‘Sine Panitik’ lights old flame

First love never dies. It all started with the book launch of “Nick” on July 6, 2011. The Joaquin mystique threw me back to my four decades of reading and teaching literature. I wrote “Rekindling an old flame” (Inquirer, 7/15/11). But the spark sputtered.

Then early this year, I was asked to give a talk on “Spirituality and Literature” for the Institute of Spirituality in Asia. What a review that entailed! Again, literature nudged me. I renewed ties with souls wrestling with practices and beliefs of their faith or basking in them: the priest in Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory,” Dr. Lazaro in Gregorio Brillantes’ “Faith, Love, Time and Dr. Lazaro,” Father Damian (a woman-priest incognito) in Louise Eldrich’s “Last Report on the Miracle at Little No Horse,” etc., plus poetry, nonfiction through the ages, assembling perforce but a limited sampling of the vast coverage of the topic! My preparation stirred the embers again.

Besides, now and then, I have had feelings of “para que, para quien” for theology, my new love of 15 or so years now, especially when earnest movements and developments in the field are rendered futile (a continuing saga). Comforting are James Martin, SJ’s “Prayer for Frustrated Catholics” (America, 8/13/12) and Paul Johnston’s line in “A Fuller Life” (Commonweal, 9/18/12): “Catholicism is not just about bishops imposing restrictions on others.” (That’s a small part and getting smaller.)

A recent news item—“Literature as film” (Inquirer, 7/20/12)—again pushed me back to literature. It announced the recent launch of “Sine Panitik” by the Film Academy of the Philippines (FAP) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. FAP director general Leo G. Martinez said the “Sine Panitik” films would be shown in metro theaters and would “showcase legends, children’s stories, poetry, short stories, novels and plays” as “full-length feature and short films.”

Titles rang like a roll call of old friends and familiar places: “How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife” by Manuel Arguilla, “Dead Stars” by Paz Marquez Benitez, “Children of the Ash-Covered Loam” by NVM Gonzalez, “The Mats” by Francisco Arcellana, “A Wilderness of Sweets” by Gilda Cordero-Fernando; Gregorio Brillantes, Carlos Bulosan, Estrella Alfon, Kerima Polotan, Genoveva Edroza Matute, Liwayway Arceo and others. For humorous literature, which is not as easy as it looks, I suggest a cock story by Alejandro Roces, and “History of the Philippines” by Onib Olmedo. And there is the substantial body of plays by Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero as well as early epics to draw from.

There will be “script-writing contests” for screenplays to be “shown … across the country with students as target viewers.” The phrases “in areas without theaters” and “mobile exhibitions” drove me ecstatic. I have long desired to bring theater and film to our place in the barrio (barangay to politicians) with some facilities already waiting. Mae Paner aka Juana Change and I aim to make the dream come true. Will scripts be in Filipino and/or English? Will experts like Joey Reyes and Ricky Lee deign to do pilot scripts? There have been forerunners, but Philippine literature is still waiting to be mined or revived. Finally, “Sine Panitik” noticed again.

Since I’m at it, let me parlay the interest to a related field, another gold mine for play-writing, practically left untouched. I refer to our modern heroes languishing in too long a season of oblivion even before they became known. Such a vacuum of nonremembrance is a clear and present danger inviting the revisionism of the martial law period and of Edsa.

The young have heard of Ninoy Aquino, Lorenzo Tañada, and Joaquin “Chino” Roces. But who among them have heard of Jose W. Diokno, Estelita Juco, Gaston Ortigas, Emman Lacaba, Lean Alejandro, Lorena Barros, Remberto dela Paz, Edgar Jopson, Abraham Sarmiento Jr., Macli-ing Dulag, Eduardo Quintero, etc.? (Their stories are told in Anvil Publishing’s “Six Modern Filipino Heroes,” “Six Young Filipino Martyrs,” “Seven in the Eye of History.”)

Asked to write guide questions for “Bagong Bayani,” I ventured: “Pick a significant incident or turning point in any one hero. Write a brief, simple script good for a dramatization of 15 to 20 minutes. Dramatize in class with a good cast, simple setting, costume and sounds (if necessary), and a narrator to provide what came before and after the dramatized portion.” Fear not; every class has natural actors and improvisers!

I revere Rizal to the max, but he must be turning in his grave. Hey, guys, I’ve already been turned inside out. There are many whom you must write about, many who must be remembered.

Plays and movies indenting our psyche with classical lines like “the Filipino is worth dying for” or “sobra na, tama na” or “hindi ka nag-iisa” can fill our much-lamented national deprivation of civic consciousness, pride, memory, heritage.

Beneath the skies, on stage, on TV, in movies—a play is sensurround. Its audience is not one but a multitude; its impact is immediate and electric. Let the play begin.

Asuncion David Maramba is a retired professor, book editor and occasional journalist. Comments to [email protected], fax 8284454.