More than meets the eye

It tells of the story of a man who lived most of his life underground, masked and hidden from the rest of the world. A renaissance man: a “scholar, architect, musician. A composer. An inventor.” But before his escape from the world to live in his dungeon, the only recognition he received was for his disfigured face which, for a few loose change in a traveling circus, anyone can gawk at.

He was an artist and the telling of his story begins in the middle of a rehearsal for an opera, rudely interrupted by the arrival of the powers that be: the opera house’s impresario announcing his retirement and the introduction of the new owners of the theater. The managers arrive and they expect the whole world to stop for them, of course.

The new managers refused to acknowledge and compensate him for his work, despite the fact that through the years the man silently ran the theater, composed music, mentored young artists. Through the years he remained unseen, unrecognized, unknown to everyone else except to those who have experienced his work, his genius.

This is also the story of a young lady gifted with a beautiful voice, honed through the years by the masked man underground. But she’s not on center stage, she’s a chorus girl because she’s not as popular as the opera house’s resident diva. One day she got to play the lead, but only because the diva walked out of the production and the managers had to choose between canceling the performance and handing out refunds to the public, or keeping their money and making do with a chorus girl on center stage. And as expected, the managers, motivated only by their greed for money, decided to let the show go on with our unpopular heroine taking over the role that the diva abandoned. At curtain call, the audience rose to their feet to applaud the amazing talent of our chorus girl.

She has proven her worth, her talent, but as far as the managers of the theater are concerned, she’s only worthy of taking center stage when the diva is not available, or, at times, unaffordable.

Sure, our story is also a love story between the talented young lady and the wealthy patron of the theater. Sure, this production is one of the most popular and well-loved musicales of all time. But what really got me excited about directing this play are the stories it tells beyond the spectacle of grand musical arrangements and grandiose scenery and pompous costume pieces: for me, the real story is the struggle between art and commerce, the conflict between money-making and artistic integrity, the role of the moneyed elite as tastemakers, the plight of the unrecognized, unacknowledged, uncompensated highly talented artists.
I was offered to tell this story onstage, and last Tuesday I presided over the first production meeting. Infront of me were among Baguio’s best performing artists: Soprano Kay Balajadia, theater actors Lloyd Celzo, Jeff Coronado, Ro Quintos, Cholo Virgo, Emerald Ventura, Ursolino Enciso, Roman Ordoña, Jonarene Flores, production managers RL Abella-Altomonte, Eunice Caburao, Jojo Lamaria, Austrude Delo, among others, most of whom you may ask, who the hell are these people? Sure, perhaps you haven’t seen them on TV, in a commercial, and they’re not regularly featured in the lifestyle sections of national dailies, but you can meet them onstage in this theatrical presentation produced by the Soroptimists of Pines City, headed by Ms. Melle Biznar, on July 25, 2009 at the SLU-CCA Theater, as these Baguio artists take center stage to tell the story of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera.”
In that meeting, as I scanned the room filled with world-class local talents, I thought, this musical may very well be telling their very own story.

SINO BA SI KATRINA AT SI HAYDEN?

I had to ask, who’s Katrina and who’s Hayden?

I have heard of Katrina Halili, of Vicky Belo, but never of Hayden Kho. I google their names and Wikipedia says that Katrina Halili is “a Filipina actress, and a commercial model.” That “she made her screen debut via Starstruck, but did not gain popularity until playing the antagonist roles in Darna, Majika, Atlantika and Marimar and becoming the protagonist in One Night Only and Magdusa Ka.” Unfortunately, or fortunately, I never saw any of those films. A blog said that Hayden Kho “joined Bodyshots 2000…" that “He modeled for a while, then he stopped to pursue medical school in UST.” There’s a quote from Kho himself, “when asked, ‘How would you describe yourself in five words to make us fall in love with you?’ he answered, ‘Tall, handsome, handsome, cute, and… it’s up to you to find out!’” Sure, Mr. Kho, I’ll take your word for it. And Googling Vicky Belo brought me to her website which describes her as the “Ambassadress of Beauty” and the medical director of Belo Medical Group.

Someone offered me the following information: “Si Hayden Kho, isang doktor ng isang cosmetic surgery clinic (Belo Medical Group) na pag-aari ni Dr.Vicky Belo na naging kasintahan nya. Naghiwalay sila Hayden at Vicky ng mapabalitang may namumuong relasyon si Katrina Halili at Hayden Kho na parehong modelo ng nasabing clinic...”

I open my email and find links to some videos online. I click on a couple and see this: A woman clad in a skimpy bikini dancing in front of what I believe was a mirror. Moments later a man joins her, singing along and gyrating to Wham’s “Careless Whisper” (ahhh, the irony). Then at one point, the woman waves to her unseen audience (towards the camera) and goes on dancing. I heard the succeeding videos were even worse, meaning more explicit. In one report, Ms. Halili said that “Gusto kong lumaban kasi ayoko ng maulit ang mga ganitong pangyayari kasi sobrang binaboy kami d’on sa video. Sobrang pambababoy ang ginawa sa amin ni [doctor] Hayden kaya dapat magbayad siya.” Did I mention that at one point in the video she as seen waving at her unseen audience? Anyway.

Still I ask, “sino si Katrina at si Hayden?”

As expected, the Honorables are all over the place: the Palace pledges to “go hard” on Kho; that funny Secretary of Justice says that Kho may be jailed for six years for his actions; “The Honorable” Bong Revilla gave an emotional privilege speech on the matter, demanding the Kho’s medical license be revoked; the National Bureau of Investigation aims to get to the bottom of the issue. Well, with all the brouhaha surrounding this issue, the country’s already at the bottom of a lot of things.

Amazing, nah, disgusting, that the government can take its sweet time to act on the killing of journalists, the forced disappearance of activists, the automation of next year’s election is still uncertain, but has several of its branches up and about on this issue in the blink of an eye, or the click of the mouse. Executive Secretary Ermita was quoted as saying that the video “affects the morals of society.” Sure, so do pardoning a child molester and cheating during elections and stealing from the government - and way much more than this stupid video does.

There’s a bigger scandal here. And it’s not the Halili-Kho video.

Another person asked me in response to my question, sino si Katrina at si Hayden? – “Ha? Hindi ka ba taga-‘pinas?”

Taga-Pilipinas po ako, and during times like this, unfortunately, regrettably.

Candy, anyone?

Candy’s remarks left a bitter taste, pun intended. That’s Candy Pangilinan, tv, film and stage actress. Since they say that in showbiz, you’re only as good as your last performance, I am not inclined to call her a comedienne right now, her recent faux pas at a performance in SM City Baguio was not funny at all. “Tao po ako, hindi po ako Igorot,” a blog entry said that was posted, and linked to, all over the internet, particularly Facebook and Multiply.com. And the reactions, as expected, were vicious: “She’s dead meat next time she comes to Baguio;” “There will be no next time, she be persona non-grata;” “…a comedienne with little or no talent;” “boycott anything she’s involved in;” just to quote a few. There are even nastier unprintable ones. And perhaps she deserved every single one of those tirades that came from, among others, the very descendants of the first families who lived in these mountains, of that man who fought the most powerful government in the world in court (and won), Igorots who’ve risen above stereotypes and have contributed so much more to the country than Ms. Pangilinan can never, ever, equal.

I’ve seen her teary apology on TV and heard her explanation, accepted by others, rejected by some. But, though what she said is in itself a major blunder, I believe her other mistake is uttering those words in public, with a microphone, in the presence of Igorots. Because, really, most of us would never say to a child who wants to play out in the streets, “sige ka, kukunin ka ng Bumbay,” in front of an Indian man. Nor would we laugh in the face of a pirated DVD vendor when he offers us “dibide-dibide.” Ok, we’ve heard some of us utter unkind remarks about Koreans in the presence of Koreans, but that’s only when and because we know they can’t understand Tagalog or Ilokano.

Perhaps this incident brings to the fore, aside from the ugly face of racism, the fact that centuries after the Spanish colonization attempted to make this archipelago one nation, tribalism, at times defined as “the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates oneself as a member of one group from the members of another” (Wikipedia.org), exists and continues to define the way some of us view ourselves as a people. While we’re all Filipinos, for a lot of us we’re Igorot or Bisaya or Aeta or Kampampangan or Ilokano or Maranao , etc., first. Not that that’s essentially wrong: it is good when it forges unity among a group of people, but not when it separates us from others. It is good to belong: to a family, a clan, a tribe, a region, a nation. It’s not good when, as Filipinos, we separate ourselves from others because we come from a different region, or ethnic group, etc.

In Baguio alone, there are several groups that exist and at times divide us as a community: taga-Benguet, taga-Kailnga, taga-Ifugao, taga-Bontoc, Ilokano, taga-Pangasinan, Muslim, taga-baba, taga-Manila, Koreano, Amerikano, Australiano. How many Rotary, Soroptimist, Lions, etc., clubs are there in this small city? Artists belong to different organizations. The youth belong to different fraternities, gangs. Even in the small circle I mostly move in, the theater community, parochial mentality creates a great divide among the different groups, as if it is not hard enough that there are very limited opportunities for theater artists in the city.

And from there stems our condescending attitude towards others: when we separate ourselves from others. From there stems our ignorance of others when we stop understanding those who do not fall inside the fences we build around us. And that’s probably why there wasn’t as much noise when the Baguio Country Club decided that because some Koreans do no behave properly on the golf course, all Koreans must be banned from entering their premises. In some of the barriers we have created, the Koreans do not belong, and since most of us didn’t belong inside the barriers of the Baguio Country Club, we didn’t care as much.

Candy Pangilinan’s remarks are deplorable, terrible, unacceptable. She can explain all she wants - she was referring to an Igorot statue, she was tired, she didn't mean it. Nah, we know exactly what she meant. But we ourselves can also put a different spin to it: “Hindi lang tayo IGOROT, Taga-BAGUIO rin po tayong lahat” (and perhaps we can really begin to make Baguio a better place). Or “Hindi lang tayo taga-BAGUIO, FILIPINO rin po tayong lahat” (and maybe we can start making this nation great again). Or “TAO po muna tayong lahat, bago pa man tayo naging mga IGOROT at mga taga-BAGUIO.” And then we maybe we can start making this world a better place.

There’s an update on my Facebook wall that says, “Domogan forgives Candy Pangilinan.” Well, if our good congressman can forgive and protect a president who mocked our electoral process and continues to take all of us for a ride, why not Candy?

Maybe this, is

I learned of some of the reactions regarding my article, “This was Session Road in Bloom” (April 26, 2009). Initially glad to learn that there were people who actually read my column (an artist always appreciate an audience, receptive or otherwise), it was also depressing to learn that a lot of them missed the point.
No, it was not necessarily a critique of the people behind Panagbenga’s Session Road in Bloom, but of the event itself and the concept behind it. For me, no matter who takes charge of that annual rape of Session Road, it would remain what it is for me: rape. Because of the adverse reactions to the article, I asked a few friends, some of whom were actually directly involved in that week-long event: did you actually enjoy Session Road in Bloom? Did you actually feel good about yourself and for Baguio itself walking down that road amidst the chaos and noise and, particularly at night towards the end of the day, filth? I'm sure you can already imagine most of the responses.

I was asked why I was “attacking” Session Road in Bloom when I myself was a part of it (our group performed and had a public screening of “Portrait of a Hill Station,” our documentary on the history of Baguio). We were invited to perform at the main stage of Session Road in Bloom, and we are very happy and honored to have been invited at all. Grateful, we truly are, and we thank the people behind Session Road in Bloom for the wonderful opportunity to tell the people of the history of Baguio and sing songs with lyrics such as “Kabunyan kami’y dinggin, kalikasan ay i-adya sa lahat ng masama;” “Sino ba’ng nagmamayari ng lupang ‘to, ano ba’ng tama kasaysayan o titulo?;” “Ang mithiin ng Baguio isapuso mo,” right there at the top of Session Road.

Consider the tentative schedule of events that was published ahead of the festival: 29 scheduled minor events, 19 of which were to be held in one mall, 10 pop concerts, a beauty pageant and a fashion show, a couple of promotional tours by television networks engaged in a ratings war who relentlessly elbowed each other out for better positioning the whole festival, you get the drift. Oh, and ahhh, a Pony Boys’ Day. Panagbenga is a Baguio festival, a good idea to begin with, and like most festivals around the country, you would think that it would highlight and celebrate the beauty of and the many other things that this city can be proud of.

And that Earth Day morning? That was a celebration of what Baguio is all about, that was something the city could be proud of. No rush, no filth, no noise, just children drawing, just people smiling, just the city heaving a sigh of relief. I also asked some people how they felt on that cool Baguio morning, you can already imagine all of their responses.

As I said, that previous article was not exactly a critique of the people behind this year’s Panagbenga. Maybe this, is:

And one night, a big night, Baguio artists played supporting roles in a musical performed on the lake which served as a front-act to La Diva, promoted by festival organizers as the country’s version of the pop group “Destiny’s Child.” Our group provided stage management support to that musical, and while we were packing up boxes and boxes of props and costumes, preparing huge set pieces for transport after the show, we were being harangued by both festival staff and security guards to quickly get out of the way because the La Divas were coming. And while festival staff sternly informed us ahead of the performance that there are no meals allocated for the unpaid stage management group during rehearsals, and no, they can’t provide a couple of hundred pesos worth of candles that could have added much to the musical’s aesthetic value, and no they can’t provide us with a few extra plastic monoblock chairs for the cast and choir to sit on backstage, and no they can’t provide a few extra personnel for the production that it badly needed, by the end of La Diva’s performance, there were suddenly throngs of Panagbenga personnel and security guards cordoning off the way from the stage all the way to Lake Drive for the three pop stars to make their way to their vehicle safely and comfortably.

Yeah, I think this one is.

Losing my religion

It was supposed to be a routine spring cleaning of the machine... back-up files and save the drivers from the main drive in another drive, reformat, install the operating system, re-install the drivers... but in an age where almost everything is disposable, the wrong drive was reformatted, and in the click of the mouse, 10 years of production files, 6 years of photographs, articles, ideas, scripts, libretti... gone.

I spend hours everyday pounding on this keyboard, clicking this mouse, telling stories, composing images, making music... this has been my altar ever since that Pentium 300 13 years ago... I should've lost my mind, blown my top, cried even.

But I surprised even myself when I just shrugged it off and told Arkhe, a friend, inaanak and colleague whom I asked to help me overhaul the computer, the one who cliked the fateful click, to just forget and not worry about it... we'll just have to stack up a new digital pile of production files, shoot new photos, write new articles, come up with new ideas, write new scripts and libretti...

The bulk of the files in that drive were openSpace files... photos from performances staged more than a decade ago to ones staged just a few weeks ago... poster studies, property plots, checklists, stage managers' files, attendance sheets, budgets. I think I have a few of these production files saved on DVDs somewhere, I think I'd get a couple of scrapbooks today and start putting together hard copies of production books... with everything the digital age is, still nothing beats ink on paper.

It's ok, because, it's about time we purge some of the group's baggages. It's ok because there's more where all those lost files came from. It's ok because maybe it's time to move on with a clean slate because I believe openSpace is entering a new phase, stage, age... after all those years of trying to find our footing, I think we finally did. And on top of everything that fell into place in the group's last two productions, I believe what worked for us were the absence of malice; sincerity; the presence of everyone who were ther for one thing: to tell a good story and to tell it well, first and foremost. If a poisonous seed was planted, it was ignored or killed instantly. No hidden agendas, everything was out in the open. No whispers backstage (everything was said out loud), no second-hand information (nothing alterred, everything as it is and should be). There were no core groups, secondary groups, outsiders, newcomers, old-timers: there was only ONE group, there were only artists united by a vision: explore all artistic possibilities in communicating ideas.

Another friend sent me a program via email that can attmept to retrieve the files... I haven't opened it. Do I really need to? Do I really want to?

Tomorrow I will be sitting down with two colleagues to discuss the feasibility of a multimedia studio and what to do the rest of the year.

The status quo's fine with me for now.

This was Session Road in bloom

I kept on saying it over and over that morning, and I'll say it again here now: last Wednesday, April 22, 2009, also known as Earth Day, was truly Session Road in bloom.

I was even feeling a bit guilty that morning that we had to drive to town, but having three energetic kids in tow does not make for an easy commute from where we live to downtown Baguio. So off we went, I dropped the whole family off at the top of Session Road and parked at the mall where I had to do some errands. Half an hour later, I joined them.

Walking down from the mall and still a good distance away from Session Road, and there was already a different feel to the area. Session Road sounded different – without the sound of car engines, you hear the laughter of the people more, the sighs, a man clears his throat, a blind man playing a tune on his battery-powered electronic keyboard.

I entered Session Road, a quick glance at the hideous concrete pine tree, and looked for my family - and there were my children on all fours telling their stories with colored chalks. My eldest son Leon spelled out the word EARTH in various colors and forms while my youngest Aeneas drew what looked like tree-lined road. My daughter Gabriela tried to draw earth, but as she tried to add more bright colors to it it started to look more like a sun bursting with colors. In the end what she had was a simple kaleidoscopic orb.

People smiled, said hello, people breathed(!), in Session Road(!). It wasn’t a sunny morning, in fact it was quite overcast. But the feeling, yes Session Road felt so different that morning, was warm, it was nice. Baguio, on that gloomy Wednesday morning, felt like Baguio again. There was a different sense - a sense of community, something that seems to have been missing in recent years. Something that was totally missing the last time they closed down Session Road to traffic.

What is it with wide open spaces that our honorable (for surely, these are honorable men, and women) powers that be just can’t seem to stand it that they just have to mess it up. Last month they closed down Session Road for a whole week of crass commercialism, it was insane. And some have even claimed that this was among the best Baguio Flower Festival celebrations ever. Sorry but I just don’t see why anyone can be proud of being responsible for the rape of Session Road, or Baguio for that matter. For a whole week last month Session Road was a picture of greed, of senseless materialism, it was an orgy! For a whole week people squeezed in between other people and commercial stalls, shouted over loud speakers asking them to buy this and that not knowing, or caring, that for every item sold a piece of the city’s soul was sold with it.

And at the end of the day, this was how they measured the success of this year’s Panagbenga: how much money the city, and some people, earned. None of them cared how much of the city’s soul was lost. But that’s the thing about abstract concepts such as a city’s soul – you can’t put a tag price in pesos on it, and the honorables just don't get it.

It's not about power, remember? It's not just about money, right? And then there was that Wednesday morning on Session Road: both children and grown-ups down on their knees making known their hopes and dreams for Mother Earth, for the environment, for Baguio; last Wednesday, it felt like we were once again one community, working together to make the world a better place. That, dear honorables, that's what it's all about.

And then the heavens acknowledged a community’s prayers and let down the rains, and the colors and stories on the pavements merged and became one. Last Wednesday, Session Road looked, smelled, sounded, felt different. Again, without the madness, without the pollution and noise, Session Road was truly in bloom.

In the afternoon they let the cars in again. They gave that orgy known as Session Road in Bloom one whole week, and they couldn’t make that beautiful Wednesday last a even just whole day.

Under the stars

If this paper's editor-in-chief has forgiven this column's month-long absence, this piece will see print under a new column title. "Session Road Blues" is being recalled to serve as the working title of a new theatrical piece that our group, Open Space, is putting together that we hope to unveil later this year.

The reason for my absence here, in a nutshell, is this: four weeks, one concert, a couple of public screenings, three performances of two musicals in three different venues. We're coming from providing technical direction to the Panagbenga spectacle that was the "Phantom on the Lake," followed by screenings of our documentary on Baguio, "Portrait of a Hill Station," and a concert featuring original songs about Baguio. Soon after the last hotdog and corn was sold and the last complimentary cigarette lighter was handed out during Session Road in Bloom, we began putting together two musicals, one of which was the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice classic, "Jesus Christ Superstar."

Our mayor, Peter Rey Bautista, encouraged by the response to the Phantom performance at the lake, requested that we perform our production of Webber's rock opera for the community during the Holy Week. The original idea was to perform it on the stage built in middle of the lake, but after finding out that was already removed we suggested that we instead put it up at the Baguio Convention Center and Rose Garden for technical and aesthetic reasons: The BCC for the convenience of a roof in case the rains come on Good Friday (which it did), and the steps that lead from behind the bust of Arch. Daniel Burnham towards the lake provides an amphitheater-like feel, surrounded by trees and pocket gardens filled with roses, and it's been our group's dream to perform there.

The cast and staff of about 70 people met for a production meeting which was soon followed by daily (and nightly) rehearsals at the Baguio Convention Center. There were Open Space's resident artists, a hip-hop dance group Baguio Amplified in their theatrical debut and the AVP ensemble, an informal group of musicians and singers, vocalising, arranging, blocking, choreographing... giving life to the written text. Behind the scenes, other members of the group were all over town with the City Mayor's Office's endorsement letter requesting the support of some friends in the private sector.

The first to respond was Dr. Reynaldo C. Bautista, Sr. of the Rural Bank of Itogon, one of our group's ardent supporters. If we had any doubts at all if the production will really push through due to sponsorship concerns, those doubts were erased as soon as RBI threw its support behind the endeavor. Smart Communications' pledge soon followed, and we knew at that point that there was really no turning back anymore. The next thing we knew, we had Victory Liner's, The Manor's and the University of Baguio's logos on our posters. Later, Beneco pledged its support too and Alabanza Meat Store sent food our way during our second performance.

The reason why the group's very enthusiastic about this production is because it proved that given the government's endorsement, the support of the private sector is sure to follow, enabling us to stage free cultural presentations making the arts more accessible to the community.

This while providing a venue for our local artists to express themselves. This while being able to present great stories that present relevant social issues. This while perhaps reinforcing an alternative reason for tourists to come up to Baguio: its arts and culture scene.

During the second performance at the Rose Garden, on the grassy area on either side of the steps, families laid out mats while the children ran around waiting for the performance to begin. The steps began to fill with both locals and tourists wondering what the stage, lights and sound equipment set-up were all about.

Even the ambulant vendors set their wares aside for a night at the theater: under the stars and out in the open. And both the performers and our supporters agreed: let's have more of this.