There Is No Night Without Remembering
by Erwin Romulo
“The only flesh that remains to be examined is our own.” — Alexis Tioseco (from an introduction to a conversation with Lav Diaz, 2005)
On the first of September, ten years ago, sometime before eleven o’clock in the evening, Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc were murdered. They died of gunshot wounds: Alexis sustained four and Nika two. To quote a report on the facts of the case: “(B)ased on the location of the wounds, abrasions, and contusions, it was possible that Alexis was involved in a scuffle… and based on the location and number of the wounds, there could possibly have been more than one (1) assailant and a lot of movement/struggle.” He was 28 and she was 29.
Alexis had a number of wishes for Philippine cinema. He listed several in an addendum to an essay he wrote, “The Letter I Would Love to Read to You in Person,” but he concluded it with this one: “I wish Philippine cinema all the success in the world…”
I was his editor for that piece and asked him why he had chosen to end it with an ellipsis.
He replied: “Hope.”
*
In the ten years since Alexis and Nika’s deaths, the profile of Filipino films and filmmakers has increased throughout the world, even if since then most of the wishes he listed in that essay have not come true.
A lot of those Alexis championed and whose works he endorsed have established themselves both in the Philippines and abroad. Director Lino Brocka’s 1975 film, Manila in the Claws of Neon/Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag, was shown fully restored at the Cannes Film Festival and was received with acclaim. That same year, three other films from the Philippines also premiered during the festival, including Lav Diaz’s Norte, the End of History/Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan. It received a five-minute standing ovation, including one from Wesley Morris, Pulitzer prize-winning critic, who said he “stood with tears in my eyes, and clapped as loudly as I ever have for any movie in my life.”
Philippine cinema is a century old. It has had its notable eras, so-called “golden ages”: the 1930s and early ’40s, when the big studios like Sampaguita and LVN were founded; the post-war ’40s and ’50s, with the resurgence of cinema coming from regions outside the capital city of Manila such as the Visayas; and the ’70s to early ’80s, with directors like Mike de Leon, Ishmael Bernal, Peque Gallaga, Kidlat Tahimik, and Brocka, to name the most acclaimed and known, making their debuts. In that time, the country produced films such as (in no particular order): Anak Dalita, Biyaya ng Lupa, The Moises Padilla Story, Kundiman ng Lahi, Pag-asa, Kulay Dugo ang Gabi, Pagdating sa Dulo, Tinimbang Ka’t Ngunit Kulang, Temptation Island, Insiang, Manila by Night, Turumba, Aguila, Batch ’81, Kisapmata, Oro Plata Mata, Oliver, Ang Magpakailanman, Juan Gapang, Makapili, Mistula, A Study for the Skies, Botika Bituka, Kalawang, Sausage, Bontoc Eulogy, Bayaning 3rd World, Chicken Soup II, Still Lives, Ekis, Batang Westside, A Date with Jao Mapa, Pa-siyam, When Timawa Meets Delgado, Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay, Bakasyon, Los Otros Trilogy, Yanggaw, The Mistress, Colossal, Sa Palad ng Dantaong Kulang, Yield, Balikbayan #1, to name just a few.
It’s been said that in the last ten years there has been a new golden age for Philippine cinema. Although I can’t speak for him, I knew Alexis well enough to know that he would have been pleased. He was working hard for that to happen and he had made a lot of sacrifices to continue in that crusade. That included being separated from Nika.
*
They first met in Rotterdam in 2007, arriving at the film festival “not… in the best of conditions” to use Alexis’ own words. He was learning to live on his own in Manila, after the death of his father and far from his mother and siblings who were all living in Canada. Nika had not quite finished closing an issue of Ekran, a Slovenian film magazine that she had been editing for over a year and which she was still fighting to have full editorial independence over, and she was sick and exhausted.
“I know sometimes you may think that it was the fact that we worked in the same field that attracted me to you, but I must tell you that this couldn’t be farther from the truth,” wrote Alexis in his letter to Nika. “(C)inema isn’t what brings us nearer to each other: because in this regard, we are on equal footing, and I must instead find other things in me to share with you. For anyone who knows me, they know how difficult that is…”
Two days before his death, Alexis held a get-together at his house. It was a despidida or send-off for Nika who was flying back to Slovenia that week. It didn’t last very long because it was a Sunday and many of the other guests had work the next day. In addition, the air-conditioning wasn’t working or wasn’t sufficiently working enough to combat the humid night air, which made everyone grow tired early on. I was one of the last to leave and had time to chat with him alone. He told me he was worried that she was leaving. The past months, since Nika had moved to the Philippines, had been very happy but she hadn’t adjusted well to living in Manila. Despite assurances, he was uncertain. But he had to stay because there was still a lot to be done.
“Does a place mean more than a person? Does my work in the Philippines mean more than the possibility of a life with you, somewhere, anywhere else?”
*
On Tuesday, September 1, 2009, Alexis and Nika had dinner out with friends. They wanted to meet up before Nika and another friend, Mia, left the country. As a group, they had all visited the beach-island of Siargao a few months previously. Mia remembers that trip fondly and recalls that it was welcome respite for Nika. Not used to living in a city where pedestrians are considered a nuisance to vehicles and where there was little in the way of sidewalks to walk on, Nika enjoyed being out and in such an idyllic place. She even surfed for the first time. Alexis, not as enthusiastic about the outdoors, stayed ashore, smiling at the sight of her surfing.
Mia was leaving for London to study architecture. Alexis asked her if she wanted to hang out at the house after. He wanted to show her a video of film director/visual artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture. But it was already late by the time they got to Alexis’ house on Times St. in Quezon Street and Mia was flying out the next day.
Before leaving, she asked Alexis and Nika if she could take a picture of them. She said they looked so sweet together. They said yes but she didn’t take the picture.
It felt private, that moment.
After giving each other hugs, Mia said goodbye and left.
*
A few hours after the murders, Criselda Dayag, a household helper that Alexis had just hired a month earlier, sent a text to someone working in the family office. In the message, she said that Alexis had been killed because he put up a fight.
“Kaya naman napatay si Alexis kasi naglaban siya.”
She had let three men in while Alexis and Nika were out. Those men abducted the household’s other helper as soon as she returned from buying food and held her at gunpoint. They then hog-tied and blindfolded her while Dayag sat on her bed, busy texting on her mobile phone.
She was arrested by the authorities on February 25, 2016—almost six years after the warrant for her arrest was issued—in Angeles City in Pampanga, in a town not far from the cemetery where Alexis’ remains are interred.
Last year, she was convicted of robbery with homicide and given a sentence of to up to 40 years in prison.
The three men are still at large.
*
I did not want to write this. But I felt I had to.
I tried to write about the making of Lav Diaz’s film about the murders (An Investigation on the Night That Won't Forget, 2012). I’ve never seen it. All I know is that it mainly consists of an interview I gave to him around a year after. But I can hardly remember anything apart from sitting down for it.
I also tried to write about collaborating with Alexis on the writing and editing of his now famous essay. I have not read it in years and I can only get so far before it becomes unbearable.
I finally tried writing a letter to Alexis. I had written one for Criticine, the site he had put up covering Southeast Asian cinema. He asked me to write a love letter to someone or even something that was related to cinema and I chose to write one to my teacher, Cesar Hernando (who just passed away a few months ago). It’s in that same spirit that a new batch of “love letters” are published in this Issue of NANG. I can’t think of a more beautiful tribute. After all, as Alexis once wrote: “The first impulse is always one of love.”
I was almost done writing that letter before I decided it wasn’t going to do. Because honestly, all I feel now, at this very moment, is anger.
Ten years was long enough to have ushered in a new golden age for the movies but it has not done one bit to dim the rage. On some days it feels that even a hundred years wouldn’t be enough to exhaust it. Because if there’s one wish I have now, it is that Alexis and Nika were still alive, and that they didn’t die in such pain.
The last thing I wanted to do when I was asked to write this was to remember their deaths. But if anything, I felt it had to be remembered.
That’s what cinema and writing, or any art form, is vital for, after all. Maybe that’s even its primary function. Any creative act—whether it’s drawings in a cave, chalk markings in a cell, or shadows projected on a screen—is about not forgetting, especially those things it would be more convenient for us to forget.
Love cannot be imaginable otherwise.
Born and based in Manila, Erwin Romulo is an award-winning writer, magazine editor, music producer, and creative director. He is most known for being the founding editor-in-chief of the Philippine edition of Esquire magazine as well producing musical scores for films such as On the Job, Honor Thy Father, and Buy Bust as well as the sound design of A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery.