The story behind the P80-M Chavit bioflick

The first time we met Donna Villa was in the early ‘80s, when she was still a budding actress. Her most memorable film was the drama, Paano Hahatiin ang Puso, with Edu Manzano. Her PRO then, the late Mar Cornes, introduced her to us and she was then also promoting her own resort in Cebu, Marianne Shangrila, derived from her real name Marianne Patalinjug. This would later become what is now known as the Mactan Shangrila.

Her luminous beauty made Donna a perfect specimen of feminine pulchritude before the camera, but she will be the first to admit she never really excelled as an actress. As a movie producer, though, it’s another story, as she has proven herself an astute businesswoman. She has the gut-feel to detect what will click at the box office and she has come up with some of the biggest hits in local cinema under her Golden Lions Films banner, like The Vizconde Massacre and The Maggie de la Riva Story. All are made in tandem with her husband, director Carlo Caparas.

Now, Donna and Carlo embark on their most expensive project ever, Chavit, film biography of the whistleblower who helped boot President Joseph Estrada out of Malacañang, Luis "Chavit" Singson, former congressman and governor.

"When I decided to produce this film, I didn’t know it will cost us P80-M to complete it," says Donna. "This is our biggest budgeted movie ever. It’s because Chavit himself supervises the entire production and he always strives for authenticity. He’s very careful and meticulous about the details of each scene.

"He wants to stick to reality and doesn’t believe in cinematic license. For instance, after we shot that scene where their town mayor, Anselmo Tadena, was ambushed and killed, he remembered the exact number of people riding in the jeep that killed the mayor so he wanted to shoot the scene again to add more people in the jeep. When Carlo told him, `okay na ‘yon because the viewers won’t even notice that’, he said that his townspeople in Ilocos know the real score and he’d be criticized if he wouldn’t be truthful to the smallest detail. ‘Yun daw ang problema natin sa local film industry. We are not realistic enough, so we had no choice but to reshoot the entire sequence, costing us a hundred thousand pesos more in the process."

Is this the reason why the film’s total running time is more than four hours? "Yes," says Donna. "Because Gov. Chavit wants all the pertinent details about his life included in the film and, of course, we cannot cram all of it in the movie. As it is, he’s still not satisfied dahil marami pa raw incidents in his life na hindi nakasali. Before writing the script and during the shooting itself, Carlo talked not only to Gov. Chavit himself and his sister Honeygirl, but also to their relatives and hundreds of people who knew the governor from his childhood. We also spent a lot of time doing research and reading old newspapers with accounts on Gov. Chavit to make sure everything we’ll show in the film is properly documented. Nothing in the film is invented. Carlo starts the movie in 1846 with him tracing the origins of the Singson family in Ilocos until the time Gov. Chavit was born in 1942. Their original ancestors were Chinese. Then the story formally opens with the wedding of Gov. Chavit, played by Cesar Montano, to his wife, Evelyn, played by Dina Bonnevie, while his political foes are assassinating their town mayor just to spite him."

What exactly can viewers expect from the biopic? "The first two hours of the movie is devoted to the conflict of the Singsons with their political rivals, the Crisologo family. The patriarch, Floro Crisologo, is played by Eddie Garcia, with Pinky de Leon as his wife, Carmeling, and Tirso Cruz III as their son, Bingbong. Gov. Chavit refuses to take any shortcuts in telling the story and I can understand him because it’s really a very engrossing one. You’d be able to realize where the feud all started and how it affected the entire Ilocos region. Again, we’re very careful with the details, especially in that scene where Eddie Garcia is cold-bloodedly shot to death while praying in church by a hired killer. The second part of the movie deals with the struggles and exploits of Gov. Chavit as a politician and how he survived the various attempts on his life. It shows his falling out with Erap because of Atong Ang. It was Atong who told his son, Ronald, ‘Tapos na ang political career ng ama mo.’ So Gov. Chavit called up Erap, played by Willie Nepomuceno, and implored him: ‘Huwag mo namang alisin sa akin ang Bingo 2 balls at ibigay sa kalaban ko.’ When he realized nilaglag na talaga siya ni Erap, that’s when he went to the COPA members, so we had Pastor Boy Saycon, Billy Esposo, and Peping and Tingting Cojuangco of the COPA playing themselves in the movie. They’re the ones who helped Chavit seek an audience with Cardinal Sin. After that, there was the attempt to arrest him on a minor traffic charge and take him to Crame. He knew he’d be killed, so instead, he went to the WPD precinct and had himself interviewed by media people. A few days later, he held a press conference at Club Filipino and revealed everything he knew about Erap. The movie’s climax is EDSA II and the rest, as they say, is history."

Why did they choose Cesar Montano to portray Chavit? "He’s the personal choice of Gov. Chavit himself and his friends," says Donna. "And after watching the movie, Gov. Chavit said they made the right decision in choosing Cesar as he is very pleased with the way Cesar portrayed him on screen. Dina Bonnevie is also the governor’s own choice to play his wife and, in fairness Dina also did an excellent job in the movie."

Did Donna have her usual arguments with Carlo during the production? "Of course, since I handle the business side of the production while he deals with the creative side," she replies. In his desire to make it a really good movie, the budget continues to escalate each shooting day. All in all, he exposed 300,000 feet of negative for this film. You can already make so many other movies out of that! Record-holder nga ito sa LVN Pictures laboratory in terms of the footage exposed, so the editors really had so much material to work on. And we put them all together, ayun, umabot ng more than four hours and Gov. Chavit wouldn’t allow us to cut it shorter because the movie raw will suffer and Carlo and I agree with him."

What prompted her to produce a film this big at a time when the local film industry is moribund? "First of all, there’s no denying that the true-to-life story of Gov. Chavit is truly colorful and it really has to be told on the big screen. Golden Lions is known for making movies based on unforgettable, controversial real life stories and this is certainly one of the best because the course of Philippine history was affected by Gov. Chavit. We seldom make films but we make it a point that each movie we do is something really worth it. Next, Carlo and I really want to help the dying industry. Imagine, the year is almost ending but we have released only 62 local films so far. That’s definitely a far cry from the 150 to 200 movies a year that the industry used to do. So, we all need to help each other, including the viewing public, to save the local film industry, and making a momumental epic like Chavit is our own way of enticing moviegoers to come to the theaters once again."