Delivered by the late National Artist sometime in the 1960s,  its scathing indictment remains as relevant as ever.

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It goes without saying that I am greatly honored for having been invited to be the spokesman for the Cinema in the Philippines, but at the outset I should declare that the choice may not be a very happy one for, having been so chosen, it would naturally be expected that I shall speak well of it. Instead, I am afraid that my theme will be one of despair, one of disenchantment, which I shall express with a little facetiousness and a little disrespect, since whatever I should speak of today, whatever shabby linen I choose to hang out to dry, the short pants will be mine.

To put it bluntly, the art, if any, and the science, which we never had, of Cinema in the Philippines, is not only at a standstill, it is maintaining a constant state of retrogression, which, if allowed to continue, can not but end in self-annihilation. How fast this will be accomplished only its present malpractitioners can determine. Because of the present over-stress on sex, the preference for slapstick, and the obsession for violence, I can only refer to the status of our movie industry as purely a matter of woo-woo, har-har, and bang-bang.

Twenty-five years ago I started out as a movie director, having been, as I thought, more than amply prepared for it with my more than 10 years of apprenticeship under the Reverend Henry L. Irwin, S.J.

During those 10 arduous years, I tried to learn everything there was to learn of things that had anything to do with theatre and all its applied branches. My first attempt at movie direction was Sakay, done with the script-writing help of my wife who, up to now, shares with me a most irrepressible love of good theatre. Sakay was, and I am led to believe, still is, considered a milestone in Philippine movie making. It was a valiant attempt to put coherence in a photoplay, verisimilitude to the characters, proper motivations, integrity and sincerity in the acting, as much sense and artistry in the concept, execution, and exploitation as was possible during those early days. For my pains, Sakay was accorded the ultimate in honors when it was unanimously declared the best Filipino picture of 1939 by all newspapers, magazines, and trade reporters. I was promptly referred to as “The Boy Wonder of Philippine Movies.” It was a very flattering distinction, of course, and I tried to justify the accolade by continually trying to do better pictures. Sometimes I succeeded, many times I failed. But I always commended myself for the effort I employed with each assignment. It was at about this time that I coined a term: bakya-crowd. That was the movie-going segment that I could feel was determining (at the box office) just what kind of movies should be made and how they should be made.

After a while, the playful term began to take fearsome proportions. The bakya-crowd, I found out, was not interested in pictures like Sakay. They wanted stories about illegitimate children, forsaken wives, abused women, moribund fathers, rich girls and poor boys, stories where the leading lady alternates between singing and weeping and the leading man alternates between singing duets and fighting off the mortgage. The bakya-crowd has become the insatiable master, the be-all and end-all of the entire industry. Producers and directors, artists and extras had to reset their sights and focus their attention on the consuming dedication to please the demands of the bakya-crowd.

Somehow it seemed we could not make pictures that were inane, idiotic, and stupid enough for the bakya-crowd. But somehow, there was always one rung lower that we could descend to. And the bakya-crowd, brandishing the whip of tantalizing earnings, had complete mastery of the entire industry.

Today, it is not permissible to make decent, sensible, good pictures. they are box-office poison, and any director or producer who attempts it is slightly touched in the head.

That was the story 20 or 30 years ago. Today, we are more sophisticated, we have learned a few more slick tricks from Hollywood, but quality for quality, our production output just before the outbreak of the war was far superior to the wishes of the bakya-crowd that our movie makers now produce.

Of course we no longer make tearful stories with mushy plots because we have just discarded plots altogether. We dress up our leading men as New York gangsters or Arizona cowboys and let them blast away at each other. The old watchword was “iyakan,” today the word is “bakbakan.” The developing maxim: Don’t try to make pictures that reflect our culture or touch on the finer aspects of human struggle, don’t speak of deeply-motivated plots. They don’t clear the town of all people and set the villain and the hero in the middle of the plaza—with six-shooters and you’ve produced a hit. And be sure to amplify the sound during fist fights. Each roundhouse swing, each uppercut—which, to judge by the sound effects supplied, represents the power of a train smashing into a wall—must be exchanged between the protagonists who, you must make sure, should stay on their feet for as long as eight minutes as they trade atomic punches, break chairs, tables, wall, entire rooms, and staircases. Anything less than this would be unacceptable and the bakya-crowd will stay away in droves.

On top of this, the bakya-crowd has gone in for the sensational. They prefer real-life personages who are either real gangsters or real rape victims. And the lower the depths of morbidity that can be plumbed, the higher the daily earnings at the box office. Today, it is not permissible to make decent, sensible, good pictures. They are box office poison, and any director or producer who attempts it is slightly touched in the head.

So now it seems that we are left pretty much in the slough of mediocrity, with no apparent effort being made by too many to extricate ourselves from the hopeless situation. We have been left with only three basic themes for box office hits: the woo-woo, har-har, and the bang-bang. And the alchemy for success is the combination of any two or all of the ingredients, plus the known factor: the bakya-crowd.

The fact that it takes next to nothing to be a film maker explains why there is an absolute lack of professionalism in the industry. Anyone who had 50,000 pesos is a producer. Some can do it with even less. The amount is laid on the line and if the bakya-crowd approves, he doubles the ante for the next picture. If it flops, he goes back to the scrap iron business. However, if his luck holds out, he becomes by this time a dangerous expert, the influential negative element to a branch of art that in other parts of the world requires the utmost in personal preparation, creativity, and professionalism.

Let us be thankful that there are still a few voices in the night. Strange and lonely voices like that of Manuel de Leon, who dared expound and support the notion that film is art and as such it deserved a level which should be reached; that it could not be art if it came down progressively to the depths of the bakya-crowd. He knew the thing to beat was the bakya-crowd or quit. Manuel de Leon quit.

Albert Joseph of Tamaraw Studios has another type of obsession: improvement of techniques, improvement of technical quality, to bring Filipino output closer to international standards. Probably he has the answer, after all. We should begin to make pictures that can stand world scrutiny. We should co-produce with foreign countries in order that we may profit by experience and ultimately some distant day, perhaps, we will find that our local film industry shall have emerged as a worthy exponent of our culture, and the bakya-crowd shall then permit this with regard to our own local productions because it shall have been proven that good stories don’t hurt, that technically well-produced films are not impossible; that all arts involved in direction, acting, photography, story-writing, scenario-writing, editing, and scoring are important in themselves; that the people who engage in them should be amply prepared for their work, both by theory and practice, by direct involvement and exposure to the ideas and techniques of the best in their own fields in other parts of the world. Then perhaps our Filipino audiences may witness the flowering of a strong, progressive, and legitimate motion picture industry, no longer a panderer to execrable tastes, but a real fountain of art expression. Then perhaps we shall be able to understand and appreciate the creative efforts of Fernandez, de Leon, Romero, Conde, Gallardo, Silos, Tolosa, and if I, as I hope, shall still be around, permit me to include myself in that honored list. Meanwhile, while I wait, I shall be doing 16mm movie documentaries.

My stomach is not as strong as it used to be.

My friends, I don’t want you to think that I am disenchanted, because I am. But it is likewise true that I am not discouraged. We’ll get around to it. If Manny de Leon had tired of trying to improve the tastes of the bakya-crowd, probably his son will produce some day and one of my sons will direct—and they will no longer be forced to make movies that are an insult to the very film material they are printed on. They will be craftsmen in the truest sense of the word.

The government is not helping matters any, of course. But that is another thesis altogether. I am afraid the bakya-crowd, when you analyze it, is a potent factor in the present scheme of movie-making, simply because there are bakya mentalities in the government bodies too; the legislators who can not pass a bill protecting this branch of endeavor; the government taxers who slap all possible levies on an industry that is trying its best to survive; censors who are either too strict, or don’t even speak Tagalog; students and professionals who refuse to go to the Center or the Life Theater, as if to do so were to be seen as going to abattoirs.

There are approximately 700 of you students here today. I am willing to wager that no more than 30 or 40 of you see Filipino pictures, half of that figure on passes. The bakya-crowd exists because you people have stayed away from our movies. Your apathy is what has made movie production in the Philippines the melange of mediocrity that it is.  And as long as you refuse to support it, as long as the filmmakers are not made to improve their products, so long shall we be producing box office “hits” that, thanks to the bakya-crowd, will be continually giving us a cultural blackeye.