A friendly rivalry

A recent piece in the Entertainment section by fellow Star columnist Ricky Lo about my role as the scriptwriter of one of two contending Balangiga movies had many people asking me why, all of a sudden, we have two projects on the same subject at the same time–and, while I was at it, could I tell them how different my script was going to be from the other?

The short answer is, of course, I don’t know, and maybe I don’t want or need to know. We’re going to have two Balangiga movies because two film directors–Gil Portes and Chito Roño–suddenly found themselves seized by the same demon (if different financiers), and in the end it won’t matter much whose idea or whose movie came first, but just whose version is the better product, period. Both could turn out to be great, both could turn out to be awful. (And neither one of them would be truly the first Balangiga movie–a distinction that belongs to Joey Gosiengfiao’s Sunugin ang Samar, ca. 1976.)

I happened to be with Pete Lacaba–who’s writing for Chito–as a fellow panelist at the UP Writers Workshop in Baguio last month, and while we had many conversations (mostly about Mac laptops, which we both use), we didn’t dwell all that much on Balangiga, perhaps out of respect for our respective directors’ and producers’ confidences. I’m sure that, as you’d find between old colleagues and friends, none of that secrecy mattered much to us personally; as it happened, we learned about each other’s projects months ago at a private screening of the Lakas Sambayanan documentary, which Pete scripted and for which I was a resource person. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that we were working on the same thing!

We’ve both since been to Balangiga, and we’ve pretty much read the same sources. I’m ahead of Pete only in terms of a headstart, quite apart from the fact that, as Pete himself publicly acknowledges, he can be terribly slow with scripts (which isn’t necessarily the liability you might imagine it to be–it led the late Lino Brocka to give him the more serious, longer-gestating projects, while I and Ricky Lee got the quickies).

In the end, a lot will depend on the director’s vision, taste, and handling of the material. I have my hunches about what the final products of our friendly rivalry will be and how they’ll differ, but professional screenwriters understand that directors can, may, and will do with your script as they will. (And that’s the real, if not always friendly, rivalry.) You might like subtly nuanced, powerfully restrained movies, but if your director wants something that practically screams its message in the audience’s ear (never just once, but five times), then there can’t be much you can do. You give the script your best shot, then turn it over to the auteurs and the money men, with a smile and a prayer. (For the record and to be fair, Lino Brocka always did me the courtesy of running important changes past me when he could–and producing something better on the spot when he couldn’t.)

There’s a great difference between writing filmscripts for the multitudes and writing fiction for your ideal few. I think I’ve realized how I’ve reconciled both ends all these years: simply put, I write movies for no loftier purpose than to make the money that will buy me the leisure and the PowerBook to write my own stories, which I’ve often called "the movies I’ll never get to see," but which I can script, direct, shoot, and view to my heart’s content.

Here’s a wish for good luck, good writing, and good filmmaking to all!

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Sometimes I remember why I chose teaching instead of, say, going into corporate PR (for or against which, let me say, I have nothing but envy, especially very 15th and 30th of the month), and last week was one of those times.

‘Tis the season for seminar-workshops, and after putting in a flurry of appearances (and disappearances) in Baguio, Hong Kong, Romblon, and Tagaytay just over the past month, it was time for me to head for Cebu, to participate in the University of the Philippines General Education System Workshop. (Why Cebu? Because the UP System has six campuses from Baguio to Davao, and Cebu seemed a good and congenial compromise–and, heck, the Mactan beach beats the Sunken Garden anytime.)

The workshop brought together rep-resentatives and resource persons from the UP’s various campuses, and our weekend mission was to arrive at some overall consensus about the specifics of the Revitalized General Education Program or RGEP, which the administration of UP President Francisco Nemenzo has aggressively championed.

I’ve written about this a couple of times in this corner, and the long and short of it is that the UP will be giving incoming freshmen the unprecedented liberty to choose from a wide range of subjects–many of them new–for their "general education, i.e., the subjects we think every Filipino student needs to become a better student, a better person, and a better Filipino. Like many things, it’s easier said than done, and after typically impassioned and often fractious debate, the UP System now seems set to adopt the RGEP–thus the need to thresh out the details.

Just to give you an idea of what your son or daughter can expect to choose from if he or she is entering Diliman next month (Diliman voted for the RGEP ahead of the others, thus the earlier implementation), here’s a sample of the GE courses my department (English and Comparative Literature) will be offering:

Eng 1 Basic College English - Basic grammar, usage and composition skills in English;

Eng 12 World Literatures - The study of representative/landmark texts from the literatures of the world;

Eng 30 English For The Professions - Principles and uses of writing in English in the various disciplines and professions; and

Cw 10 Creative Writing For Beginners - A workshop exploring the potentials of creative writing as expression, as discipline, and as a way of thinking about the society in which we live.

Some of you will recognize English 12 as the old "English 4," with the addition of the politically-correct "s" in "literatures." For my money’s worth, this is the one course every undergraduate (and not just in UP) should take–perhaps that student’s first and last encounter with truly great minds and truly great writing: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, the Bhagavad-Gita, Cervantes, and all that jazz.

Other Diliman departments have come up with their own student-friendly (but assuredly not lightweight) versions of the old grind: one module in chemistry (in a course called "Science That Matters"–get it?) has the subtitle "My Name is Bond–Chemical Bond."

If you think that’s catchy (or corny), then you don’t have to look far to know where all that native wit is coming from. Our hideaway in Mactan was fringed by more pedestrian but certainly more interesting food places advertising "sutukil"–sugba, tuhog, kilaw, but naturally.

Unable to personally verify rumors of a Japanese nudist colony in the island across the water, some professors and I rode out for a nightcap and espied a local drama being played out in a drizzle before the perya throng. Much later that evening and well into early morning, the same posse discussed–with the cutting clarity and shameless wisdom (or stupidity) only a liberal infusion of alcohol can sometimes achieve–fundamental questions of quantum physics, literary theory, historiography, entrepreneurship, and professorial wages. One of the party, overcome with emotion, sighed: "If only our students could hear us now." Maybe. Maybe not. But I staggered back to my bed with the distinct impression that–okay, minus the beer–this was what general education was really all about.

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I was very pleased to see, in the most recent issue of the Southeast Asian Studies Bulletin, that a fellowship has been established in the name of Dr. Luisa Mallari-Hall, a colleague of ours at the English department, who died with her husband and two children in that horrible plane crash on Samal Island in Davao several years ago.

Luisa was one of our best teachers and scholars–a fine young woman who had resolved to devote her life to her studies and her family, and yet who also made time to have a cold beer (hmmm, why does that image keep cropping up?) and shoot the breeze with us. She was one of our few bona fide experts on Southeast Asia, earning her PhD in Malaysia and achieving admirable fluency in Bahasa. When she died, the loss was both personal and institutional, and it will be years before we can develop another scholar like her.

A step in that direction, however, is the Luisa Mallari fellowship for MA and PhD research in Southeast Asian studies. This fellowship will allow the grantee to do research in a Southeast Asian country other than his or her own, a comparative topic involving two or more Southeast Asian countries, or a regional theme. It is open to graduate students in the humanities or social sciences, below 40 years old. The deadline for applications is September 1, 2002, and interested parties can call or write the SEASREP Council, Manila Secretariat, at 20-F Escaler Street, Loyola Heights, 1108 Quezon City, Tel. 433-4751, e-mail seasrep@maynila.com.ph for more details.

Luisa’s family, incidentally, has donated her impressive collection of Southeast Asian literature to the UP Main Library, and we look forward to conducting the formal turnover soon.

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Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@yahoo.com..