Nora’s trigenerational drama is a missed opportunity

AUNOR. Portrayed a comfort woman in recent “Karelasyon” episode.

For a long time now, viewers have been wanting to watch a TV drama starring the trigenerational roster of Nora Aunor, her adoptive daughter, Lotlot, and her offspring, Janine Gutierrez.

Last July 11, that longed-for show biz event finally happened, with all three stars acting together in a “Karelasyon” episode about a “comfort woman” in World War II (Nora) rejecting the Japanese boyfriend of her granddaughter.

The episode, written and directed by Adolf Alix Jr., was a should-see production in our book, not just because it starred Nora and her progeny, but also due to its topic and theme, which we feel has not been dealt with sufficiently on local screens, to remind viewers of that horrible chapter in our history.

There was a movie a long time ago that dealt with the years-long debasement and sexual enslavement of quite a number of young Filipinos by war-crazed invading soldiers, but it tended to be more sexy than insightful, since it topbilled a number of “bold” stars playing the marauders’ victims.

So, we looked forward to the “Karelasyon” episode to help make up for our TV-movie dramatists’ long neglect. Unfortunately, however, the Nora starrer did not live up to expectations. For one thing, the rape and pillage scenes were too predictably staged and played, with loudly lustful rapists attacking their shrieking victims with rabid, demented gusto.

More grievously, however the production often failed to make “proper” use of the rare presence of Nora Aunor. She has been making more movies now, but each of her still infrequent appearances should be given greater importance to, in the light of her iconic status in our TV-movie industry.

On the “Karelasyon” episode, she was given too few dramatic moments to vividly essay in her uniquely dramatic fashion. She had to share scenes with Lotlot and Janine and the episode’s other players, so her performance fell short of being memorable.

For her part, Lotlot did well as Nora’s daughter, affirming our impression that she’s become a fine actress in her own right. But, Janine’s portrayal was too standard to be notable. Perhaps she was held back in part by the fact that the actor cast as her Japanese boyfriend was a sluggish and “nominal” performer who failed to “support” her in their scenes together?

We’re grateful to “Karelasyon” for reminding us of the tragedies of our WWII comfort women, who still haven’t been justly compensated for the horrors they were forced to endure. But, all told, the episode was not the thespic, dramatic and thematic event it could have been—a “would have been significant” opportunity missed!

Earthquake drill

At 10:30 a.m. last Aug. 6, the 45-minute “Shake” earthquake drill was successfully and effectively held by government agencies, and we learned a lot about disaster preparation from watching the TV coverage of the entire proceedings, primarily on the CNN Philippines coverage competently hosted by Pia Hontiveros.

The long TV feature touched on many principal considerations and factors involved in the eventuality of a 7.2-magnitude quake hitting Metro Manila due to the West Valley Fault. Examples were clearly provided of home, school office and vehicle rescues, fires of different kinds being put out, roadblocks being swiftly cleared, the use of the Pasig River as a principal emergency conduit, etc.

Viewers were warned that, the metro being a very congested population area, casualties in the tens of thousands were expected, but the numbers could be brought down as the public is informed about safety and evacuation measures.

But, the best way to save many lives is to strengthen existing structure before “the big one” hits! We hope that our home owners and business leaders will act expediently on this—because the lives we save could well be our own.