Joel Lamangan: The director as activist

MANILA, Philippines - And so the little boy from Cavite City, who grew up believing his grandparents were his parents and who was later tortured for his leftwing activism, made it in Manila, the Big Apple: A director churning out commercial hits while megging the socially-conscious films his heart and mind were set on.

Joel Lamangan’s mother died in childbirth, and he grew up with his grandparents Francisco (a Magdalo who became one of the first US constables) and Juanita (who appeared in moro-moro or komedya). It was not until 10 years later that Francisco and Juanita told Joel that they were really his lolo and lola.

Joel’s father was the only son, and it seems there was this agreement between father and son (Joel’s father) to “go forth and multiply.” And so Joel had 15 half-brothers and half-sisters all of whom went abroad to serve in the US military (they were a military family and US Sangley Point was in Cavite City).

Only Joel refused to go to the US, flunked the military test, and stayed on to become another kind of revolutionary.

In the mid-‘60s, while still in his teens, he organized a Kabataang Makabayan chapter in Cavite City and led a jeepney strike there. He was jailed twice, first in 1973 and then in 1977, by which time he was with PETA (Philippine Educational Theater Association), and tortured for having joined one of the first rallies against martial law.

He spent two years in Bicutan, thrown in with common criminals. To protect himself and other University of the Philippines students, some younger than him, (the syndicates were eyeing them) he organized cultural nights, staging poetry readings and one-act plays. “It was a learning experience, a different culture there,” he recalled. “It was fun but harrowing.”

At PETA, Lamangan bloomed as an actor even as he learned directing there from theater luminaries like Lino Brocka, Nonon G. Padilla, Lutgardo Labad, Soxie Topacio, Maryo J. de los Reyes, Mario O’Hara, and Orlando Nadres. Playwright Frank G. Rivera gave him pointers on creative writing.

Soon he crashed into showbiz, but as a writer first and on TV. By the early ‘90s, he became a director of Viva Films, debuting with Darna and turning out one hit movie after another until he couldn’t stand it anymore, and he beseeched Vic del Rosario, the owner of Viva, to “let me do the films I want to do since I have given you more than 10 hits.”

Del Rosario agreed, and Lamangan came out with Pangako ng Kahapon, about social unrest in Bicol. Since then this has become his trademark, creating commercial movies (with mixed reactions from critics) and balancing these with activist, socially-significant films, while shuttling from mainstream to indie films. These include gay-themed, erotic movies which one critic found “gratuitous.” Lamangan is not apologetic about the latter.

One film close to his activist heart is the current Dukot (Desaparecidos), which made waves in the Montreal World Film Festival, and was shown in the US, Hong Kong and Canada under the sponsorship of a human rights organization.

After decades in theater and showbiz, what has he learned?

“For me an artistic expression must always reflect what is real, what is true about a specific situation, a specific time,” he declared. “It should be of service to the many. That is what I learned in my training from PETA and in all my dealings, in all the artistic things I did.”