Chito Roņo's
Escape from Reality?
Eskapo (1995)
So the rumor mills' version went, that media tycoon's heir Geny Lopez and Cebu oligarchy's son Sergio Osmeņa did not really escape; they were asked by soldiers to escape (with accompanying explanations regarding an arrangement). Stretching this angle to recent times, those rumor mills would elliptically discourse on the conjecture that perhaps Lopez and Osmeņa conspired to twist the truth a little for both cinematic purposes and, ultimately (or more importantly), political ends.
The Lopezes' Star Cinema produced this film about Lopez and Osmeņa's grand escape from Marcos' Fort Bonifacio. Given this background, therefore, we have no choice but to read the film as both a filmic record of how Marcos treated sons of the Philippine oligarchy of the '70s after declaring a state of martial law in 1972 (a unique cinematic angle on the times in that sense), and likewise as a record of how the Lopezes and Osmeņas could lead people to believe in one thing (several things), given their armory of wealth for movie (read: mass media communications) production. The movie Eskapo, then, owns two faces for the Philippine audience: while it becomes a film about a Marcosian truth in general, it in the meantime builds a movie about possible Lopezian/Osmeņan lies in particular. And although the majority would lean towards an appreciation of the former, a minority (not pro-Marcos) will also choose to consider the possibility/probability of the latter.
At the outset, this film will be regarded as useful to present-day oligarchies (and their middle- and lower-class admirers) as a reminder of the dangers of potential Marcosesque recurrences. On the other hand, this will also be worthy material to present-day middle class interests that regard themselves victims of both Marcos' legacy of plundered landscapes and the Lopezes' oligarchic redux (in the form of a Manila electricity distribution monopoly, a domination of TV and radio airwaves, etc.).
Having said all that, it would puzzle many to find Jose Lacaba's name in the Screenplay credits. But then it's not as if everything in a film's story is the screenwriter's fault. Lacaba may simply have been useful for his super-familiarity with the period, especially with the personages in the political prisoners' camps of the Marcos regime.
Melodrama is abundant in this movie, much of it understandable however if one is familiar with Filipino sensibilities. But that doesn't excuse Jaime Fabregas' music for underscoring this melodrama factor. Also, the story itself involves scenes now standard fare in today's telenovelas. But then again, everything is already standard fare in all the kitschy modes of art in our jaded age, the reason why criticism must continue to exist -- as it will anyway -- on art's treatment of realities and unrealities (likewise on the reality of low art's lowness and high art's highness).
Is this an important movie for one's Philippine movies collection? An important story, at least? As a political ad material (I got my VHS copy from a Serge Osmeņa-for-Senator election campaign van), it shouldn't be. As a historical material contributory to our dramatized records of Marcosian evils, yes. As a paradoxical sample of cinematic autobiography, a double yes. This last because, from an extreme angle (giving way to the recent negative records of the Lopezes/Osmeņas/Aquinos/etc. in the eyes of a lot of disgruntled Filipinos), Eskapo may just come out as a portrait of a final truth wherein Marcoses are not built by weird neurological frameworks but by a culture that breeds possible oppressors out of critics/victims of oppression.
For if rumor mills are to be believed, the AFP setting up an "eskapo" to avoid the necessity of explaining the release of political prisoners to foreign media, or on the other hand to demonstrate guilt in those prisoners tagged as young enemies of the state, is already quite an escape from necessary answers to our superreal questions. If the rumor mills are correct, then seeing this mental escape's victims helping in the concealment of the truth is witnessing the perpetuation of a Marcosian tradition we have come to love, and that tradition could be the mother (First Lady?) of all Philippine oppressions. (VSV, July 2002 - April 2004)
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