Forbidden Memory (Teng Mangansakan, Cinema One Originals 2016 Best Documentary Winner)

Recollection of atrocities during Martial Law played a big part in the build-up to the People Power Uprising in 1986. The courageous bearers of stories risked their lives to expose the violent, corrupt nature of the Marcos administration.

The wellspring of horrendous Martial Law stories has yet to dry up. With the hushed and rushed burial of President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, Martial Law victims are coming out with their stories.

Forbidden Memory documents eyewitness accounts of the gruesome massacre of more than 1,500 adult males in Palisbong, Sultan Kudarat in September 1974.

The documentary consists basically of a barrage of talking heads. However, filmmaker Teng Mangansakan alternated the interviewees. Generally, four to six persons talk about the circumstances of the incident. This editing device serves to concretize the horrendous communal experience.

It is not only one family that felt military abuse. Hundreds of families were greatly affected by the wanton criminal act of the soldiers. Women and children were put on board naval ships. The adult males were then herded and subsequently killed. Their only fault was that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Towards the end of Forbidden Memory, the issue of a Marcos burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani springs out in the open. More than three decades have passed but the anger towards the Marcos administration still seethes among the survivors. They do not want him to be buried honorably. One frail, elderly woman regretted not having been the one to kill President Marcos.

To the millennials interested in learning more about the Marcoses, the 20-year reign of President Marcos, and the Martial Law era, check out the following films from a variety of directors:

1)      Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (Lino Brocka) – a desperate, laid-off worker is forced to commit a crime
2)      Dekada ’70 (Chito Roño) - a middle class family supports the idealism of a young activist
3)      Forbidden Memory (Teng Mangansakan) – survivors speak out against the perpetrators of the September 1974 massacre in Mindanao
4)      Imelda (Ramona Diaz) – documentary on the idiosyncrasies of the wife of President Ferdinand Marcos
5)      Ka Oryang (Sari Lluch Dalena) – a female medical student decides to serve the people
6)      Mula Sa Kung Ano ang Noon (Lav Diaz) – militarization during the pre-Martial Law era
7)      Pisay (Kanakan Balintagos) – a group of high school scholars gets caught up in the Yellow fever
8)      Sakada (Behn Cervantes) – sugarcane farmers fight for their rights
9)      Sister Stella L. (Mike de Leon) – an awakened religious sister urges the audience to go out in the streets and fight the Marcos dictatorship
10)   Working Girls (Ishmael Bernal) – a lady boss with the initials C.A. battles male chauvinist pigs and breaks the glass ceiling
 

The Obscured Histories and Silent Longings of Daguluan's Children (Gutierrez Mangansakan II, Cinemanila 2012 Best Picture)

This film is the first ever project of Mindanao-based filmmaker Teng Mangansakan. It must have been so special and important to Mangansakan that it took him three long years to finish it. At least three other feature films of Mangansakan were released before we ever got a glimpse of the film titled The Obscured Histories and Silent Longings of Daguluan’s Children.

The film’s initial scene has a prostrated girl by the sewers. From that grim image alone, I sensed the influence of Sherad Anthony Sanchez. Sure enough, other scenes and segments seem to have been culled from Sanchez’s experimental epic Imburnal. A trio of gossiping girls by the river recalls the exchange of rated-R stories of juveniles by the mangroves. The non-narrative style is similar to that of Sanchez’s Imburnal film. The credits listed him as producer although he must have also acted as creative consultant, even though indirectly.

There’s a memorable, gripping image of a male child riding a bent trunk of a coconut tree. Towering nearly five meters over his playmates, he clings precariously on to the elephantine trunk without a care for the world. Meanwhile, his playmates seriously vow to attend his funeral in case he falls to his death. That image of the reckless child struck me as representative of people risking their lives in order to leave the southern island.

The war in Mindanao may not have been shown directly but its effects are there alright. Scores of people are leaving for greener pastures. Socioeconomic services do not reach people in war-torn areas. Human trafficking is rampant. Young girls nonchalantly talk about cherry popping. Water and electric utilities are scarce. The woven stories and tapestry of images portray Mindanao as a lost paradise.

While Imburnal showed dead-end, cockroach-laden paths for the doomed juvenile delinquents, Mangansakan’s film shows glimpses of hope in shots of wide-open fields and verdant mountains. The seeds of peace and progress are waiting to bloom.