The Search for the CP Notes

It’s been quite a time since I have started my work on the CP subject. I was forced to set the work aside because of more pressing tasks that I had to attend, and rare opportunities that I could not let pass, like working on Asiong Salonga 2011 [the 4th remake / DC version] and A mi Patria [Rizal 2012  / a film on Rizal 100 years after the first film on him  was made in 1912]. Though the former had been an exercise in creative futility, I can’t discount the fact that it helped me finish the latter. The producers of Asiong do not realize that they lost a gem of a film. Admittedly, it was like having a miscarriage. The producer’s cut that was delivered is akin to a child which as in the case of a CP kid, has lost some oxygen while in the process of delivery. It gasped, and came out with developmental disabilities only the knowledgeable and those within the circle would know what they are. In exercising what they thought to be their prerogatives, powers or rights, the producers actually got fooled; fooled by their own thinking and belief that it was better than the DC because of their lousy film aesthetics. For what could have been a classic film became less than what it should have been. Otherwise, it would not have been disowned by its maker.

It’s funny that this parallelism entered my mind. But the idea jibes.

Now, let’s see what they will come up with next. The yardstick has been set. If their aesthetics remain the same, I wonder what the outcome of El Presidente would be. If they keep the old script [seen and browsed on it], a boring film is in store for us. If they use their rewritten script [which I also happen to see and leaf through], which kept the bullets of historical notes at the end of it, the audience would thank Tikoy for the sequences he directed with Nora Aunor because of his aesthetics that goes beyond the physical film! For sure that would help in lifting the interest of the viewers! I have seen Baler and I have worked with Tikoy long enough to know his film aesthetics.

Nonetheless, I still pray for the success of El Presidente because of Emilio Aguinaldo; that truth about him be known to the people especially to those who continue to malign him without knowing what we may call as “the other side of the coin” based on historical evidences. I have worked with my brother Isagani R. Medina, a Cavite historian on all his books where I was enlightened by his researches on parts vague to me, especially on the Magdalo-Magdiwang feud. But I continue to hail Andres Bonifacio as the Katipunan Supremo. His importance in our history is undebatable. It is just that for me, the timeline for the role he played as a Supremo ended from the Battle of Pinaglabanan onwards. Its fall was also the beginning of his downfall heightened by his lost as President of the Revolutionary Government in the election held during the Tejeros Convention. But of course, his spirit continues to haunt I guess the Aguinaldos because of people and history teachers who cannot accept how Bonifacio died. What actually happened and why he was led to a sad ending, even if already known by now, are still unacceptable it seems.

Oh well, I’ve gone too far away from my topic. haha! i just couldn’t help it. So –going back to my CP notes, I have yet to find them. And I have to review again what I already shot. Que sera, sera! I will pursue with this while the other project gets “cooked.”

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