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By Angelique P. Manalad, Contributor
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Bautista
straddles his existence
between teaching and filmmaking. |
Ramon Bautista—if that name rings a bell, its
because he had been invaded MTV with his very own show, staring in
various music videos for local bands, endorsing products here and
there, hosting the Pasyal television travel show for Studio 23, and
the Brewrats radio program for Campus FM 99.5. This guy who claims
bumming is his passion has a lot of work on his hands.
The professor and the filmmaker
Bautista, a filmmaker, was hired as a professor
at the University of the Philippines Film Institute after his thesis
Makina—a short animated film on greed—and Mga Bangkang Papel sa
Swimming Pool ng Kumukulong Arnibal—a documentary about film
making—both won awards here and abroad. He is currently finishing
his masters degree in Film.
As a professor, he puts on his serious side.
“Being a teacher in the premier state university in the country,
most people expect a lot from me, so I try hard to do my best. I
can’t do all the stupid stuffs in front of them. There has to be
mutual respect. Their grades are in my hands so my students have to
take me seriously. It’s 80 percent education and 20 percent fun
here, which is the opposite on my shows,” Bautista says.
Besides working hard at being lazy, Bautista
declares that filmmaking is his second passion. This independent
filmmaker has little sympathy for the beleaguered mainstream movie
industry. “Just let the passionate filmmakers make films and let
the passionate moviegoers watch film. That’s all we can do, if it
dies it dies.”
Gadfly
Having appeared in humorous music videos of
Radioactive Sago Project and Sugarfree, he has been typecast as a
comedian. But Bautista doesn’t considered himself as one. “I
prefer to be in other roles too like drama or boy-next-door type,
maybe it’s some sort of untapped talent for directors out there to
come and discover that. I’m a real good actor you know, I’m
really an emotional guy,” he claims.
His stint in music videos led MTV to create the
Ramon Bautista Show with award-winning music video director RA
Rivera. In one episode of the show, Bautista asks for help from
different local artists to teach him how to play the guitar in his
trademark deadpan broken English.
With Brewrats, he joins fellow
filmmaker/television icon Tado Jimenez to create a radio version of
the defunct television show Strangebrew. “It’s like an absurd,
comedic gag show which talks about anything but most of the time
it’s really educational if you take a closer look,” he explains.
As absurdist as his works may seem, Ramon
Bautista’s artistry and intelligence shows itself to those who
discern.
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