I first watched the film "Andrea, paano ba ang maging isang ina?" of Nora Aunor in 1990 when it participated in the Metro Manila Film Festival. Written by Ricardo Lee and directed by Gil Portes, it depicted the lifes and deaths of a mother struggling to liberate her country, her people, and herself from the oppressive structures in society that permits the exploitation of man by man.
I had the chance to score a copy of the film and watched it again after 21 years while waiting for my second son Ponso to wake from his morning slumber.
The film opened with a massacre scene somewhere in the countryside and the New Peoples Army being asked by the masses for help. Andrea (Nora Aunor) and her comrade-husband Momoy, are members of the New Peoples Army (NPA)who works in the area zoned by the military. Being pregnant that time, they opted (I guess its a they being in a collective set-up of organization) for Andrea to give birth in the urban area staying with her trustworthy friend played by Gina Alajar whom she met while in college. She is married to Lloyd Samartino for six years but cannot bear a child. Andrea was forced to leave baby Gabriel with Gina when Momoy succumbed to the fascist bullets. She was then caught by the government and were thought of as dead. So Gina and Lloyd brought baby Gabriel, now re-christened as Raymond, to the United States.
Andrea lived through the torture and escaped but was in communicado for sometime and in hiding. Pained and frustrated, she tried to recover Gabriel but her situation as a wanted person limited her mobility and capacity to pursue her son. She continued in the armed struggle and after seven years, had the chance to get her son back when Gina and Lloyd's family went home for the holidays.
She eventually gave up her claims after a heart to heart talk with Gina and asked for the last time to meet her son before they go back to the States and Andrea, to the armed revolution. She did meet Gabriel (Raymond) and even embraced him but they had to cut short their meeting because she was followed by the fascists and was eventually martyred in full view of her son.
The film is very tight and every Filipino should watch it. It reflected the situation of the country and is reflective of the internal turmoils of those dancing in the gallery of the struggle for national freedom and democracy and those who are invariably caught in the middle because of their apathy.
It is sincerely truthful in treating the emotions of the characters as it weaved the mothers represented in the film. Momoy's mother who felt betrayed and left out when her son, who was a law graduate, opted to join the NPA, a woman who continues hoping to find her dissappeared activist husband for six years, Gina Alajar's character who rebuilt her relationship with her husband through Gabriel, and Andrea who lost and found her child amidst the dysfunctional society she herself wants to change not just for the Filipino people but more so for her son.
It is an activist film as it showed the strengths of mothers in a set-up that requires mettle and courage to stand and be firm on societal challenges. It is an activist film as it never hid its bias towards the certainty and rightfulness of the revolution as represented by Andrea. The non-antagonistic debates between Nora Aunor and Gina Alajar was perky and might remind the audience of their time talking with their activist friends, as they always settled peacefully yet not letting go of their positions. The scenes are very realistic and might have been culled from real fact-finding reports of human rights groups. The checkpoints, the tortures, the massacres, and other numbing incidents experienced by an oppressed society are all in the film.
Even Andrea's resolve to join the activist rank was smoothly injected through Lloyd Samartino's questioning to explain the reasons why people become activists and revolutionaries. And the collective and scientific way of resolving problems and issues within the revolutionary movement was shown when Andrea was told that she can overcome her weaknesses through painstaking masswork and trust in the masses.
I for once will advocate charter change so I can insert the provision of compulsary viewing of the film Andrea, paano ang maging isang ina? to all Filipino people regardless of creed, belief and other shit. I admit that I get real angry and sometimes cry when I hear injustices committed in real time and real life but I also cried watching the film as I eat my early beefsteak lunch while Ponso spinned his beyblades before going to school.
