in the time of cory, i was mostly writing scripts for cause-oriented docus (the rape of our forests for DENR, land reform for DAR, women’s rights for NCW, boracay for DOT, ccp-npa rebels-without-a-hope for PIA…) and once i took on a gig translating HIV-AIDS and safe sex materials from english to tagalog for DOH.
this was in the late 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic that hit america’s gay community in 1981 was beginning to peak. in the beginning no one had any idea how the “gay cancer” was being transmitted, but by the late eighties, malinaw na, and over here the DOH started putting together safe-sex materials for dissemination, and it was a hoot translating vagina. the only tagalog word acceptable to DOH doctors then was: “puwerta” as in “door” … “entrance” … “opening” … when puwede ring puki, pekpek, kepyas, atbp.
sometime in the early ’90s naman, FVR’s time, i helped put together an ambitious proposal for a safe-sex sitcom that counted on kris aquino and her look-alike (the name escapes me now) playing twins, one conservative, one promiscuous, in a barangay setting with a barbershop-cum-parlor nearby, complete with a pilosopo tasio na nakatambay sa labas, nanonood, nakiki-alam, nagmumunimuni.
it must have been a government project because i remember having to attend a related DOH event in malacanang with vivian recio who would have produced it, leo martinez who would have directed, and raquel villavicencio and uro de la cruz who would have taken turns writing it with me. but of course kris hated it, so it never got beyond the proposal stage.
in 1997 naman, i wrote the story and script of “Loveletter,” a comicbook on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) produced for an AIDS control and prevention program. nonoy marcelo did the graphics, if memory serves. i should have a copy somewhere.
finally, in the early years of the new millennium, i reached for the stars, LOL, with a movie storyline inspired by the classy and beauteous broadcaster and senator’s daughter pinky webb and the incredibly naughty and taklesa queen-of-all-media presidential daughter kris aquino. i imagined a combination of the two as fictional celebrity and socialite krishna colayco, who would find she had contracted HIV, announce it to the world in a major major presscon (talbog ang enrile-ramos defection), and then proceed to undertake a massive multi-media campaign countrywide informing about HIV / AIDS and pushing for safe sex that of course would meet with violent outrage from the church, the military, the mtrcb, even the palace. jorge arago polished it up, titled it “Star Struck!” and entered it in FAP’s screenwriting contest (can’t remember what year, 2003? 2004?). of course it didn’t win.
fortunately jorge sent a soft copy to amy rara for safekeeping that she forwarded to me some days after jorge died. reading it now, for the first time since writing it more than a decade ago, i must say it still works (!) but it would need a lot of updating and it would cost a fortune to produce.