This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
4:48 PM |
Orapronobis by Lino Brocka
(Orapronobis) Fight for Us is as much a political gesture as it is a political film. Produced by French interests in the Philippines, the movie is the outraged response of its director, Lino Brocka, one of the most popular and successful Philippine film makers, to the human-rights abuses that are reported to be continuing in his country.
The film expresses the disillusionment of those who fought the discredited regime of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, as Mr. Brocka did, with what is seen to be the complicity of President Corazon C. Aquino's Administration in paramilitary campaigns against any citizens suspected of Communist sympathies.
The program notes that accompany Fight for Us, including statements from Amnesty International, are somewhat more arousing than the film itself. They describe case histories of people tortured and murdered by vigilantes, known as the Civilian Home Defense Forces.
The point is that the Aquino regime, especially the members of the armed forces, is conspiring with the vigilantes to liquidate all suspected opposition. The announced target of the vigilantes: members of the New People's Army, the fighting wing of the outlawed Communist Party.
Fight for Us dramatizes the radicalization of one anti-Marcos fighter who, freed from prison after Mrs. Aquino's triumph, returns home only to find his compatriots fighting another, possibly even more insidious oppression.
The story is simply and effectively told, without undue melodrama. The screenplay, the direction and the performances never get in the way of the message, which is intended to alert the rest of the world to what has happened to the dream of democracy promised by Mrs. Aquino. Following the lead of Amnesty, Fight for Us does not directly blame the President, but those of her supporters who are using her revolution for their own ends.
Labels: film
