(Ang Tamaan, Huwag
Magalit)
Back in early 1982, if memory serves, I wrote the lyrics of
a set of songs for a film musical that director Mike de Leon, composer/musical
director Ding Achacoso, and I were planning to do that year. That was the time
a group of artists and journalists set up the Free the Artist, Free the Media
Movement, which would give birth the following year to the Concerned Artists of
the Philippines.
The musical, which we referred to as a "Brechtian
zarzuela" or as a "sarsuwelang
pampelikula," was about the role of artists in a time like martial
law. But since Marcos's martial law was still in effect, Mike and I agreed to
set the musical in the Second World War, during the time of the Japanese
Occupation. During the martial-law period, people in the countryside referred
to the Marcos-era military as Hapon, but we were hoping that the film censors
wouldn't notice.
Also, the song that opened and closed the zarzuela had a
final verse that alluded to the imeldific "true, good, and beautiful"
mantra: "Awitin mo ang totoo, /
sagad-buto, tagos-apdo. / Ang totoo ay mabuti / kahit mapanganib sa iyo. / Ang
totoo ay maganda / Kahit pangit sa reyna." Again, we were hoping that
the censors wouldn't notice.
The Brechtian zarzuela, which originally carried the title Sangandaan, never got made, and Mike and
I instead used the title Sangandaan
for another film project—which was eventually retitled Sister Stella L., because a friend of ours felt that the title Sangandaan didn't have "L" (in
other words, walang libog). Sister Stella L. was released in 1984,
and it used one of the songs originally written for the Brechtian zarzuela, "Aling Pag-ibig Pa," along
with a new theme song titled (what else?) "Sangandaan."
Both songs were set to music by Ding Achacoso.
In 1991, five years after the EDSA revolution, the lyrics of
the songs I had written for the Brechtian zarzuela came out in a section of my
poetry collection Sa Panahon ng Ligalig:
Tula, Awit, Halaw (Anvil Publishing). The section was titled "Batubato sa Langit: Mga Titik para sa
Isang Sarsuwelang Binalak sa Panahon ng Diktadura."
That same year, I managed to finish the first draft of a
sequence treatment (something like a screenplay outline) of the Brechtian
zarzuela, which I had retitled Batubato
sa Langit. The following year, I wrote a second draft of the sequence
treatment. The full screenplay, however, never got written.
More than a decade later, Ding Achacoso brought up the idea
of turning the sarsuwelang pampelikula
into a stage musical, and he set to music two more of the songs from Batubato sa Langit. He even recorded the
songs, with his daughter Anne Isabel Marie as vocalist. Ding and I felt the
stage musical could already be set in the Marcos martial law era. But I never
got to start on the stage play.
Since the 45th anniversary of the declaration of Marcos
martial law is coming soon (September 21, 2017), I’ve decided to post my second
draft of the sequence treatment of Batubato
sa Langit on this long-neglected blog.
