Remembering Bibot

Remembering Bibot

Updated 10:55pm (Mla time) Dec 02, 2004
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


MARRAKESH -- When you're abroad, the mere mention of your country on CNN or BBC is apt to send alarm bells ringing.

I was digging through my suitcase when I heard something about the Philippines on the TV. "Rina, your country is on CNN!" exclaimed my roommate, Martha Swai, a radio producer from Tanzania.

Immediately, I rushed in front of the set, impatient for the commercial break to be over so I could listen to the news in full. It turned out to be news about the devastating floods and landslides that have killed almost 500 people in Quezon and Aurora. The footage aired on CNN showed floodwaters and mud, the color of coffee, inundating houses and what looked like fallen trees.

"Denudation has always been a problem in Luzon," I explained to Martha, while I felt sick to my stomach, realizing that such a death toll, meriting a mention on CNN, has become "routine" in our country. And not just because we're going through a late typhoon season, but also because our own neglect as a people, particularly the destruction of our natural resources, magnifies the impact of what should be but a seasonal occurrence.

The Philippines seemed to be very much on CNN's mind, since the news of the deaths from the floods was followed very soon after by a weather report predicting another typhoon to hit the country in the next few days, if not hours. Even the weatherman was moved to express his concern for the country still reeling from earlier floods and typhoons.

My sympathies to the families of all those who died everywhere devastation has hit, including Mindoro which was in the headlines the day I left. There is something about being away from your country and your loved ones that focuses your attention on them. For which I can only offer my thanks for this timely "heads up."

* * *

ANOTHER bit of shocking news that came my way, by way of an early morning text message, was that of the passing of Zeneida "Bibot" Amador.

I'm sure that by now the media would be full of encomiums about Bibot's role in the development of Philippine theater, particularly the way she trained and honed to the heights of professionalism current luminaries in theater and the arts, including Lea Salonga and Monique Wilson. But I prefer to remember Bibot in her many incarnations on stage, TV and even the movies.

For most Filipinos, our introduction to Bibot was on a TV show, "Santa Zita and Mary Rose." Here, she played a mean, naughty but big-hearted housemaid, and she was one reason my sisters and I religiously followed this show that tracked the many joys and sorrows of a middle-class family and the parallel lives of their house help.

Such was Bibot's impact, though, that I can't for the life of me remember any other cast member, even if, as I write this, their faces float before me. So uncannily did this household drama reflect our own concerns in those more innocent times that we felt it was a story of our lives. Though looking back, I now recognize that it took a somewhat naive view of the social divisions that still bedevil Philippine society.

* * *

FROM "SANTA ZITA," Bibot would move on to found Repertory Philippines, which is notable not just for producing the majority of Filipino artists tapped by Cameron Mackintosh for "Miss Saigon," though come to think of it, name any theater notable in these parts and chances are he or she had at one time or another gone through the wringer of Bibot's direction.

Repertory's bigger accomplishment, I believe, is creating and sustaining an audience for theater in this country. Some decades ago, there was this controversy over the "proper" content of theater. Some, who called themselves nationalists, felt a theater company like Repertory which preferred to stage imported material, mainly from Broadway, was squandering its talents and resources on meaningless "fluff." Never one to shy away from a fight, Bibot retorted that Repertory would put on a Filipino production the minute she found "quality" material.

Looking back, one realizes the silliness of the dispute. Because what this country needed, and still needs, is a theater-going tradition, a habit of thought and inclination for theater, so that, while searching for entertainment and enlightenment, one would think of watching a play or a musical.

* * *

IT TURNS out that there are not just two kinds of theater in this country, but many streams and audience niches. And it is only because of the dogged dedication of champions like Bibot that theater has survived here, though theater companies, even the well-established ones, still struggle to keep their heads above water.

One memory of Bibot stands out. We were both taking part in "V-Day," the annual fund-raising and consciousness-raising event spawned by the "Vagina Monologues." When I arrived, I found Bibot sitting cross-legged near the door, smoking. When I inquired whether New Voice Company, which stages TVM here, would be providing us with makeup artists, Bibot laughed heartily. "We're doing this for free! If they could afford makeup artists, they could pay us!" Then she added, with trademark insouciance, "I don't care about makeup. I've always known I'm ugly, and there's nothing that makeup can do to change that."

She would later appear onstage in the same shorts-and-T-shirt outfit she was wearing when I met her. But Bibot's performance of "Beneath the Burkha," a newly written addition to TVM, blew away playwright Eve Ensler, who would later say that she found new insights into her own words just by listening to Bibot read them.

That was vintage Bibot, one of the best (if unheralded) actors we have produced, who mothered Philippine theater as best she could.