Peque Gallaga, the director as mentor

Even as fresh names are taking the reins of Philippine filmdom nowadays, the senior masters never fade away. The legendary filmmaker Peque Gallaga – despite making himself scarce in the capital – continues to loom large as a guiding force to a new generation of film talents from the South.  The 64-year-old director-writer admits that he has always gravitated towards younger company, and his new barkada in Bacolod City, his hometown and base for several years now, is no exception. He is artist-in-residence at his former alma mater, St. La Salle University, from where he graduated in the 60’s with a degree in Literature.

Teaching since 1966, Gallaga holds a storied record of discovering and nurturing talents. With the current reemergence of the indie film movement, he enjoys a regular load of “homework” – his joking reference to outputs requesting critique, local film fests to judge, or projects simply wanting his moral support. All these have helped bring his role to a focus – which is, getting these young talents to recognize that they are artists. “It’s very empowering to be able to make them understand that they are artists.”

With expressive storytelling, the shifting timber of his voice and the play of facial expressions, it’s no wonder students swear that Gallaga as a teacher doesn’t lecture, but “makes drama.” Gallaga also provides hands-on training by involving students in his movies whether as set design assistants or movie extras. “I’m strict in the sense that you can’t be absent, you can’t be late, but within the class, it’s very informal. We’re like barkada,” explains Gallaga, who has been spearheading the Negros Summer Workshops for several years now. It’s an undertaking lauded for decentralizing holistic and inexpensive film training to the province and giving rise to original materials that scored citations in prestigious award-giving bodies like Bahaghari and Palanca.  Among the growing filmmaking communities in the country’s southern metropolises, Bacolod is deemed a frontrunner. Its creative synergy obviously owes much to Gallaga and his multi-faceted workshops, which also spawned the annual film awards, Crystal Piaya, which have drawn the participation of several established artists. When told what a lucky lot budding Bacolod artists are to have someone of his stature around, he says: “Bacolod people have responded also. There are a lot of artists here. Kadamo gid ya (plenty, indeed). And they are all responsible and very dynamic. They are very good at telling stories.” One of the more recent creative and collective endeavors that came out of Bacolod was last year’s Cinemalaya finalist “Ligaw Liham,” that tells the story of a letter-writing town simpleton. Shot entirely in Negros, the film tapped Negros talents for the cast and production crew, save for lead actress Karylle. Also worth noting in Bacolod is the production outfit called Produksyon Tramontina, founded by graduates of Gallaga’s workshops, that actively produces stage plays, experimental films, documentaries and workshops.

Whether he downplays his influence or not, it’s not hard to notice that in recent years, particularly if you’ve kept tabs on indie film fests, most of the regional filmmakers turning heads are Negrosanons acknowledged as Gallaga’s protegés. Gallaga feels proud to have succeeded in imparting technique.

“But for me, attitude counts more,” he points out. “In filmmaking, you don’t get a lot of money, but you get power. I tell them to stay humble and pray to God they don’t go crazy. I have experienced it, and to be crazy can be at times necessary, but they have to get out of the craziness as fast as they can.”

While he started his filmmaking career as an indie in the 70’s, Gallaga actually started as a copywriter for a big advertising company, and eventually as an instructor on drama at De La Salle University in the late 60’s. Without any formal background in drama, except for a few acting stints in student stage plays (“Only because I was mestizo,” he muses), he claims he taught himself to teach theater.

“Fortunately though, I had a very good group. In one of our classes, since walang video at that time, I bought a Super 8 movie camera, and I would shoot my actors in De La Salle, put music to it, and show it to the advertising people. So in 1969, we were already making MTVs,” he now recalls. A father of a student, who happened to be on the board of directors of a TV station, was impressed with their “experimentations” and had them aired on TV – “Fabulous Gamboas” on Channel 13. It was thanks to Mama Ateng Osorio, one of the pioneering female directors in the country who exploited his potential by making him work with acting veterans through the program, that it came to him that there exists this rich history of Philippine cinema. It did not take long for him to fall in love with it. Martial law saw him landing his first movie project “Binhi” with Butch Perez starring Rosemary Sonora. But his personal life suffered amid the new path that his directorial career was heading. So he decided to return to Bacolod to start anew.

In Bacolod, he became lecturer of drama yet again. Four years later, Manila beckoned, and as he decided to return, he formed his own team that included then production assistants now actors and directors Ronnie Lazaro, Joel Torre, and Cocoy Jimenez. It was upon his return that he did production design work for the late movie greats Ishmael Bernal and Lino Brocka, both major influences on his work.

Also at that time, he had finished a film script that took inspiration from his provincial background – but nobody wanted it. “Nobody was buying it and Marilou Diaz Abaya told me to submit old scripts I wasn’t able to sell to this contest on experimental cinema. And I won! They asked me who I wanted to direct the script, and I said I would. And from there my career took off.” That script came alive via his magnum opus, “Oro, Plata, Mata,” now touted as one of the country’s finest cinematic experiences, which narrates the changing fortunes of a wealthy provincial family as they deal with the terrors of World War II. Twenty-five years after “Oro, Plata, Mata,” with over 40 films that critics say made him the defining figure in Philippine genre filmmaking, the question on his proudest works has to be raised. He delays a bit before saying, “I’m very grateful and proud of ‘Oro, Plata, Mata’ because everybody remembers it. In fact, I hate it already because everybody comes up to me, and says ‘I love your Oro, Plata, Mata’… but hey, it was my first hit, and I’ve done over 40 movies since. It was also flawed but it’s a classic now, so why complain?” He’s also proud of his love-and-obsession-charged 80’s films “Scorpio Nights” and”“Unfaithful Wife,” as well as the historical drama “Virgin Forest” – all of which habitually appear in any certified Filipino cineaste’s best-ever films list. Gallaga has not missed out on the comedy genre as well, but he admits his brand of humor comes across strange for Filipinos. The latest one was “Pinoy/Blonde” which was his last big screen outing. While he’s been flying intermittently to Manila to do production design, make special appearances in movies, conduct workshops, Gallaga has not made a film in the last three years. As he hints that there’s no regret or rush to get out of this hiatus, it isn’t difficult to tell that he’s getting weighed down by the sorry state of the film industry.He rues, “What’s killing the movie industry is lack of imagination and lack of guts on the part of the producers. They keep playing safe, the minute they have a project, they add a lot of big names, and it spreads, story becomes weak, and it becomes a smorgasbord, because you have to put romance, comedy… That nobody is really taking a chance right now – that’s what’s terrible.”This weariness is offset by teaching and working with young people. “Even if it’s getting really, really tiring, because you give a lot of yourself, I enjoy working with and teaching young people because it’s exciting, and it makes me feel young,” says Gallaga. “You’ll never get rich with these jobs. But in directing, you find fulfillment by creating something out of nothing. In teaching, it is very satisfying to see how you’ve helped bring out something beautiful that has always been there.”

All these and more add to the “better quality of life” he is relishing in the South. He lives in Bacolod with wife Madie Dacanay, while their children are taking on related careers either here or abroad – Michelle, a former Madrigal singer-turned-rocker who’s also into alternative healing; Wanggo, a writer; Datu and Jubal who both produce commercials; and Gines, a vice-consul in Washington. He already has four grandchildren. Even as he plays with thoughts of retirement, he says that there are still movies that he wants to do and would sacrifice a lot just to do them.

One of these movies would be in the same essence as “Oro, Plata, Mata.””“It’s not a sequel and not the same people. It’s the same situation, but my interest is because it’s me years after, watching the same chemistry of people. It’s me who’s changed. Sex and violence are not important to me anymore. It’s wiser, more forgiving, and more on the self and the soul.”

When told that his return is sure to warrant great expectations, he says, “Three years ago, I was worried about coming back. I mean what would I do to make an impact? But I’m not worried about it anymore. I don’t care. When I come back, I will do what I want to do.”