PDInquirer Interview, Part 1

Before we start posting excerpts from Desaparesidos, we will share a couple of interviews with the great author herself. (We have gotten permission from bnoth the author and the interviewer).

Here’s the original link:

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20080615-142756/Her-Fathers-Daughter

Her Father’s Daughter
By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:17:00 06/15/2008

MANILA, Philippines - She has written novels and screenplays on subjects other writers dare not touch: strong women defying conventions (“Bata, Bata, Paano Ka Ginawa?”), a conflicted family coming to terms with martial law (“Dekada 70′), life among women inmates (“Bulaklak sa City Jail”), and ac-tivist parents agonizing over children waylaid in the confusion of a military raid (“Desaparesidos”).
But there is one movie that prize-winning novelist Lualhati Bautista dreams of doing someday: a small independent film about her father, Esteban. A sometime real estate agent, musician, photographer and singer, this father of nine is best remembered for the boundless imagination that gild his homespun bedtime stories.
“When I was very young, my father had this telescope and together, we would peek at the stars,” recalls Bautista in Filipino. “One time I asked him, how can I go visit those stars? And he said, someday, I’m going to build a ladder that you can climb all the way to the stars. I asked, and what about you? Are you coming with me? And he said, no, I’m staying down here to catch you should you fall. But I’m sure you won’t fall. Because you are not afraid to climb.”
Adds Bautista: “My father opened my imagination wide. At night when it was warm and we couldn’t sleep, he’d fan us till we dozed off. Sasabihin niya, kunwari daw, inihaw na mais kami! (He’d say, just pretend that you’re corn on the cob, grilling.)”
From him she got her love of words, recalls this writer whose first story was published when she was 17. “My father was a composer, singer and writer of poetry,” she says proudly. And so Bautista wanted to be two things: writer and singer. “But singing was out of the question,” she confesses. “Once my brother told his friends defiantly: “Ang kapatid ko ay isang mahusay na manunulat! (My sister is a good writer)! I just happened to be singing at that time.”
Well, one out of two ain’t bad. By the time Esteban Castel Bautista died on Valentine’s Day in 1992, his writer-daughter has become a household word in Filipino literature, while he remains very much in her mind. “I want to write about the music of my father’s violin,” says Bautista. “That music used to wake me so I won’t be late for school.” She adds: “I want to write about him and his kindness together with all his imperfections, especially when I read or watch something that portray fathers in a bad light. Gusto kong ibangon ang dangal ng mga ama, gano’n (I want to restore our faith in fathers.)”
Reading about fathers in Bautista’s novels is definitely something to look forward to. Fatherhood is a subject she rarely tackles in her novels, most of which portray female characters breaching boundaries to redefine their role in the family. Bautista’s latest work, “Desaparesidos,” tells of how one mother retooled her life to look for the toddler she had entrusted to another activist in the heat of a military operation during martial law.
The circumstances hit close to home, the writer confides. “I had very little political consciousness when I got married,” says Bautista. “But my husband was an activist. I would not say that I joined the (underground Left), only that I joined my husband. It was his life, not mine. But I could not live his life without losing mine in the process.
“Three months later I left. I was pregnant and had a 3-year-old boy in tow. I had no money, no place to return to, no work because at that time, even a writer had to get clearance from the Office for Civil Relations, otherwise, no publication would accept your story. And I was too proud to go home to my parents.”
She continues: “When I think of that young woman kissing her husband goodbye and walking down the street holding her child’s hand, trying to look brave and planning only where to sleep that night, I feel very very proud of her. I was that woman, and I’ve come a long long way.”
It wasn’t an easy leave-taking, Bautista recalls. “Before I left, the other people in the movement offered to take care of my son. Of course I said no. Imagine leaving my son with (people who were on the run?) What if something happened to them? Where and how do I start looking for my son? I even imagined how the military could use children against their parents when they get caught: ‘talk, or we’ll kill your child while you watch!’ It had happened to others. I think in a way, as early as 1973, I was already sowing the seeds for this novel.”

Itutuloy…