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By Perry Gil S. Mallari
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Photo by
KJ Rosales |
Up close and personal, veteran stage and film
actor Fernando Josef talks like a loving uncle—unpretentious,
caring and abounding with wisdom. For an artist of his stature,
Josef, better known as “Tata Nanding,” is noticeably devoid of
pride and self-importance. Josef has more than three decades of
experience in the field as a performer, director and writer and is
among the new breed of Filipino artists who believe that art can be
harnessed as a potent tool for social reform.
No early inklings
Josef recalls having a happy childhood despite
being born to a poor peasant family. Recalling the bucolic scenery
of the Marikina of old where the Josef clan hails, he narrates,
“May grandparents were farmers and the rice fields of Marikina
were my playground. I had a great time swimming in the Marikina
River, which was very clean then.”
Looking back at those early years, Josef says
that he had no inkling that he would one day become a serious
artist. “I was always included in performances in school programs
during my elementary days but I presumed that that was mainly
because I was a consistent honor student,” he recounts.
Rude realizations
Josef recalls his early realization of the
economic divide, “I don’t know the meaning of being poor
then,” he says. The gap between the rich and the poor began to
become more evident with the young Josef when his father ceased
working as a farmer and shoemaker and became a factory worker in BF
Goodrich. He discloses that he resented that his father was a mere
factory worker. He discloses that whenever he filled up forms and
documents as a youngster, he used the term “employee” instead of
‘factory worker’ to denote the occupation of his father.
His lack of material possessions or social
stature was further highlighted whenever he compared his family to
that of a rich relative who owned a shoe factory. “They are good
to us but the wealth they enjoyed seemed to magnify our
neediness.” Their family further waded into poverty when the
factory where his father worked went on strike. “I was angry that
we had no food and we can’t even pay for our public school
matriculation. But I dare not question my father about it,” he
narrates.
Josef also confesses that it was from his
disciplinarian grandfather that he first learned the concept of
dictatorship. “Ang tawag namin sa lolo noon ‘Hitler’ [We
coined our grandpa then ‘Hitler’] and it’s probably him that
subliminally ingrained in me the contempt for authority figures,”
he confesses.
First motivations
Josef eventually took up B.S. Zoology in the
University of the Philippines, Diliman. The man once dreamed of
becoming a doctor. It was during Josef’s last semester in college
that he got his first serious exposure to acting via the UP Mobile
Theater, then under the leadership of National Artist Wilfrido Ma.
Guerrero. He reveals that it was the scholarship that came with
joining the theater group that was his main motivation.
With the same intent, he joined Philippine
Educational Theater Association (PETA) in 1973. The renowned theater
group at that time was trying to revive itself after it’s founder
Cecil Guidote Alvarez went on a self-imposed exile abroad after the
declaration of Martial Law. Josef gained entry after a chaplain
friend from the university introduced him to acclaimed director
Mario J. de los Reyes, who was then scouting fresh talents for the
group.
“I was inspired by the life of Nora Aunor and
I thought that if I became a movie star, then maybe I would become
rich,” he narrates laughingly. “I sent letters and photographs
to German Moreno and to the late Ike Lozada and Lino Brocka,” he
confesses.
When the chance of working with Brocka in PETA
came, the acclaimed director recognized him, approached him and
talked lightheartedly about the letters and the photos he sent, one
of them showing the young Josef in swimming trunks.
The two became friends. The account had become
Brocka’s favorite joke during gatherings. Josef laughs remembering
Brocka’s jest that goes, “Nanding wrote me a letter once asking
if he can be a bold star.”
Deeper meanings
The longer Josef stayed with PETA, the more he
realized that the group aimed beyond the mere acclaim that so many
artists desired. “It doesn’t exists just to make you
renowned,” he attests, adding, “It was with PETA that I realized
that art is not really for one’s self but for a higher purpose.”
With his enlightenment came the ripening of his art. Josef recalled
that once in 1974, he played the lead role in four out of five
productions of PETA, a clear indication of his maturing as an
artist.
When asked to name his most memorable
performance, Josef pondered for a while then answers, “Macliing
Dulag.” To play the role of the Kalinga chief martyred for
valiantly opposing the construction of the Chico River Dam in the
Cordillera, he spent two weeks living with the Kalingas. Josef
relates of how the sense of nobility of the Kalingas had touched him
deeply and of how the tribe put a greater emphasis on the welfare of
their fellow man than on material things. He also adds that the
story of Macliing Dulag made him further realize the concept of the
oppressor versus the oppressed.
Through his years with PETA, Josef witnessed the
potency of the group’s training process in the development of
self-concept of an individual. “We did an experiment once on three
groups of youths from poor families from the provinces, the group
that received special training from PETA displayed significant
improvement in their personalities and sense of self-worth,” he
narrates spiritedly.
Josef relates that he grafted the training
methods he acquired from PETA with the principles that he learned
from his two years of training in Psychology. He also admits culling
elements from Marxist teachings, specifically the use of the
participative process. Through the years, Josef has conducted
workshops to various groups of people among them were students,
farmers and prostitutes.
Finding hope
Josef is also currently among the prime movers
of Peoples’ Assembly for Genuine Alternatives to Social Apathy (Pagasa),
a group advocating that the inner change of an individual is the
real key to the positive transformation of society. He traces the
group’s genesis to the height of the “Hello Garci” controversy
three years ago that allegedly documented the President Arroyos’s
connivance in doctoring election results. “We were angry and we
have this small group that includes Nikki Perlas and Panjie Lopez
that conducted performances at the EDSA Shrine hoping to ignite
another People Power,” he intones, continuing, “But to our
dismay, nobody came. That prompted us to ask, ‘Pagod na ba ang mga
tao [Are the people too tired to care]?’”
The group then pondered that perhaps the
strategies for change that were being used all along were no longer
appropriate. “Maybe it’s not enough just to blame the government
for our woes but rather, each of us must have an inward
transformation,” Josef states. He quickly adds though that those
in position have a greater responsibility, so change must begin from
them. He also bemoans the corruption he witnessed not only in the
incumbent administration but also in the opposition and the media.
He remembers wandering away from Pagasa for a
while until Jun Lozada made his public disclosures. Lozada is a
friend of Josef and the former’s exposé on the allegedly
anomalous ZTE national broadband contract involving administration
officials convinced him how grave the problem of the country already
was. Josef’s journey of inward transformation prompted him to
vacate his post as artistic director of the Cultural Center of the
Philippines (CCP). He says that his decision is but a culmination of
something that has been brewing for a long time. “Ever since the
‘Hello Garci’ fiasco, I sort of considered it shameful that I
was a government employee,” he narrates, continuing, “It’s not
fair to say that I left CCP because of its board, that’s not the
case. Really, I was allowed to do what I wanted to do when I was
still there.” Josef is clear-cut about his reason for
leaving—staying in the post is no longer congruent with his
pursuit of truth.
Josef believes that art, as a tool for
initiating change, transcends boundaries, for the simple reason that
there is an artist in all of us. He is unbending in his statement
that true art must be based on truth and must exude truth. Fernando
Josef declares: In a world full of lies, the true artist must not
settle for anything else.
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