*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
"History is never just about what happened — it is about how we choose to remember.” #DJOT
Prologue: A
Lesson Outside the Cinema
The story I am
about to tell did not begin when the lights dimmed and the film flickered on
the screen.
It began
outside — in a line at Gateway Mall.
Juliana, my
daughter, held my arm with the kind of excitement only children possess when
they sense a story is about to unfold.
“Papa… matagal
ko nang gustong mapanood ’to.”
I smiled.
But the
universe had other plans.
While standing
patiently at the generic lane, a group of grown women eased forward and cut in
front of my daughter. Walang pasintabi, walang respeto, walang pagtanaw man
lang ng kahihiyan.
When I calmly
addressed it, sila pa ang nagalit.
I saw Juliana’s
expression fall — that delicate collapse of innocence when a child realizes
adults do not always behave the way they should. As a father, it bruised me. As
a Filipino, it awakened something deeper.
Because in that
moment I thought:
Kung simpleng
pila nga lang hindi masunod, paano pa natin pangangalagaan ang mas malaking
bagay — tulad ng kasaysayan?
Kung batang
kayang tiyakin, gaano kadali ring tapakan ang memorya ng ating bansa?
I held her hand
tighter as we walked into the theater, unaware that the film we were about to
watch would mirror the same injustice:
someone
stepping ahead of others, rearranging truth, claiming a place in our collective
memory that they did not earn.
Entering the
Theater, Entering a Battlefield
When the screen
lit up, I felt the heavy air of historical cinema — the promise of truth, the
temptation of artistic license. Quezon (2025) is undeniably crafted with
mastery:
beautiful
lighting, immersive sound, meticulous production.
But under the
elegance, something trembled.
A quiet
distortion.
A selective
framing.
A narrative
tilt that leans away from Filipino dignity and toward a gentler portrait of our
colonizers.
This is not
accidental.
This is the
film’s heartbeat.
And to
understand why, we must begin with the man at its center.
**MANUEL L.
QUEZON:
THE GENIUS THE
FILM TRIED TO SHRINK**
Jericho Rosales
emerges as Quezon, and instantly something feels off — the voice too nasal, the
physicality mismatched, the emotional energy external rather than internal.
Because Quezon
was not a man you could perform lightly.
Quezon was not
a man you could imitate.
Quezon was not
a man you could reduce.
He was
intensity incarnate.
He was:
- lightning disguised as diplomacy,
- fire veiled under charm,
- cunning sharpened by necessity,
- arrogance forged by colonial humiliation,
- tenderness hidden beneath the armor of leadership,
- and a man racing against tuberculosis slowly
suffocating him from inside.
He fought two
enemies at the same time:
the empire
outside
and the death
within.
The film
captures the thunder of his temper
but not the
storm inside his heart.
It shows
outbursts
but hides the
urgency.
It shows flaws
but not the
furnace that created them.
Worse, it tries
to “define” Quezon rather than understand him.
But Quezon was
not a definition.
He was a
contradiction.
A man brilliant
enough to maneuver Americans,
broken enough
to wound those who loved him,
visionary
enough to build the Commonwealth,
human enough to
stumble along the way.
He demanded too
much from himself,
and too much
from others,
because he knew
time was running out.
And the one who
carried that weight with him — quietly, painfully — was Aurora.
**AURORA
ARAGON QUEZON:
THE WOMAN WHO
HELD THE STORM**
The film barely
reveals Aurora,
but behind
every great storm, there is someone who holds the ground still.
Aurora endured
what history forgets:
- Quezon’s temper
- Quezon’s infidelity
- the shadow of his first marriage
- the loneliness of being a political wife
- the sight of the man she loved being eaten alive by
tuberculosis
Yet she stayed.
Not because she
was meek,
but because she
was strong.
She steadied
Quezon when his fire scorched him.
She softened
him when his ego expanded.
She kept him
human when power threatened to consume his soul.
To diminish
Aurora is to diminish Quezon.
Because she was
not the woman behind the President.
She was the woman beneath the foundation.
**EMILIO
AGUINALDO —
The First
President Flattened into a Convenient Villain**
Aguinaldo is
complex:
brilliant,
flawed, decisive, burdened by impossible choices.
But the film
reduces him to a villain.
The mob scene —
labeling him “butcher,” “traitor” — is staged as unquestionable fact, ignoring
decades of debate.
His refusal to
speak English — originally a symbol of resistance — is framed as incompetence.
His
Commonwealth run — intended to uphold dignity — is stripped of context.
He becomes a
caricature,
so someone else
can shine.
And that
someone is Leonard Wood.
**LEONARD
WOOD —
THE COLONIAL
ADMINISTRATOR TURNED CINEMATIC SAINT**
This is the
film’s most dangerous lie.
Wood, an
American who doubted Filipino competence and vetoed early independence, is
portrayed as:
- calm
- wise
- fatherly
- rational
- morally centered
While Filipino
leaders appear impulsive, chaotic, inferior.
The colonial
administrator becomes the “adult in the room.”
The film gives
Wood a halo
and Filipinos
long shadows.
This is not
artistic license.
This is
historical inversion.
This is the
cinematic equivalent of letting colonizers cut ahead in the narrative of our
own nation.
And it mirrors
exactly what happened to my daughter in that line.
**MANUEL
ROXAS —
The Technocrat
Reduced to a Background Decoration**
Roxas, one of
the most brilliant Filipino minds of the era, is visually present but
narratively irrelevant.
A silent “young
star” without ideological depth.
His complex
balancing act — between Filipino interests and American influence — is
discarded.
Because to show
Roxas fully would disrupt the film’s preferred framing:
Americans as
the stabilizing force.
**GREGORIO
AGLIPAY —
The Spiritual
Rebel Silenced**
Aglipay founded
the Philippine Independent Church — a monumental act of spiritual nationalism.
He was a
revolutionary priest who refused to bow to colonial faith structures.
Yet in the
film, he becomes a prop — a religious silhouette devoid of context.
The spiritual
backbone of Filipino resistance is reduced to set dressing.
**SERGIO
OSMEÑA —
THE QUIET
THUNDER BESIDE QUEZON**
Of all the
erasures in the film, the treatment of Sergio Osmeña may be the most subtle —
but also the most tragic.
Osmeña was not
Quezon’s sidekick.
He was not a
wallflower.
He was not a
polite shadow.
He was the
counterbalance.
If Quezon was
fire,
Osmeña was the
calm water that kept the Commonwealth from boiling over.
If Quezon was
charisma,
Osmeña was
discipline.
If Quezon
shouted storms,
Osmeña
whispered stability.
He was:
- the master strategist
- the patient architect of party politics
- the stabilizing spine of the Nacionalista Party
- the quiet man who carried the government when
Quezon’s illness worsened
But cinema does
not know how to portray quiet greatness.
So Osmeña
becomes a polite background figure —
a statesman
reduced to silence
so American
figures can dominate the frame.
It is a
profound injustice.
Because Osmeña
represents the Filipino who leads without theatrics,
who waits
without resentment,
who carries the
nation not with fire, but with dignity.
THE WITNESS
THEY TRIED TO HIDE: JOVEN HERNANDO
In Heneral Luna
and Goyo,
Joven Hernando
was the soul of the trilogy.
Through his
young, frightened eyes we saw:
- the brutality of war
- the collapse of hero worship
- the weight of betrayal
- the contradictions of leadership
- the burden of remembering
He was every
Filipino youth forced to grow up by history’s cruelty.
But in Quezon,
Joven is muted.
Dimmed.
Flattened.
As if the story
no longer needs a conscience.
But Joven is
crucial —
because he
represents memory.
He represents
witness.
He represents
the youth who asks, “Totoo ba ito?”
To silence him
is to silence an entire generation’s right to ask questions.
And perhaps
that is why the film tries to soften him.
Because a
strong Joven would disrupt the narrative.
**THE
DAUGHTER WHO REFUSED TO LET TRUTH BE REWRITTEN:
NADIA
HERNANDO**
But the story
does not end with Joven.
Because
somewhere in the trilogy’s lore stands Nadia Hernando,
Joven’s
daughter
and the
filmmaker who carries her father’s wound like a torch.
Nadia directed
two versions of the Quezon film:
1. The
Campaign Version
- sanitized
- heroic
- clean
- designed to please donors and descendants
- built for mass consumption
2. The
“Real” Version
- darker
- uncomfortable
- raw
- complex
- honest to the contradictions of Quezon
This second
film — the one that truly reflects history — is the film she made for her
father,
for the truth
he saw but could never fully speak.
Nadia becomes
the youth reclaiming the narrative.
The daughter
correcting the distortions imposed on the father’s memories.
The filmmaker
defying politicians and historians alike.
She is Juliana,
years from now —
refusing to let
anyone step ahead of her in the line of truth.
FINAL
REFLECTION
When the lights
came back on,
I looked at my
daughter.
The hurt from
the ticket line still lingered in her eyes.
And I realized
this entire experience — from the queue to the credits —
was a
reflection of one lesson:
History, like
dignity, is fragile.
It can be
stepped on by those who feel entitled.
It can be
rearranged by those who speak louder.
It can be
rewritten by those who stand before us, even when they shouldn’t.
But not if we
teach our children to see.
Not if we teach
them to question.
Not if we teach
them to remember.
And so I
whispered to her — and to myself:
“Anak… hindi
tayo papayag na isingit ng iba ang kwento ng ating bayan.”
Our heroes
deserve truth.
Our women
deserve dignity.
Our youth
deserve clarity.
And our history
deserves to shine
with a light
that is proud, fierce, and unmistakably Filipino.
