The ‘bayani ba ‘to?’ narratives

By Herman M. Lagon

The WVSU Cultural Center this Monday afternoon, September 8, was already alive before the program even began. In the lobby, ushers moved briskly, keeping the lines flowing and the rows inside neat and ready. Teachers clutched attendance sheets, ticking names with care, while campus journalists juggled their cameras, eager to get the first shots. Volunteers passed out postcards of the cast and slips asking, “What makes someone a bayani?”—tokens that were part souvenir, part challenge. When the lights dimmed, the hall filled with more than 2,000 students and mentors. My heart lifted seeing familiar faces from many schools and orgs gathered as one.

The preliminaries did more than extend a welcome; they gave the occasion depth. Organizers from Dakila, Active Vista, and TBA Studios reminded everyone that this was not just another screening or school trip. Quezon was to be a mirror and a spark—an invitation to revisit history while weighing its echoes in the present. They spoke of liberty, leadership, and legacy as questions that still needed answering. The gathering, they said, was historic in itself: the largest civic-history forum of its kind in years.

Darlene Gan of Dakila and the Active Vista Center deepened that welcome with a challenge. Speaking on behalf of the organizers, she reminded the students that Bayani Ba’To? was never just about films or famous names. For more than a decade, the project has asked hard questions about heroism—Bayan o Sarili? (Heneral Luna), Tandaan mo kung sino ka (Goyo: ang Batang Heneral), and now, through Quezon, Who is the Philippines? She urged the crowd not to wait for saviors but to see themselves as part of the nation’s story, proud to be heroes in their own right.

UP historian Alvin Campomanes then stepped up to frame Manuel L. Quezon not as a distant figure but as a leader wrestling with contradictions in colonial politics. He pointed out how power, then as now, often flows through stories—whether through newspapers in Quezon’s time or digital feeds today. Narratives, he reminded the students, can normalize corruption or courage depending on who tells them. His words primed the audience well, and when the preview clip of Quezon rolled, the hall was sharp with laughter at witty lines and suddenly hushed at the gravity of key moments.

As the clip ended, the spotlight shifted from screen to stage. The cast entered in turn, each name met with a cheer that blended excitement with familiarity. They were household names to many, yet on this stage they stood not as distant icons but as partners in dialogue. That signaled the opening of the MLQ Forum, which I was humbled to guide as moderator. My role was to hold together the threads—history’s lessons, the film’s sparks, and the voices of the youth waiting to be heard.

When the lights returned, Jericho Rosales leaned in—toward the microphone, then closer to the starstruck participants—as though reaching across the space between us. He turns 45 on September 22, but the moment was not about years lived; it was about the urgency of his words: we all matter, and we must help change the story. His voice carried no distance, no superiority—only a shared challenge. Instead, he spoke like a peer but with a gravitas of Quezon, urging the students to believe that their voices, choices, and stories count.

After him, 70-year-old Bodjie Pascua—“Kuya Bodjie” to generations—took the floor with his familiar warmth. He reminded everyone that heroism isn’t about perfection but persistence: the courage to keep showing up even when society disappoints. As Ilonggo patriot Raymundo Melliza, Bodjie’s presence was electric. His voice broke at times, eyes glistening, as if the playful Kuya Bodjie from Batibot had returned—yet this time with the gravity of years, speaking of persistence and grit. He embodied someone who had weathered both promise and disappointment but who refused to stop believing in the youth as bearers of the flame.

Then came Therese Malvar, the youngest of the cast at 24, whose words resonated not with distance, but with the nearness of shared youth. Her role as Joven’s daughter, apprenticing under the trilogy’s familiar photographer, taught her the value of seeing clearly and telling the truth, against all odds. She told the young crown this was also her personal message: that as a young woman she was proud to be counted, and she hoped they, too, would refuse to be left out of history’s frame.

Berks Joseph Tan grounded the conversation in the local, urging the youth to start where they stood. Iloilo, he said, had its own stories of leadership and civic courage—examples that proved one need not look far to find models of bayani. Producer Daphne Chiu-Soon added a behind-the-scenes honesty about the challenges of making historical films in a landscape that often prefers spectacle over substance. Her reminder was clear: storytelling itself is a form of activism when it bridges past and present.

The students listened with focus—some writing for their school papers, others nodding quietly to each other. You could feel it: this was more than curiosity; it was recognition that the stage was speaking to their own lives.

What stayed with me most was the refrain that kept returning: history is not finished. Liberty is not guaranteed. Heroism isn’t carved in stone; it’s lived in choices made daily. Seeing so many young people gather—some my own students past and present—was proof that the questions of leadership, legacy, and liberty are alive and urgent.

Moderating didn’t feel like guiding—it felt like watching dialogue bloom among artists, historians, teachers, and students. The laughter, the pauses, the leaning in reminded me: civic spirit isn’t just made in great revolutions. It’s also born in stages and rooms like this, where ideas are shared and carried back into our schools and homes.

The postcards asked, “What makes someone a bayani?” By the end of the forum, the answers were no longer confined to paper. They were alive in the room: in Jericho’s call to matter, in Kuya Bodjie’s plea to persist, in Therese’s reminder to care, in Berks’s push to act locally, in Daphne’s defense of storytelling, and in the quiet resolve of the young crowd to bring those lessons home.

It felt less like a conclusion than a beginning. Quezon’s time will always be measured by history, but the harder question is how it will measure ours. As Darlene Gan had asked at the very start, “Who is the Philippines?”—the answer rests with these young people. Leaving the stage, I knew the response belongs to them, if they take what they heard not as lines from a movie, but as choices and convictions in their own unfolding lives.

***

Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.