THERE IS A new course in college formulated, introduced, implemented and established by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)—Bachelor of Culture in Arts Education (BCAEd).
It’s been my third season teaching Theater Arts to BCAEd students at the Leon Guinto Memorial College (LGMC) in Atimonan, Quezon.
This year, my teaching schedule is as is–that of the two former timetables—from 1 to 5 pm on Saturdays and 8 am to 12 noon on Sundays that started on May 25 to June 28, 2026.
The department has fused the one-hour class per day on four (4) weekdays in a regular semester to one-day classes in four (4) hours this summer.
You might think I am hectic but I am indeed. As a multimedia practitioner, I write entertainment and lifestyle news, features and columns in various print and online publications.
I also edit movie pages of broadsheets and tabloids.
I conceptualize film projects as well.
Bakbakan: PH Action Movies
I also write books on the side although it’s taking a backseat at the moment but I have already started the first draft of my next title, “Bakbakan: Action Movies in the Philippines.”
Distance and all considered, I live in San Pedro City in Laguna Province so as much as possible I go to Atimonan or straight to my town in Lopez (more than an hour land travel by public transports to and from Atimonan) on Fridays so that I could make it at 1 pm the next day or if I have some pressing commitments on weekdays especially Fridays in Manila, I wake up as early as 5 am despite going to bed late and spring up in to get to Atimonan to make it to the classes before one o’clock in the afternoon.
Or if I have the luxury of time, I see to it that I sleep in Lopez on Saturday nights to get up early to catch up with my early morning sked the following day or I stay longer in Lopez for days far and between to fulfill my teaching obligations with LGMC at its beck and call.
All the rides from the big city to Quezon and back, mind you, I take public vehicles so you could imagine my hide and seek or car chase with them.
Never mind as long as I enjoy what I’m doing.
No. It’s not the agony of long trips but the excitement of teaching the arts.
In my classes, I combine the theoretical and practical sides of the discipline and my students apparently love them.
Theater of the Absurd
After discussing, for instance, the pre-Hispanic theater in the Philippines which was mostly rituals done in chanting or dancing and lecturing on the artistic and theatrical trends from the classical drama of Greece and the Roman tradition of tragedy and comedy to the renaissance period, to realism, to naturalism, to impressionism, to expressionism, to modern drama like the Theater of the Absurd or Theater of Cruelty to post and post-post-modern genres like shock theater, I give the students as work shoppers exercises in basic acting, directing, playwriting, stage management etc.
Various dramaturgies and approaches are applied as well.
There are, of course, PETA’s butaw where a total abandonment of oneself, especially the baggage of the psyche or angst is released, Repertory Philippines (Rep)’s ala-Broadway form and experience, Kyrus theater module etc.
I also invite speakers or resource persons theater to diversify and dimensionalize the many epistemological and the experiential or empirical world of the stage.
Dennis Marasigan, Madeleine Nicolas, Joel Saracho et al
I have in my list the past online and face-to-face guests, namely Vice-President and Artistic Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Dennis Marasigan; veteran TV, movie and stage artist Madeleine Nicolas; progressive thespians Bibeth Orteza and Joel Saracho; Chairman of the Komisyon sa Wikang Pilipino (KWP) and theater artist Arthur P. Casanova and Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) alumnus and entertainment editor Art Tapalla.
Three weeks ago, I tagged along to LGMC Lopez, Quezon community-based theater org DUMALO (Dulaang Don Mateo Lopez)’s Artistic Director Sidney Dalanon who also came back last week and two weeks hence, I requested the physical presence of visual artist, filmmaker, teacher and polymath Bon Labora and actor, action director and current dead ringer, billed as Bruce Lee of the Philippines Vic Tiro to conduct a theater seminar of sort.
These people have contributed new perspectives and additional knowledge on theater as practitioners and performers.
Cecile Guidote or Zenaida Amador
We have discussed a number of theater visionaries like Cecil Guidote-Alvarez, founder of PETA or Zenaida “Bibot” Amador, founder of Rep, foreign acting legends and coaches like Konstantin Stanislavski, Eric Morris, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg or the contemporary Philippine theater exponents like the late Rolando S. Tinio, Tony Espejo, National Artists for Theater Severino Montano and Tony Mabesa, Orlando R. Nadres and the live and kicking Nicanor G. Tiongson, Rody Vera, Nicholas Pichay, Frank G. Rivera, Dexter Santos, Frannie Zamora, Vince Tanada, among many, many others.
In my exchanges of ideas with the BCAEd students, I love their inquisitiveness.
It challenges my theater arts education as I am a Master of Arts (MA) degree holder in Drama Education and Theater Arts (DETA) from PNU.
I am glad my teaching the course is symbiotic.
The students learn from me as they profess and I also learn from them as we dig deeper about the prospects of the comprehensiveness of the discipline and the complexities of life in various realms as sources of narratives of plays in whatever genre.
Piolo, Derrick Both Ibarras
BCAEd students are also attentive if I tell stories about pop stars embarking on theater works like Piolo Pascual’s baptism fire in musical theater in Una Obra Productions’ “Ibarra” or the same company’s staging of the currently showing reprise of Piolo’s starrer, the revised “Ibarra Ngayon” with GMA Network’s Derrick Monasterio as the titular lead.
I also told them about the late National Artist for Film and Broadcast Nora Aunor’s stage appearances in PETA’s “Minsa’y Isang Gamu-Gamo” and “DH” and Dulaang Balintataw’s “Ang mga Babae ng Troheya,” a Filipino translation of Euripides’ “The Trojan Women” which were all box-office hits.
And the still performing Virgin Labfest XXI at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez where Angel Aquino, Jackie Lou Blanco, Iana Bernardez, Banaue Miclat etc. are pitted with each of their thespic talents in director Mara Paulina Marasigan and playwright Gab Mactal’s “Lualhati” or Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, Rafa Siguion-Reyna, Dennis Marasigan etc. in director Ron Capinding and writer Dustin Celestino’s “Elehiya” or Mosang and Christian Bables in director Tuxqs Rotaquio and scriptwriter John “Sweet” Lapus’ “Taksyapol,” among many others.
In my stint as mentor, I am always reminded by theater master Chris Millado who has been encouraging arts students, particularly provincial or regional creative artists to adapt and enhance local tales as materials for stage production.
I am proud to say that my current BCAEd Theater Arts students are finally making a stage adaptation of Atimonan’s folklore of the mermaids, one of their images ubiquitously perched on giant boulders (I was told by one of my students that there are also sculpted sineras in three other corners of Lamon Bay) along the coastal road of the Maharlika Highway near the boundary of Atimonan and Plaridel, formerly Siain town.
Another local color to be translated onstage as a culminating activity by the TA majors on June 27, 2026 at 1 pm at the auditorium of the LGMC Admin Building is the theater adaptation of Atimonan’s sentinel against aggressors of the town, Iskong Bantay, a moniker of Francisco Tandas, head of the town in the 16th century.
They are only two of the original versions of the community’s history.
Who knows these folklores can be expanded and refined as national theaters worthy of symbiosis between the stage players and the spectators.