Pope Francis, Erap in Willie Nep’s show

MANILA, Philippines - The evening we came to see Willie Nepomuceno a.ka. Willie Nep, for the nth time, he was deftly running through the routines of the impressionist magic — himself doing costume changes, putting on prosthetics and donning wigs with sleight of hand, bringing to life the icons of glitz and glam in entertainment. This night, he was highlighting the Beatles with a well-researched video narrative production. For the baby boomers in his Music Museum audience, it is a tribute to their lost youth and found wisdom that he gifts them with, in this hallowed art called mimesis, which he has mastered with such passion through time.

However, getting tired of the never-ending cycle of fiascos in the country, Willie Nep revealed that he has been thinking about retirement, seeing as how impersonating politicians has become more innervating of late.

“Noong araw, when I was doing impressions, especially politicians — not necessarily celebrities but politicians — may epekto pa eh. Nag-kakaroon ng hiya effect. Medyo tinatablan. Pero ngayon hindi na,” he rues.

A man of conscience, decency is deeply ingrained in Willie Nep, not only detesting the crooked ways of politicians, but also respecting race and gender, not making a caricature of blacks and women nor impersonating LGBTs. “I let talent speak for itself,” he avows to this writer’s better half, with whom he frequently spars on issues and views. He includes a paean to Pope Francis in the show, delivering a homily ending with I Believe the Children are our Future… (The Greatest Love of All).

As in his previous shows, daughter Frida brings the house down, having mastered her Kris Aquino sketch to perfection, with her laughter, head flips and eyeball rolls all neatly packaged to imitate the presidential sister who is always caught between a rock and a hard place, yet with her lachrymal glands in full throttle, comes out with guns a-blazing and makes a killing in the ratings game. Her take on Janet Napoles is getting tastier but her attempt on Grace Poe-Llamanzares may need more simmering.

But more than these, Willie Nep’s show is more of a soul-searching recollection, for the collective moral sense or lack of it that our people are leaving as legacy to the next generation. His latest satire on Philippine politics, Votes of the Philippines, brings to mind the Apology by Plato, which is about the trial and death of the philosopher’s teacher, Socrates. Apology, in its ancient context, meant in defense of, and in Socrates’ case, he was defending the truth, and as a consequence, his very life.

The gadfly of Greece is on the block for heeding a kind of inner voice, that first began to come to him when he was a child, always forbidding him from committing something wrong but never commanding him to do anything. “This is what deters me from being a politician,” Socrates was recalled by Plato as saying — this being the daemonion, or divine voice, or in Disney parlance, his Jiminy Cricket or conscience.

This divine voice is what becomes audible in the black and white silent movie-styled Jailhouse Rock segment that opens with Elvis and segues to the video of  the unholy trinity of Sexy, Pogi and Tanda (all under detention now) as they try to escape from their cells. The bottom line here is: God knows Hudas not pay, as Karma is sure to overtake him.

Clearly, Willie Nep is not afraid of being sentenced to drink hemlock for heeding this voice, as he presents a parallel ratings game spoofing a popular reality show, and again, we hear the voice which haunted Socrates, in the title segment of the revue, The Votes of the Philippines. Here, the participants are presidential hopefuls who belt out their political agenda through their song of choice and judged by lookalikes of apl.de.ap, Lea Salonga, Sarah Geronimo and Bamboo (the ABS-CBN show’s panel of judges). One by one, he lines up the aspirants to Malacañang, hitting hard on their hamartias, or what the Greeks call missing the mark, as they make errors in their judgment.

Socrates was condemned by the ego of Athens, despite the fact that in his youth, he served as a soldier and in his old age, as a teacher, because he told the unequivocal truth about the leaders of his city state. He chastised them for heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which they never regard or heed at all.

In all the acts staged by this master impressionist, there is this pitch for the greatest improvement of the soul, and this is going to be his legacy, with Votes of the Philippines — his latest square peg in the round hole of Philippine politics. A reprise is slated on March 20, before the voice grows silent and the votes fall short in the age-old conundrum, “Know thy self.”