“Until when will we need a red-letter day, or month?“
THE first scene shows a woman walking aimlessly on a hill. She does not appear to know where she is. Her haughtiness earns the ire of the American guarding the post; his superiors tell the community to give her shelter.
In that reconcentration camp, “community” predominantly means “women.” There are no men except for the occasional son or brother or messenger. They are the widows and orphans of revolutionaries killed by the Americans. Because the woman seems insane, the others start calling her Sisa.
I purposely did not look up this Sisa – the film starring veteran actor Hilda Koronel and written and directed by Jun Robles Lana — before going to the cinema. I wanted to be surprised. Mistakenly I expected that this was another portrayal of Jose Rizal’s Sisa in Noli Me Tangere, the woman who went insane looking for her boys. But no – this was altogether different.
As the days pass, the women warm up to Sisa. Sisa herself begins to show she can speak (later she shows she could speak Spanish as well). Sisa witnesses how the women were made to serve the Americans in the camp, how the impressionable teenager Nena gets recognized for learning English well but is seduced by a soldier, how Leonor gives her heart to an American officer despite being judged harshly by her neighbors. Nena gets pregnant and her mother Delia, played by Eugene Domingo, confronts the soldier who then shoots the teen dead. Delia could only wail; the women weep with her and then go about living their miserable lives.
But Sisa has a secret: she is, in fact, a spy. She carries a message from the revolutionaries, who are planning to attack the camp. On the big day, however, she realizes that the men have changed their minds; they, led by her brother in law, have capitulated and have struck a deal with the Americans. They come not for battle but for festivities. But Sisa still has a battle in mind – against a rapist among their ranks, and against whom she perceived to be the weakest link in their community. These are heartbreaking, dangerous decisions that she chooses to make, anyway. In the end, in full possession of her faculties, Sisa leads the community in doing what the revolutionaries refused to do.
So, who’s crazy now, huh? I imagine her thinking to herself.
The movie reminded me of the immense power of solidarity among women who are facing similar circumstances. Oppression, and oppressors, come in different shapes and sizes. We would all fare better if we banded together in sharing our frustrations and lifting each other up. Of course, Koronel’s Sisa was something else. The outsider disrupted the people’s surrender and led them in saying “enough!” when it was time.
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I saw another Sisa in February, one who was in fact lifted from Rizal’s Noli. In fact, the complete title of the solo performance was “Sisa: Panaghoy ng Pinakamiserableng Babaeng Katha ni Rizal.”
The 45-minute monologue, written by Rowena Festin and Allan Derain, took Sisa to the streets of Metro Manila, to the present day, where she and a handful of other ghost-mothers looking for their children converge in a Balete tree. She speaks of her own anguish as we know it from Noli, but she also alludes to abuses committed by the state and during war.
Camille Abaya was powerful as Sisa, shifting in tone from mere storytelling, and then rage, and then humor, and then grief, and just the slightest glimpse of hope. The production, directed by Missy Maramara, was staged by the Ateneo de Manila School of Humanities.
The monologue’s intimacy allowed us to empathize with the state of the frazzled woman, not knowing where to look or whether she would see her sons ever again. Here I imagined the plight of the mothers of those disappeared – one minute they were there, going about their business, and the next they were gone. I looked back to conversations I had last year with two such women, Ma’am Edita Burgos, the mother of Jonas Burgis, disappeared in 2007, and Ma’am Dittz de Jesus, mother of Bazoo de Jesus, disappeared in 2023. What stood out during those conversations was their quiet strength to go from day to day, not knowing if the wait would even come to an end. That, and the kindness they still showed the world despite everything they have been through. Or perhaps it is because of what they have been through. I shudder to imagine how they must feel like they are trapped in a nightmare, one from which they have never truly woken up. For this, they are almost superhuman in my mind.
May our society reach the stage when honoring, celebrating, and thanking women, and giving them their due, become so common that we no longer need a red-letter day — or month.
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