REVIVAL MODE. It could also be a survival instinct.
It is when the community theater group I formed 35 years ago in Lopez, Quezon and dormant in that span of time suddenly resurged two weeks ago after it was sidetracked by several earthshaking factors like insufficient funding, misplaced priorities, discouragement from cynics, non-support generally from local leadership, direct competition from pop culture, among other socio-cultural impediments.
If a non-government organization (NGO) has run out of funds to oil up its projects and programs, their activities are put on hold and people are demoralized no matter how lofty its objectives are, the org is meant to die if not to take a respite.
Priorities don’t mean focus on a single act but giving equal, quality time to each work happening, accomplishing enough all at the same pace while destructive critics or naysayers cannot help in any ways unless constructively.
There are supportive Local Government Unit (LGU) leaders and lucky you if they come around while popular entertainments are more patronized than the isolates.
DUMALO and SEC
What then inspired me to bring back to life DUMALO (Dulaang Don Mateo Lopez), an NGO I registered and certified with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)?
For three semesters after the deadly invasion of the COVID-19 pandemic, I taught and lectured on Theater Arts as a track of the newest academic four-year course, Bachelor of Culture in Arts Education (BCAEd) at the Leon Guinto Memorial College in Atimonan, Quezon and it made me realize that I should relive my “baby,” my artistic pet project, my brainchild when I was on top of the world doing broadcast entertainment news for “Star News” of ABS-CBN primetime news show, “TV Patrol.”
Why did I form DUMALO in 1991?
In the early 90s, my news and current affairs stint was beating all TV newscasts at the ratings yet I was somewhat rebelling against the kitsch showbiz reporting that I wanted to infuse revolutionary elements like documentary form of entertainment news to the extent of formulating the mockumentary trend or applying theater of the absurd treatment to tidbits and or contextualizing hot news or gossipy materials into a socio-political realm.
The irony was that I failed to talk to the ABS-CBN big bosses like Gabby Lopez, Charo Santos-Concio, Freddie Garcia or the late Rolly Cruz or even to news honchos Angelo Castro, Jr. and Becky Cabral when they were just a cubicle away about my idea of transforming showbiz news to level up with national or the so-called hard news if not presenting cutting edge approaches to lifestyle and entertainment people, events and places without alienating the biggest chunk of viewers.
That’s how idealistic if not ambitious I was which I think until this moment could stand my ground because I had proven a lot in the broadcast news in my almost twenty years of television work.
Surely, it was workable although it’s already water under the bridge. At the time I also wished to produce shows, specifically, with literary values.
Bachelor of Arts in Literature
As I wasn’t in the TV Production department, it couldn’t be done on television yet so I thought of a theater group since my academic background was Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the Faculty of Arts and Letters of UST and an unfinished Master of Arts in Filipino and Philippine Literature from the CAS Graduate School of UP.
At the time, I had not earned my Master of Arts (MA) in Drama Education and Theater Arts (DETA) yet from the Philippine Normal University in Taft Avenue, Manila.
To realize my vision, I met up with culture savvy Sidney Dalanon who was an acting coach to children who would compete in kiddie dance or fashion or beauty contests as well as grownups who would join the same pageantries.
Sidney and I planned to conduct theater workshops in Lopez. Everything would be free so that it would be available to all.
When everything was streamlined, I announced the start of the workshop to one of the high school teachers and by word of mouth, it stirred a lot of interest among Lopenzes.
We had very huge attendees of work shoppers (from kindergarten kids to elementary schoolers to high school to college students to professionals) that endured until the culmination of the project.
I’m not too sure but the big turnout I guess was my being high profile at the time because of my daily exposures in “TV Patrol” (I was doing Voice-Over reports with extros and my name still at the bottom of the screen) so I thought the interested parties—apart from the excitement of parents of the kids — were overwhelmed and presumably I could gather them massively at the drop of a hat.
Unlike this time when people thought I was already out of circulation — on the contrary I am very, very active in print, on air and online journalism — there is not much enthusiasm from my townsfolk.
On the first day of the workshop recently, there were only a handful of participants—2 male kids, 4 female teeners, a woman grade school teacher and a motley group of Senior Citizens dragged unwittingly by Cedes Villasoto, an aggressive liaison among prospective fledgling work shoppers.
Intriguingly, the elderlies didn’t know why they were there in the first place, as Cedes didn’t orient them.
She just mentioned that there’d be a theater workshop.
In the application form, one even wrote he would want to know what the organization was all about which is valid.
Oh! The Seniors during the exercises were pretty interactive in exchanges of experiences and ideas with the young set of learners and the kids.
Somewhere along the way, though, most of them had to go home in the middle of the workshop to attend to domestic chores or other social commitments.
Attitudes of Theater Society
Times are still the same, though, between the 1991 creation and the 2026 edition of DUMALO drama seminars—some attitudes of society about theatering have not really changed.
That theater is under-utilitarian, not easily a source of material comforts, intended only for prepped up pop culture of showbiz, serious discussions about issues in life which people tend to stay away from among other miseducations about it.
You can’t help but ask.
How come the moneyed, influential and the elite families of the de Venecias (as in Christopher, the congressman from Pangasinan of Sandbox Collective), Guingonas (as in Bart, a versatile theater artist, son of the late former vice president Teofisto), Launchengcos and Yulos (as in Menchu or Raymond, both luminaries in theater who were born and raised with silver spoons in their mouths), Garruchos (as in Cecille, wife of technocrat Peter Garrucho, Philippine Educational Theater Association stalwart) or the founder of PETA (as in Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, from the old rich Guidotes and wife of the late senator Sonny Alvarez), among other big names in society are still active in the art and business of theater.
Their theaters are flourishing.
Disoriented beliefs about theater, anyone?
“Hindi pangmasa”
“Hindi ‘yan pangmasa (This isn’t for the masses),” cynics or reactionaries would chorus.
“Hindi ‘yan kikita. Luma na ‘yan (That will not sell. It’s already passe).”
Not easily accessible, they would add.
Imagine, one has to battle traffic and long travel (although depends on the origins of locations) just to get to the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez Blackbox Theater or the CCP Tanghalang Pilipino (when the building wasn’t yet rehabilitated) or the Philstagers’ Blackbox Theater in Balic-Balic or Diliman’s Dulaang UP or Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero. Theater.
Or to go to the posh or gigantic BGC or Makati Circuit etc. for all-around highly urbanized commercial hubs.
Despite their proximity from the majority of watchers, the productions of these companies are most of the time hits.
Why fuss over the accessibility of theaters when many Filipinos could go a mile just to hang around malls and other diversion sites far from their homes?
Theater is such a mind-boggling endeavor that challenges the brain like no-nonsense movies.
It is indeed good mental calisthenics.
During our 1991 workshop, there were impressions that the participants would be after the activity, actors and actresses in film and television.
But I explained that theater might be a cousin of TV and movies that prepares a person to act not only onstage but on the big and small screen as well but it is also a tool for personality development.
Making Props
They forgot that training in theater, aside from acting, also means making props, handling light and sound and stage design, managing the stage, writing and producing plays, applying blocking and choreography etc.
Even if DUMALO’s first try at theater was short-lived, it was memorable and self-fulfilling, especially seeing the curiosity, eagerness and earnestness of the participants.
My first DUMALO cost me a lot especially in my finances when it could be my fallback in my retirement age but I was and still is hard-headed.
I lost millions of pesos in my initial endeavor but I was happy and content.
I had three facilitators, namely Sidney, who eventually became the Artistic Director of DUMALO, his fellow nursing at the time, Vince Sibayan, also known as Marze Sibayan, and Mass Comm grad Cymbie Osias.
Sidney and Cymbie underwent theater courses at the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) while Vince learned while in theater practice in Lopez.
Before I left ABS-CBN, Sidney, Cymbie, Vince and I were shuttling from Manila to Lopez and back on Saturdays and Sundays from June to October 1991.
We arrived early in the afternoon and started the workshop after lunch, retired early on Saturday nights and woke up the following day to more excited faces of the students.
We left Lopez for Manila early Sunday evenings.
As if we were invincible considering Lopez is three hundred plus kilometers from Manila.
Meanwhile, from Mondays to Fridays, I was doing “TV Patrol” and writing columns and news features for tabloids, fanzines and broadsheets.
Lopesay
At the Lopez grounds, we conducted the seminar-workshop at the Lopez National Comprehensive High School (LNCHS) through the accommodation of Mr. Rivera, the former principal of the school.
Mostly, our venue was the Vera Hall, the arts and culture building of Lopesay (pronounced Lo-pe-say, a contraction of Lopez High School, the forerunner of the community public high school founded in 1946 which makes this year its eighth year).
Inside the campus—the pupils, students, professionals, out-of-school youth etc. which made up the DUMALO pioneers were made to wander around and learn from the historical places of the institution (because many of the work shoppers were enrolled in other schools around the town) like the Quezon Hill, an ascending garden in honor of the First President of the Commonwealth Manuel Luis Quezon who was constructed a monument on top of it, the LNCHS Library, the Main Building, among other places which theater exercises were done by the teacher-facilitators.
As part of the marketing and promotion of the culminating activities of DUMALO theater workshop 1, we had a parade of the plays each one represented by a float which was fixed and adorned by the work shoppers themselves in such vehicles as tricycle, firetruck borrowed from the local Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) office, old owner-type jeepney, decrepit bus, among other rides.
It was indeed fiesta-like in the community.
The residents were aware about the workshop but they didn’t engage in its recitals except for a few.
What could I do?
I had no marketing arm to support my advocacy or simply, project.
We printed tickets for two-day showcases that the students produced themselves like “June Bride,” “Minsa’y Isang Gamu-Gamo,” “May Isang Sundalo,” “Bombita” and “Isang Rihersal” but these tickets just gathered dust in our bags.
To begin with, DUMALO was such a new cultural entity at the time in Lopez and theater as a medium was still a remote possibility among residents.
Community Theater as Social Enterprise
Community theater isn’t viewed as a business but it is indeed a social enterprise.
It is a social aspiration as well.
It can be a source of livelihood for the people of the community if harnessed seriously.
There are many community theaters in the country that are heading their ways to social enterprise.
I remember the late Orlando Nadres’ Susi ng Tayabas, a theater group based in Tayabas, Quezon which was a successful cultural venture that even if he wasn’t around anymore, the company still thrives.
Artist (Arts Research and Training Institute in Southern Tagalog), Inc. is one community drama guild in Los Banos, Laguna which has withstood the test of time.
I remember in the nineties, Artist, whose physical theater was set in a neighborhood near UPLB, invited DUMALO represented by teachers Benilda Ferreras and the late Lily San Andres to attend a workshop on Koryu (Choreography) for free,
It was an educational and additional learning for a fledgling Lopez theater which they could pass on to the next learners.
“I will try to revive it,” said Benilda, also known as Benny, now a retired high school mentor.
With the leadership of Executive Director Edward Perez, also Head of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) National Committee on Dramatic Arts and Chairperson Rica Palis Artist has gone a long way not only in theater productions but in drama education as well.
One of the projects of Artist is read-along with pupils and students in elementary, junior and senior high that has supported a lot of youth and children in reading comprehension.
I wish DUMALO could also do the same.