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The Philippines Educational Theater Association (PETA)
has made cultural history coming out with a thick (740 pages) and
well edited/designed book to mark its 40 years of existence. The
book titled A Continuing Narrative on Philippine Theater: The Story
of PETA was launched recently at PETA’s new home (2006) in Quezon
City.
The launching opened with the
unveiling of a mural “Ang Baraha ng Buhay” by PETA artists led
by Brenda Fajardo, followed by a retrospective show of song and
dance from its rich variety of performances starting with Virginia
Moreno’s Bayaning Huwad at PETA’s first playhouse “Dulaang
Rajah Soliman” in the ruins of Fort Santiago—and onto plays and
musicals reflecting the times from the late 60s to the present.
Reading The Story of PETA one
experiences gentle shocks of recognition in what is more than a
nostalgia trip. It seems that most of the notable theater/film
personalities and cultural workers had at one time gone through PETA—taking
on tasks on or off stage.
Founded in 1967 by then 23-year
old Cecilia “Cecile” Guidote (now wife of Sen. Heherson
“Sonny” Alvarez), PETA went through trials of birthing, growth,
and maturity with a fulsome share of state patronage, repression and
artistic success.
In the late 60s the Marcos regime
inaugurated the Cultural Center of the Philippines at its main
theater and tried to co-opt Cecile by offering her the position of
CCP artistic director with PETA under its wing. Fiercely
independent-minded, Cecile refused. Since then she had become a
marked person and almost didn’t make it through the airport gates
to join Sonny (also a marked man for opposing the 1973 Constitution)
who had already fled the country through the back door.
What has sustained PETA is its
deep pool of talents and resource persons who have made sacrifices
to realize its pedagogical and emancipatory vision in a country
where local theater then, in the words of its founder, “was mostly
in English, mostly foreign plays.”
With Cecile gone in 1973, the
young dramatists (like Len Santos, Frank Rivera, Soxie Topacio, Jojo
Purisima, Maryo de los Reyes and Ding Pajaron) would hang around
Raha Sulayman Theater to reminisce and plan their next move.
Fortunately Doroy Valencia let them continue producing plays towards
reviving their flagship project: Kalinangan Ensemble. The period
from 1973 to 1976 is described as an “uneasy transition” but
other talents like Lino Brocka, Pio de Castro and Remmy Rikken gave
the hold-outs a great boost.
In time PETA had developed a
faculty, a youth theater and a writers pool even as it strived to
find itself and chart new directions. Under martial law it was
inevitable that PETA members would develop modes of resistance and a
result was the emergence of a people’s theater.
PETA would attract people with
social commitment like Chris Millado who described his development
in an interview with Lucy Burns. Chris, a theater arts major in UP,
was assigned to do Ibsen’s “Wild Duck.” At the time the
Education Act of 1982 was passed and the academic community was up
in arms. Chris thought “there was something very important
happening outside.” His fellow students were also agitated and
asked “What are we doing?” Chris dropped “Wild Duck” and
“stormed into another rehearsal.”
They formed “Tropang Bodabil”
and brought theater into the streets —depicting for one a horror
show with a vampire who was very sick and a lady vampire who liked
drinking people’s blood. It also had a dog show with characters
following their master everywhere.
They played in schools where
teach-ins were held, and moved to the streets where the
demonstrators were. In a time of censorship people looked to theater
as a “living” newspaper. They also performed on the sly in
detention centers for political inmates. Chris saw himself then as
“an actor, organizer, trainer and researcher.”
By 1984 the energized PETA held
its first MAKIISA, a 3-day people’s culture festival, participated
in by progressive theater and other artists from different parts of
the country. The festival was held again the next year.
After EDSA Chris would play a
leading role in the production of “Panata sa Kalayaan”
celebrating the people’s victory over the dictatorship. The PETA
troupe performed in key cities all over the world. A re-oriented CCP,
now a larger venue, would be run by PETA stalwarts like Nick
Tiongson, Nestor Jardin, Malou Jacob and others.
Under its President Cecilia
Garrucho, Executive Director Beng Santos-Cabangon, and Artistic
Director Maribel Legarda, and a board chaired by business leader
Ramon del Rosario Jr., PETA, first conceived as an alternative
theater, has evolved into a self-sustaining institution for
Philippine theater arts—its original vision of education for
development and social change still intact.
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