Susan & FPJ’s Movies in UNESCO’s Memory of the World

MANILA, Philippines — One Christmas day 50 years ago, a young and beautiful Susan Roces sat in front of her tocador, her glittering tiara with a flowing white veil being fastened to her tall coiffure. She was getting married to Fernando Poe Jr., King of Philippine movies. This film clip  brought back a flood of  memories as a child growing up in the late 60s, when I was such a die-hard fan of the Queen of Philippine movies. I would quarrel with my older sister and our neighbor Nora, who both rooted for Susan’s rival, Amalia Fuentes. I would badger my mother from her teaching and domestic chores just to take me to the movie house (my hometown, Calumpit, sleepy though it was, had two—Vil-Rey and Hilardo) to see her black and white box office hits with her dashing hero, Fernando Poe, Jr.

This pre-wedding scene was a sampler of a film documentary restored by her nephew Jeffrey Sonora, who heads the FPJ Production archives, showcased along with other classic FPJ films as part of a workshop on film preservation –– precisely the goal of the recently concluded Asia Pacific Cinema Documentary Heritage Conference organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Office in Jakarta, the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), Asia Culture Center, UP Film Institute (UPFI) and Center for New Cinema at the Novotel Hotel, Quezon City. The event coincided with the celebration of World Day for Audiovisual Heritage.

“This conference highlights the importance of motion pictures in preserving our memory, especially of our cultural heritage, in particular through the form of the documentary film,” explains multi-awarded film scholar Prof. Nick Deocampo of UPFI, who served as conference director. He elaborates:

“Philippine documentary started with the first newsreel produced in 1918, beginning a long tradition in local film-making which recorded our transition from colonialism to nationalism, but through time, it has been marginalized in Philippine cinema. This event will hopefully awaken the Asia Pacific region on the primacy of the documentary as an invaluable tool in preserving national and regional film cultural heritage.”

Susan, after FPJ’s passing in 2004, fondly remembers her husband’s legacy: “Dahil mahal ni FPJ ang masang Pilipino, lahat ng tema ng kanyang pelikula, ang kanyang mga ginagampanang papel, ang kanyang sinisimbolo ay ang masang Pilipino. Malambot ang puso niya sa pangkaraniwang sundalo o pulis. Dahil sabi niya, mas makulay ang buhay nila. Sila ang talagang mga nakasuong sa panganib. Sa mga istorya na kanyang ginampanan, siya palagi ‘yung dehado.”

Jeffrey recalls the story recounted by Fernando Poe Jr., whose father, Fernando Poe Sr. lost all of his life’s work when a fire engulfed their house. The nitrates in the old reels made them volatile, so he has built refrigerated panels to store his late uncle’s collection. Film inspection and restoration entails a lot of hard work, but the outcome is its own reward. They have acquired the technology from Germany to preserve the films (originally in celluloid), that will actually transfer all the data to a digital file. “FPJ Productions is the first company in Southeast Asia to acquire this technology, which will considerably lessen the cost of preserving old films,” he shares.

During the conference, Jeffrey exhibited the restored 1975 epic, Alupihang Dagat starring  FPJ, Elizabeth Oropesa, Mary Walter, Paquito Diaz, Vic Diaz, Josephine Garcia, Yvonne Salcedo and Max Alvarado, based on the story of Pablo S. Gomez and directed by the king himself, using the name Ronwaldo Reyes. As a prelude to the screening, he showed a video presentation with a split screen to compare the old faded copy and the brilliant remastered one to the amazement of the viewers.

The golden couple who reigned as royalty of Philippine silver screen has etched their on and off-screen romance in film memory: Ang Daigdig ko’y Ikaw (1965) when they started courtship, Zamboanga (1966) when they got engaged, Perlas ng Silangan (1969), when they started married life, Mahal...Saan Ka Nanggaling Kagabi?’ (1979) and Manedyer si Kumander (1982), among numerous others, when they navigated the ups and downs of family life.

The FPJ collection, having been recognized for inclusion in the register of UNESCO’s Memory of the World (MOW) programme, will ensure that Swanie and Ronie’s movies and the lives of the characters so dear to the hearts of Filipinos depicted in them, will live on in the collective memory of humanity.