Archive and memory

Who’s the greatest Filipino film director? No, it’s not Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Eddie Romero, or Brillante Mendoza. It’s Gerardo “Gerry” de Leon, himself a National Artist for Cinema like the first three, but the least known especially among younger Filipinos who have hardly heard of him, much less seen his movies. Alas, there’s little chance for young Filipinos to really get to know him. Save for a smattering, nearly all of his oeuvres have practically disappeared, victims to the corroding effects of time, the tropics, and the state’s fatal shortsightedness and notorious aversion to investing in culture and its conservation.

There are indications things are changing. In an Inquirer article last week, in time for the Unesco World Day for Audio Visual Heritage, Ramon Nocon wrote about the birth of “the new National Film Archive of the Philippines.” Himself an “archiving officer” of the new office, Nocon noted that the archive could have been formed as early—or is it as late?—as 2002 when Republic Act 9167 created the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) under the Office of the President. Among the agency’s powers and functions is to “ensure the establishment of a film archive in order to conserve and protect film negatives and/or prints as part of the nation’s historical, cultural and artistic heritage.” But the mandate was never fulfilled, “until now”: “Under the leadership of filmmaker Briccio G. Santos, who was appointed chair of the agency by President Aquino last year, the FDCP is taking steps toward this end with the creation of the National Film Archive of the Philippines.”

According to Nocon, “an interim clearinghouse” has started operations in Ortigas—with 24-hour climate control and a small team of personnel manning it—while a more appropriate facility in Cubao is being constructed. Forming its initial holdings are films from the National Historical Commission and the UP Film Institute. Acclaimed filmmaker Mike de Leon, the unofficial living National Artist for Cinema, has donated a handful of films, including a print of his last feature, “Bayaning Third World.” The old Sampaguita Pictures has also turned over some items.

The Cubao storage appears provisional. Nocon said the FDCP is considering building a bigger and more permanent facility in Tagaytay City, obviously because of its cooler clime which lends best to preservation.

Well and good, but there’s a caveat: just about everything appears incipient and merely on the planning stage. In Philippine public planning culture, good intentions are jumpstarted as fancy initiatives which just as soon lose steam as they encounter certain challenges that cumulatively dampen them, so that they become nothing but sorry tales of enervation, desuetude and defeat. “(M)uch-needed political will, coupled with the full budgetary and legislative support… is imperative,” wrote Nocon. “A bill is being pushed wherein movie producers shall be mandated to deposit copies of their films to the archive.”

All of this, admittedly, are still plans and, considering government’s propensity to throw the baby out with the bathwater—look at the belated National Heritage Law which tries to save the nation’s cultural patrimony by the sheer despotism of appropriating private art works and architecture for the state—may be self-defeating in the end. What’s important is for the state not to overreach. It must complement archiving initiatives already done by the private sector.

For example, the ABS-CBN Film Archive, said film scholar Clodualdo del Mundo Jr., himself the writer of “Bayaning Third World,” is “our de facto national film archive.” It houses the LVN collection, the FPJ collection, and virtually all the films produced by Regal, RVQ and other companies. “Moreover,” he said, “it operates as a real archive should—because researchers are allowed access to its collection!”

Many Filipino movies have been saved by film agencies abroad. Because Brocka was “discovered” by Cannes, his “Insiang” and “Bona” are in the Cinémathèque Française, as well as Manuel Conde’s “Genghis Khan.” Because Bernal was discovered by the Berlin International Film Festival, Bernal’s “Nunal sa Tubig” is archived there. Because he was also discovered by Berlin and because he lives in cool Baguio, Kidlat Tahimik’s post-colonial classic, “Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare),” an arthouse hit in the United States when it was released there in the late 1970s by Francis Ford Coppola, is safely archived in Berlin and Baguio. But sad to say, no copies of the key classics of Gerry de Leon, who has been compared by French critics to Eisenstein and Buñuel, have turned up for restoration and archiving. They appear to have been lost forever in the people’s cultural memory.