Liway: How cinema archives the people’s struggle
Liway: How cinema archives the people’s struggle
Glaiza de Castro and Kenken Nuyad star as a mother-son duo in Liway, directed by Kip Oebanda. Photo courtesy of IMDb.
Following the Marcoses’ years-long effort at restoring their family’s power through disinformation and propaganda campaigns and the eventual victory of the late Philippine dictator’s son Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the May 9 elections, online repositories of Martial Law era materials have sprung up. Among these are Bantayog ng mga Bayani’s digital library of the “mosquito press” publications, the citizen-led Project Gunita, and the Martial Law Index. But even as far back as 1998, archiving initiatives about the Filipino people’s struggle against fascist regimes had already existed through Arkibong Bayan – founded by the late Ramon “Monram” Ramirez – whose website has been recently red-tagged and blocked by the National Telecommunications Commission. All these efforts of Martial Law survivors and human rights advocates point toward a unified, raised-fist goal: to memorialize the nation’s violent history, now feared to be whitewashed.
Kip Oebanda’s 2018 film Liway upholds this tradition of active remembrance and resistance, which is reflective of Philippine cinema that, by hook or by crook, tries to hold and create more space for anti-Martial Law narratives. On May 11, when Marcos Jr. was poised to take the country’s highest office, Liway’s Facebook page publicly shared a free copy of the film saying, “This is yours now.” It is the director’s attempt at democratizing a story of a turbulent past that he experienced firsthand, which is largely the premise of the 104-minute film. In fact, the work’s raison d’être is highly political: a portion of Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth – P125 billion of which has yet to be recovered – was used to fund the film as the director’s family was one of the Martial Law survivors who received reparations from the government in 2018.
Based on Oebanda’s true account, Liway is a compelling drama about Day (Glaiza de Castro), a resilient mother who tries to safeguard her son Dakip (Kenken Nuyad), whose name means “captured,” from the brutal conditions of living inside a makeshift prison camp during the final period of the elder Marcos’ 21-year tyranny. To create this bubble of safety for her child, Day would resort to stories about the mythical enchantress of Mount Kanlaon named Liway, later revealed as her own story of struggle alongside her husband Ric (Dominic Roco), as a former guerilla commander resisting Marcosian rule.
One can argue that the film’s use of shadow puppetry as a storytelling device is an inspired artistic choice as it appeals to younger audience members, especially because the film uncoils through the innocent gaze of Dakip, only shifting the perspective to Day’s midway through the viewing experience.
Its use of local mythology and folklore is also effective not only to complement the use of shadow play, but also to reveal how the Marcoses have long co-opted our own culture to invent myths and paint a sweeping image of heroism while they and their cronies pillage the country’s national treasury. This is evident in a scene where Mang Roger (Joel Saracho), a pro-Marcos inmate, tells the curious Dakip that an amulet prevented the elder Marcos from being killed during a war against the Japanese that he supposedly won, which is just another footnote in the family’s never-ending list of lies and deceptions. If the likes of Dakip end up hearing stories of this kind every day, then the battle against historical distortion will be a long and winding one.
Joel Saracho plays the role of Mang Roger, a Marcos loyalist. Photo courtesy of IMDb.
As the film draws strength from the director’s personal story, it becomes easy to overlook its technical mishaps. Oebanda and Zig Dulay’s screenplay winds up as a push and pull of things: from the overindulgent, at-times preachy dialogue to the uneven pacing. Yet, it refuses to cave in to mere histrionics, thanks in large part to de Castro’s impassioned performance – and Oebanda knows better than to put his lead’s seasoned talent to waste.
For instance, when the detainees are left distraught by the new warden’s policy of segregating male inmates from female inmates, de Castro strums her guitar and poignantly sings Asin’s Himig ng Pag-ibig – a sweeping moment that will simply unclog one’s tear ducts. Her voice is singular and defiant amid an atmosphere of uncertainty. And when the film’s emotional engine is about to conk out and collapse, she keeps everything intact and fuels the narrative back to life effortlessly.
But it must be said that the film’s success also rests on Nuyad’s shoulders, especially as he portrays the director’s young self. He pulls it off by keeping his emotions raw and unpredictable. In one scene, Dakip delivers a speech before a crowd of protesters, recounting how he initially thought that the people outside the prison camp are like mannequins rendered mute and immobile. But he realizes he’s mistaken because, as he has observed, the people outside are so loud. While it’s a little didactic, this moment would not have been effective were it not for Nuyad’s charm and conviction.
So despite Liway's flaws, de Castro and Nuyad make it work as a clear-cut testimony to an atrocious period in our history, relentlessly threatened to be swept under the rug. One with a penchant for nuanced filmmaking knows that a film is more than just its intention, but the sincerity of Oebanda, at least in the way he wants to tell this story, feels enough, and I can respect it on that note.
Of course, Liway is not the first of its kind. Some may argue that there are far better films that offer far more incisive commentary about the Marcos regime: Lino Brocka’s Insiang (1976), Ishmael Bernal’s Manila by Night (1980), and Lav Diaz’s Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon (2014), just to name a few. Some may even assert that Oebanda’s work is redundant. But that is exactly the point: creating films, or anything of cultural value, about our nation’s painful history must be redundant. So long as people reject and distort documented accounts of decades worth of suffering and human rights violations, our tools of remembrance must be there to assert everything time and time again, until no one will even dare to deny the truth, until “never forget, never again” becomes the norm.
The official poster of Liway. Photo courtesy of IMDb.
Now that history is being likened to mere hearsay, anti-Martial Law films such as Liway become all the more necessary. While the film’s very specific nature may seem like its weak point, it also works to its advantage to resonate with deniers of history because, as one might venture to say, it’s easier to empathize with a survivor’s personal recollection than with large chunks of data and figures, especially for those who have been trapped in the rabbit hole of disinformation.
One cannot deny that Liway is Oebanda’s ode to his radical and beloved mother, but the film is also a triumph of testimonial narratives. If Marcos apologists, or even centrists, won’t subscribe to facts, then we need more personal stories like this to help them understand that real people and real lives suffered unimaginable abuses at the hands of the Marcoses. Under this climate of erasure, cinema will serve as an archive to remind us that militancy has always been in the Filipino people’s nature; that to collectively push back is the only way to end a dictator’s crimes and injustices. But, above all, cinema will be our witness.
In an iconic scene toward the film’s end, the camp’s warden dramatically calls the rebel prisoners’ names, one after another, as though they’re about to be executed like the other dissidents who came before them. As her name is being called repeatedly, Day bids her son a tearful goodbye. She tells Dakip, in Filipino, that “the darkness won’t last forever. One day, the monsters in our land will be vanquished.” The former rebels know that this day might come, so they hold their comrades’ arms and brace for the worst trying to remain resolute on the path that they have taken, only for the film to reveal that they are finally free as the Marcos regime is toppled.
Oebanda directs this moment to be as striking as possible, that’s why it comes off as too on the nose. One may even comment that this fakeout sequence leaves a bad taste in the mouth. But the lack of subtlety and the director’s unapologetic approach don’t ruin the impact of the film’s message. If anything, Liway makes it clear from the get-go that open defiance is its impetus for this is how the film actively archives the Filipino people’s struggle against systemic violence and inequality, hence the need to insist on a form of activism that is outward and resounding. May we not be afraid to be loud, take action, and rage in the breadth of streets. May we not fail the Dakips of this world. More importantly, may we not let darkness reign over our country again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lé Baltar is a writer, poet, and film critic. They are secretary of the Society of Filipino Film Reviewers (SFFR). Their articles have been published in Film Police Reviews, Philippine Collegian, Tinig ng Plaridel, and Vox Populi PH, while their poems have appeared in local and international literary spaces. They study journalism in UP Diliman.
