Love, family and country

Decades ago, Visayan movies were as popular as Tagalog ones. Visayan brought Gloria Sevilla to fame when she became the queen of Visayan movies.

Visayan movies slowly faded away in the ’80s until it died in the ’90s. Thus, I got excited when fellow Visayan, Cesar Montano, decided to produce an entry for the 2004 MMFFP which uses the Visayan language and was shot in Bohol.

The entire story of Panaghoy sa Suba happened in Bohol, where Duroy (Cesar) works as a boatman. He gets smitten with Iset (Juliana Palermo), whose father and aunt hope she will marry John Smith, an American businessman.

John is an abusive, rude and stingy landowner who is also taken by Iset’s beauty.

She also likes Duroy, and asks that he express this love in a letter. Duroy takes his time in trying to win the love of his life. When he finds out that his brother Ibo (Reiven Bulado) also likes Iset, he abandons the courtship just to see his younger brother happy. It clearly shows how Duroy adores his family and doesn’t want to get in his brother’s way.

Duroy is very much devoted to his family, who now only consist of his mother (Daria Ramirez), Ibo and his sister, Bikay (Rebecca Lusterio). Duroy’s father (Warfe Engracia) left them to go off with an American. This broke his wife’s heart and she becomes ill.

The mom dies because they don’t have money to buy medicine.

The scene made me feel sad. People feel helpless when they are mired in poverty.

During the Japanese invasion, Smith is drafted into the army and has to leave the village. The new Japanese commander takes control over the village and also falls in love with Iset.

Meanwhile, all the men hide in the mountains while the women and children remain with an American priest. The movie showed how the Japanese killed and abused the Filipinos. The Filipinos are in the state of fear.

Years pass. Duroy and his men finally reach the end of their resources and patience, and the Filipinos launch an attack against the Japanese garrison. Duroy tries to kill Smith when he returns to the village but Iset prevents him (Duroy) from doing so.

Iset, realizing Smith’s abuses, rejects the love he offers her. The ending implies a once-more blossoming romance between Iset and Duroy.

The movie, though low budget, reaped local and international awards. Despite problems of financing, Panaghoy sa Suba still turned out to be a great movie. It showed that Cesar is not only a good actor but also a good director.

He is also proud of his roots. He shot the entire movie in Bohol and used the Visayan language in the dialogue. The cast gave a brilliant performance – simple and not overacting. Special credit goes to Rebecca Lusterio, who won as Best Supporting Actress.

I’m a bit disappointed when the movie did not do well at the box-office. It was well-patronized in the Visayan-speaking regions. The non-Visayan speaking regions were not able to appreciate the movie though it had subtitles.

As a whole, the movie depicts Filipino culture. We are known to be very hospitable to visitors, be it locals or foreigners. Our close family ties show how we love our family.

Whenever foreigners try to invade our shores, we fight till the end just to protect our mother country. Duroy clearly represents a typical Filipino. He fights for his love, family and country.

I do wish people can produce Visayan movies again and appreciate them once more.