By Raymund B. Villanueva
At Friday’s talkback after Bloom Where You Are Planted‘s full house screening at the University of the Philippines Film Center, a girl of about eight years old named Naya asked the most difficult of the many questions from the audience. I did not want to be the one among the panelists to answer it. But, as the eldest up there, the microphone found its way to me.
“Bakit marami ang namamaril?” Naya asked.
As a journalist of more than three decades and an activist for even longer, the seemingly simple question should’ve been a gimme pitch I could Shohei Otani out the ballpark. But the question was asked by a child who wanted to understand more about what the film talks about, making it profound.
Randy Malayao would have been pleased to answer the question himself and delighted by the special privilege of doing so for a child. I tried to channel him and asked myself, “How would he answer this?”
I began by trying to present a simple predicate while still scrambling in my head for an answer. I said that just as there are good people who do good things — like the subjects of the film Agnes Medina, Amanda Lacaba Echanis and Randy – there are bad people who do bad things. And the bad people are the ones trying to kill the good people.
The wife later told me I could have ended there and my answer would have been enough, in fact just right and “age appropriate.” I did not. It may be because, as the film presents to the world and preserves for posterity, I am talkative. I am in fact often guilty of talking too much.
But as soon as I thought of stopping, I realized I shouldn’t patronize Naya. She deserves a simple answer but not a simplistic one. Her courageous act of voicing out her aghast at the realities the film showed her deserved a reply that does not simply try to satisfy with a neatly-packaged response for a child. I thought she deserved a response that would encourage her to keep on asking about the good and the bad in the world as she grows older.
So I continued by making references about the main characters of the film and how they chose to do good to defeat evil. All the while, I was desperately trying to think of how and when to end it, hoping I wouldn’t flood her brain with too many concepts that would only succeed in dissuading her from my intentions. I ended with expressing hope that when she grows up, she would join the good people who try to do good in a bad world, not in a Superfriends and Avengers type of combating evil but the Agnes-Amanda-Randy way.
Hours after, I still think of how I could have answered Naya better. Or the UP speech communication student who earlier asked what should their takeaway be after watching the film, to which I showbiz-ly replied “Hope and the joy of serving the people.” But, hey, those are exactly what Agnes, Amanda and Randy exemplify.
I also wonder if I started the political awakening of an 8-year old mind with my reply. I certainly hope so. But Naya’s elder sister who took her to see the film should get equal (if not more) — no, not blame — credit, as Randy did to my then 20-year old mind.
Writer-director-producer Noni Abao says his acclaimed film is mostly about the peasant and land struggle in our beloved Cagayan Valley. But my own takeaway after last night’s viewing and talkback, particularly after Naya and the UP student’s questions, is that the film must be watched as well by activists current and “resting,” people who like Agnes, Amanda and Randy want to do good or at least wanted to. I think one of the things that the film manages to do is forcing us to ask ourselves: Where is the hope and joy in serving the people? Are these still in us? If not, why? If yes, are we still as joyful as Agnes and Amanda and as Randy was or just coasting along? And whatever our answers may be, what are we going to do about it?
There was another full-house screening and talkback last, again at UPFI. I again watched and sat in, hoping there would be more affirming realizations about where I myself have been planted. I hoped too that there would be more Nayas in the audience to brace what needs stiffening and scattering some sunshine for more of us to (still) bloom. #
