"THE BEE" The Musical: A Review by Dr. & Mrs. Fun

It is not very often that we get a chance to watch a musical especially with many forms of entertainment already flooding the showbiz world.  I have watched some interesting musicals in the past such as "The Willows in the Wind" at the open grounds of Fort Santiago, "Magsimula Ka" featuring Jograd dela Torre and Joanne Lorenzana in the UST Auditorium, "Chess" The Musical starring Raul Mitra and Monique Wilson at the Meralco Theater followed by "Joseph The Dreamer" and a school musical "All for the Love Of Thee: The Story of St. John Baptist dela Salle,  and a few others in The Malate Republic. 

   "The Bee" is the latest musical where me and my wife will be watching together for the first time and this will also be her first taste of this form of entertainment since she feels awkward having to hear the lines of a dialogue being sung by characters instead of conversing.  

 This particular play is also special because it featured for the first time the daughter of my eldest sister and my niece Ashley Bontogon, who played the role of ejection counselor for contestants who get booted out of the competition.  Almost the entire clan was in full force to show our support to the budding talent of our beloved niece.

The story is about six young spellers aspiring to become the grand champion of the 25th Annual RCBC Spelling Bee which incidentally was held at the  Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium  in the RCBC Plaza.  The play was conceived through a joint production by 9Works Theatrical, Stage Camp and The Rockwell Club. Each of the six contestants were eager to win the spelling bee contest for different personal reasons. Considering that spelling is not the in-thing for the many kids of today's generation, it is quite understandable that all of the characters project their own eccentricities in the story.  Some develop the skill out of dedication to the spirit of competition while some engaged in it due to obligations to appease a party who has vested interests in the future of the character.

The story also portrays many discreet social implications ranging from racism, challenges of puberty and sex, homosexuality and young romance.  Certain portions of the story may be controversial to some audience such as the racist remarks of being "Mexican" and the sexual connotation of how to get a watermelon pregnant and the implied lesbian relationship between the lead characters since it was not explicitly shown whether William Barfee was really a male character just played by a female performer, although the director could have used an actual male actor to act out the role of Barfee. 

 Overall, the play was entertaining and interesting because it shows the human side of spelling bee contestants, where they are not your perfect humans after all but typical humans with problems to hurdle and challenges to confront. 

The play was well attended and got a full house by the time the show was on the road.  However, being fresh from the camp. some of the characters are still rough on the notes, going out of tune in the high notes.  But with continued practice and exposure to future plays, all of them are well on their way to the big and exciting world of showbusiness, whether on the big screen or on the stage. And for these, we commend and congratulate the Directors Nel Gomez and Sab Jose for a job well done for these talented youth.

credits to the owner of the picture

But the biggest moment of all in the story especially for our family was when Ashley, who was not even a contestant in the spelling bee but an ejection counselor who consoles and comforts contestants that get booted out of the competition for committing a mistake in spelling the designated word, got a solo moment with Phil Younghusband, the celebrated Filipino-British football player of Azkals, who played a cameo role in the play but was a big crowd drawer due to the controversial words that he had to spell because the words were extremely easy to the dismay of the other contestants. Ashley got to hug Phil as he gets booted out when he mispelled an easy word to the delight of the other competitors.

After the play, we all proceeded to Aristocrat Restaurant to celebrate the accomplishment of Ashley.  It was a priceless moment to cherish because this is probably the first time that the clan is together and missing the company of the patriach and matriach of the Fonollera clan.  But that is what life is about, living, loving, dying, grieving and moving on.  Just like the characters of The Bee, each of them had their own lives to live after the contest.

REVISITING the IFUGAOS & their STAIRWAYS to the HEAVENS

The Banaue Rice Terraces with its circular contouring landscape interlocking with jaggedly square edifices of human existence.

A major challenge of physically-challenged individuals like us who are in the remission stages of cancer is the stress that long land travel can exert on the body.  We had several adventures in the past that were very physically-demanding and I cannot deny the fact that there were also instances that I fell sick after a tiring journey.  However, sometimes you really need to subject your body to physical strain to increase the threshold of your immune system and make you stronger than if you remain inactive.

     The trip to Banaue was a much-awaited undertaking as it would be my first evaluation of an ecotourism destination.  Part of the reason is the fact that the place is renowned for its world-famous rice terraces which earned its reputation as one of the eighth wonders of the world for human ingenuity and engineering in a time when mechanized technology in use is agriculture. Second is the fact that a pristine and remote place such as a rugged mountain ecosystem was disturbed and altered in such a huge scale to feed a growing population.  However, this unique system of agriculture having sustained the inhabitants through thousands of years without showing at least some signs of environmental degradation is worthy of considering it as having established harmony and homeostasis with the environment. 

At the onset of the summer of 2016, we left Manila shortly before midnight to avoid traffic along Dalton Pass and the national highway in Nueva Viscaya which was undergoing a major road rehabilitation. The night travel was a gruelling 10-hour drive of criss-crossing and counterflowing traffic until daybreak where we met the sunrise while on an uphill drive towards Banaue.  We reached Banaue on a burning daylight and stopped-over at the Banaue Hotel where we relieved ourselves of the long, back-breaking travel and had breakfast afterwards.   

        The last time I visited Banaue was in December 1997 during the Christmas break. I was awed with seeing the renowned rice terraces with all its world-famous splendor with my naked eyes for the first time. However, there were already talks about the new generation of Ifugaos turning away from agriculture as the influence of urban culture apparently had taken its toll on the youth. It was a sad revelation to learn but they probably had their reasons which in the grander scheme of things is a complex problem which is not easy to tackle. With the increase of tourism through the years, it opened up opportunities for the Ifugaos to also learn about the culture of visitors from the lowlands triggering their curiosity towards urban culture.  This started an exodus of Ifugaos going to Manila and exposing them to life other that farming.  Many of them had taken upon themselves to give up farming for other forms of livelihood which they feel could further improve their quality of life instead of remaining as impoverished farmers shackled to the land. Efforts from concerned government and non-government organizations are now studying the problem and finding ways to mitigate the declining industry which through time immemorial had sustained the people of the highland before the gates of mass tourism led to the corruption of the highland culture in the northern Philippines.  

  While having breakfast, we had a very interesting chat with the hotel staff who explained to us the difference between Ifugaos and the people of the Mountain Provinces of Bontoc, Benguet and how they can be distinguished from the garments that they wear.  For example, the Ifugao skirt is a traditional garment that social class can be defined by the number of colors woven into the garment, the more colorful, the higher the social status.  Rivalry still lingers between the Ifugaos and the Igorot tribes with sporadic spilling of blood in isolated cases.  But beheading and cannibalism is longer tolerated in these present times.  

I was a little bit disappointed with the view of the rice terraces through the hotel window while having breakfast.  I can no longer describe the rice terraces with pride to my wife as the scene was no longer mesmerizing as before when the rice terraces still stand proud in the rolling landscape.  Today some of the terraces are idle and are now obscured by the growth of secondary vegetation. Nature had begun to take over and soon thereafter given time, will erase traces that this resilient civilization had intricately carved in this highly disturbed remote mountain region.  However, as we continued on with our travel, there are other places where rice terraces still stand proud in the open.   Banaue as we found out was not the only place to see these rice terraces but other places in the mountain provinces offer breathtaking scenes of these spectacular staircases in the sky.  Battad which is another Ifugao village east of Banaue is now becoming a favorite destination of nature photographers.  

In the exploration of the town, much of the place had changed since my last visit.  The population had grown dramatically through the years as evidenced by the many houses and buildings built precariously along the roadside cliffs.  One would asked whether these buildings have been built according to building standards and whether these structures are safe to lived in or can survive a massive earthquake if ever one would strike Banaue in the near distant future. 

The people are warm and friendly and quite different from the Igorots.  Probably too much exposure to tourists have contemptuously made them too friendly to outsiders that they were easily convinced to allow a foreigner to wakeboard in their rice terraces.  Familiarity indeed breeds contempt.  I still remember when the Ifugaos regard the terraces as sacred places referring to them as the stairways of the gods.  But now having to give in to the caprice of outsiders, they can be fooled into thinking that activity such as wakeboarding in the terraces can be good to the tourism of the place.  For me its like literally raping hallowed ground that Ifugao ancestors have painstaking maintained through millenia of years and now they would just turned it into a watersports arena!  I'm glad the controversy is over and we should focus on promoting the rice terraces through ecotourism.  In accomplishing these, we should help the Ifugaos restore their genuine sense of ownership to encourage them to protect their heritage.  Declaring their world-renowned rice terraces as a UNESCO heritage site can be a double-edged dagger since outsiders who think they know better in preserving the terraces might limit the control of the Ifugaos over their own treasures.  They can help in the effort but at the end of the day, it is the Ifugaos that should help themselves in taking care of the rice terraces and promoting ecotourism.  The true essence of ecotourism should capacitate the Ifugaos to promote the place themselves so that they would have the sense of ownership of the rice terraces which is theirs in the first place. From my perspective, tourism is at its peak in Banaue, but the profits doesn't trickle down to the grassroots.  The peasants remain poor even though the sceneries of the very terraces that they plow and plant rice on are marvelled by tourists.  Not much of the profits find their way in the maintenance of the terraces.  Many of the money gained from tourism resulted in more hotels being built, more jobs in the transport sector, more markets, more stores, more souvenirs, more restaurant.  Can you trace if profits from these new and growing business ventures are poured in the maintenance and improvement of the rice terraces? I don't think so.

Ecotourism is the name of the game if tourism of Banaue is to be sustainable. Mass tourism can create significant environmental impacts to Banaue if not managed sustainably.  Places where tourism flock to view the terraces should be specifically designated and carrying capacity study should be conducted in order to control the number of tourists at a particular time.  Tourists should not be encouraged to venture on their own to minimize environmental damage.  They should be guided by trained and accredited guides consisting of locals which would ensure that the local community is benefitting from tour guiding industry.  Souvenirs should be manufactured from renewable resources and not through indiscriminate cutting of trees just to produce these.  Tourists should respect the local culture to prevent cultural pollution and corruption. Adventure tours should be created to add to the visit than just making tourist passive viewers of the terraces.  There should also be a sense of adventure that tourists undertook to make the experience more worthwhile.  

Banaue remains to be a rich source of nature-adventure-culture ecotourism  But up to this point only the cultural tourism is used to its full potential.