fact that it is easy to overlook. Every sound is cleaned, ambient noise added (or in the case of Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles, sound effects), and all music and dialogue blended together with such precision that most would suppose no one had a hand in it. But this is only a testament to her ten years as an audio engineer before she became a freelance sound designer. She has worked on landmark independent films such as Erik Matti’s On the Job and Lav Diaz’s Norte, Ang Hangganan ng Kasaysayan and Ang Babaeng Humayo. —PC “The male gaze is still quite strong in our films. I see a lot of female characters that are one note. You’re either this ideal virginal, conservative girl, or the temptress, aggressive, bitchy, lonely woman. I also find it ridiculous that often the solution of a lot of women’s conflict on screen is getting married, finding a man, or having a child.

Women should be more aware of gender politics on screen. We have to take control and steer the industry in the direction we want. We are so ridiculously behind on feminism in this country. If we don’t assert and make the changes ourselves, I seriously doubt if it’ll be handed to us in a silver platter.”

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MAKEUP BY ALEX LISBONA FOR MAC COSMETICS, HAIR BY RACHEL TORRES

Sound Designer — Smaller and Smaller Circles, If You Leave, Ang Babaeng Humayo, Apocalypse Child, EDSA

camille aragona Assistant Director — Honor Thy Father, Darna, Seklusyon

MAKEUP BY RIA AQUINO FOR MAC COSMETICS, HAIR BY MARK BAQUIRAN

When the lady is in a tight situation, she tries not to be John Cusack (as she recently revealed in a Facebook post)—that is, questioning why so many things just haven’t worked out. After hardly breathing in her rough time with ABS-CBN five years ago, Aragona has found herself hardly breathing for a different reason: the bloody battle that is filming. Her work as an assistant director in Honor Thy Father saw her acting as the right hand of Erik Matti, skillfully herding a powerful crew through a production schedule and shivering with them in a cave in Baguio in the wee hours of the morning. It is a thankless job, but the accomplishments to her name make her anything but her theoretical John Cusack. —PC

“If this industry continues to flourish, I think more and more opportunities can come for both women and men filmmakers. There isn’t a boundary anymore on what women can do. I think it’s been proven based on what we have achieved in the last couple of years. And I’m sure it will still go on, women will continue to stand out and make their marks in the industry.

As long as there are people willing to buy a ticket and watch our work, then we should never lose that eagerness and drive to work on stories that we want to tell.”

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es —

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n i nd

ara ra

There was a time when Teri — now Therese — Malvar was known to most people as “That 13 year-old who beat Nora Aunor” for Best Actress at the CineFilipino film festival. She had just then starred in Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita, playing a prepubescent lesbian in love.

Her roles since have seen more variety than some more veteran actresses have in their entire careers. She plays a girl in search of her father in Sakaling Hindi Makarating; g a child fighting cancer in Child Haus; a brothel caretaker in 1-2-3; and a street urchin who murders her oppressors in Hamog. Combined with her formidable acting, Malvar has reaped awards from the New York Asian Film Festival, the Moscow International Film Festival, and the CinemaOne Originals Awards. —PC

PHOTOGRAPHED BY JL JAVIER MAKEUP BY DGUILLANO VALENZUELA, HAIR BY RACHEL TORRES

“I usually take on roles that are beyond the typical kid’s role. My goal is to always take on characters that are unique, so that whenever they say ‘Therese Malvar,’ they won’t only remember my name but also the work I’ve done.”

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bela padilla Actress, Co-writer — Camp Sawi

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If her most recent projects are any indication, Padilla has been slowly inching her way out of typical artista territory—teen drama starring roles, the occasional clothing brand endorsement, coasting on her last name—and into the VIP realm reserved for critical darlings and legends-in-the-making. Her roles in Ang Probinsyano, I America, 10,000 Hours and Camp Sawi confirm her capabilities as an actress, but the real revelation is her choice to reach out from the hold of the camera’s eye and cross over to the writer’s room. Padilla has steadily been racking up credits in terms of work in screenwriting and conceptualization. To have one foot in both fields seems like a comment on her hopes for the industry as a whole, that its seemingly far and disparate facets— acting and writing, mainstream and indie, performer and audience—might eventually come together. —JAM PASCUAL

“My acting pegs have always been Marion Cotillard and Audrey Tautou. I’m such a fan of French romantic comedies.

And I hope we can do something like that, something more realistic.

We tried doing that with Camp Sawi—girls with no makeup, with very real pain.

I hope we can try something very raw and real. Somehow I do see it happening. I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

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GIRLS Amado Lacuesta’s first produced screenplay, Working Girls, was about seven women finding their place in the lacquered boardrooms and bedrooms of Ayala Avenue. But it was also an uploading of his entire life in the banking industry, a world he struggled to get out of in the crazy financial climate of 1984. As another ode to the film makes its way to cinemas this month, JEROME GOMEZ talks to the actors and makers of the original, and finds out why 32 years after it first hit theaters, it still clicks.

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STILL PHOTOS BY FELIX CARDONA, COURTESY OF VIVA ENTERTAINMENT

just wanna

HAVE FUN

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It begins, quite literally, with a money shot.

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And a vision: a picture of a life better than one’s own. Nimfa, in her late 30s, with a body that has seen slimmer times, is counting the day’s cash on hand. She slips the money into her handbag, walks to her son having breakfast in their dining area slash kitchen, and paints for him the portrait of a life outside their middle class arrangements. “Kumain ka nang kumain,” she tells him, “Next year, mag-aaral ka na sa Ateneo. Pag binata ka na, magiging Makati executive ka.” Don’t worry, she adds. “Malapit na: uuwian kita ng daddy: Makati executive.” Cut to: in her checkered robe, a towel wrapped on her head, like a poor but happy version of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, she ascends the steps of her two-story apartment, and sings, “To dream the impossible dream…”

It is the famous opening scene of the beloved 1984 hit, Working Girls, an ensemble comedy about seven women finding their place in the sexy, silly, cutthroat corporate universe of Ayala Avenue. For his first produced screenplay, it was a smart move for its writer, the investment-banker-byday Amado Lacuesta Jr., to tackle a milieu most familiar to him. Then in his early 30s—a yuppie, to use a term of the era—he was also, like Nimfa, taking a step into fulfilling a dream, a life better than the one he shows up for in the business district. Having clocked in and out of office drudgery for years, handing out advice to multinational corporations on where best to place their millions, the English major from Ateneo de Davao longed for the libertine lifestyle his bohemian friends led—friends that included the literary savant Krip Yuson, and Butch Perez who in 1982 had already directed his first film, Haplos.

Working Girls is not Lacuesta’s first screenplay. He had earlier joined a contest set up by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The script he sent, a gothic drama about a murder, won third place but fell victim to the usual fate of many a script written for competition: no producer picked it up.

Enter Ishmael Bernal, fresh from his MMFF Best Director win for 1982’s biggest film, Himala. Bernie, or Ishma, as he was alternately called

by industry people, happened to have read Lacuesta’s script. So impressed was the director that he gave the banker a call and asked if he has other stories just languishing in his aparador.

Meanwhile, Vic del Rosario’s Viva Films was giving Mother Lily’s more established studio Regal strong competition. Having made its first millions from making movies for its prized talent Sharon Cuneta, the studio, only three years old then, was averaging 10 outputs a year, creating its own niche in the bustling early-80s moviemaking business (which was averaging 300 titles a year) with its “sosyal” young-love stories and domestic melodramas based on the hottest komiks novels of the day.

By 1983, it already had Maryo J. de los Reyes (Bagets), Danny Zialcita (Palabra de Honor) and Laurice Guillen (Init Sa Magdamag) in its roster of prestige directors. But let’s just say the film outfit was also nursing a dream: to work with the larger-than-life sophisticate Bernal who at that time was churning hits apart from winning awards.

“I couldn’t figure out what started Working Girls, or who started it, but what I clearly remember was we wanted to work with Bernie, me especially,” says Tony Gloria, the film’s supervising producer, member of the Holy Trinity of Viva Films which included Vic del Rosario and his wife, Mina Aragon. “So one day, Vic said, ‘Ton, ayan matutuloy na yung gusto mo.’” Gloria also isn’t sure where the idea to tell the stories of working women came from, but what remains clear in his memory was the day Bernal arrived in the Viva office in Quezon City (where ABS-CBN’s Big Brother house now stands) and announced he already had a writer in mind. “Sabi niya, ‘Tony, katulad mo ‘to: nagwo-work din sa Makati.”

Gloria indeed was, like Lacuesta, leading a double life that time.

Working as creative head in an advertising agency by day (he gave Sharon Cuneta her first ad gig), then straight to the movies when evening strikes, supervising most of Viva’s original concept projects while Aragon handled the based-on-komiks films. “One thing about Vic, when

OFFICE POLITICS

If in Pagdating Sa Dulo Bernal explored the inner workings of the movie industry, he pried open the culture of the Makati business world in Working Girls. In this photo, Suzanne Galang (Carmi Martin), the clumsy secretary, shields her friend Sabel (Rio Locsin) from the obnoxious men of the office. Below, Carla (Hilda Koronel) tries to squeeze in a romantic life with her poet boyfriend played

by Roy Alvarez (who at that time had just come back from acting school in New York). Opposite: Gina Pareño begins her day selling jewelry to Makati’s employees. If the men’s preoccupation in those days were watching luncheon fashion shows in the nearby hotels, the women bought jewelry or raided the sale racks of Rustan’s at lunch. Previous spread, clockwise from top left: Baby Delgado, Locsin, Chanda Romero, Martin, Koronel, Pareño and Maria Isabel Lopez.

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it came to some projects, he would trust me,” Gloria says in his Unitel office in Leviste. “He trusted Bernal, too. He told me to take care of the project. ‘Anyway I like the writer. And you’re familiar with the story because it’s set in Makati.’”

“Magugustuhan mo ‘to si Mads,” Gloria remembers Bernal telling him.

“Mag-dinner tayo.”

The initial dinner was set in the director’s house in Quezon City.

There, Bernal, Lacuesta and Gloria fleshed out each of the characters’ story arcs. They began with five women, and ended up with seven. They wanted a “business girl,” because they personally knew women who moonlighted as call girls. They wanted someone who was not officially working in Makati but doing business in the offices anyway: which translated to the alahera Nimfa played by the deliciously kookie Gina Pareño. The visiting saleswoman was part of the Makati office culture, says Gloria. “They would come selling bags pag lunch time or coffee break. Sometimes the men would have pants made, susukatan sila sa men’s room.”

One of the film’s more obvious achievements is in how it was able to tie together the stories of the seven disparate women—while making each character stand out. Its nothing new to Bernal. He had already attempted the Altmanesque in Manila By Night, and did the ensemble comedy Salawahan, one of the funniest local movies ever made which practically no one saw when it opened in theaters in 1979. But for Lacuesta, whose only other writing credential apart from winning 3rd prize in the CCP contest are writing his company’s annual reports, and being editor in chief of the Rotary Club newsletter (Pasay chapter), Working Girls was a baptism, making his brilliant script an even more impressive feat.

It helped that he was immersed in the corporate culture. Around the time of shooting the film, the local investment banking industry was at an all-time high; the rest of the world not having yet discovered the real 110 NOV E M B E R 2016

state of the Philippine economy, or that the Marcoses were controlling most businesses in the archipelago. Investors were putting their money not just in stocks or dollars but in art, in racehorses, in antiques. “It was wild,” says Sarge Lacuesta, writer, advertising guy, and son of the writer Amado. I meet him for drinks in a dimlit bar in Palanca. “Working Girls was the uploading of my father’s entire life in banking,” he adds.

A scandal rocked the finance industry in 1981 when a ChineseFilipino businessman named Dewey Dee, who through his genius and cunning was able to amass huge loans from local banks—then flew out of the country and disappeared, leaving a debt that reportedly amounted to 87.4 million US dollars. In Lacuesta’s script, the scandal would take the form of the Jefferson Yap account. In the boardroom meetings, it was all the men could talk about: Yap’s banking prowess, his devil-maycare attitude toward money, how to approve his loans and get on his good side. Only one person opposed his advances: Carla Asuncion, the executive played by Hilda Koronel, whose “female intuition,” as Tommy Abuel’s Raul Leuterio character mockingly puts it, was suspicious of Yap’s motives from the onset.

Assisted by Bernal’s knack for comic timing, Lacuesta’s informed grasp of the finance industry allowed the film to move at a confidently brisk pace. Party banter at a cocktail reception becomes a quick brushup on the economic landscape of the time: the exchange rate was P32 to a dollar, and was expected to rise even higher (“So ngayon its better to invest in dollars kesa sa jewelry, antiques, or even Alabang,” Yap tells a guest); while it was happy days for the dollar-earning Filipino in Saudi, it was bad times for the local consumer because “even the local corned beef now is 34 pesos.” “It’s disgraceful,” says Danny Prado (Edu Manzano).

“Sa’n ka ba nakakita ng 30 to 40 percent interest per annum? Walang business na mabubuhay.”

In between the easy dispensing of financial status updates, there’s casual flirtation. It was, after all, the heady years of the D.O.M. “Raul we

Bernal asked for a meeting with Don Jaime Zobel for easy facilitation of permits to shoot in the Ayala offices and the neighboring streets. The magnate arrived fresh from hopping out of his helicopter which landed on the rooftop of the Makati Stock Exchange

THE PERFECT PUNCH

Bernal didn’t only require rehearsals before the cameras grind, he demonstrated the actor’s movements himself, whether its receiving sexual advancements, or throwing a punch as in this famous cafeteria scene toward the end of the movie where he shows Rio how to exact revenge.

Bernal was famous for his women films and considered himseld a feminist director. Opposite: Dindo Fernando was the first actor to essay the role of the playboy Raul Leuterio. He had to quit the film when he decided to run for office (1984 was an election year).

He was replaced by Tommy Abuel.

should stop meeting in public,” says Baby Delgado’s Amanda to Tommy Abuel. He shoots back: “I know, we should meet more in private.”

“Akala ko ba nasa cocktails lang ako,” says Gammy Viray to Hilda Koronel. “Nandito ka, so this must be heaven.”

In the first 20 minutes of the film, it has already established the goals of each of the seven women, and by the first half hour we have been introduced to the motivations behind these goals: Suzanne Galang, the smart but clumsy sexy-tary played by Carmi Martin, equates stability with having a powerful boss for a lover; Rose (Maribel Lopez), the receptionist, has a bad shopping habit and a worse cash-flow problem— hence eventually ending up as one of Joel Lamangan’s “business girls”; Isabel, played by a brilliant Rio Locsin, is the secretary pregnant with the playboy Leuterio’s child, a situation that renders her easy fodder for gossip among the office women, the butt of sexist taunting by the office boys; Baby Delgado’s exquisite Amanda is more interested in clinching an eligible bachelor for marriage than sealing another deal for her managerial training firm. And then there’s Carla (an impenetrable Koronel), trying to squeeze in a romantic life with the demands of staking her claim to the top ranks of a company ran by men. Finally, there’s Anne (Chanda Romero) who wants it all: success in career and a great family life. Thing is, she has a loser of a husband to deal with, jealous at her every step upward the corporate hierarchy.

Its been more than three decades since the film premiered in Greenhills Theater June of 1984. Three decades since Bernal asked for a meeting with Don Jaime Zobel de Ayala for the easy facilitation of permits to shoot in the Ayala Avenue offices and neighboring streets (Don Jaime arrived in the meeting, fresh from hopping out of his private helicopter which landed on the rooftop of the Makati Stock Exchange).

From interviews with its stars Koronel, Martin, Pareño, Lopez and Romero, even the cinematographer Manolo Abaya, come only fragments of recollections while shooting the movie. No talk of intrigues, no fights,

no throwing away of chairs—which was believed to be expected on a Bernal set.

But it was exactly that it was a Bernal set that making Working Girls went as smoothly as it did, says art director Aped Santos, then working under the production designer, Benjie de Guzman. “It’s because he had that temperamental reputation that’s why everyone was on their toes,” he tells Rogue. “And everyone on the cast and crew was top notch, so everyone just lived up to the brilliance of the others. Nagagalit lang naman si Bernal if you’re slow to pickup.” Even the relative neophyte Maribel Lopez held her own among the veteran cast. If there was drama, it happened in the beginning. Chanda Romero, then a Viva contract star, in a Viber message from the US: “I was made to understand I could be playing Carla. I was so excited to play a top executive in tailored suits, a strong woman who clearly knew her priorities. So when Tony Gloria broke the news that they were giving me the Anne role, I just broke down and didn’t care to listen to the reasons.”

But she nailed Anne anyway. “I remember my establishing shot, rushing into the bank, clearly running late and looking stressed out. I was trying to be a good mother to two kids and wife to a demanding husband. Bernal told me to wear my hair a bit disheveled and rush into the building still tucking my shirt—a very clear picture of a woman who had too much on her plate. That attention to detail really impressed me.”

Carmi Martin was only tackling serious dramatic roles in movies that time, and wasn’t really doing much comedy in her sitcom Chicks to Chicks.

Working Girls allowed her to be seen as someone who actually possessed a natural flair for comedy. “She was doing this dumb blonde Goldie Hawn character in the movie and she was really good at it,” recalls Aped Santos.

For Gina Pareño, the movie was a comeback vehicle, having disappeared from the scene for 10 years. Why the long absence? I ask, when I visit her in her home in Parañaque. “Nagmahal eh,” she says. “Pero hindi na uso ngayon ‘yan. Pack up na ‘ko diyan.” In life as in the movie, she calls people NOV E M B E R 2016 111

“It was an indictment, at the same time a celebration of his life as a corporate man. ‘Yung touch na may confetti, buhay niya ‘yun eh.”

WEEKDAYS WITH BERNIE

By the time he did Working Girls, the word about Bernal has made the rounds and has solidified his image: he was an exacting director that had bursts of temper. No wonder the Working Girls shoot went along splendidly. “Everyone was on their toes,” says Aped Santos, art director. “Nagagalit lang naman si Bernal if you’re slow to pick up.” Behind him in this photo is associate producer William Leary.

“Mahal” and likes letting her tongue slip out of her mouth each time she says something remotely naughty. “Yung nahulog ako sa upuan sa eksena namin ni Tommy Abuel, akin ‘yon,” she says, proud to say it was an ad lib.

The director was so taken by it during rehearsals, he asked her, “Kaya mo ulitin yan?” It was Mina Aragon’s idea to get the former Sampaguita star to join the cast. “Mina thought she’s a great talent,” recalls Tony Gloria, “and that she should come back, and it would be a great comeback with Bernal. ‘Makakasundo mo yan, luka-luka yan.’ Bernal loved the idea.”

“I loved the role very much,” says Koronel, writing from the US. “I love independent women. I have been a single mother for most of my life and the stigma of Rio’s role as a pregnant woman without a husband in the workforce was a big deal in those days. You could say we were pioneers with those roles.”

Working Girls was a movie of its time. It was a period when showing a script to the Board of Censors was no longer required before a film can be greenlit for production. Filmmakers were able to pursue new topics that echoed society’s realities: the rise of the labor unions (Sister Stella L), fraternities (Batch ’81), even the role of mistresses in an extramarital affair (Relasyon). In the world of Working Girls, women knew the power of their smarts and their figures, and are unapologetic about using them to get what they want. They acknowledge a whistle from a man with a throw of hair and a “Thank you,” allowed men to caress their asses while gyrating in the disco dance floor, and wouldn’t mind throwing you a punch when they can’t just take it anymore. All these little nuances formed the fabric of the movie, little asides sprinkled throughout and at just the right moment that they never feel like heavy-handed provocations. Even the nods to the political climate of the period seemed less commentary than an occasional wink. But they were there: the “Hindi Ka Nag-Iisa” yellow sticker on the tricycle Pareño alighted from in one scene; a secretary (Zorayda Sanchez) cutting out a pile of telephone directories to make confetti; and that moment Koronel stood surrounded by cheering employees as Koko Trinidad’s character announced her promotion to senior vice president—a picture of a woman rising in a position previously only occupied by men, a foreshadowing of things to come in the Philippine government.

112 NOV E M B E R 2016

Koronel’s character, after all, had C.A. for initials.

Working Girls remains one of the best pictures Philippine cinema has produced. None of the versions that followed could hold a candle to it.

Maybe because there was the expected artificiality in the ones that came in its wake, possessed of an effort too obvious as to achieve the original’s cool.

Working Girls came from a very real place. “I think my father meant it to be an indictment, at the same time a celebration of his life as a corporate man. He liked banking because it was his job and it made money for him, pero meron talaga siyang populist streak eh,” says the writer’s son Sarge who was 14 at the time the movie was made. “’Yung touch na may confetti? Buhay niya yun eh. He was on the 11th floor of the Prudential Bank building in Ayala Avenue. Bababa siya, magra-rally, mati-teargas siya, babalik siya sa trabaho.” The movie was a big turning point in the Lacuesta household. It was the beginning of a new life, a turning back from the family’s comfortable upper middle class lifestyles which writing for movies might not be able to afford. Amado got hooked into writing, and soon left banking altogether. In the following years, he would make many more films: Balweg, Mumbaki, Segurista, and three with Bernal, Hinugot Sa Langit, Working Girls 2 and the “Pridyider” episode for the first Shake, Rattle and Roll. When Bernal died in 1986, Lacuesta was devastated. At the wake at UP, “he was a wreck,” Sarge recalls. “Laki ng respeto ng dad ko kay Ishma.”

Amado would go back to banking after a few years. On New Year’s Day of 1997, he died of a heart attack while on vacation with family in Baguio.

“It’s the movies that killed him,” says Sarge, two Negronis in and maybe half-joking. “If he never left banking, if he never met Ishma. . .” He would never have made Working Girls. He would never have enjoyed the new worlds that movies kept opening for him. “Ignorance must have been bliss.

But then again he wouldn’t be so happy.” Of all the films his father wrote, it is Working Girls that really got stuck to the name Amado Lacuesta Jr. “Hindi ko alam kung bakit. Siguro kasi ‘yan ang Almodovar natin eh. Sex comedy where everything is light, and you’re entertained and at the same time laki ng nakikita mo sa Pinoy,” says Sarge. “It’s so Pinoy. And unapologetic. It talked about the upper middle class, the white collar workers, without ever feeling false . . . Working Girls was a great moment for us as a family and for him as a writer, as an artist. It was his personal beauty.”

Joel Lamangan played the Ayala Avenue pimp to Maria Isabel Lopez and two other “business girls.” His gem of a line: “Day, ha ang kita nila tax free. At walang withholding tax. Holding lang.”

Bernal in his element, directing his actors on the sidewalk of Salcedo Village, half of which was made up of empty lots in 1984.

Character actors Raoul Aragon, who played the probinsiyano bank VP, and Jaime Fabregas.

Koko Trinidad played the role of president of the fictional Premium Bank. One of the great achievements of Working Girls was how it was able to create the feel of a real boardroom conference.

the force awakens In its hysterical sendup of the indie film community’s quirks and quibbles, Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank earned international acclaim and became a box-office success. Could its sequel, a parody of the rom-com genre, give its predecessor a run for its money? C H R I S M A R T I N E Z gives Rogue a taste of love Septic-style Illustration by Joshua Argosino

EUGENE DOMINGO IS BACK as “Eugene Domingo” in this follow-up to the independent box-office hit movie, Ang Babae sa Septic Tank. Together with her director/writer (Rainier), her line producer (Jocelyn) and their rookie production assistant (Lennon), Eugene prepares for her comeback vehicle after a long sabbatical from moviemaking. Rainier proposes “The Itinerary,” a heartbreaking anatomy of a crumbling marriage as told through a couple’s trip to Baguio. Eugene Domingo is excited by the project but she has other ideas in mind. In the film-within-the-film, we see Eugene’s absurd suggestions and recommendations—changing Rainier’s script by employing the poetics of the Pinoy romantic comedy genre into what is supposedly a realistic portrayal of love and marriage.

EXT. Breakfast table. Day.

Eugene, Rainier, Jocelyn and Lennon have a healthy, organic breakfast. Facundo is on standby mode nearby.

RAINIER Yun lang, matakaw.

EUGENE DOMINGO This is so good! You know, everything here is organic. Handpicked, handmade, farmto-table. Guilt-free kaya kain lang nang kain.

EUGENE DOMINGO Pero okay lang. Very efficient naman ‘yang si Facundo. Bukod sa may kasabay ako mag-crossfit, napa-practice ko pa ang Spanish ko. Atsaka iba ang datingan ng cross cultural ang help, effective for ultimate intimidation purposes, alam n’yo na.

Jocelyn puts a lot of salt on her food—finding it very bland.

RAINIER Malaki siguro ang TF niya sa inyo.

JOCELYN Ang sarap nga po, Miss Uge. Wala bang pepper?

EUGENE DOMINGO (In Spanish.) Facundo. Can you ask for some freshly ground pepper?

FACUNDO (In Spanish.) Yes, Miss Uge. Facundo leaves. Jocelyn looks at Facundo as he leaves.

EUGENE DOMINGO Maybe you are wondering kung ano ‘yang si Facundo. Or maybe not.

JOCELYN Brazilian po ba siya? Spanish. Aaah.

EUGENE DOMINGO During my self-imposed sabbatical from showbusiness, na-meet ko siya sa Salamanca sa Spain when I was taking Spanish language courses sa Instituto. Concierge siya ng hotel where I was staying in. E, machika atsaka charming atsaka hindi naman masakit sa mata. Do you agree, Jocelyn?

JOCELYN Pwede nga po mag-artista.

EUGENE DOMINGO So, sabi ko do you want to go the Philippines with me? Excited naman siya. Sabi ko I need a butler slash driver slash bodyguard slash dog walker slash fitspiration. Pumayag naman siya. Magwa-one year na siya sa ‘kin.

Can you believe that?

EUGENE DOMINGO Okay lang. Hindi naman. Sapat lang. But he is happy here. I mean, with the continuous decline of the Euro and the economy of Spain slowly but steadily going down, I can’t take it against him if he doesn’t mind, you know, the irony of it all.

RAINIER Irony of what?

EUGENE DOMINGO The irony of—ang dating conquistadores nagsisilbi sa ating mga indio.

She laughs heartily. Rainier and the others try to laugh also. Facundo comes in with a peppermill.

(To Facundo. In Spanish.) Facundo, you should put a lot of pepper on this woman’s salad. I don’t think she likes the food here. She is not used to it.

FACUNDO (In Spanish. Grinning.) Poor girl. We will be having more of the same for lunch.

JOCELYN Ano raw po, Miss Uge? EUGENE DOMINGO Sabi niya, masarap daw ang lunch natin mamaya.

O, buweno, buweno. After this, naka-schedule na tayo for a body scrub, deep-tissue massage, chlorophyll body wrap...

RAINIER Don’t you want to talk about the script, Miss Uge? EUGENE DOMINGO We have the whole day, direk, the whole day!

RAINIER E, di okay!

EUGENE DOMINGO Malakas lang kumain. He can finish a whole chicken in one sitting. Imagine, a whole two-legged animal in one meal.

EUGENE DOMINGO Kung ayaw mo naman ng ganun, direk.

Kung masyadong mababaw para sa ‘yo ‘yun... we can go deeper, you know. Pwede tayong humugot nang mas malalim. Hugot Level 2. Hugot sa utak.

Ito ‘yung tipo ng hugot na nakaka-what the fuck?!

Parang “ano raw?! Pakiulit?” Kasi may pagkacryptic. May pagka-deep. Hugot nga, e. Hindi lang masakit sa puso pati sa utak masakit, e. Kaya ‘yung audience kailangan nilang panoorin ulit kasi parang nakurta ‘yung utak nila. O, di ba? Gusto natin ‘yun? Repeat audience? Ang findings ko sa ganitong hugot, dinedeliver ito nang nakatingin sa kawalan. Lost. Lito. Tuliro. Para bang ‘yung character mismo hindi rin niya naintindihan ‘yung sinabi niya. Pero, direk, kailangan quotable.

Always quotable.

INT. Steam bath area. Day. The group is mesmerized by Eugene’s passionate delivery of her treatise.

INT. Hotel restaurant. Night.

Eugene as Romina and Jericho as Cesar deliver their lines facing each other but “looking away” from each other. They seem baffled by their own dialogue.

EUGENE DOMINGO AS ROMINA Walang nagmahal na hindi nasaktan. Walang hindi nasaktan na nagmahal. Minsan, iniisip ko: Nasaktan ba ako dahil nagmahal ako? O hindi ako nagmahal dahil nasaktan ako? O baka hindi lang ako talaga minahal kaya ako nasaktan?

JERICHO ROSALES AS CESAR (Nalilito.) Pakiulit?

EUGENE DOMINGO AS ROMINA Walang nagmahal na hindi nasaktan. Walang hindi nasaktan na nagmahal. Minsan, iniisip ko: Nasaktan ba ako dahil nagmahal ako? O hindi ako nagmahal dahil nasaktan ako? O baka hindi mo lang ako talaga minahal kaya ako nasaktan?

JERICHO ROSALES AS CESAR One last? Again please, Romina?

EUGENE DOMINGO AS ROMINA Walang nagmahal na hindi nasaktan. Walang hindi nasaktan na nagmahal. Minsan, iniisip ko: Nasaktan ba ako dahil nagmahal ako? O hindi ako nagmahal dahil nasaktan ako? O baka hindi mo lang talaga ako minahal kaya ako nasaktan?

JERICHO ROSALES AS CESAR (Teary eyed.) Litong lito na ako, Romina. Hindi ko alam ang sagot.

EUGENE DOMINGO AS ROMINA (Teary eyed.) Ako rin, Cesar. Ako rin.

They start to sob.

When it comes to a lopsided fight over jurisdiction, a small symbolic gesture can lead to the grandest concrete gain.

CRISELDA YABES recalls her time on a Philippine Navy flagship just off ff the Batanes island of Mavulis as the challenge to our territorial waters played out on a new frontier 116 NOV E M B E R 2016

CLAIMING IT

Raising the flag in Mavulis Island last April. There were indications in the past that the Taiwanese might try to claim it the way China did the Spratlys. Mavulis stands by the Bashi channel, gateway to the Pacific Ocean in the East.

Photograph by Kurt G. Ibañes NOV E M B E R 2016 117

From the ship,

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to announce to the world out there, our fellow littoral states, that we too could have what it takes.

Off ff Batanes, the water was shaky but not forceful, the weather good enough in these parts of the archipelago. Strange then that I had to battle against seasickness, of all the times that I had been on a few of our rundown patrol craft to distant seas, it had to happen on board the Alcaraz. The Alcarazz is the second coast guard cutter purchased from America and refurbished nickel to a flagship for the Philippine Navy, following the line of Gregorio del Pilar. Next one to come is the Andres Bonifacio, slowly building up a fleet from what had been a pathetic junkyard of war-era naval ships. The new flagships are the best we’ve got.

There it was, the Alcarazz gleaming at sea, and I had to ask for a barf bag. Because of that, Bim struck me off ff the list of passengers joining the general to plant the flag on Mavulis, to where they swung over on Zodiac rubber boats. You’re not going, he said on seeing my state, and that was that. Mon was ready to go; give me your dry bag, he said to me. Hurriedly I did so he could use it for his camera to shoot the scene. Angelo decided to stay behind, pulling me up to the bridge where the wind dispelled my dizziness and where I lay my jacket on the gray metal floor to nap.

We’d been together before, down south

where the true action was. In Sulu, Bim was the marine battalion commander who built a replica of the Astana in his camp for the sake of peace with our Muslim brethren. Angelo brought in his Klasrums Ng Pag-Asa for the poor communities, getting his network of well-meaning friends from Manila to pitch in. He’s the kind of guy who could move and shake things, the maker of dreams. Mon was the photographer with a heart for the schoolchildren, hauling in for them tons of notebooks and pencils. We were together in the south, once, at a time when we were hoping to shift the sad and violent history of Sulu, because it was from that vantage point that we understood the waywardness of our nation.

It was from below looking up, rather than up looking down. It was by a twist of fate that the archipelago of Sulu was added on to the bigger archipelago state of Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, in the early 20th century. It is in the south where you will love the water, touch the silkiness of it, flow with the mystery of the past. It was here where the seas had made the sultanates great, the rivers, the lakes that had made civilization so powerful that Visayas and Luzon had cowed in fear. Alas, it was the water that divided us, like a curse cutting off ff land to keep us apart, from being one. That spelled the wars in the

YOU’RE NOT WELCOME

Itbayat is the last inhabited island of Batanes, with a very small population that prefers to keep foreigners away. The last time they saw soldiers was in 1969 when Ferdinand Marcos was running for president.

KURT G. IBAÑES

we watched the dots scaling the sharp peak of a hill in the middle of nowhere. They were green, like the patches of grass on a faraway island up north. Mostly soldiers led by a three-star general who wasn’t sure this was going to work, but he had to go just the same, his men had rehearsed this for him to do the honor, para sa bayan. To this the way they had seen it in the pictures of Iwo Jima during the war, foisting the flag on the rocky top, the red-white-and-blue fluttering against the mad wind.

We waited until there it was, flying, sending out a wave of pride. The crew on the deck stood still, singing the national anthem. I heard them humming lupang hinirang, duyan ka ng magiting … from below the bridge, their voices ringing with emotion, choking up tears.

It took so much logistical work to do this, flying high up to the north of Batanes on the newly acquired C-295 cargo plane. The airstrip was short but we made it. The pilots were proud, as were we, snapping up far too many selfies with them. We had landed on the isolated island of Itbayat, the last town of Batanes, pretty rustic, a landscape of meadows and a single road twirling the coast. From there, we were on our own to do this flag-raising thing.

We had to take the wobbly fishermen’s boats, called faluwa, deeper and wider than the bancas, shaped like sabots, heaving up and down on the sharp waves hitting the stone shore. In pitch black one early morning, we bundled up for the ride before daylight caught us, hopping onto the boat on the rhythm of a drunken captain who h fficer godly S na rea y ka na? Sige, sige, talon na!

We were like refugees packed for a treacherous escape. We murmured prayers when we reached, about half an hour later, the ship moored at sea and waiting for us. The ordeal wasn’t quite over yet. One by one, we had to balance our steps on the Jacob’s ladder and that was as good as climbing a circus trapeze. But by the class of the ship, we were in good hands: we were on board the second flagship, the BRP Ramon Alcaraz. Our destination was a forsaken, uninhabited island called Mavulis that you might not find in some maps, but the GPS will do it for you. Yes, that was our destination for the flag-raising event in the middle of nowhere,

ALL HANDS ON DECK

The Nimitz-class aircraft carriers USS John C. Stennis and USS Ronald Reagan, conducting dual aircraft carrier strike group operations in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.

GETTY IMAGES AG

Thegeneralsaidtothem, they’vegottoknowtheir fishing rights,theboundarybetween our territoryandtheothers.

They’vegottoknowwhatis ours

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Beijing Evening newspapers display Chinese naval fleet exercises. President Xi Jing has proclaimed the South China Sea as Chinese territory, despite the tribunal atThe Hague.

south, and we can’t decide whether the smaller archipelago of Sulu would be better off ff on its own. We stuck to terrain, internal, insular that we have become, forgetting to look further out, the spread of our maritime wealth.

I have no name for the water up north, it is figuratively calmer than the south. Here it is peaceful. It is a mass of silver, a view that had me thinking about my souvenir of voyages elsewhere. Gazing down at the wharf, this hidden beauty of Batanes was a bright feature of our diversity. Not many can come this way, the water turning rough in the monsoon season of amihan between November and January. The Alcaraz was there on the horizon, a gray figure in a sheet of sparkling gray, like a toy left alone for a child to discover. On the sloping snake path to the wharf, the colorful Ivatan Dory boats hugged each other; in other coastal provinces the bancas would do the same, parked on the beach, each boat with a name, each story similar of the fate befallen on the small neglected heroes of our seas. Itbayat has little else but the bounty of the water. There is nothing here but the strength of the stone houses, an island so independent, they keep strangers at bay. The last time they had seen soldiers come this far out was in 1969, landing in choppers, bearing machine guns in one hand and poll boxes on the other to make a potential dictator win the election.

Now the three-star general has told them the army would help build a fishermen’s outpost in Mavulis where there is no shelter, no cove, no freshwater even. It takes three or four hours by their boats to get here from Itbayat, and some time ago they ran into foreign poachers on much bigger boats. Could be those from Taiwan NOV E M B E R 2016 119

120 NOV E M B E R 2016

GETTY IMAGES

so close by at the tip, a country that might grab Mavulis too, the way rocks in the Spratlys are being taken. The general has said to them, they’ve got to know their fishing rights, the boundary between our territory and the others.

They’ve got to know what is ours.

It would have been a totally different story had the general planted the flag on Scarborough Shoal, to the northwest of Luzon. If he had done that, it would have been brave of him but it would have caused serious consequences for geopolitics, if not the start of a war itself. It is in Scarborough Shoal where all eyes are watching, a mere rock that the Chinese have controlled for their grand maritime utopia of the South China Sea. It’s a heartbeat away from Luzon, which houses our major military bases, our capital. Our flagships would be lost to China if a war were to start, and the battlefield we have chosen was the legal front seeking our rights in the international court of arbitration deciding on the law of the sea.

Our Mavulis adventure was a call for patriotism, symbolizing what we have to do about sovereignty, and that is exactly what it was. Th gnor iers h to the st b flow rd wh the he P Pacific Ocean, where by the eastern flank of Luzon lies our new untapped underwater territory called the Benham Rise. That huge glob of water, for sure, is ours. The United Nations has given us the blessing of our extended continental shelf.

More than two months after our trip to Batanes in late April, the ruling from the tribunal in The Hague gave us a victory that exceeded our expectations. From now on we know what is ours in the contention over the rocks to our western flank, in the Spratlys.

One of the few inhabited rocks out there is Pag-Asa, from which Angelo’s civic venture of building the prefabricated schools originated, the klasrumss that carried on the mission to other provinces in dire need. Bim had once got me on board the Navy’s Islander on a logistical run for a limited three-hour visit on the “rock” known as Thitu on the international map. There I saw the schoolchildren’s dream of becoming coast guards, emulating their teachers who were the young men of the lean Philippine Coast Guard team stationed there.

Mon delivered the goods for the schools in Palawan, the umbrella stick island jutting off Luzon sideways, the sentinel from where we run 200 nautical miles off ff the long, vertical

GHOST SHIP

The Sierra Madre, which bides in the Ayungin Shoal near the Spratly Islands, is both a former U.S. tank landing ship and, despite its condition, one of the Philippines’ outposts against China.

s line a thu Philippine Sea. Th

l said C

C in Sea, adding to it a stinging rebuke for having dredged up precious corals for the construction of artificial islands over the rocks and reefs for their menacing military installations.

Scarborough Shoal was the only concession given in the decision. China could fish in the territorial waters defined by rights of tradition, the tribunal said. On the map it has been with us since the Spanish colonial years, but we lost it to China in an incident involving fishermen in 2012; since then they have been shooing away the local fishers with the force of water cannons. Scarborough— Panatag on our map—was the fishing ground of the folks from its nearest coastal town in Masinloc.

They have lost their lifeline to food and livelihood and it was there where Bim’s sister Sheila and her husband Noel had their attempt at helping out the communities through medical care and other outreach efforts. ff Angelo, Mon, and other likeminded friends got on board. Boats were donated to the fishermen who had been ruined by water cannons from the Chinese coast guard dispersing them. Their children made paper boats of peace for a water parade. The connection amongst them bore the partnership between the military and the local population, an undertaking that was duplicated in Batanes, and later, to other islands that have drifted out of care by the local government.

In Mavulis, we have got a small corner of our archipelago waving the Philippine flag. This brings to mind a small anecdote by the captain of Gregorio del Pilar, r the first flagship that left the Scarborough Shoal in humiliation in the scuffle against the Chinese coast guard in 2012, the impasse which in turn led the government to lodge the arbitration case, playing the last card in its hand.

The captain got teary telling me how, in one voyage through the Malacca Strait, other vessels coursing through had Filipino seamen in their crew. They’d seen the Philippine flag on the mast, was it real? Could it be that we finally had a flagship sailing at speed among others? It wasn’t much compared to what neighbors had in their fleet, but there it was. The radio in the pilothouse cackled with queries. Yes, it is a Philippine ship.

The voice, sentimental as it were, said to the captain, Sir, proud…. Only we could know what it means to have a fellow countryman out there at sea say the word, proud.

And now the world is looking upon us, the underdog that slew a giant without firing a shot from any boat. The Hague’s decision handed down on July 12 may well be our historic moment that we had not felt in a very long time. Time now to look beyond our shores, to love our waters.

NOV E M B E R 2016 121

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FAMOUS ROGUE

a quarter of a century since the legendary auteur passed on, yet his exit still feels fresh. With films such as Orapronobis, Macho Dancer, and his magnum opus Maynila Sa Kuko Ng Liwanag, Lino Brocka stood for the downtrodden everyman, tackling topics that were considered taboo during his time, from homosexuality to oppression and violence. One wouldn’t be wrong to say that Brocka’s creative energies were dreaded by the Marcos regime—case in point, his film Bayan Ko, whose footage of actual demonstrations forced the hand of the administration to prevent the movie from being screened locally. And though efforts were made to censor and imprison him, Brocka could not be silenced, continuing his fight for social justice even after the People Power Revolution, until his untimely death by car accident in 1991. In this political climate, he is sorely missed. And though there are a handful of filmmakers today who attempt to depict the Philippine condition in all its sordid grit, none could match Brocka who, with his unwavering eye, gazed into the abyss and didn’t so much as flinch.

IT HAS BEEN

IMAGE FROM THE FDCP EXHIBIT “LINO BROCKA: CITIZEN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA”

LINO BROCKA, filmmaker