This
isn’t going to be a review but merely a reaction. It is true what people have been saying
online about the movie, in the last few weeks.
Filipinos deserve more movies like that--not necessarily socially
relevant historical films but rather films that take extra care with
aesthetics, context, semiotics, and substance to make us think as much as we
feel.
Heneral
Luna is a unique historical narrative in that examines the ills of Philippine
society and how we’re as awful at handling power and politics as the
Philippines under Aguinaldo had been. It
is a retrospective sort of commentary on the fact that, despite everything that
our national heroes have done for us, they are a fraction of a greater
whole--and the majority, just as they are now, are selfish, undiscerning people
with no integrity. It is a lamentation of the fact that people like Antonio
Luna is in short supply. Despite the
impact he had made in the Philippine-American War, we weren’t unable to stay
independent, largely because we were either incapable of it, or that the powers
that be thought we were.
A
lot of people in social media seem to get caught in the delusion that we all
feel like Antonio Luna. “Akala mo ba,
ikaw lang ang nagmamahal sa Pilipinas?
Mahal ko rin ang Pilipinas!” Buencamino says to him at one point. The fact that a lot of us are hypocrites like
Buencamino; indecisive like Mabini; or, stubborn like Aguinaldo--is a big pill
to swallow. Even for me, the love for
country is but an abstract thought. We
can’t all be shooting at the enemy on horseback. We can’t all be yelling at the President and
his council about integrity. This was exactly
the point of the movie.
Lapu-Lapu
fought in Mactan; Spain still conquered the Philippines. They stayed for 300 years despite several
rebellions through all that time. Antonio
Luna strove to maintain the independence that Aguinaldo declared in June 12,
1898; the Americans still came to the islands and stayed for the next 40 years. We needed help from America to drive the
Japanese away.
We
aren’t like Leonidas and the 300, who held off the Persians and inspired Greece
to fight. We aren’t like Vlad Dracula,
who literally scared off the Ottomans by impaling both enemy soldiers and
common criminals with tall spikes. The
difference is that both Lapu-Lapu and Luna had their own leaders to answer to,
and their bosses didn’t share their sentiments.
Whereas Leonidas and Dracula were kings of their lands and therefore had
the power to preserve the sovereignty of their dominion.
I
felt the chill of helplessness as the credits rolled and I walked out of the
theater. Everyone including me was
inspired by the story we just witnessed.
But I looked around me in the inside of the mall. Everything I saw was the sign of defeat. Text and signs in English; pale models in
advertisements; foreign brands; local brands modeled after them. While I personally acknowledge the good parts
of foreign influence on Philippine culture, I can’t help but wonder what could
have been. What would the Philippines be
like if our ancient kings weren’t diplomatic to a fault? What if more people shared the fierceness or
integrity of Lapu-Lapu, Bonifacio, Luna, or Silang? What if more people were authentic? What if Filipinos lived up to their ideals?
Well,
if Filipinos value integrity as much as much as we think we do, I would be
living in a peaceful and self-sufficient Philippines instead of writing a story
around my daydreams of one.
