Let’s get one thing out of the way: “And So It Begins” is not a film about the 2022 Robredo-Pangilinan campaign. The lawyer Leni Robredo herself made this clear as an introduction to the crowd gathered for the Philippine premiere of the latest documentary by Ramona S. Diaz.
The plan had been to film a sequel to “A Thousand Cuts,” Diaz’s documentary covering the disinformation and misinformation operations in the Philippines, which focused on the consequences for journalist Maria Ressa and the website Rappler against the backdrop of the 2019 senatorial elections. The film ended with the very real possibility that Ressa would be jailed and the news that for the first time in a very long time, not one opposition candidate was elected to the Philippine Senate.
“They are meant to make you distrust institutions,” Ressa said of the aggressive and widespread strategic attacks online.
When Diaz, who is based in the United States, arrived in the Philippines in 2021 to film the sequel, it so happened that the presidential campaign season was about to start and Robredo announced that she would seek the presidency. Many will recall the then vice president’s words, that she was a mother not only to her three children but also to the nation: “Nanay ako, hindi lang ng tatlong anak ko, kundi ng buong bansa.”
Kakampink
“And So It Begins” opens with a sweeping montage of a Kakampink rally as the campaign reached a fever pitch, and many, many other scenes from the campaign. Viewers who were in any way part of the Pink Movement will surely feel nostalgic, with songs by Nica del Rosario playing in the background.
The antagonist is the same in the first and second films and rears his head more than a few times. But aside from former president Rodrigo Duterte, the culture of silence and complacency that was complicit in the misogyny and bullying and that was amplified in and permeated Filipino life is the common backdrop of the two films.
At the premiere, Robredo confessed that the working title of the film was “This is How it Ends.” (Lines from “The Hollow Men,” T.S. Eliot’s poem, “This is the way the world ends…Not with a bang but a whimper,” come to mind.) Eventually, however, Diaz thought of “And So It Begins,” and Robredo agreed it was a more appropriate title.
In literature, the term “dramatic” irony is used to describe the situation in which we find ourselves—as Filipinos who watched the parallel events of Ressa and Rappler, and Robredo and the Pink Movement—knowing how the stories end. How do you stay riveted and engaged when you know that Robredo loses the presidential election?
But Robredo believes that there was no defeat, that all efforts did not go to waste, that in the end, as she hoped, everyone will stand committed to fight for love and country. As she put it: “Hindi tayo natalo kasi we started something really special: the movement that started during the campaign. Hindi nasayang yung efforts… Naging klaro during the campaign kung ano yung role ko: community organizing. Yung pag-asa sa puso ko na kapag kinailangan ng panahon, nandiyan kayo, handang lumaban para sa bayan. Yun yung radical love.”
The day after Robredo stepped down as vice president, she did just as she promised. She established Angat Buhay Foundation, building on the momentum that led millions of Filipinos all over the Philippines and the world to practice bayanihan, to volunteer whenever and wherever necessary.
This was activated broadly just recently. The organic, instantaneous mobilization of resources to respond to those displaced by the widespread flooding caused by the monsoon and exacerbated by typhoon “Carina” was well-organized, and no one had to take a microphone to tell volunteers what to do. A true grassroots movement.
Momentous day
Depending on how you view it, it was either coincidental or providential that the Philippine premiere of “And So It Begins” was held last Aug. 9, the same day that the Court of Appeals issued its decision voiding the 2018 shutdown order on Rappler by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ressa and Rappler figure prominently in the film, from the continuing attacks and harassment online and in-person to the announcement and awarding of Ressa as Nobel laureate (along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov), from her raw and teary-eyed reaction to finding out the news documented during an online forum of and for Southeast Asian journalists to the persistent attacks on Rappler staff members, and finally, to her speech during the awarding ceremonies in Oslo.
I am glad that Diaz has chosen to continue to train her director’s eye on women who fight in many ways, at great personal cost, in behalf of our rights. The film is not only about Robredo and Ressa but also about Filipinos—some of them named but so many more unnamed. In all of the scenes, these women, whether in person or virtually, are communicating and reaching out to other people, other Filipinos, on behalf of Filipinos. Their struggles are not theirs alone. They and this movie prove that, indeed, the personal is political.
“And So It Begins” opens on Aug. 21 at Cinema 76, Powerplant Makati, Gateway Cineplex, Shang Red Carpet, Sta. Lucia, Screenville Alturas Bohol, Gaisano Davao, and NCCC Davao. Contact [email protected] to arrange for block screening.
Leave a Reply