The party atmosphere and spirited pageantry of the 2022 campaign for the Filipino presidency play in stark counterpoint to the vitriol, bitterness and oppression displayed by departing President Rodrigo Duterte as he bluntly and offensively dismisses the chances of his former Vice President Leni Robredo as she bids for the post.
Ramona S. Diaz’s film follows Robredo as she teams up with Nobel Peace Prize winner and activist Maria Ressa in a bid to bring change and democracy to the country. But they are not only facing lack of support from Duterte, who ran an autocratic system and oversaw six years of a war on drugs campaign in which thousands were either killed or went missing. A rival challenger in the form of Bongbong Marcos, the son of former President and dictator Ferdinand Marcos whose brutal regime spanned two decades between 1965 and 1986, has also thrown his hat into the ring.
At a press briefing President Rodrigo Duterte says of Robredo: “For all of these years she has done nothing…she is a colossal blunder,” while in other footage he proceeds to patronise her from the stage at a conference as she sits a few places from him, grimly trying to smile through his tirade. In other archival footage he makes sexist comments about Robredo’s beauty and short skirts.
In the Philippines, elections for the President and Vice President are held on separate ballots and with Duterte’s term coming to an end, Robredo’s campaign is set against the backdrop of the outgoing leader’s snide bitterness, with the film also using the campaign to dwell on ways in which misinformation has altered the political and media landscape.
Robredo herself comments on one occasion that she felt like she had unknowingly “joined a fraternity” upon being elected to office, adding that she was essentially “hazed for five and a half years,” with Duterte leading the schoolboy cruelty against her.
The announcement that Bongbong Marcos has put himself forward determines director Diaz to reflect on the Marcos family reign of brutality in the Philippines. Despite announcing that he will answer media questions Marcos actually has no interest in answering questions from anybody when given the opportunity, and travels with his own vloggers rather than deal with legitimate media outlets.
The Marcos family has spent time rewriting history since being forced into exile by the People Power Revolution in the mid-1980s, with this revisionist history part of the discussion of how misinformation impacts on society and social media. At one point the film visits the museum established by the family which offers nothing but a rose-tinted view of the Marcos regime.
Robredo herself is seen speaking with Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Rappler news organization, and admits that her campaign made a real mistake by not addressing online lies earlier on. The film tracks Robredo along her campaign route as thousands come to hear her speak, and while there is much focus on misinformation, the film has a hard time offering up a balanced picture of the election, quite simply because Marcos offers up so little. But to a certain extent Robrero is equally vague about herself, beyond her campaigning speeches and conversations.
What And So It Begins offers, though, is a fascinating and vibrant delve into politics in motion at a vital time within a country’s history, while at the same time making it clear how important it is to have honest and open journalism as a counterbalance to the dangers of falsified histories, fake news and misinformation.
US-Philippines, 2024, 113mins
Dir/scr: Ramona S. Diaz
Production: Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), CineDiaz, Independent Lens
Producer: Ramona S. Diaz
Cinematography: Bruce Sakaki
Editor: Aaron Soffin
Music: Christian Almiron
With: Maria Ressa, Leni Robredo
