A Film in the Making

Thank you for your interest in "The Schoolhouse."  We're very excited to share our film  project with you.

I completed the first draft of the screenplay in 1998.  After unsuccessful attempts to sell the story to US producers, I sent the script to the prominent Filipino filmmaker Peque Gallaga (Oro, Plata, Mata, 1982) who was looking for a story about a tragic incident known as the Balangiga Massacre. Mr. Gallaga liked the script and signed on as the film's director.

The story of "The Schoolhouse" is based on true events that were largely ignored by both Filipino and American historians.  The film is set in 1901 during the United States' occupation of the Philippines and will depict the struggles of three individuals caught in the Balangiga Massacre and its aftermath.

To date, the project has been awarded PhP250,000 by the Philippine National Commission for Culture and the Arts and has received pledges from private individuals to bring the film to pre production.  Due to the protracted depressed US economy, grants and funds have been difficult to find.  

We are reaching out to you to spread the word on the grassroots level by telling your friends and family to log in to our websites:

schoolhousethemovie.blogspot.com
schoolhousethemovie.multiply.com

A small contribution of $20 or more will help us take the next steps in this journey. Please click Donate on this site to make your contribution. Your valuable support is essential in bringing the compelling story of "The Schoolhouse" to full realization. It will also encourage the next generation of Filipinos and Americans to appreciate their rich and complex historical link.

If you need further information, please contact us at:

schoolhousethemovie@yahoo.com

Maraming Salamat!
Beatrice R. Homann

The Schoolhouse - Writer's Statement

BACKGROUND:

“The Schoolhouse” has its beginnings in 1986 when I read a copy of a speech presented by the late Jaime Ongpin to the Rotary Club of the Philippines. Ongpin was at the time, president of the Benguet Mining Corporation and a highly respected member of the business community. If the speech was delivered at a different time and did not invoke a sitting president, it would have been a conventional articulation of ideas among a group of peers. But Ongpin spoke in 1984, when the public sentiment against Ferdinand Marcos was coming to a head. The political atmosphere in the country had already transformed from scattered student demonstrations to an anti-Marcos movement that encompassed the elite, the middle class, the intelligentsia and the press. Ongpin's voice representing the business community therefore gave the ultimate credence and weight to the public outcry that eventually sealed Marcos' fate.

In his speech Ongpin enumerated political realities and then offered specific ideas for economic and intellectual liberation. He challenged his own peers to stop the habit of granting social acceptance to anyone who has money and power, regardless of how they were obtained, in exchange for the trappings of respectability. He challenged them to openly show their collective disapproval for those who have abused their political power and in the process deprived every other Filipino of his equitable share of economic progress and his inalienable rights to equal justice and genuine freedom. In essence, Ongpin threw the gauntlet to his listeners to overhaul the Filipino’s deep-rooted social value of blind acquiescence to patronage.

The speech prompted me to re-examine my social and cultural origins. I began research work on tenant farming system in the Philippines and discovered how the system became the embodiment of human exploitation. Historical facts show that the tenant farmer's economic dependence on his landowner was not just a way of life but a legacy that was handed down from generation to generation.

In 1992, I took extended education classes in screenwriting at the San Francisco State University and drafted an outline treatment for a film script about a landowner who is brought down by his own protégé. 

But a friend encouraged me to delve further back into history and read about an even more stunning story of usurpation: the largely unknown period called the Philippine American War. 

There I stumbled into events that were more dramatic and compelling. Compelling because of our unwavering alliance with and admiration for the democratic principles of the United States. It remains a paradox that our continuing struggle for self-identity not only emanates from our relationship with the powerful in our society or from the 350 years of virulent Spanish rule but is compounded further by a distant American occupation that intentionally denied us of our rightful claim to self-government.

The schoolhouse in the film is both the literal and figurative representation of colonialism through education. But it is also about a child’s yearning for a parent’s love and understanding and a parent’s inability to show how that love can be reciprocated. Politically, the film is not meant to put blame on America’s past and present policies nor to recycle anti-war sentiments in the public consciousness but to shed one light on the arrogance of power and another light on the humanity of ordinary individuals who do best in their struggle against it.

SYNOPSIS:
John Clarke an anti-war idealist brims with confidence as he bids his family goodbye at the dock in San Francisco. He is off to the Philippines as a schoolteacher, a decision that earns him his army general father’s skepticism and disguised contempt. While John sails westward, Luisa Prajedes a high-born Manilena and her eleven-year-old son Martin leave Manila to flee violence and chaos as the city falls to the Americans. Luisa’s marriage has collapsed, and her elderly uncle packs them off to the safety of their ancestral home in the province of Samar.
 
John expects to be stationed in Manila but is diverted to the last remaining teaching post in Guiuan, Samar. His goodwill is strained by the cultural remnants of Spanish rule: a schoolhouse in abject ruin, a forbidding class system and a brooding and archaic brand of Catholicism. 

When John encounters Luisa she is desperate but proud and independent, fighting to save her deteriorating house and where he eventually agrees to rent a room. Despite his good intentions, John fatally misunderstands his new home and inadvertently embroils the young boy Martin in a native uprising in a nearby town called Balangiga.

In a surprise attack born from the culmination of betrayal and repression by the American colonizers, villagers disguised as women, wait for the signal of church bells, then overpower and commit atrocities against a company of American soldiers. In angry retribution, an army general gives an order to kill every native above ten years of age and to turn the province of Samar into a howling wilderness. The tragic conclusion brings John back to the United States as a witness in a Senate investigation on military affairs.

FUNDRAISING & PRE-PRODUCTION:

The prolific and award-winning Filipino film director, Peque Gallaga has signed on to be the film's director. We have submitted full proposals to grant-giving organizations in the Philippines such as the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and in San Francisco, the Global Film Initiative. To date, the Schoolhouse project has been awarded by the NCCA with the amount of Php 250,000 (USD 5,434.00) and have received $40,000 in individual pledges. We estimate the film's production cost to reach P10 M (USD 230,000). 

We are also drafting proposals to the Hubert Bals Foundation in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the World Cinema Fund in Berlin, Germany and the Asian Cinema Fund in Pusan, Korea.

Upon completion, we hope to enter "The Schoolhouse" in international film festivals and obtain distribution for theater runs in Manila, the United States and eventual screenings in Philippine schools. Post-production efforts will include marketing through television, newspaper and the Internet.

Through our websites, http://schoolhousethemovie.blogspot.com and http://schoolhousethemovie.multiply.com, we hope your valuable comments will help begin an important dialogue about this unknown period in our history and help promote the "Schoolhouse" film project. 

As with previous historical movies like "Jose Rizal" and "Oro Plata Mata", “The Schoolhouse” also hopes to contribute to the Filipinos' deep appreciation of their rich and complex history.

“THE SCHOOLHOUSE” DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

In recent years, a plethora of Filipino movies depicting stories of slum life, poverty and hopelessness has dominated the Philippine Independent film industry. Forthright & candid as they are, the films tend to perpetuate our country’s tacit acceptance of self-subjugation. “The Schoolhouse” aims to present a more courageous and heroic side of the Filipinos. 

The Philippine-American war is a seminal episode in our cultural and political history and a defining moment in the Filipino struggle to assert their national identity and reconstruct their national life.

One of the most significant events in this period is the Balangiga Massacre yet it is widely unknown in the Philippines and neglected by both Filipino and American historians. 
The film will also portray the personal and the specifics of encounter between the American soldiers and Filipinos who have bravely resisted the American occupation. It will treat from both fictional and historical perspectives, themes of deceit, betrayal and redemption. The misguided altruism and hidden bigotry that gave rise to the American colonization of the Philippines and the deaths of thousands of innocent Filipinos in reprisal for the massacre at Balangiga today strikes a chord within current socio-political conflicts and upheavals.

Although we expect the film to be a cathartic experience for many viewers in the Filipino community, both at home and abroad, we also intend to address the historical amnesia that characterizes much of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines.

A serious and personalized treatment of this story will provide post-colonial insights and perhaps spark dialogues about the ongoing struggles of other countries aspiring for self-determination. A cinematic presentation of this painful but forgotten Philippine episode is long overdue. This is why this film is important.

The Balangiga Massacre 1901 Samar, Philippines

Balangiga Massacre

The "Balangiga massacre" was an incident in 1901 during the Philippine-American War where many American soldiers were killed in a surprise guerilla attack in the town of Balangiga on Samar island. This incident was described as the United States Army's worst defeat since the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. For Filipinos, the attack is regarded as one of the bravest acts in the war.

The subsequent retaliation by American troops resulted in the killing of thousands of Filipinos on Samar, the majority of whom were civilians. The heavy-handed reprisal earned a court-martial for Gen. Jake "Howling Wilderness" Smith, who had ordered the killing of everyone ten years old and over. Reprimanded but not formally punished, Smith was forced into retirement from the Army because of his conduct.

The attack and the subsequent retaliation remains one of the longest-running and most controversial issues between the Philippines and the United States. Conflicting records from both American and Filipino historians have muddled the issue. Demands for the return of the bells of the church at Balangiga, taken by Americans as war booty and collectively known as the Balangiga Bells,

remain an outstanding issue of contention related to the war. One church bell remains in the possession of the 9th Infantry Regiment at their base in South Korea,

while two others are on a former base of the 11th Infantry Regiment at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

According to some nationalist Filipino historians, the true "Balangiga massacre" was the subsequent American retaliation against the Samar population.

Attack

On August 11, 1901, Company C, 9th U. S. Infantry Regiment, arrived in Balangiga—the third largest town on the southern coast of Samar island—to close its port and prevent supplies reaching Filipino forces in the interior. Philippine Brigadier General Vicente Lukban had instructed the village leaders to pretend to be friendly initially, then attack the Americans at a strategic moment. Relations between the soldiers and the townspeople appeared to be amicable at first. However, tensions increased because of the villager's opposition to the puritanical ideals of the Americans, who insisted that the native young women dress modestly (as opposed to wearing the customary revealing native sarongs). The village chief complied with the request. Later, the company commander, Captain Thomas W. Connell ordered the rounding up of able-bodied townsmen to clean the town, ridding the village of trash and dead animals that were contributing to disease. It is also claimed that a private soldier had raped a young village girl, although no reference makes mention of this.  Equally unfounded is the claim that Connell ordered the destruction of all of the food stored in the town to prevent its falling into the hands of the Filipino forces, and fearing they would starve in the coming rainy season, the townspeople decided to attack the U.S. Army garrison.    At 6:45 a.m., on September 28 1901, the villagers made their move. Native men dressed as grieving women carried coffins into the church, claiming the coffins contained the bodies of children who had perished from cholera. However the coffins actually contained large bolo machetes which the villagers would use in the attack. After killing the few armed military sentries, the Balangiga police chief, Valeriano Abanador, gave the signal to attack. About 200 native men, women, and children armed with bolos or axes burst out of concealment and caught the unarmed Americans by surprise.  The garrison was at breakfast, with their rifles stacked in the municipal hall some twenty yards away. Most of the soldiers were hacked to death with the heavy bolos before they could reach their firearms. Captain Connell led a few men into the street before he was encircled and cut down. The few soldiers who escaped the main attack fought with kitchen utensils, steak knives, and chairs. One private even fought off many of the attackers with a baseball bat before he too was overwhelmed. A handful of surviving soldiers, many wounded, managed to secure their weapons and hold back their attackers. Few in number, they managed to evacuate the post by boat.  Upon discovering they had left the flag (flying at half staff because of the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley), three soldiers braved the natives to recover the colors. One was killed; the other two reached the boat with the flag intact. Most of the wounded died on the boat prior to reaching a safe landing. Of the original 78 men in Company C, 54 were killed or missing, 20 were severely wounded, and only 4 escaped unscathed. The villagers captured about 100 rifles and 25,000 rounds of ammunition. An estimated 20 to 25 of the guerillas had died in the massacre. The next day, a boat carrying several American troops returned to find the natives had abandoned the scene, and the bodies of their comrades had been mutilated. Bodies had been decapitated, boiled, hacked, stripped, and extremities removed. Some wounded survivors had been buried alive up to their heads, which were then covered with sugar and devoured by ants. Even the company dog's eyes were gouged out and replaced with stones.

Retaliation

The consequence of the surprise attack and ensuing mutilation was a brutal retaliation against all of the inhabitants of Samar Island by the U.S. Army occupation forces. The day after the attack, two 9th Infantry companies, with some of the Company C survivors, went to Balangiga aboard a commandeered coastal steamer, the S.S. Pittsburg. They found the town abandoned. They buried what was left of the American dead and set fire to the town.

General Jacob H. Smith's infamous order "KILL EVERYONE OVER TEN" was the caption in the New York Journal cartoon on May 5, 1902. The Old Glory draped an American shield on which a vulture replaced the bald eagle. The bottom caption exclaimed, "Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines."

General Jacob H. Smith instructed Major Littleton "Tony" Waller, commanding officer of the Marines assigned to clean up the island of Samar, what methods he was to use: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn the better it will please me." He directed that Samar be converted into a "howling wilderness." All Filipinos who did not surrender and were capable of carrying arms were to be shot, and this meant anyone over ten years of age. Because of this order, he became known as Jacob "Howling Wilderness" Smith. What followed was a sustained and widespread massacre of Filipino civilians. The basic elements of Smith's policy were brutal. Food and trade to Samar were cut off to starve the revolutionaries into submission. He instructed his officers to regard all Filipinos as enemies and treat them accordingly, unless they showed conclusively that they were friendly by actions such as providing information on the location of revolutionaries or arms, working as guides or spies, or trying actively to obtain the surrender of guerrillas in the field. He gave his subordinates carte blanche authority in the application of General Order 100. (Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 General Orders No. 100, in brief, authorized the shooting on sight of all persons not in uniform acting as soldiers and those committing, or seeking to commit, sabotage.) Smith's strategy on Samar involved the use of widespread destruction to force the inhabitants to cease supporting the guerrillas and turn to the Americans from fear and starvation. He used his troops in sweeps of the interior in search for guerrilla bands and in attempts to capture Philippine General Vicente Lukban, but he did nothing to prevent contact between the guerrillas and the townspeople. American columns marched across the island, destroying homes and shooting people and draft animals. Littleton Waller, for example, reported that in an eleven-day span his men burned 255 dwellings, shot 13 carabaos and killed 39 people. Other officers reported similar activities. As the Judge Advocate General of the army observed, only the good sense and restraint of the majority of Smith's subordinates prevented a complete reign of terror in Samar. Still, the abuses were sufficient to outrage anti-Imperialist groups in the United States when they became known near the end of March 1902. After receiving his orders from Smith, Waller issued his own written orders to his men regarding their conduct, that they were to seize and destroy, and matters of similar nature. Toward the end, he wrote, "We have also to avenge our late comrades in North China, the murdered men of the Ninth U.S. Infantry." This added more to the rage. The Chinese and the Filipinos were, to him, of the same nature, stock, and even ideology. There was no difference among "Asiatics." Waller was later accused of ordering the execution of eleven Philippine guides because, during a long march, they had found edible roots and had allegedly conspired to keep this knowledge from the famished American troops.

From WikiPilipinas: The Hip 'n Free Philippine Encyclopedia