A wickedly hilarious (and patriotic) legacy
‘Kwentong Kutsero’ was a defense of the Church and its teachings on social justice, divorce, and other issues. But with the right amount of humor, the audience was both entertained and edified.
When our father’s 100th birth anniversary came around in 2015, my siblings and I wondered what we could do to honor his memory. He died at 41, in an airplane crash, and although he was always busy defending Catholic education, teaching law, crafting speeches for himself and for other people like senators and then President Ramon Magsaysay, we had next to nothing of his work in our possession. He was a serious intellectual, but our father had an artistic and creative streak that saw fruit on stage and in radio. Every Holy Week, he played St. Peter in the annual passion play, Martir sa Golgota, a Dramatic Philippines production, at the Manila Grand Opera House. He did a nightly serious commentary on DZRH, Think It Over, and a hilarious early morning one, Balitang Barbero, with his buddy, Narciso “Pim” Pimentel, Jr. He would write the script the night before, and early the next day, he and Pim had the time of their lives on air making strong moral and political points while poking fun at politicians and their foibles.
On Sunday evenings, they were again live on the air, with the gang that did Kwentong Kutsero, a popular weekly sitcom that was much anticipated by listeners. My dad’s brother Lucas Paredes played the iconic Lolo Hugo, while various other talents played Teban the kutsero, his wife Teria, and their children Celia and Junior. They were the Doblecarera family around whom the social, political, and economic issues of the day were dissected with much information thrown in, laced with wit, humor and, often, ridicule.
The writing was light and easy to understand, using humor and contemporary language that both entertained and educated the audience; and the characters were cleverly crafted to get the messages across. It is no wonder Kwentong Kutsero was a hit.
Kwentong Kutsero originated from a series of radio plays written in the late Thirties by the eminent Jesuit historian Fr. Horacio de la Costa and his friends at the Ateneo, the so-called “Mulry Boys” (the likes of my father, Jess Paredes, Jr., Leon Ma. Guerrero, Soc Rodrigo, et al), who also wrote, produced, and acted in plays for The Catholic Hour. Wrote Roberto Paterno in the four-volume collection of de la Costa’ writings, “Entertainment, though important, was secondary in the intent of these plays. The main objectives were instruction, persuasion, the message.”
The messages were heavy – a defense of the Church and its teachings on social justice, divorce, and other issues between church and state. But with the right amount of humor and the use of contemporary language, the audience was both entertained and edified.
Kwentong Kutsero went on to capture the mass radio audience long after De la Costa left the scene to pursue his studies as priest and historian. Besides my dad, I remember Narciso Pimentel, my uncle Lucas Paredes, Fidel Sicam, Tony Gozalvez, Nati Valentin, Pepe Pimentel, among others, who made the Doblecarera family and their neighbors come alive every Sunday night. I don’t remember when its run on radio ended but an attempt to revive Kwentong Kutsero on television in the Seventies did not capture the wit, intelligence and relevance of the original radio sitcom.
To his children, Dad’s radio shows were a happy but vague memory. We wondered what happened to those scripts that he was part of, but most of his radio colleagues were gone and there were no leads we could follow. Then, two years ago, on one of my visits Down Under, I got in touch with Jimmy Pimentel, the oldest son of Pim, who lived in Sydney. Now in his 80s, Jimmy filled me with stories about his father and mine and their work in radio and on stage. He said that his father had a complete set of the scripts of Dramatic Philippines plays, commentary and radio dramas they wrote and produced. When his father passed on, his mother Rita Kelly Pimentel asked another creative collaborator, Fidel Sicam, to bring the bookbound files home for safekeeping.
When I got back to Manila, I called Fidel’s daughter Agnes Sicam Caballa to ask about the scripts, but she had no idea what I was talking about. However, last August, Agnes called to say her brother had found boxes of books and documents from their father’s old house and he needed her advice on what he should keep and what could be thrown away. Looking at the contents, Agnes found 12 thick bookbound volumes of Dramatic Philippines’ scripts from the Forties and Fifties, with the name “Narciso Pimentel Jr.”, engraved on the spines.
Agnes passed on the stash to us, which my sister and I were thrilled to accept. There were six volumes of Kuwentong Kutsero, one going back to 1948, three of Balitang Barbero, and three of Oras ng Romansa for Camay Theater of the Arts. The well-preserved scripts were typed manually on newsprint and had marginal notes by the actors who used them.
The writing was smart and wickedly hilarious. Today’s media pundits don’t have anything on the wit and intelligence of these early political commentators who used biting humor, sarcasm, absurdity, and delightful wordplay that had us laughing out loud. We marveled at how relevant these scripts continue to be more than six decades after they were written.
What a thrill it was to discover our dad and his friends’ wit and humor, and their love of country in these yellowed pages of newsprint. What a legacy! So this is where our sense of humor and patriotism came from.
We knew exactly where this treasure trove should go. We contacted the Ateneo de Manila University Archives which was happy to accept the work of some of its outstanding alumni. The volumes have been dusted and fumigated, and can be accessed by historians and researchers on Philippine radio history, political satire, and popular culture.
After having survived decades in boxes, the writings of the brilliant boys of the Ateneo and their buddies in Dramatic Philippines are back home where they belong.
