In GMA’s Maria Clara at Ibarra, lead character Barbie Forteza goes on a time travel and gets enmeshed in the tapestry of a great literary work – no less than Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere.
This storytelling device is not at all new in the movies and on television. But it still works for today’s generation of viewers. Currently, Maria Clara at Ibarra is the biggest sensation on Philippine television.
Directed by Zig Dulay, this series tells the story of Klay (Forteza), a nursing student who has to work in a restaurant at night in order to feed her family and be able send herself to school. Often sleep-deprived, she has difficulty coping with school work, particularly in the subject where she has to read the Noli.
As a punishment for sleeping in class, her professor, Mr. Torres (Lou Veloso), requires her to do a report on the Rizal novel. Without the luxury of time to finish her assignment, she goes online and plagiarizes another person’s work.
To make her realize the importance of history in our lives, Mr. Torres, who obviously has magical powers, brings her back to the Spanish times and she becomes a character in Noli Me Tangere where she gets to interact with Maria Clara (Julie Ann San Jose) and Crisostomo Ibarra (Dennis Trillo).
Maria Clara at Ibarra is a very entertaining program that is extremely relevant, especially in this era of unabashed historical revisionism. It is the one program this country needs – badly – so that today’s youth may be informed and even educated about the past.
Fortunately, it has become quite a success on TV and it is easy to understand why. For one, Barbie Forteza is the lead star. This girl has a huge following, primarily because she has boundless talent and energy.
Maria Clara at Ibarra would not have worked had another actress been cast in the role she now plays so effectively in the series. She has the spunk and the intelligence required of the part.
And her English diction – it’s almost perfect. Perhaps she can teach one top GMA newscaster the proper way to say “education.” It’s pronounced “eh-juh-kay-shn” and not “edu-kay-syon,” which is how the newscaster says it in his news program.
But aside from the Barbie Forteza factor, the show also succeeds because it knows how to attract young viewers, who comprise a large percentage of the audience. It was a clever idea, for instance, on the part of its creators to incorporate some English as part of the regular conversations between Klay and Ibarra. English as we all know is perfectly understood by practically everyone in the country.
Although the British occupied Manila and parts of Cavite for two years in the 18th century, English was never taught in the islands until the Americans brought in the Thomasites early in the 20th century.
During the latter part of the Spanish rule, however, the ilustrados (the enlightened ones) went to study in Europe. Some of them even stayed in Londres (London) where they became conversant in English. Surely, it was easier to become a polyglot in those days without the distraction of modern technology.
Ibarra, as depicted in Noli, could get by in the King’s language. And the Maria Clara writers were brilliant enough to have mined this angle in the novel in order to connect with today’s viewers. They really worked hard to make the show appealing to the young audience.
It’s just too bad that for all the supposed research the production team claimed they did in the network’s press releases, there are still a number of mistakes that could not be ignored in the series.
One concerns the trip to San Diego. In Noli, San Diego is just a fictional town that represents las Islas Filipinas. But in the show, it is made to appear that San Diego is in Laguna. Maybe because Rizal is from Calamba.
This becomes a problem because the characters are made to travel to Laguna from Intramuros. How do they do it? Ibarra and Maria Clara ride a carriage driven by David Licauco.
Was that possible during the time of Rizal, especially since they only use one stallion to pull the carriage? And where did they pass to go to Laguna? Via SLEX?
In those days, people used waterways to travel. To get to Laguna, they had to ride a barge via the Pasig River and get off Calamba. From there, they took a carriage to reach their final destination.
But back to the series. Along the way, Ibarra and company stop by what the writers probably imagine as the Starbucks of Rizal’s time. Yes, there is an open-air cafe in one of the episodes. Here’s hoping this coffee shop isn’t open 24 hours since there was supposedly a 9 p.m. curfew in those days.
Of course, there were already roadside tiendas during the Spanish era. The vendors sold viands served on blue-and-white plates and bowls – much fancier than the primitive bamboo vessels used in that Maria Clara scene that is actually unnecessary to the story.
That entire sequence only stressed all the more the program’s deficiencies – mainly the production design.
Today’s production designers are lucky in the sense that there are still heritage houses to serve as location for period dramas. All they have to do is fill in the space with props that are in consonance with the time frame of the story.
But for some reason, most local production designers fall short when it comes to understanding religious iconography. In Maria Clara, for example, images of the Virgin of Lourdes are all over the place: in the oratorio (prayer room) of Capitan Tiago (Juan Rodrigo), at the convento and even in one covered courtyard near the beaterio.
The Lady in white with the blue sash may have appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, but the Lourdes devotion in the Philippines didn’t start until way after the arrival of the Capuchins in 1886. And for the longest time, there was only one image of Our Lady of Lourdes in this side of the world – installed in that beautiful Intramuros church under Her patronage. Touted to be the loveliest Marian image in the country, this Lourdes statue is now in Retiro where Her church had been rebuilt after the destruction of Intramuros.
And what about the picture of the Mother of Perpetual Help embossed on a banner hanging at the front door of the church in the fictional San Diego town? The Redemptorist fathers who introduced the Marian icon to Filipinos didn’t get to Philippine shores until 1906 - so why is it there?
Extremely horrifying is the setup of venerated statues in Capitan Tiago’s oratorio. On top of the wooden altar are the images of the Blessed Mother (yes, Our Lady of Lourdes again) and other saints. But below are niches that are practically on the floor. And yet there are religious icons displayed down there!
As a Catolico cerrado, Capitan Tiago would never have tolerated such sacrilege. Religious images are not to be treated like objects displayed in a curio cabinet.
Another huge production design mistake is the abundant use of crocheted materials. In the United States, crocheting didn’t begin until the 1910s. The Americans only brought it here about a decade later. In one episode, however, Julie Anne San Jose cheerfully tells a friend that “she’s on her way to her crocheting class.”
There is also the issue of the bananas on the dinner tables of both Ibarra and the cura, Padre Salvii (Juancho Trivino). Rich people then were so picky with food, they didn’t think bananas and even papayas were fit to be eaten by humans.
Some of the mistakes in the show would not have been there if the director had only paid more attention to details and had common sense. Ladies in the street scenes could be seen walking without bothering to tuck into their waists their serpentinas or trails.
In the days of old, a woman was careful not to have her train stained and so she only let it fall as she ascended the stairs inside the house. This is why the landing of a bahay na bato is called “caida” or fall.
There is also this one scene where the camera captures a close-up of the altar in Capitan Tiago’s home. The director is not even careful to have the shot veer away from the base of a religious statue that says St. Peregrine. The patron saint of people afflicted with cancer (now also AIDS) was known as San Peregrino during Hispanic times.
Couldn’t they also have put on standby a Spanish-speaking person to correct the Castilian lines of the actors? Julie Anne called the Virgin of Antipolo “Nuestra Senora de la Paz Buen Viaje.” She missed out on the “y” which is “and” in English. That “y” or “and” is important because the Antipolo Virgin’s formal title is Our Lady of Peace AND Good Voyage.
Truly horrible was when Julie Anne pronounced the H in “hermano.” As a GMA artist, that is not surprising anymore. Mark Herras, after all, still insists that the H in his surname be pronounced even if it is wrong. It is no different from Hernandez, Herminio, or Herrera. The proper way to say it is to drop the H in those names.
There are a lot of other errors in Maria Clara, but we are letting all that slide because for all those mistakes, the show is still a welcome treat in a TV scenario that is usually plagued with themes about husband-grabbing and infant-swapping. Maria Clara at Ibarra is still one of the best things that ever happened to Philippine television. It’s a painless way to learn history and love of country and compassion for humanity.
But then, if the show is going to teach viewers history correctly, the people behind it may as well get the details right about our culture. Those seemingly insignificant elements are all part of our history.
And don’t even invoke that creative license excuse on us. Those flaws could have been avoided had the production team been more thorough in their research and careful in the staging of every scene in this ambitious undertaking.
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