SIGWA VIS-À-VIS DESAPARESIDOS
by Lualhati Bautista

Someone posted this comment on a Facebook page: “Okay sana ang ‘Sigwa’ kundi lang galing sa ‘Desaparesidos’ ni Lualhati Bautista ang concept.” 

Sigwa is one of six entries in the Directors Showcase of the just-concluded Cinemalaya Film Festival, directed by Joel Lamangan from the script by Bonifacio Ilagan. Desaparesidos is a full-length novel of this author published by Cacho Publishing House. It hit the market in 2007. 

I watched Sigwa at the UP Film Center to be sure about my facts as I do not want to prejudge anybody without basis. True enough, there is a very striking similarity between Sigwa and Desaparesidos, and that is the very concept of a mother searching for the daughter she has lost, which is the basic, unifying element of the movie.

In the movie Sigwa, the mother joins the undeground movement in the 70s and entrusts her child to a comrade when faced with a very imminent danger to her life. Captured and detained, she found it impossible to find and get her child back. Though it seems she would never find her child again, the story develops in such a way as to reunite them in the end. The events of the 70’s unfold in bits and pieces as the characters, decades later now, journey back into their past. Ooops!… I might as well be talking about Desaparesidos because that is also the very concept and approach of the book.

Sigwa is told from the point of view of Dolly, a junior correspondent of a US magazine who joins the NPA. During a raid, she hands over her daughter to her comrade Azon. Azon already has a baby of her own at that time. Dolly gets arrested and deported. Azon’s own daughter dies and she rears Dolly’s child as her own. That Dolly’s daughter is the one who survived is Azon’s most guarded secret. 

Desaparesidos is told from the point of view of Anna, who entrusted her 3-month old daughter Malaya to her comrade Karla, thinking that Karla was in a safer place. Karla, with Anna’s daughter, disappears after the barrio where they were hiding was set on fire. Karla was pregnant with her own baby at that time. Anna gets arrested, tortured, raped, and detained. Karla’s own baby dies and she migrates with Anna’s daughter to Canada and rears the child as her own. That Anna’s daughter is the one who survived is Karla’s most guarded secret. 

I don’t know about Dolly (Sigwa) because she only learns that her daughter is alive 35 years later, but Anna (Desaparesidos) suffers for 20 years not knowing whether her daughter died or is still alive. In the end however, the truth catches up on both Azon (Sigwa) and Karla (Desaparesidos).

In Desaparesidos, Karla’s husband, unable to bear the torture inflicted on him by his military captors, points to the whereabouts of his comrades. He becomes a hunted man and is gunned down in a busy marketplace. In Sigwa, it is Cita’s partner Oliver who is unable to bear the torture by his military captors and betrays his comrades. Dolly’s partner however, admits to being a deep-penetration agent and kills himself. 

Okay, never mind that; torture, rape and betrayal are part and parcel of stories set in the martial law period. You can very well find both torture and betrayal even in my novel turned into the movie Dekada ‘70. Desaparesidos however does not have the Gary Olivar character and that of the well-loved professor whose wake becomes the venue for the reunion of the lead characters. But the concept of one young rebel-mother, caught in a chaotic situation in the dark days of martial law, entrusting her child to another and this other mother losing her own child and claiming her friend’s daughter as her own? Naman.

Desaparesidos was first written as a teleplay, aired as telecine on Channel 7 in 1997. A full-length screenplay made from that teleplay won 3rd prize in the Philippine Centennial Literary Contest of 1998. In 2000, Vic del Rosario, big boss of Viva Films, secured the film right to the script but later decided production cost would be too high. The agreement period to the film right has since lapsed. In an interview (Star Circuit, Ricky L. Calderon) regarding Sigwa, Joel Lamangan admitted that this was his dream project; that he had long wanted to do this “but that no producer would take the risk since it seems this movie won’t make money.” That was his dream project indeed!

Desaparesidos was turned into a novel, for the sheer purpose of showing “the hidden stories of “Dekada 70” as Joel Lamangan further said in the same interview. 

Oh, yes, just for the record, the Desaparesidos teleplay was directed by your much-acclaimed, multi-awarded director Joel Lamangan. Had the film project pushed through, it would have also been directed by him. As the director would-have-been, he has in his possession a copy of my full-blown script. And that is not to mention the book readily available for the reading pleasures of Lamangan and Ilagan who share the credits to the “story” of Sigwa.

And now these two are claiming Sigwa was based on true stories and real-life characters? Sige nga, ilitaw n’yo nga ang mga tunay na Dolly at Azon?

LUALHATI BAUTISTA
author and copyright owner, 
Desaparesidos