Ka Oryang ( Comrade Oryang, Sari Dalena, 2011) īy film's end our eponymous heroine (Vilma Santos in a beautifully understated performance) stands center screen ( Center stage?) with a Brechtian blue sky for backdrop delivering a calm yet moving call for action: 'If not now, when? If not us, who?'ġ 0. The film is short on incidental details in an almost B ertolt Brecht manner (the wo rkplace could well be labeled 'Factory,' the protagonist 'Nun,' the protesters 'Strikers') but like the best of Brecht it's riveting political theater, paring away the extraneous to focus on a coherent and forceful message. Mike de Leon working from a spare elegantly structured Jose 'Pete' L acaba script about a textile factory strike, a nu n's po litical awakening, the forces of cap italis m and fascism in unholy (and all-too-common) marriage. įollows the story of Serge Osmena ( Richard Gomez) and Geny Lope z (Christopher de Leon), one the son of a former president the other the son of a media mogul, the film is rare testimony to the fact that yes even the upper classes were not immune to the former president's powergrab.īeyond that it's Chito Rono's effective ly noirish glimpse at conditions during th ose early days (for rich and poor alike- in that way Marcos was an ef fective equalizer of the social classes) : the fear, the paranoia, the sense of helplessness as you're locked in a room and don't know wha t's going on, what's going to happen to you, what will become o f your family and fri ends.ġ 1. In literature there's Lualhati Bautista's Dekada '70 Emmanuel Lacaba's Salvaged Prose and Salvaged Poems and Ninotchka Rosca's State of War.Īnd more, much more I'm only citing titles I'm familiar with.Īs for movies-in ascending order, my incomplete unobjective totally off-t he -cuff list of titles that do in fact deal with the Mar tial Law Era. Celoza The Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave and The Conjugal Dictatorship, by Primitivo Mijares, who worked for Marcos, turned against him, disappeared shortly after the book was published. It’s just the challenges andĪllegations of the other side which not enough'įor studies let me recommend a few titles: Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines by Albert F. Whether or not he performed worse or better, there is

Rodrigo Duterte on former president Ferdinand Marcos (italics mine): ' President Marcos was a president for so long and he was a soldier.

Movies about martial law