The force of the acute crisis weighing upon the nation led to a storm of massive protests that henceforth became known as the First Quarter Storm (FQS) of 1970.
This historical episode of social unrest is the starting point of the film Sigwa, as directed by Joel Lamangan and written by Bonifacio Ilagan.
The story begins with the main character, Dolly (Dawn Zulueta, Megan Young), returning to the Philippines to look for her daughter who was left in the country during the years of the Marcos dictatorship.
She first came to the Philippines in the ‘70s as a Filipino-American who at first only wrote about the struggles of the workers, peasants and other sectors of society for national liberation and genuine democracy but later on became actively engaged in it.
Past revisited
Through flashbacks of her personal saga, the viewers are presented the human side of those who took up the challenge of confronting imperialism (which means the subjugation of our people by foreign powers), feudalism (characterized by landlord exploitation of the peasantry), and bureaucrat capitalism (or the use of government position for private profit).
Helping Dolly link the past to the present is Rading (Jaime Pebanco, Jay Aquitania), an old comrade she becomes reunited with while searching for her daughter.
Rading narrates the many changes and continuities of the old generation of activists. Many have become inactive for different reasons while some have even made a 180-degree turn to become the very defenders of the status quo.
Azon (Gina Alajar, Lovi Poe), who was gang raped by military agents, has grown sickly from the trauma and is now resting in a secluded country house. Oliver (Tirso Cruz III, Marvin Agustin), who was arrested in the ‘70s, is now presidential spokesperson.
But others, like Rading, have retained measures of involvement in the movement while some, like Cita (Zsa Zsa Padilla, Pauleen Luna), have deepened their commitment for social change by persisting in the highest form of struggle.
No dinner party
The intensification of Marcos’ fascist repression compelled Dolly and her group of friends to join the underground revolutionary movement and take up arms against the regime.
They have come to the conclusion that armed resistance is the primary form of struggle since the ruling classes would not give up their power and hold on a repressive system.
The revolutionaries would have to start organizing in the rural areas where the forces of the state are weakest and gradually surround the cities from the countryside wave upon wave.
However, they would also discover that waging a revolution is no dinner party. Members of their group of friends who were captured by the military were raped and tortured. They became part of the Marcos regime’s more than 70,000 political prisoners.
Eddie (Allen Dizon), the father of Dolly’s daughter, kills himself in the presence of Dolly and their comrades in a guerrilla camp after he was uncovered as a military agent.
Dolly herself would leave her baby daughter with Azon when their safehouse was raided by the military. These traumatic episodes would lead her to leave the country.
Oliver, who is also Cita’s ex-lover, would reveal the whereabouts of his comrades to his military captors during interrogation.
Confrontation
These characters would find themselves together again in the film’s highpoint after 40 years of separation. During the wake of a dead professor who was important in their development as activists, Dolly and Rading would join the confrontation between Cita and Oliver.
In this heated exchange, the continuing relevance of revolutionary armed struggle is debated, with Oliver insisting that its time has passed.
Cita, who took up arms again after escaping her military captors despite all the hardships and sacrifices, expresses her deepened commitment for revolutionary change.
The collapse of the former Soviet Union and China’s following of the capitalist road after the death of Mao does not at all diminish Philippine social realities of injustice and the validity of the struggle for revolutionary transformation, countered Rading.
Cita finally shames Oliver by pointing out that those who are separated from the concrete conditions and do not engage in social practice end up slurping all sorts of wrong ideas.
The scene ends with Oliver getting booed by other activists as he leaves the wake.
Dialectical form
This climactic confrontation epitomizes how the entire film is structured “as a constant play of opposite modalities clashing against one another.” [1]
Conflicting images are often set against each other in succeeding scenes. Upon Dolly’s arrival, for example, the view of the calm Manila bay is contrasted to flashbacks of a raging militant youth demonstration that was violently dispersed by the police.
The film’s dialectical form is also expressed in the exposition of protagonists’ conflicting viewpoints. But this method of opposing elements is present not only in the form but also extends and intertwines with the content.
Dolly’s reminiscence of her past and outlook in the film is often nostalgic, for example, while Cita’s own flashbacks are narrated by a more practical point of view. Even as Dolly’s character searches for a lost past, Cita has a rich experience from this very past that Dolly left behind.
The flashbacks of Dolly’s courtship by Eddie in the usual bourgeois way is contrasted, for instance, with Cita’s second marriage which was officiated by the revolutionary movement and held within a guerrilla front to the celebratory sound of gunfire.
Meanwhile, Cita’s remaining true to her original calling and becoming a leader of the New People’s Army is opposed to Oliver’s betrayal and eventual serving of the reactionary government.
Sigwa thus involves what film critic Marylin Fabe as “a constant juxtaposition or clash of opposites (a thesis and an antithesis), the goal being the creation of a new synthesis or higher consciousness in the mind of the viewer.” [2]
But the social issues and historical events tend to act as background to a family saga – Dolly’s search for her lost daughter – instead of becoming the film’s highlight. This is a convincing way of introducing and endearing these issues and events to more mainstream audiences.
The only problem with Sigwa is what acclaimed novelist Lualhati Bautista would describe as “a very striking similarity between Sigwa and Desaparesidos… [in] the very concept of a mother searching for the daughter she has lost, which is the basic, unifying element of the movie.” [3]
Bautista first wrote Desparesidos as a teleplay aired on Channel 7 in 1997. Bautista wrote a full-length novel based on the teleplay. The novel was published in 2007.
Filming the struggle
Sigwa comes after a long line of films that directly tackle social injustices, state repression, the legal democratic movement, and the armed struggle in the countryside.
Mike De Leon’s Sister Stella L (1984) shows the awakening of a nun to greater social realities by helping striking workers in their picket lines.
Lino Brocka’s Orapronobis (1988), which was also censored by the government, mirrors the realities of grave human rights violations under the regime of the late Corazon Aquino.
Chito Roño’s Dekada ’70 (2002), based on a novel by Lualhati Bautista of the same title, tells the story of a mother and her family’s personal struggles and political resistance under the dictatorship.
And Dukot (2009), also directed by Lamangan and written by Ilagan, chronicles the plight of desaparecidos or those abducted by state forces under the Arroyo regime. This comes as no surprise as Lamangan and Ilagan are both veterans of the FQS.
The continuing relevance of the social realities shown in Sigwa as well as this year’s commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the FQS makes the film’s screening timely.
Through the interaction of the characters’ experiences during the FQS, the ensuing period of repression and fiercer resistance during martial law, and the continuing struggle in the present, the viewers are presented an overview of the narrative of the national democratic struggle. ■
Notes
1. Marilyn Fabe, Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004), 194.
2. Ibid.
3. Lualhati Bautista, “Sigwa vis-à-vis Desparesidos,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 30 July 2010.
(Mis)readings