Get ready for happyland

MANILA, Philippines – Whatever happened to Jim Libiran and the boys of Tribu/Tugista?

Two years after the Cinemalaya win of the underdog indie film “Tribu” by Libiran that cast real-life teenage Tondo gangsters, both director and his actors are still very much around, but gone mostly on their separate ways.

It’s been quite a ride since that unexpected victory, with the low-budget film being screened in both Busan and Cinemanila in the same year it won in Cinemalaya. A Busan programmer in town recently expressed interest in any new work by Libiran for a section on Philippine independent cinema in the October festival in the Korean port city.

Libiran, who describes himself as an “unemployed caveman” having long resigned from Channel 5 – no love lost really, he says, “wala nang ka-amor amor” between him and the studio – is now working out of home off Lantana Street Cubao, on a script that will be the second part of his Tondo trilogy, “Happyland.”

Libiran explains that “Happyland” is the name of the temporary housing community set up by the government for residents of Smokey Mountain at the time. He says the term itself is derived from the Waray word for garbage or basura – “hapilan.”

“This film is about the poor kids of Tondo who, through Salesian priests, learned how to play football and competed with the ‘rich’ boys in private Catholic schools,” he says.

As of Holy Wednesday, Libiran was still hard at work on the script, which he said he started 11 months ago. “Hopefully I can finish it before Good Friday,” he had written in an email break from his self-imposed isolation on Lantana, where telephone calls are carefully screened.

Concerning Tugista, the Tondo rap group that provided the soundtrack for “Tribu”, he says Lloyd aka Young Cent, Billy and Raynoa must have their own manager by now. Tugista session man Shielbert aka OG Sacred, meanwhile, has revived his old hiphop band Sigaw ng Tundo, which on Human Rights Day last December released a CD, “kaRAPatan.”

The original agreement he had with Tugista was that if “Tribu” got lucky, then their rap skills would get noticed and the director told them “it was likely they would harvest two years of gigs and public attention and they should grab the chance.”

If he looked after Tugista for a time, he rationalized that each new generation is nurtured by elders: “Tayo, pare, inalagaan din tayo ng mga senior na artists ‘di ba? Sa case ko, yun ang nag-inspire sa akin to work harder (eh papaano naman, lahat ng kasabayan ko sa LIRA puro Palanca Hall of Famers na ako na lang ang wala...), kaya kayod talaga ako.

“I was expecting them to rise to the challenge. And they did... for a time. Nakapasok sila sa iba-ibang gigs at rap jams hanggang sa Baguio. They jammed with Heber (Bartolome) sa Conspiracy, with Radioactive (Sago’s) Lourd (de Veyra, many times), Pinikpikan sa UP, Tropical Depression sa NU Rock awards... They performed sa Rock the Riles, DAKILA events, rally para sa Mindanao farmers, etc etc etc.”

All this, he says, was apart from “Tribu” screenings in the big campuses such as Baguio, Batangas, UP, Ateneo, Miriam.

But of the Tugista, Libiran says it was Shielbert (OG Sacred) who had “diskarte,” a strategic way of thinking, some business sense.

“He’s a natural leader,” he says of Shielbert who in Tribu plays a gang leader who gets slain in a particularly bloody nighttime rumble.

When the Tugista itself went their separate ways, or rather, when OG Sacred split from the band, he reactivated his old rap group and began to record again. Sure enough, “Buhay ng Gangsta” by Sigaw ng Tundo is a hit on YouTube, recording more than three million hits. It shows a veritable romance of the slums, with an ominous backbeat slithering through the video that has barechested, tattooed denizens of Tondo, only one of whom is recognizable, Shielbert, who seems to have gained some weight a couple of years since Tribu.

Libiran gives the YouTube link to Buhay ng Gangsta and its mirror site. 

Those who would like to access more Sigaw ng Tundo can link up to: sigawngtundo.ning.com.

What happened between Libiran and Tugista was the usual breakup between young band that has grown big and their manager, with members no longer showing up for gigs without the money down.

“Wala na akong balita kina Lloyd, Billy at Raynoa ng Tugista. The last time I heard, may manager na daw sila,” the director says, adding that for “Happyland,” he is being helped out by Sigaw ng Tundo and the band may in fact be doing the soundtrack.

After “Happyland,” which is in pre-production, Libiran says next up is a documentary on street rap/poetry in the cities of Manila (Sigaw ng Tundo), Cebu (gangsta rappers) and Davao (focusing on street gangs), for which he is angling for a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Already a working title has been suggested, “Berso Pasakalye,” after Berso sa Metro, and a draft project proposal is now being worked on to be submitted to NCCA.

“The general idea is just to walk the streets of the said cities, talk to key rappers (or have one rapper each city as guide) and interview them about the kind of lives they live and how it influences their street rap,” he says, adding that he wasn’t planning a complicated shoot, just enough time for immersion so that it won’t seem like parachute filmmaking.

Other projects on the drawing board include a political film on the Escalante massacre which would have dual directors, and another documentary on Philippine performance poetry, “Republika ng Talinghaga,” after the United States of Poetry, an MTV of the leading poets of the country. “Talinghaga” could likely tap the talents of Tribu bit players Vim Nadera and Roxlee and Teo Antonio.

So the caveman is kept busy, and once in a while a text comes out of Cubao about a possible powwow in Mogwai, the indie shrine in that side of Quezon City.

We remember one text we received from him that was like an SOS during the screening of Tribu in Cinemanila 2007. He clarifies now it was a minor incident, and everyone was fortunate that things didn’t get out of hand or turn into a gang war.

“Yung maliit na incident sa Gateway nung screening ng Tribu, wala yun. Binastos lang kami ng manager ng cinema... hinamon ko ng suntukan. Hehehehe. Buti na lang natakot sya...” Libiran writes.

Two years is a long time. In a Cinemalaya 07 workshop that gathered the finalists for a couple of afternoons at CCP, Libiran at the end of one session ran into Aureaus Solito whose hand he promptly placed on his forehead.

The director of “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros” then placed his own hand above his chest, gestures from blessing to anthem in a shared brotherhood of swimming against the mainstream.