In one of And So It Begins subplots, historian, columnist, and former president Noynoy Aquino’s official Manolo Quezon III was talking to singer and anti-Marcos activist Leah Navarro about the rise of the Marcoses in a restaurant that looks like it sells Filipino food that costs thrice the price of food in carinderias (street canteens). While they were lamenting how the Marcoses successfully captured the current generation with their tales and myths about their family, I cannot help but look at Manolo’s Coke Zero can. I bet the restaurant sells them at almost P100.
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Filipino-American documentary filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz crafted a shapeless, distracted, and out-of-touch collection of stories in And So It Begins, a film that is more concerned with stroking the ego of the elitist Kakampinks who are still feeling high and mighty for voting for Robredo while looking down at the 31 million supporters of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ son Bongbong.
And So It Begins attempted to form the narrative that the saviors of the country from the autocratic ruling of the Dutertes and the Marcoses are not former vice president Leni Robredo or Rappler CEO and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa but us, the people, who are clad in pink outfits, doing door-to-door campaigns, speaking for the victims of human rights abuses, and attending Robredo’s campaign rallies.
Diaz constructed Robredo and Ressa’s image as the frontliners of the war against trolls, fake news, and dictatorial ruling in the country that was once hailed for ousting a dictator during the People Power Revolution in 1986. It was 2022 and based on surveys, Marcos Jr. was the frontrunner for president while Robredo, the target of vicious verbal attacks of Duterte, did not even come close to challenging the man she narrowly defeated in the 2016 vice presidential elections. With the help of the volunteers who believe that decency in governance can be restored with Robredo, they banded together in thousands, fought online trolls, and convinced voters to side with them through large election rallies that looked large, jaw-dropping, and inspiring through the eyes of director of photography Bruce Sakaki. Through his shots, And So It Begins injects hope that Robredo can pull a David and successfully sling a stone to the foreheads of the Goliath-like forces of the Dutertes and the Marcoses.
Despite Diaz rekindling hope, we all know what happened: Marcos won via landslide. As the surveys forecasted, Robredo’s 14 million votes did not even come close to Marcos’ 31 million votes, the biggest since the post-EDSA Revolution elections. Diaz, however, was not interested in showing how this dismal result was a huge loss for the ordinary Juan Dela Cruz. Instead, we saw disappointed middle-class volunteers, grieving Rappler journalists, and Robredo and Ressa composing themselves while enduring the results.
And So It Begins is not interested in showing the sentiments of the most important personality of the film: the ordinary voters living in poverty, clamoring for an improved life. During a house-to-house campaign, Diaz highlighted the effort of veteran actor Jaime Fabregas in going to a poor community and campaigning for Robredo. He encountered a female resident who planned to vote for Marcos. Fabregas thanked her for her time and proceeded to the next house. Why is she going to Marcos? Why is she willing to bring back a family member of a family who stole billions of pesos from the Filipino people? It would have been an interesting study but Diaz has more disappointing priorities. It began. Where do we go next? Are we still going to paint the 31 million voters as dumb victims of the Marcos myth and propaganda?
And So It Begins is now showing in PH cinemas.
