Willie Nep made my day

MANILA, Philippines - Watching the latest Willie Nepomuceno gag at the Music Museum was the perfect culmination of a long day that started 4 a.m. for a healing pilgrimage in six Tarlac churches, including the miraculous Risen Christ Monastery. Seeing the master impressionist giving life to the inimitable characters of the country, who make and break the socio-political arena, reminds one to value fortitude and the faith that sustains it. For how else can we survive this crazy ride called ‘Pinas, if not with a full measure of devotion to the Lord, who will hold us in the palm of His hands no matter how we squander all the chances He gives us to make this nation decent enough to live in.

The show, titled Willie Nep on Trial & Error, began with a Greek choragus of masked performers representing the senators of the republic, who, as we heave a sigh of relief, have done their duty as an impeachment court. Indeed, the trial of the chief magistrate of the land has taken on such surreal proportions — a cross between a teleserye and a reality show with cheesy plot and self-possessed dramatis personae.

Then followed the classic impression of Juan Ponce Enrile, with his thick Ilocano accent, trying so hard to inscribe his place in history by a wisdom that once eluded the nation during the hard days of the dictatorship. The mace of his lofty office stands in the background, saying “Silence in the Court,” with the logo of Victoria Court Motel.

The sketch on Joseph Estrada was vintage, capturing the slurring speech and swagger of the tragi-comic Erap para sa Mahirap jeepney-driving icon who was himself the central figure in another impeachment trial that prefigured a termagant presidency, to be beleaguered by charges of election fraud and unprecedented corruption. To prove how Willie Nep can be irreverent, the Ateneo dropout who was once a mayor, senator, president and now running full circle with his bid for Manila mayor, wrote on the board an acrostic style formula for the attributes of a public servant: Honesty, unselfishness, experience, trustworthy, empathy, nationalism and good governance, which when added up, spelt his hamartia (Greek for missing the mark): HUETENG. 

Nobody can hold a candle to his Dolphy impersonation, with the script pandering to the pick-up lines humor that has not spared even the feisty Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

 But the bull’s-eye of the impression repertoire was that of the president of the republic. Willie as P-Noy entering with the lopsided gait (scar of the ambush which almost killed him during the presidency of his mother) was too uncanny. From the box seats my husband and I occupied, we could see the bald spot on his head, and we quaked with laughter as this master impersonator has had him down pat right to that tiny detail. A common plaint is that P-Noy is clueless of what ails the country, and Willie Nep’s caricature of the Cojuangco-Aquino scion defending himself by enumerating the liaisons and break-ups in showbiz, including the “thrilla in NAIA” brawl between prominent parties. He even played the ubiquitous noontime show game Pinoy Henyo to prove that he had the gift of prescience or knowing events beforehand. He exits the stage with a parody of the Corona ill-timed walkout, saying: “And now, the President of the Republic wishes to be excused.”

 Of course, the nation cannot ignore the presidential sister, Kris Aquino (played by Willie’s daughter), who is always poking her finger in every showbiz pie. She is sketched as trying to patch-up the much-milked trouble in the paradise of Pambansang Kamao Manny Pacquiao and radically-transformed wife Jinkee.

The segment on the courtship of Justice Czarina, Leila de Lima, by Congressman Niel Tupas Jr. was a stroke of genius, with Willie Nep essaying the character of CJ Corona’s chief counsel, former Supreme Court Justice Serafin Cuevas, as the father of the bride-to-be. The old school father, wearing his signature loose white suit, was asking for written proof of the suitor’s love and required both subpoenas duces tecum and testificandum from Tupas, whose piping voice rivaled that of the Jessica Sanchez-trying hard chimay.

The epilogue was foreshadowed by the appearance of Willie Nep in a wheel chair, doing a pathetic Corona in the throes of a heart attack. It’s as if the jongleur was saying: This is the sorry state we have come to, with the person tasked with balancing the scales of Lady Justice just a fallen knight, who balked at tilting the windmills, because his dreams were dimmed by the world itself.

Thus, the closing song from musical drama, The Man from La Mancha, The Impossible Dream, was accompanied by a video pastiche of heartwarming scenes of Filipinos contending with adversities, be they man-made or natural calamities. “Trials make us more alive, reminding us to take things slow and compelling us to shape dreams fast before they vanish into hopelessness,” he advises.

And just like the priests who gave special blessings for us pilgrims in the yellow crowd bailiwick of Tarlac, Willie Nep gave his fellow Filipino travelers in this valley of tears (ironically being marketed to the world as “more fun”) the strong admonition: “Never, never, never give up.” This is an unequivocal expression of the leap of faith that this country needs to survive all the trials and errors of those in power, whose impressions Willie Nep indefatigably and deftly executes for catharsis — what Aristotle defines in his treatise on the poetics of tragedy, as the expurgation of pity and fear.