Not your usual award-giving body

Gawad Direk, organized by the Directors’ Guild of the Philippines, Inc. (DGPI), is not your usual award-giving body that’s a dime a dozen these days.

To begin with, it is held every two years. And then, there’s no suspense element here. The list of winners is announced way ahead of the awards night and the recipients are pillars of the local movie industry.

This is the second time that the DGPI is handing out the Gawad Direk. The first time around, the winners were Emmanuel Borlaza, the late Luciano Carlos, Celso Ad. Castillo, Eddie Romero and the industry’s much-loved and now much-missed Fernando Poe Jr.

On Friday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m., at the Henry Lee Irwin Theater of the Ateneo de Manila, Gawad Direk will honor a new set of winners. The recipients this time are Augusto Buenaventura, Dolphy, Eddie Garcia, Gloria Romero, Rosa Rosal and Armida Siguion-Reyna.

The 2nd Gawad Direk will be covered for television by Mr. Antonio Tuviera’s APT Entertainment and will be aired over Channel 9 on Nov. 26.

As always, APT Entertainment is doing everything within its means to make this affair as successful as possible. (I am familiar with how they work because this production group has been producing the Gawad Urian since 2002 and the finicky members of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino have been very happy and extremely satisfied with their output year after year. Over the weekend, I was asked by APT’s Malou Choa Fagar to do a VTR testimonial for Rosa Rosal. (I would have also wanted to do one for Gloria Romero, but they asked Marichu Maceda, another person dear to me, to do the honors and rightly so – Manay Ichu being a Vera Perez, the family that owns Sampaguita Pictures, which turned Tita Glo into the movie queen that she still is today.)

Usually for VTRs, a cameraman and a production assistant are sent over to where the interviewee is and that’s it. The process is that simple. But not with APT Enterprises, which can make the people covering the Oscar Awards shop with insecurity when it comes to preparations.

For a VTR feature, I was made to drive all the way to the APT studios at the posh Central Business Park in Manggahan, Pasig. Since I wasn’t familiar with the location, Malou Fagar and Peachy Salvador made sure I didn’t get lost by faxing me a sketch of the place and, later, even sent me a back up copy through Joey de Leon (imagine making a messenger out of the Joey de Leon). Even if I was going to wade though unfamiliar territories, I didn’t resent it at all (the whiner that I am) because everything was systematic and in order.

During the shoot itself, I got so impressed because – for heaven’s sake–this is just for a VTR and the studio was like a sound stage in Hollywood – with state-of-the-art equipment. And they had a whole crew on standby – as in a whole crew. Calling the shots was no less than Ruel Bayani, a film director who has also done some great episodes for Maalaala Mo Kaya and other drama anthologies.

On the set, I was first asked to deliver spiels written by Noel Ferrer. Then came my favorite part: Talking about the Rosa Rosal. For several minutes there, I found myself not thinking from my head, but speaking from the heart. Everything just flowed – straight from the heart – as I talked about Rosa Rosal as an actress, as a humanitarian and as my "mother" (don’t you notice our mestizo resemblance? – Ha-ha-ha!).

It’s just too bad that they can’t use everything I said because that would have taken up the whole show – although I was kidding Ruel Bayani that I was willing to pay for the airtime so that they could air the whole thing.

Now that I’ve done my VTR shoot, I can’t wait for the actual presentation this Friday. Meanwhile, the APT Enterprises staff members are scrambling to get old film clips from the movies of the honorees. Since our archival system is such a mess in this country, I appeal to those who have acess to these materials to please extend whatever help you can to make the Gawad Direk a truly successful affair – for the sake of this year’s winners. After contributing so much to the local film industry, they deserve nothing but the best on the night they are honored for their outstanding achievements in Philippine movies.