SQUALOR AND SALVATION
(Philippine Daily Star, 10 June 2006)
Joven Vlasco
Jueteng in the Philippines is a numbers game, a lottery, a game of chance. But while games of chance abound in the country, this one has figured prominently in recent Philippine history.
An immediate past President of the Republic was ousted through people power. Among the charges of high-placed corruption in his government, this leader and a son who now sits as a Senator in the Upper House of the Philippine Legislature had been accused of receiving bribe money to ensure the continuous operation of the numbers game, which is illegal gambling in the country.
The ousted President’s constitutional successor, initially perceived to be unassailable as she apparently stood on higher moral ground, ironically finds herself just several years later in a similar scandalous situation, also along with some members of her immediate family, including a son who this time sits as a Congressman in the Lower House. The situation has led to a politically-beleaguered presidency well until this time.
Some Philippine authorities believe that this numbers game should be made legal, since gambling, anyway, has been deeply-entrenched in Filipino culture. Besides, it gives livelihood to the numerous unemployed especially in the countryside. If ever jueteng persists, open secrets disclose, it is because it is not only tolerated but more so perpetuated by the collusion among several parties concerned—the national as well as local officials and politicians; the police, also local and national; and the predominantly below-poverty-line majority of the Filipino populace who find employment as collectors and checkers.
Raids and apprehensions are staged occasionally, whenever the jueteng issue gets hot—temporarily. These token gestures are made to appease those who disapprove of the illegal common man’s lottery, notably some bishops and archbishops. “Some” because allegedly a good number of them are also beneficiaries of jueteng money conveniently to bankroll Christian charity projects!
At the base of this nation-wide, deeply entrenched gambling operation are of course the Filipino folks and masses who bet, ranging from as low as a measly peso to as high as several hundreds or even thousands . The stakes may be high, for some winnings can go to tens and hundreds of thousand pesos, depending upon one’s bet or “investment.” Certainly this constitutes an irresistible come-on for people whose only weapon against abject poverty and lack of opportunities in life is a folk-sense hope that to the more privileged may be sheer folly and a laid-back and misplaced optimism.
If ever some bishops frown at the game, it is because they know the scam behind such operations: operators collect small money from the poor which add up to quite a fortune and they run away with the bulk of the money and leave slim pickings to the unsuspecting bettors (or if they are aware, they wouldn’t mind as long as they have the chance to augment subsistence family incomes). Everybody gets rich—the operator and their “cohorts” in high places—except the poor folks who are appeased with token, once-in-a-while small winnings.
This is the socio-political context of Jeffrey Jeturian’s KUBRADOR/ THE BET COLLECTOR (script by Ralston Jover/script supervision by Armando Lao). The title refers to Amelita or Amy, a post-menopausal wife to an inutile but solicitous husband who seems to have abdicated his role of “taking charge” in his family and household, and mother to adult children who still turn to her for financial help and family upkeep. She “collects” the bets and places them at the table of the hench- or frontmen of Big Operator who is never seen in daily operation and whose identity oftentimes is top secret. They may be the townspeople’s favorite politico or top law enforcer, who knows?
Although Jeturian’s film is a composite story of lesser lives, of the sacrificial children of jueteng rather than the perpetrators who make a big killing each time, it defies plot-oriented retelling. It simply follows the film’s protagonist (excellently portrayed with great sincerity and sensitivity by Gina Pareno) as she goes through her daily routine of collecting bets and winnings on behalf of her clientele, bailing out an apprehended neophyte collector, bribing a police officer, collecting contributions , on the side, for the wake and burial of neighbors who recently died, and transacting sundry businesses with practically her whole neighborhood who seem to accord her with respect and affection.
Rising action is not what makes the film engaging, in fact, even riveting. It is the film’s visual and aural textures that tell all in several levels, from the micro-story of a lowly slum-dweller valiantly struggling for survival, or of a bereaved family lamenting the senseless death of their recent college graduate, their only hope to lead them in their escape from a life of wretchedness, to the macro-tale of a society steep in corruption and injustice, where superstition is the people’s only cling to sanity and salvation. The film is replete with subtle potshots at foibles every ordinary Filipino is familiar with, reminiscent of examples and situations recently heard over the radio, shown in television, or read in sensational tabloids.
The film highlights an acid-etched portrait of a strong-willed woman of great strength and endurance as a centerpiece of a societal mural embellished by details of squalor, depression, inequality, and yet also of faith and hope that are almost magical and divine.
The filmmaker’s treatment of his material is a most appropriate fusion, on the one hand, of the stark reality of social realism, rendered in approximated self-reflexive documentary style (long takes of handheld shots, cinematography and production design that simulate rawness and crudeness, spontaneous interaction among actors devoid of artifice and self-consciousness); and on the other, the mystical atmosphere of magic realism as images of unrelenting hope that things will soon turn out for the better, and unconditional faith in the supernatural, constantly supplicated and oftentimes obligingly protective of those who have completely surrendered their fate into its hands unfold.
It is said that this film is Jeffrey Jeturian’s best to date. We wouldn’t put it that way. Oftentimes, he sinks his teeth into genres he has not tried before, employing unconventional style each time. And each time, too, he bites deep into the thick meat of his latest film extremely well done!
