EARLY this year, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples called the attention of ABS-CBN to "immediately rectify" its portrayal of the Bagani in its teleserye of the same name, and warned that if the network fails to do so, the NCIP would exhaust all means available to protect the cultural integrity of IPs. "Bagani is real, not a fictional and not even a mythological group of warriors, which the ABS-CBN TV series would like the portray," NCIP chairperson Leonor Oralde-Quintayo told the network adding that Bagani "is an exclusively indigenous term that refers to the peacekeeping force of the Manobo Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples...and other ICCs/IPs in Mindanao."
"By portraying Bagani as merely fictional or mythological, and without reference to the historical and cultural significance, the TV fantasy show distorts, misleads, and confuses rather than educates the Filipino TV viewers on the indigenous concept and term ‘Bagani.’ It is not surprising that members of the Manobo and other ICC’s/IPs took deep offense on the appropriation of the term Bagani on the show," Quintayo added. In view of this "injustice," the NCIP chief said the network should act to correct the "misleading" portrayal of the Bagani in its series or face possible legal consequences.
With their mandate to protect and promote the interest and well-being of the ICCs/IPs with due regard to their beliefs, customs, traditions and institutions, I think the statement of the NCIP official is definitely in order because people in the creative industry can always re-interpret a known fact, stage a superficial scenario with artfully twist a heralded narrative invoking their artistic license.
Commissioner Ronald Adamat of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) also came out with a statement saying that “We cannot allow culturally insensitive movies and television series” adding that “it is not enough for writers and producers of movies and tele-nobela to come up with concepts, titles, and characters that would sell and create blockbusters yet carry with them half-truths and lies that destroy and negate the real essence of an IP terminology, as in the case of Bagani, and instead bring injustice to the 14 million Filipino IPs.
I attend the quarterly meeting of the Committee on Indigenous People’s Concerns (CIPC) a sub-sector of the Regional Development Council of CAR that promotes indigenous peoples’ culture and addresses the IP concerns and these are just some of the issues being tackled. Hearing from NCIP-CAR Director Roland Calde mention the matter about Bagani in our meeting, I had an impression that the sudden ending of the tele-nobela came as a best response by the producers to abort the growing IP issue.
As the IP representative of the Committee on Cinema of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts, I had to bring out the matter of free, prior and informed consent or FPIC to our 13-man council led by film archivist and Sub-Commission Member Teddy Co during our last meeting held at Intramuros, Manila. I took note of several project proposals by independent film producers who are planning to document the lifestyles of the Badjaos of Mindanao and Aetas of Central Luzon that certain requirements should be availed first prior to actual documentation.
In conducting researches and documentary projects in culturally rich IP areas, the Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices (IKSPs) and Customary Laws are always drawn from the interviewees and film subjects hence, guidelines were enacted pursuant to the Constitution particularly Republic Act No. 8371. Said Act is meant to protect and recognize the rights of Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs) to cultural integrity and to prescribe protection mechanisms at the international and national government levels and within the context of relevant customary laws. It also ensure and guarantee the due exercise by the concerned ICCs/IPs of their right to allow or reject, through free and prior informed consent (FPIC), research and documentation of their IKSPs and customary laws and their derivatives.
Further, the Act also regulate the use of IKSPs and customary laws, and ensure that the ICCs/IPs benefit from the use of research output/outcome.
Over the years, Manila based film producers featured many big screen movies like “Banaue”, “Igorota”, “Mumbaki” and “Ang Babae sa Ulog” that may generate many mixed opinions from locals if presented today.
Movie reviews culled from the net reveals disturbing statements from various writers and one particular statement by a certain Jennifer Lapis who wrote about the 1975 movie Banaue states that “The characters were portrayed in a way they were before, complete with their costumes of the ‘bahag’ for men and being topless for the women. Even the personalities of the characters were accurate, with the men being brutal with each other and to their women”.
Another trailer review of the same movie with expanded title “Banaue: Stairway to the Sky” states that “Banawe (Nora Aunor) meets different men, but she's sincere in her regard and affection for them; she loves them for their different virtues she values what they bring to her life. If they hurt her or she hurts them or they hurt each other, it's not deliberate but part of the course of life”. The writer according to the net post that was first published in Businessworld even suggested that de Leon, the film director and Aunor present this aspect of tribal society as an alternative to strict Christian monogamy which raised my eyebrow. I may not have seen the classic Filipino movie but it struck me as a Cordilleran that life in the uplands as perceived by producers, viewers and writers is “a complicated way to live....and Banawe reserves the right to love not just any man but all men; reserves the right to transcend the merely sensual and strive for the wholly societal--a remarkably complex and thought-provoking thesis for what was supposed to be just another caveman drama, with a popular Filipina celebrity at its center.”
As we mark and celebrate the Philippine Cinema’s Centenary starting this year with highlights on September 12, 2019 as the time when the first locally-made full-length film, “Dalagang Bukid”, we hope to see more historic films like “Heneral Luna” and “Goyo” or perhaps a full length movie about Lapu-Lapu and the Battle of Mactan by 2021 for the 500th anniversary of the historic landing of Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan on our shores.