In Cebu City, history returns to the stage not with a clenched fist, but with a warm, comedic, and deeply human heartbeat.
A company of Cebuano theater practitioners will mount "Pinoy Agonistes: A History in Two Epochalities," the final play of National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, in a rare full-stage advocacy staging Tuesday, September 29, at the UP Cebu Performing Arts Hall.
Free and open to the public, the staging anchors the 4th Annual Martial Law Literacy Month, which this year also marks the 54th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law.
This is not a theater that shouts. It remembers.
At its center is the Galang family — ordinary Filipinos navigating an extraordinary unraveling. There is Leo Galang, a dreamer bent on building the first Filipino car even as the country around him sputters. Beside him, his wife Isabel Galang, a journalist fighting to keep her Pinay Magazine alive and reaching international audiences at a time when Philippine media itself is under siege. Their son, Rene, dares to ask if the family dream is delusion. Around them, Marilou Galang and Rommel Palao carry a love story caught between the pull of romance and the pull of country. And holding the household together with a current of comedy is Emperatriz, the family's help, who brings laughter even as the era darkens outside their doors.
It is, in many ways, a portrait more than a chronicle.
“Unlike much of the literature written about the period, the material takes a comedic, warm, and reflective approach, built for audiences of all ages and free of violence,” said director Maverick Avila. “The play is less a chronicle of Martial Law than a portrait of the people who lived through it: writers, journalists, dreamers, inventors, and lovers, ordinary Filipinos who found the courage to stand together and, in time, reclaim their freedom without the force of arms. Through the Galangs, the play puts a question to its audience: is it valid to feel such fatigue that it slides into complicity, and how do Filipinos wake from that coma?”
The advocacy staging is presented by the UP Cebu Library, the Martial Law Literary Corner, and Dr. Marie Rose Arong, and directed by Avila — whose origin-story driven approach honors both text and lived experience.
Leading the cast are Vanessa Feje as Emperatriz, Clanch Belleza as Leo Galang, Charlene Virlouvet as Isabel Galang, Alexus Libarnes as Rene Galang, and Era Luz Prieto and Shim Dagatan as Marilou Galang and Rommel Palao. The creative team includes stage manager Ishi Fate Jugo, with art direction by Francine Imperial, production design by Jilianne Kyle Monteclaro, and multimedia design by Ehd Aiken.
The performance will be followed by a panel reflection with historians, scholars, and artists who lived through Martial Law or have devoted their work to its memory — keeping the conversation alive beyond the curtain call.
True to its advocacy roots, "Pinoy Agonistes" runs entirely on volunteer effort and at no commercial gain. The production is now inviting institutions and individuals who share a stake in Cebu's cultural and historical memory to come in as patrons and producers — to help cover honorarium for the cast and technical and logistical support for the show.
“This is an ambitious undertaking,” said Avila. “We have volunteers who have been doing creative work together for about five years now, and who trust that the Cebuano community deserves to witness this material at full stage, not as a staged reading.”
For Cebuano audiences, it is a rare chance to witness Joaquin at his final, most reflective — where the political becomes personal, and the personal becomes profoundly Filipino.