'Gomburza' is an epic reminder of our cinematic history

Finally, we see Rizal in popular culture as a consequence of history and not its driving force. 

In Pepe Diokno’s brilliant new film, “Gomburza,” the first glimmers of Philippine enlightenment occurred not in the words of Rizal but in the activism of an obscure but charismatic secular priest, Fr. Pedro Pelaez, born in 1812 in Pagsanjan, Laguna. 

This is not a skewed interpretation by the filmmaker and co-scriptwriter Diokno, himself the descendant of a revolutionary general, but hews faithfully to historical accounts.

Gomburza is among the most hallowed words in Philippine history, a portmanteau of the names of martyred priests Gomez, Burgos and Zamora, with Burgos the most famous. There is some general awareness of their relationship to what came after them — an inspired Jose Rizal and the rise of a Filipino consciousness that led to the revolution of 1896. But little was known until this film, an entry in the current Metro Manila Film Festival, of Filipino nationalism’s fountainhead, Pedro Pelaez. 

Portrayed with dignified restraint by Piolo Pascual, the cerebral Pelaez led a movement by fellow island-born clergy, known as insulares, opposing the transfer of control of parishes from insulares to the Spanish-born (peninsulares) friars of the religious orders. Pelaez’s plea to Spanish church authorities that the parishes were managed just as well by mestizo or indio priests marked the emergence of a separate Filipino identity. 

Some historians credit that period from 1850 to the Gomburza martyrdom in 1872 as the birth of Filipino nationalism, without which Rizal might have taken a path as Jesuit priest or country doctor, and not as the conscientized genius whose martyrdom was almost preordained. 

Among Fr. Pelaez’s protégés was his student in Canon law, Jose Burgos. 

When the 50-year-old Pelaez dies tragically in the great Manila earthquake of 1863, the newly ordained Fr. Burgos assumes the mantle of the reform movement’s leader and lightning rod, a precursor to the filibustero, subversive and red-tagged activist of later generations. 

Paciano, Jose Rizal’s kuya by 10 years, was in turn a Burgos acolyte, a promising university student whose career was cut short by his association with the dissident priest. 

The repression triggered by the Cavite Mutiny of 1872, and the execution of the Gomburza priests linked by a kangaroo court to the rebellion, convinced Paciano that his brother Jose, then 10 years old, would eventually need to leave the country to absorb modern political ideas they were no longer free to study at home. 

Usually portrayed, if at all, as a reserved older man in the shadow of his illustrious brother, Paciano is a dynamic central character in this film, a young idealist relatable to today’s Gen Z audiences. Casting the rising acting savant Elijah Canlas in the role of Paciano was a master stroke, giving fierce flesh and blood to the unheralded kuya who turned his little brother into the vessel of his own nationalist dreams. Without Paciano’s constant affirmation, Rizal might have lost the will early on to continue the nation project that would eventually cost him his life. 

But that would be more than two decades after the time frame of this film, which sets the stage for Rizal and his peers in the 1880s and 90s, the nation’s greatest generation. “Gomburza” the movie could be an argument for considering Jose Burgos and his cohort in that conversation.  

Burgos is portrayed with grim earnestness by theater thespian Cedrick Juan, who was rewarded with the Best Actor trophy in the MMFF. 

Father Burgos was already well known to history buffs. But this film elevates him in the pantheon of heroes, an essential link between the O-G Pelaez and Jose Rizal. 

While a major source for the film was the Jesuit historian John Schumacher who tackled the tensions between island-born and Spanish-born clergy, “Gomburza” recalls as well political scientist Benedict Anderson’s focus on language and “print capitalism” as crucial drivers of nationalism. Both Pelaez and Burgos penned influential, anonymously published diatribes against church dictates. Pelaez founded the first Catholic newspaper in the Philippines, El Católico Filipino. 

A critical incident in the film was the classroom rebellion against the Latin medium of instruction imposed inside the university. Signifying language as a tool for control and liberation of the mind, it evokes similar debates today about using mother tongues in schools. 

And one can’t help thinking that the determined gaze of the long-haired indio servant of the Spanish friars and his own awakening later were a shoutout to historian Reynaldo Ileto’s take on the folk origins of nationhood. 

This film’s greatest contribution goes way beyond lending gravitas to a film festival that had acquired a lightweight notoriety. 

“Gomburza” has vividly reminded us just how dramatic and compelling our actual history is. Diokno did not have to employ much artistic license to present actual events cinematically. No playwright could have invented a more electrifying death for Pelaez than the real earthquake that took his life at the height of his influence inside the rubble of the Manila Cathedral. It took a storyteller’s bravado to curate a brief mention of that incident in history books into the climactic, terrifying cataclysm in the movie. 

Unlike the friars that have often been caricatured and vilified in our history, with Rizal’s Padre Damaso a prime example, the Spanish priests in “Gomburza” evince a nuanced, humanized take. The peninsulare archbishop, for one, convinces the vindictive Spanish governor-general Izquierdo to allow the three priests the dignity of execution with their priest’s sutanas on. 

It’s that delicate touch, rooted in a close reading of history coupled with the filmmaker’s careful discernment for what audiences need to know, which bestows a powerfully fresh understanding of events that many can barely recall from history class. 

On the eve of their execution, in a prison cell scene that Rembrandt might have lit, the 35-year-old Burgos laments the injustice and misfortunes that have befallen Filipinos, a cry that echoes through the ages. In offering him words of comfort, the elderly Father Gomez provides a divine logic for their impending martyrdom, evoking the sacrifices of many others who succeeded them, especially he who is regarded as the first Filipino but makes a cameo in this story as a child. 

Long seared into our consciousness was Jose Rizal as a hero of such exceptional mind and character that he often seemed like an accident of history. After seeing this magnificent epic of a movie, we’re convinced that clearly he was not. 

— LA, GMA Integrated News