A reconciliation with a revolutionary mother

San Francisco, CA—Every year a Filipino mother leaves her children behind to work outside the Philippines and provide a decent living for the family. It has always been tough and heartbreaking to be thousands of miles apart from her kids. However, economic reasons leave her no choice but watch her weeping kids wave goodbye to her.

The children are left behind with guardians or relatives for couple of years, and for some it will be a lot longer than that. Up-and-coming San Francisco, California-based documentary filmmaker Jethro Cuenca Patalinghug affirms this fact with his new documentary “My Revolutionary Mother,” a 36-minute film that tackles his experience with his very own mother who left him and his siblings in the Philippines to provide a better life for them. Patalinghug’s mother found refuge in the arms of Uncle Sam.

Patalinghug, now 36, shared with GMA News Online that his mother was a very active woman in her hometown in Cebu. She would always stand up for her rights as well as those of her family’s and the community, until the protests and the fight for human rights began to threaten the lives of his mother and their family.

His mother left for the US on her own 20 years ago and found a new job that provided them food on their table back in the Philippines. He said he and his four siblings were distraught by her decision, and could not understand why she had to do it.

Eventually his mother filed a petition to get his younger siblings to join her in California. Patalinghug, who was over the petition age at that time, was left by himself in the Philippines.

He recalled that it was painful to be left alone and for over a decade he thought of telling his story of what he had gone through during that rough time.

“I have been thinking about it for 10 years. I was depressed for two years when I was left in the Philippines alone, crying almost every day. When I got out of that depression I promised myself that I had to tell my story,” he said.

The short documentary film premiered in September and reaped favorable reviews from critics and film enthusiasts in San Francisco. The film is also part of Patalinghug’s thesis project from the Art Institute of California in San Francisco, where he recently graduated with a Digital Film and Video Production degree. He started filming in January this year using a cannon 7D and 6D digital cameras.

Back in the Philippines, Patalinghug finished a degree in Physical Therapy at the Cebu Doctors University. Later, he  took Theater Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He landed a TV Producer job with MTV Philippines.

Patalinghug said there were several things he wanted to express in his film.

“I wanted to make a subtle commentary about the poverty in the Philippines, which I know through first-hand experience, growing up poor myself. I wanted to say that up until now nothing has changed,” he shares.

However, he stressed that the film is mainly about his relationship with his mother. He added that the film’s subject is the universal “archetype that most people can relate to. We need to forgive our mothers for their shortcomings. At the end of the day all we want to do is love them.”

It was not after filming that Patalinghug found closure with his mother, Virginia, who had calmly welcomed the idea of a documentary film about her.

“She knew I was doing a documentary. I told her I planned on doing one about her. She knew I would make it from my perspective and that I was going to confront her,” said Patalinghug.

The confrontation did not happen until the camera started rolling. “I was ready with my questions and she was ready with her answers, but we never engaged up until that moment shown in the film. My mom was game, she was a public speaker. She had the experience,” he says.

His father, on the other hand, was totally fine with the film idea. “Only thing he cared about was that he would look ‘guapo in the film,” Patalinghug quipped.

He still remembers the time when he was finally reunited with his mother in 2011.

“My mom is so cute now! She tries really hard to compensate for the lost times, she treats us like kids whenever we are around, cooking food for us and minding little details of our daily lives. She tries to engage us in conversations all the time. It was awkward at first especially before I did this film,” he says.

He added that his relationship with his mother has greatly improved after the film project. “Mom, you are the greatest mother I know. It is because of you that I am active myself. You taught me to stand for the truth and it guided me even during the times that you were absent. I love you and I am excited to share experiences with you,” he said.

The challenges in making his first short documentary film in the US included those of producing and directing it at the same time. “When I was confronting my mother, the producer in me thought this was good, but the person in me was very emotional. It was challenging managing my own emotions and at the same time directing the path of the film as I went on filming.”

The film is set to premier during this year’s FACINE in San Francisco, the longest running Filipino Arts and Cinema International film festival in the US.

Patalinghug said the film is also currently raising money through crowdfunding so that he and his crew can share the film with different festivals across the US and around the globe. For more info, visit Indiegogo.com.  --- KBK, GMA News