Nang mawala ka sa akin, ikaw at ako’y nawalan:
ako dahil ikaw ang minahal ko ng lubusan
at ikaw dahil ako ang sa iyo’y lubusang nagmahal.
Ngunit sa dalawa ay ikaw ang higit na nawalan:
dahil puwede kong mahalin ang iba tulad nang pagmamahal ko sa iyo
ngunit ika’y di mamahalin tulad nang kung paano kita minahal.
*Filipino translation of some lines from Epigramas by Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal. Filched from Berso sa Metro, LRT 2.
I practically had to sell my soul to the Leviathan just so I could have a break from work. They gave me seven months, for which they are getting two years of return service from me. They had me for a [bubble-gum-pop] song.
Wish I had a lot of money so I could buy my freedom back. I hate being poor. Then I hear how some people spend money like it’s nothing.
Florida billionaire William Koch, for example, bought the only authenticated photograph of infamous Wild West gunslinger Billy the Kid for $2.3 million. The metallic photo, taken in late 1879 or early 1880, depicts the outlaw gripping the upright barrel of a Winchester carbine, with a Colt 45 pistol strapped to his hip. Koch, who loves the old West, says he forked over a “tiny” fraction of his millions to “just enjoy” the tintype piece.
Meanwhile, Marilyn Monroe‘s iconic “subway dress” from the 1955 movie “The Seven Year Itch,” fetched a record-breaking $5.52 million at an auction last June. According to Auctioneer Profiles in History, the previous costume sales record was held by Audrey Hepburn‘s celebrated little black dress from the 1961 film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” which sold for $923,187.
I’ve been hanging with rich kids the three months past. One’s a princess whose idea of stress relief is a weekend getaway in Hong Kong. The other’s a heartthrob whose family friends include law school deans, law firm associates, and trial court judges. You get the picture.
But these are also smart, nice, funny, hardworking, down-to-earth kids. Bleeding hearts too—they’re the first to offer help when you ask for it. Or even when you don’t. They’re not at all obnoxious and stuck-up.
And they make me see a tiny shred of dignity in my poverty.
Kanina sa FX, katabi ko sa gitnang upuan ang isang binata. Batay sa kanyang suot na uniporme—green na pantalon at puting polo—mukhang sa FEU nag-aaral. Pagkaupo pa lang, inabot na agad ang kanyang pamasahe sa driver, kinuha ang cellphone, at may tinawagan:
“Babes, andito na ako sa FX. Kasasakay ko lang. Nasa gitna ako nakaupo.
“May kasasakay din lang sa unahan, pero dalawa pa ang kulang sa likod.
“Umaandar na ang FX, babes. Papaalis na kami.
“Papalabas na kami ng parking lot.
“Nasa tapat na kami ng SM Main.
“Lumiliko na kami sa EDSA.
“Babes, nasa tapat kami ng billboard ni KC.
“Ma-traffic, babes, napapagitnaan kami ng dalawang bus. Tapos may nakatutok pa sa aming Honda Civic.
“Kumanan kami sa Quezon Avenue. May ginagawang bagong building sa kanto.
“Nadaanan namin yung Hi-Top.
“Nakatigil kami ngayon sa tapat ng Crossings.
“Malapit na kami sa Delta.
“Grabe ang traffic dito sa Araneta, babes, sinisimulan na kasing gawin yung underpass. Naghuhukay na sila.
“Dumaan kami sa Total. Nagpa-gasolina si Manong.
“Ano yun, babes? Dumating na ang service mo?
“Ilang minuto bago kita tawagan ulit?
“Five minutes? Ten?
“Around 20? Tagal naman nun, babes.
“Sige, babes, pero hawakan mo lang phone mo, ha?
“Hawakan mo lang phone mo, para marinig mo agad ang tawag ko.
“Sabi ko hawakan mo lang phone mo, huwag mong ilalagay sa bag mo.
“Hawakan mo lang phone mo. Hawa—.”
Tiningnan nang binata ang kanyang telepono. Wala na ang kanyang kausap sa kabilang linya. Tahimik sa loob ng FX. Eksaktong pagkalipas ng 20 minuto, kinuha muli ng binata ang kanyang cellphone at tumawag:
“Babes, nasa service ka na?
“Talaga, nasa Guadalupe na kayo.
“Kami nasa harap na ng UST. As usual, medyo traffic.
“Kakaliwa na kami sa Morayta.
“Andito na kami sa FEU, babes. Pababa na ako.”
Naniniwala ako na isa sa pinakamahalagang bahagi nang maayos na pagmamahalan ay ang pagkakaroon ng tapat at bukas na komunikasyon. Dapat laging nag-uusap upang maiwasan ang hindi pagkakaunawaan. Hindi maganda ang naglilihim sa isa’t isa.
Kaya ayokong maghusga pero sa tingin ko, kung si boypren ay masyado nang madetalye sa lagay ng trapiko sa kalsada, dapat na sigurong mag-isip si girlpren. Saan ba hahantong ang kanilang relasyon? Gusto nga ba talaga syang pakasalan ni boypren? O gusto lamang siyang pagpraktisan ni boypren sa pangarap nito na maging MMDA Traffic Angel?
At hindi ko pa rin hinuhusgahan ang sinuman pero ito marahil ang tamang tanong: Talaga nga kayang may kausap si Kuya kanina?
First, film actor/director Ricky Rivero (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/14518/990am-actor-director-ricky-rivero-survives-stabbing-attack). Then call center human resources staff Maria Lisa Dominguez (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/16310/call-center-employee-stabbed-dead-in-rented-home-facebook-boyfriend-sought).
Both Rivero and Dominguez went on a friend-shopping spree on Facebook. Which led to both of them getting stabbed more than 25 times. But, between them, Rivero is somehow luckier: he’s still alive and his assailant is now in detention. Dominguez was already dead when she was found and her lover got away.
Surely, there are life lessons to be learned here. But I smell tort. It’s a stretch, I know, but Facebook is out there, conveniently offering countless and endless possibilities for interaction and interconnection it’s almost futile to resist. In the process, some users get stabbed while Mark Zuckerberg gets richer by the minute. So now how to acquire jurisdiction over Zuck and dip our fingers into his still growing $6-billion net worth?
Hmm, consider incidents facilitated by Facebook a crime against humanity? Techies, after all, are already familiar with the concept of a crime with similar stature in international law – piracy. Now I’m not sure anymore where I’m going with this bad analogy.
By the time I looked up, the two men had already jumped off the jeep. But I remember one wearing black sando and torn jeans, the other orange hooded sweatshirts and board shorts. They were being chased by an angry indictment: “Mga mandurukot! Hindi na nahiya! Mga mandurukot!”
There was an eruption of violent, furious, shocked voices when I took off my earphones:
“Naku, sa suot pa lang, naghinala na kaagad ako sa dalawang iyon!”
“Makikita mo naman sa mukha at ayos, parang labas-pasok sa kulungan!”
“Hindi mo ba napansin kanina pa kita tinititigan?”
“Kaya pala ang likot noong nasa kaliwa ko. Akala ko kumukuha lang ng pamasahe sa bulsa nya.”
“Ay naku, kung ako yun, sampal at sipa ang inabot nila sa akin!”
“Bubugbugin ko ang mga hayop na iyon!”
“May dala ako ditong tubo, nagamit sana!”
“Gusto ko nang sabihin na dinudukutan ka kaya lang baka may panaksak!”
“Oo nga, nakakatakot, baka manaksak!”
“Syempre handang pumatay ang mga iyon!”
“Pero noong makita ko na wala namang hawak, naku, talagang hindi ko na napigilan na sumigaw!”
“O, tingnan mo, takot din ang mga walanghiya! Ang bilis bumaba!”
“Pero uy hindi ko naisip na kasama nya pala yung nasa kanan mo!”
“Ako rin, pero sinisiksik nya rin ako, kaya siguro hindi ko nahalata yung ginagawa nung kasama nya.”
“Nakakatakot ano? Hindi mo alam napapagitnaan ka na pala ng mga magnanakaw!”
“Dapat sa mga iyon binubugbog para matuto!”
“At ikulong, tapos huwang nang palabasin! Habambuhay na sila sa loob! Mga salot naman sila eh!”
“Samahan nila si Ivler, sabay sabay na silang mabulok sa loob!”
“Gwapo batang yun, hihi.”
“Sus, mamamatay tao naman! Adik adik pa!”
“Oo nga, sayang, hihi.”
“Anong sayang dun?”
“Ay, hihi, dapat sa kanila i-silya elektrika para hindi na makapagnakaw at makapatay ulit.”
Blissfully oblivious to this cacophony, about fifteen meters from the jeep, were the thugs walking ever so casually on the sidewalk. They even stopped by the curve for a cigarette. And, before disappearing completely, the one in orange sweatshirts had the audacity to give us a good once-over—aware and confident that we were all too cowardly to make good of our venomous threats.
That look, I thought, was the biggest insult on each and every one inside that jeep. What the thug was telling us was that they could do us harm any time, any where, any how they want to and we would do nothing about it.
He was so right. I looked out the streets for policemen. It was seven in the morning and there was no law enforcer on patrol. Little wonder, thugs these days, they don’t need anymore the cover of darkness.
Like a school of fish in a glass bowl, some 1,000 Moro men, women, and children found themselves swimming in their own blood inside the fifty-foot crater of Bud Dahu—a dormant volcanic mountain six kilometers off Jolo, the capital town and show window of Sulu Province in Mindanao.
They were caught unprepared when, from the edges atop the crater, a troop of 800 American soldiers fired down into the bowl. They fought desperately but their kris (a wavy-edge sword), hunting spears, and rifles were simply no match against the Americans’ high-caliber artillery. Some of them, including women and children, were mowed down by as many as fifty bullets while others were impaled upon bayonets. Only six survived the four-day assault.
The encounter took place more than a hundred years ago—March 5-8, 1906. The American government preferred to call it a battle—bloody and violent, yes, but a legitimate armed confrontation between the military forces and a group of lawless fanatics. US President Theodore Roosevelt even commended the American Army for “a most gallant and soldierly feat” in the fight at Mt. Dahu.
Pundits, however, were quick to point out the contrary. American literary luminary and social critic Mark Twain called the encounter a massacre, the US troops uniformed assassins, and the Moros “helpless and weapon-less savages in a hole like rats in a trap.” American historian Vic Hurley noted that, “by no stretch of the imagination could Bud Dahu be termed a ‘battle.’ The Americans troops stormed a high mountain peak crowned by fortifications to kill 1,000 Moros with a loss to themselves of twenty-one killed and seventy-three wounded! The casualty reflects the unequal nature of the battle.”
History tells us now that the victims were a community of Tausugs who fled to Bud Dahu in defiance of the American rule and occupation of Mindanao. Spain ruled the country for 333 years but the Moros never recognized its authority. The Moros isolated themselves in the southern islands of Mindanao. And when the Americans took over, they were no readier to obey the new colonizers than they were the Spaniards.
Today, the Bud Dahu bloodbath continues to inspire the Bangsamoro people in their struggle for self-determination. They invoke the same spirit in resisting the presence of American forces who have been conducting military exercises in Mindanao through the Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippine and US governments. They are still trying to make sense of the peace agreement signed by the national government and the Moro National Liberation Front exactly fifteen years ago this March.
More than one hundred years after the Bud Dahu massacre, Filipino Muslims, as Moros are called nowadays, are faced with virtually the same issues: resistance to American imperialism, the quest for peace, and the desire for self-determination.
Postscript: In 2006, the Senate declared the victims of Bud Dahu massacre “Martyrs of Freedom” and March 6 of every year Bud Dahu Day.
Former UP President Francisco Nemenzo x former Chief Justice Reynato Puno. (UPSIO File Photos)
I met Rachel fifteen years ago. We were the new hires at a monthly magazine—I as researcher, she as layout artist. Still finding our way around the company, we always found deadlines particularly hectic. We pulled a lot of all-nighters, guzzled a lot of coffee, and smoked a lot of weeds. That was how we became good friends.
Rachel was plump and pudgy, but she had a very beautiful and gentle face, the kind that easily made people trust and like her. I readily trusted and liked her. It was probably her eyes, which always seemed to glisten even when she was sad and angry. And she was sad and angry a lot. Most times, violent too.
She was married to Dan, a first-rate dickhead whom she nonetheless adored wildly and deeply. She said she had tried many times to leave him, but every time she did, she only ended up getting excited about him. By the time she was able to rein in her excitement, it was too late—she was already heavy with child. And another child. Then a few more.
Her first attempt to break it off with him was when they were still in college, they were only girlfriend and boyfriend. The exact moment she learned that he was seeing another girl, she rushed to his house to confront him. When he admitted seeing another girl, she declared that everything between them was over and turned toward the door. But Dan grabbed her arm, turned her around, pinned her against the wall, kissed her, and assaulted her chastity. Right there, in his living room, at a little past one in the afternoon. They decided to get married immediately so as to precede the birth of their first child.
Their second child was conceived after he lost his job, nine months into their marriage. To celebrate his unemployment, he went on a nightly drinking orgy with his perpetually jobless neighbors. Rachel was naturally incensed and decided to go back to her mother’s house with her first born. Her mistake was telling Dan about her decision. He screamed at her, she screamed back at him, he slapped her, he threw the china at him. Then the excitement.
Dan eventually found a new job as comptroller in a food company, where he had sexual involvement with his manager. Rachel learned about this when she surprised him with a birthday lunch at his office. They argued over it, cursing each other to the mortifying humiliation of the other woman but to the perverted delight of his co-workers. Their confrontation spinning out of control, he dragged her inside the office cold-room. Away from the prying eyes and ears of kibitzers, their screams turned into moans. She was, soon afterwards, with child again.
Anger-inspired, violence-induced excitement became a habit. Rachel was sensible enough to see the pattern but not strong enough to break it. She was tired of all the drama, this much she was sure of; but she loved Dan, and this much she was as well sure of. She slit her wrists, took pills, banged her head against the wall every time she would get pregnant again, wanting each pregnancy to be her last. Yet she stayed.
It was after the birth of their sixth child that she was forced to get a job, to help Dan support the family. She found the job at our magazine. At 24, it was her first time to earn and hold her own money. She felt empowered. She resolved to save her salary so she could take her children with her and leave Dan. For good.
On the day we launched the December issue of our magazine, Rachel was especially overwhelmed when the publisher announced the bonus we were getting. For her, it meant finally having enough money to move her children into a new apartment. She saw a new life ahead of them.
She came to work the next day still glowing with her new shot at happiness. But she complained about feeling tired and dull, thinking it was just a carryover from the magazine launch last night. She also felt queer about her stomach. When the janitress sprayed our workstation with citrus-flavored air freshener, she was unable to control herself from throwing up on the floor. I told her she looked pale and this terrified her. She recognized the signs.
Rachel left the office early that day. She never came back. I never saw her again.
Last night, the jeepney I was riding was caught beating the red light. Instead of simply issuing a traffic violation ticket, the police officer also confiscated the driver’s license, which turned out to be fake. We were asked to transfer to another jeepney. My inconvenienced co-passengers groaned and accused the police officer of being an ass. I thought he gave public service a good name.
This morning, when I boarded my jeepney to UP, guess who the driver was? I thought he would still be in detention for falsifying a public document—a crime against public interest. Or, if the police officer simply fined him, he wouldn’t have the temerity to drive again. At least not right after the night his fake license was confiscated. Now he was driving without any license at all. Or maybe with yet another fake license.
I had half a mind to go down and board another jeepney. But I was late for work. So.
The UP Film Institute is currently wedged in an age-old tug-of-war between artistic freedom and censorship. If, out there, film enthusiasts are experiencing an entirely new visual world, unimpeded by rules and conventions, here in UP, they are kept out of the cinema, while censors decide what is fit and not fit for our entertainment and moral quotients.
The culprit is an ongoing debate between the University of the Philippines and the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board over whether the UPFI falls under the jurisdiction of the regulatory board. Early this year, the MTRCB sent UP a cease-and-desist order on the grounds of complaints it received following the screening of Adolf Alix Jr.’s “Aurora”, Lav Diaz’s “Death in the Land of Encantos”, and Alejandro Bong Ramos’ “Butas”. All three films are rated X, or “not fit for public exhibition.”
The MTRCB cites Presidential Decree No. 1986, which “prohibits the public and commercial exhibition of films without permit from the Board.” Atty. Jonathan Presquito, legal counsel of the regulatory board, was quoted in news reports saying, “UPFI has to follow parameters if they claim that the films are being screened for academic purposes only, that it should be a legitimate academic exercise for students, and not for any Tom, Dick, or Harry.”
UPFI hinges its defense on academic freedom as spelled out in the 1987 Constitution and in RA 9500 or the UP Charter of 2008, as well as the understanding with former MTRCB Chair Armida Siguion-Reyna that UP and the Cultural Center of the Philippines can screen films without MTRCB permits. In a statement, UPFI argues that “academic freedom is essential to the mission of the University…that showing of films is part and parcel of its academic programs.”
On the allegations that UPFI is doing commercial exhibitions because it charges viewing fees and admits more than 50 people including non-students, Prof. Anne Marie de Guzman, director of the Institute, cites a UP Board of Regents resolution dated March 27, 2003 which states: “The Film Theater will be managed and operated by the UP Film Institute as an income-generating unit, even as it complements the viewing requirements of film students and provides alternative film programming for the UP community and the general public.”
Debate interrupted
On July 30, UPFI and MTRCB put their debate on hold for the Philippine premiere of “Kinatay”, the film which won for Brillante Mendoza the Best Director Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, at UPFI’s Cine Adarna. Mendoza, the first Filipino director to win the prestigious prize, initially refused to submit his film for review, saying he would cancel the screening if cuts were made. The MTRCB issued a preventive suspension order against UP with respect to the premiere. The tussle got nationwide coverage, and Malacañang had to intervene in negotiations. Mendoza ultimately agreed to have his oeuvre reviewed; interestingly, the MTRCB gave it not only an R-18 rating without cuts, but also a five-year permit to be shown in any outlet.
Why the seismic shift in the MTRCB’s stand on censorship? “Kinatay” is arguably a masterful exposition of the dark world of prostitution and illegal drugs. Like most other independent movies of international film festival caliber, it also contains nudity and graphic violence. Is the regulatory board re-thinking its classification policy? Or is winning a prestigious award a requirement for a film to avoid being branded unfit for public exhibition?
The day after the “Kinatay” premiere, the UPFI released a statement maintaining the position that classification and review are not mere regulation but repression. The Institute argues that its theaters—Cine Adarna, Bernal Gallery, and Videotheque—are alternative venues for veteran, emerging, mainstream, and peripheral filmmakers to showcase their work free of censorship. Prof. Eduardo Lejano, former UPFI director, says the Institute will continue to screen films which their faculty members find artistic and well-executed although the MTRCB may find them too violent or pornographic.
Cinematic studies
Consolacion Laguardia, MTRCB chair, points out that when Siguion-Reyna declared UP a censorship-free zone, she was referring to the UP Film Center and not UPFI. It must be noted, however, that UPFI is merely the resulting entity of the merger between the Film Center under the UP President’s Council on the Arts and the Film Department under the UP Diliman College of Mass Communications in 2003. The two units have since become interdependent components of the restructured UPFI—the Film Division transformed into Academic and Research Department and the Film Center into Theatre and Extension Services Division.
The Film Center was established in April 1976 as a “centralized workshop center” of cinematic studies. It conducted a series of workshops called “Cinema as Art” which consisted of lecture-demonstrations. Facilitators and resource persons included international filmmaking professionals such as Michael Haller, Gerald Lawrence, Ernest Rose, Robert Wagner, and the world-renown documentary filmmaker Don Pennebaker.
In 1984, the UP College of Mass Communication Film Department instituted a degree program called BA in Communication, major in Film and Audio-Visual Communication. The program consisted of theoretical and practical courses covering areas of planning and management, research, production, writing, performance, cinematography, directing, editing, processing, production design, criticism, and evaluation.
Beyond censorship
Beyond its crusade against censorship, the UPFI is committed “to nurturing aspiring film practitioners by providing well-rounded academic and practical training within the context of a culturally diverse and socially responsive education that the University provides.” Its curriculum encompasses all aspects of filmmaking—history, applications, discourses, creative processes, movements, and special topics.
The curriculum is based on a holistic approach. Dr. Jose Hernani David, founding director, says their faculty members—a roster of award-winning and critically-acclaimed filmmakers (documentary, short film, full length, television), production specialists, film critics, screenwriters, scriptwriters, cinematographers, musical scorers, and movie and theater performers—are well-versed in both theory and production. “We don’t follow the Western trend of ‘over specializing,’ where theory and production are separated,” he explains. “Instead, we do both production and academic writing but focus on one or the other. Students, on the other hand, need to study both aspects.”
In the ranks of the UPFI faculty are Dr. Nicanor Tiongson, founding member of the Cinemalaya Foundation Inc. and former chairperson of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino; UP Open University Chancellor Grace Alfonso, winner in the 1988 Tamtam Video Festival in Turin, Italy; Prof. Roehl Jamon, director of GMA 7’s “Unang Hirit” and the defunct “Compañero y Compañera” of ABS-CBN; Prof. Yason Banal is an internationally acclaimed artist, writer, photographer, and independent curator who has done solo and group exhibitions both here and abroad, most recently in London, Singapore, and Norway; cinematographers Nap Jamir (“Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros” and “Rizal sa Dapitan”) and Neil Daza (“Dekada ’70” and “Laro sa Baga”); short filmmakers and animators Nonoy Dadivas (editor, “Masahista”) and Teta Tulay (“One Minute Death,” 2007 Animahenasyon finalist); scriptwriter Armando “Bing” Lao (“Kinatay” and “Serbis”); and veteran actor Malou de Guzman (“Orapronobis” and “Sister Stella L”).
The UPFI’s Academic and Research Division offers a BA in Film and Audiovisual Communication—the first and only film degree in the country which, according to Ms. Olivia Linsangan Cantor, coordinator for the Academic and Research Division, reflects the emerging trends, technological development, and innovative progress in filmmaking. The Institute also offers an MA in Media Studies for film scholars, practitioners, and educators. In both programs, the goal is to mold filmmakers who are socially responsible and culturally aware of the issues and developments around them.
To complement its classroom setup, the UPFI uses alternative methods through the Theatre and Extension Services Division, which conducts workshops and training courses for young film professionals who do not have the opportunity to take the degree program. The workshops cover a broad range of areas, from basic, intermediate, and advanced scriptwriting to basic digital filmmaking, art and animation, black and white photography, sound and music design, non-linear editing, documentary production, independent film production management, and experimental film production.
Filmmaking is perhaps the most technological form of art, combining audio and visual elements in one medium to animate spellbinding images. To keep its students abreast of trends, the UPFI provides wave-of-the-future audio-visual equipment, non-linear editing suites, a black-and-white photo laboratory, an art gallery, and a film archive which houses rare film artifacts, scripts, catalogs, and publications.
Moreover, the UPFI operates its own 800-seater theater, the Cine Adarna, which is noted for its comprehensive program of film screenings, introducing cinephiles to a diverse range of filmmaking traditions. Named after a mythical bird, Cine Adarna has been a favorite venue for international, regional, national, even sectoral film festivals, such as the Cine Veritas Human Rights Celebration, Asian Visions Film Festivals, Pelikula Ek Experimental Film Festival, Pink Film Festival, French Spring Film Festival, Pelicula Spanish Film Festival, Australian Film Festival, and Celebrate Canada Film Package, among many others. For screenings that cater to small audience, usually by-invitation affairs such as the Kinatay premiere, the UPFI has a videotheque which can accommodate up to a maximum of 80 people.
Creative ambiance
But long before the UPFI came into existence, UP was already a haven for artists from various disciplines. The premium that the University has placed on freedom, creativity, and self-empowerment creates an ambiance that is conducive for faculty members and students to express their ideas through the mass media.
UP has produced filmmakers who, in turn, defined and redefined the topography of mainstream Philippine cinema. Among these filmmakers are the late National Artists for Cinema Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal, 2007 UP Alumni Association Outstanding Professional Awardee Maryo J. delos Reyes, World Studio Foundation Grand Jury Prize for Best Experimental Film winner Sari Lluch Dalena, and New York Festival for Television—Current Affairs and Social Issues gold medalist Edita Carolino-Garcia.
Today, UP continues to graduate students who are currently key players in the movie and television industries. They include directors/writers Jeffrey Jeturian (“Minsan Pa,” “Tuhog,” “Pila Balde”), Lino Cayetano (“I’ve Fallen for You”), Cathy Garcia (“You Changed My Life,” “A Very Special Love”), Joyce Bernal (“Kimmy Dora”), and Emmanuel dela Cruz (“Sarong Bangui”); and production designer Leo Abaya (“Jose Rizal,” “Kubrador,” and “Muro-Ami”).
Other alumni have gone into news and public service. They include award-winning broadcast journalists Che-Che Lazaro, Tina Monzon-Palma, Jessica Soho, David Celdran, Kara David, Karen Davila, Maki Pulido, and Abner Mercado. Some of them spent time in international news organizations such as Maria Ressa as bureau chief of CNN Jakarta and Twink Macaraig as news anchor of Asia Business News in Singapore.
Even the current toast of the tinseltown, comic ingénue Eugene Domingo, is a Dulaang UP veteran. Domingo’s first solo starrer, “Kimmy Dora,” is reaping both critical and commercial successes—a rarity at this time when the economy is on a downturn and the film studios have been releasing remakes of old materials.
And then there’s the emergence of independent cinema in which UP filmmakers are playing an important role.
Independent culture
Dr. Roland Tolentino, dean of UP Diliman College of Mass Communication, makes it clear that the UPFI does not focus on independent cinema. If Cine Adarna is screening mostly independent films these days, he says it is simply because “it is the temper of the times.”
Also, it is in the “indie” genre that UPFI students are starting to make their mark in the filmmaking industry, winning awards and citations in the Kodak Film Awards, Student Academy Awards, and Gawad CCP for Alternative Film and Video. In 1996, Corina Millado’s “Descansos” was the country’s entry in the Asian Film Festival in New York. Ten years later, Tey Clamor repeated such a feat with her “Sakdal Laya” which was the country’s official entry in the 34th Student Film Academy Awards in the US. Clamor’s animation “VIP” would later bag the Jury Prize for the 2007 Film Your Issue Competition in New York.
Faculty members and alumni, meanwhile, continue to be recognized in international film festivals, as exemplified by Kidlat Tahimik (“Mababangong Bangungot,” 1977 Berlin Film Festival), Nick Deocampo (“Oliver,” 1987 Brussels Film Festival), Raymond Red (“Anino,” 2000 Cannes International Film Festival), Jeffrey Jeturian (“Kubrador,” 2006 Moscow International Film Festival), Raya Martin (“Autohystoria,” 2007 Marseille Festival of Documentary Festival), and most recently Pepe Diokno (“Engkwentro,” 2009 Venice International Film Festival), among many others.
That Cine Adarna features mostly indie films these days may very well be a salute to the ideals that independent filmmaking promotes—imagination, creativity, reinvention, and critical thinking. These are the same values that the UPFI is trying to protect in its fight against censorship.
Dear Elizabeth 