While he began his filmmaking career as an indie in the 70’s, the legendary director-writer Peque Gallaga actually started as a copywriter for a big advertising company, and eventually as an instructor on drama at De La Salle University in the late 60’s. Without any formal background in drama, except for a few acting stints in student stage plays (“Only because I was mestizo,” he muses), he claims he taught himself to teach theater.
“Fortunately though, I had a very good group. In one of our classes, since walang video at that time, I bought a Super 8 movie camera, and I would shoot my actors in De La Salle, put music to it, and show it to the advertising people. So in 1969, we were already making MTVs,” the 64-year-old artist-in-residence of the University of St. La Salle-Bacolod now recalls. A father of a student, who happened to be on the board of directors of a TV station, was impressed with their “experimentations” and had them aired on TV – “Fabulous Gamboas” on Channel 13. It was thanks to Mama Ateng Osorio, one of the pioneering female directors in the country who exploited his potential by making him work with acting veterans through the program, that it came to him that there exists this rich history of Philippine cinema. It did not take long for him to fall in love with it. Martial law saw him landing his first movie project “Binhi” with Butch Perez starring Rosemary Sonora. But his personal life suffered amid the new path that his directorial career was heading. So he decided to return to Bacolod to start anew. “Because I felt that I really didn’t have much experience and that I was bluffing all that time, I was taking a lot of drugs because I was so insecure. I told my wife, let’s go back to Bacolod and begin all over again.”
In Bacolod, he became lecturer of drama yet again. Four years later, Manila beckoned, and as he decided to return, he formed his own team that included then production assistants now actors and directors Ronnie Lazaro, Joel Torre, and Cocoy Jimenez. It was upon his return that he did production design work for the late movie greats Ishmael Bernal and Lino Brocka, both major influences on his work. He particularly credits Bernal. “It was wonderful working with Ishmael Bernal. He’s one of my teachers. I learned a lot from him, not how to direct but how to be a director—from the discipline involved, to how you present yourself, to the way you approached everything about the movies, including the press.”
Also at that time, he had finished a film script that took inspiration from his provincial background – but nobody wanted it. “Nobody was buying it and Marilou Diaz Abaya told me to submit old scripts I wasn’t able to sell to this contest on experimental cinema. And I won! They asked me who I wanted to direct the script, and I said I would. And from there my career took off.” That script came alive via his magnum opus, “Oro, Plata, Mata,” now touted as one of the country’s finest cinematic experiences, which narrates the changing fortunes of a wealthy provincial family as they deal with the terrors of World War II. Twenty-five years after “Oro, Plata, Mata,” with over 40 films that critics say made him the defining figure in Philippine genre filmmaking, the question on his proudest works has to be raised. He delays a bit before saying, “I’m very grateful and proud of ‘Oro, Plata, Mata’ because everybody remembers it. In fact, I hate it already because everybody comes up to me, and says ‘I love your Oro, Plata, Mata’… but hey, it was my first hit, and I’ve done over 40 movies since. It was also flawed but it’s a classic now, so why complain?” He’s also proud of his love-and-obsession-charged 80’s films “Scorpio Nights” and “Unfaithful Wife,” as well as the historical drama “Virgin Forest” – all of which habitually appear in any certified Filipino cineaste’s best-ever films list. Gallaga has not missed out on the comedy genre as well, but he admits his brand of humor comes across strange for Filipinos. The latest one was “Pinoy/Blonde” which was his last big screen outing. While he’s been flying intermittently to Manila to do production design, make special appearances in movies, conduct workshops, Gallaga has not made a film in the last three years. As he hints that there’s no regret or rush to get out of this hiatus, it isn’t difficult to tell that he’s getting weighed down by the sorry state of the film industry. He rues, “What’s killing the movie industry is lack of imagination and lack of guts on the part of the producers. They keep playing safe, the minute they have a project, they add a lot of big names, and it spreads, story becomes weak, and it becomes a smorgasbord, because you have to put romance, comedy… That nobody is really taking a chance right now – that’s what’s terrible.” This weariness is offset by teaching and working with young people. “Even if it’s getting really, really tiring, because you give a lot of yourself, I enjoy working with and teaching young people because it’s exciting, and it makes me feel young,” says Gallaga. “You’ll never get rich with these jobs. But in directing, you find fulfillment by creating something out of nothing. In teaching, it is very satisfying to see how you’ve helped bring out something beautiful that has always been there.”
All these and more add to the “better quality of life” he is relishing in the South. He lives in Bacolod with wife Madie Dacanay, while their children are taking on related careers either here or abroad – Michelle, a former Madrigal singer-turned-rocker who’s also into alternative healing; Wanggo, a writer; Datu and Jubal who both produce commercials; and Gines, a vice-consul in Washington. He already has four grandchildren. Even as he plays with thoughts of retirement, he says that there are still movies that he wants to do and would sacrifice a lot just to do them.
One of these movies would be in the same essence as “Oro, Plata, Mata.” “It’s not a sequel and not the same people. It’s the same situation, but my interest is because it’s me years after, watching the same chemistry of people. It’s me who’s changed. Sex and violence are not important to me anymore. It’s wiser, more forgiving, and more on the self and the soul.”
When told that his return is sure to warrant great expectations, he says, “Three years ago, I was worried about coming back. I mean what would I do to make an impact? But I’m not worried about it anymore. I don’t care. When I come back, I will do what I want to do.”
