The FAP fiasco

(Second of two parts)

The other day, I brought up the issue of how the only function of the Film Academy of the Philippines is merely to give out its annual awards, which – sadly – it cannot even do properly.

The main problem of the FAP awards – even from the beginning – is the selection of nominees and winners. During the first two years of the Academy’s existence, every member could cast his or her ballot and had a say both in the nomination and in the final voting. On its third year, however, the Film Academy created an electoral college by getting 10 representatives from each guild. These 10 representatives – let’s say from the Screenwriters’ Guild – select their five nominees from among their fellow guild members for the Best Screenplay award. In the final round, all the representatives from the various guilds will be allowed to vote in all categories – from Best Sound all the way to Best Picture.

Actually, the ideal set up is to open the balloting to each and every member of the Academy. After all, this is their awards body and it is best to get everyone involved in the selection of winners. But the problem is, you are not even sure if the member you are allowing to vote has seen all the films in contention. At least, in the electoral college, private screenings are held for the benefit of the members and the FAP secretariat can do an attendance check on them since there are only about a hundred or so people to monitor. (This may sound like an elementary school regulation, but I guess this is the only way to do it.)

Having an electoral college is the better alternative – except that the Film Academy hasn’t been successful at getting the right people to sit in this board, I’m sorry to say.

As I related in my column last Tuesday, there was this actress member of the electoral college who insisted on giving the Best Actress award to somebody who had not won because Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos had already received so many acting trophies.

And then, there’s the problem of having too much camaraderie within the electoral college. In two instances, for example, the winners of the Best Supporting Actor award were bonafide members of the electoral college themselves! In the vernacular, it’s a "sila-sila" thing. Maybe that was in keeping with the Film Academy’s slogan, "Atin ito! To that, I say, "Sa inyo na lang!" since the system within seems so rotten anyway.

Also, there is the matter of the electoral college members getting swayed and giving in to lobbying by movie people desperately wanting to win awards. Well, people who lobby are always there and will always be there. The question is, will you allow yourself to be influenced by lobbyists? In the case of the electoral college members, what do you think? Maybe we should go over their roster of winners.

But this much I have to say: I don’t think money was ever involved in the selection of winners in the Film Academy. Some of them may be guilty of not having taste when it comes to films, but I doubt very much if anyone from the Electoral College has been bribed with cash. Generally, I believe it’s just the pakikisama system that has done them.

In some cases, the FAP fails to honor deserving performances and works of directors and technical artists all because these people are not members of good standing. This happened to Marilou Abaya whose Rizal was ignored in 1999 because she rebelled, then eventually broke away from the Directors’ Guild. Two years ago, Jeffrey Quizon missed scoring a grand-slam win for Markova because he did not apply for membership with the Academy and therefore was not eligible for nomination.

Another matter I find terribly wrong with the Film Academy of the Philippines is the way it has been patterning itself after the Oscars in Hollywood and even openly prides itself as such. Of course, all the other award-giving bodies had been inspired by the basic concept of the Oscar, but you don’t necessarily have to ape everything they do in the AMPAS (the acronym of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), which is the organization behind the Oscar Awards.

I find it annoying, for instance, every time the FAP insists that it is the local counterpart of the Oscars. If that’s how they want to be branded, fine. But people in the FAP should realize that the system followed by the Oscars isn’t fool-proof either.

The Oscars may be the most popular awards body in the whole world, but that doesn’t mean it is perfect. Just this year, there were a lot of questions regarding the results of the race for Best Director. And year after year, similar questions arise in the Academy Awards in Hollywood, so why pattern your mechanics after a system that is also clearly defective?

When the FAP Awards was staged at the UP Theater last March 29, I knew there was something terribly wrong the minute I heard the first bar of All That Jazz (from Chicago) in the opening production number. What was that? A homage to Hollywood? But why?

They shouldn’t have done that because Chicago was still playing in local theaters and there will be comparisons. Sure, Maricel Soriano was great (as she always is) in that Chicago number, but let’s admit it, she is no Catherine Zeta-Jones who has had years and years of intensive training as a dancer.

The rest of the production numbers – regrettably – were all foreign-inspired and that was so incorrect because this is an affair organized by the Film Academy of the Philippines to honor outstanding works of Filipino film artists.

Oh yes, there was one Filipino production number. This was the medley of local pop songs by Sharon Cuneta as a tribute to lifetime achievement honoree Susan Roces. But did she have to be asked to sing Bituing Walang Ningning to Ms. Roces whose luster as a movie queen is still there and shining?

But really, the biggest slip of the night was hardly noticed by anyone, except maybe by this writer. This concerned the fact that it was billed as the "21st Film Academy Awards" when it was only the 20th – the FAP Awards having started in 1983. Now, how do you expect an organization like the FAP to count the ballots properly in the final voting when it can’t even count its years of existence correctly?

Well, since it has been reported that the Academy officials themselves want to disown the results of the FAP Awards, maybe they can just treat that last one as a bad dream and sweep it under the rug. After all, if you count correctly, the 21st FAP Awards isn’t bound to come around until next year.