ALBAY, Philippines – In Bicol, atado refers to a bundle of things, typically meals offered collectively in native markets.
The primary-ever Virgin Lab Fest (VLF) in Luzon outdoors Metro Manila additionally provided an atado, bundling eight performs and letting audiences style Bicol’s theatrical excellence, whereas confronting native struggles hidden behind state-masked abuse.
Spanning all six Bicol provinces and that includes a number of native dialects, VLF-Bikol’s 4 units — Masapog, Malagtok, Matigsom, and Marugi — use culinary metaphors of flawed cooking to show the tough, hard-hitting truths lurking behind every province’s palatable facade.
Although it took 9 years for the present to materialize, VLF-Bikol total pageant director Sari Saysay believes the wait was future. For Bicol’s theater group, the pageant serves as a daring testomony to the persistence and braveness required to pressure conversations off the stage and into the true world.
“We didn’t simply style completely different sorts of bundles; we shared them collectively. None of those had been cooked completely, however what issues is that one thing has been served for us to collectively look at, replicate on, and talk about,” Saysay stated in Filipino.
“No matter your determination could also be as viewers members towards the performs we served, whether or not you swallow them or spit them out, we’re nonetheless grateful that we’ll talk about and deepen this collectively.”
Cultural Heart of the Philippines (CCP) vice chairman and inventive director Dennis Marasigan hailed the pageant as a breakthrough for regional theater, respiratory very important new life into tales and silenced points throughout the nation.
“The CCP deeply acknowledges the considerable and great seeds of Bicolano performs that proceed to awaken the spirit of the viewers. This can be a nice starting for a extra vital and deeper theater within the area and lots of different locations within the Philippines,” Marasigan stated in Filipino.
Masapog
Locals describe dense, starchy meals as masapog — the sort that sits heavy and is tough to digest in giant quantities.
True to its identify, Set A: Masapog delivered unsparing materials that laid naked society’s deep-seated inequalities.
That includes the performs Luyos and Mama, Mama, Papano Ka Mamuya?, the set confronted stark gaps in fundamental social providers, from schooling and healthcare to labor and the grim realities confronted by abroad Filipino staff (OFWs).
Luyos, a poignant manufacturing from Ligao Metropolis, follows a grandmother and her grandson pushed by the determined want to flee poverty and depart their outdated lives behind. But, as their emotional confrontations reveal, this private battle mirrors a wider systemic failure.
The play exposes how dreamers from far-flung rural communities face entrenched discrimination in faculties and workplaces, creating formidable obstacles to their aspirations.
In 2023, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that over 15.6% of Bicolano youth aged 5 to 24 had been out of college, squeezed out by poverty, inaccessible amenities, and a shortage of studying sources.
Mama, Mama, Papano Ka Mamuya? explores the painful dilemma of a younger couple who lengthy for kids however determine in opposition to it due to the 2010s financial disaster and their plans emigrate as OFWs.
The characters’ witty, sharp banter progressively offers solution to a heavier, sobering query of why kids should bear the burden of justifying their existence and future in a world already crippled by financial hardship and lack of presidency assist for fundamental social providers.
Past the laughter, the play displays the lived experiences of numerous Filipinos compelled overseas by financial misery.
In keeping with PSA 2010 OFW survey knowledge, the variety of OFWs surpassed the two-million mark and has continued to climb, underscoring the systemic migration disaster and their determined hope for a greater life.
Malagtok
Bicolanos use the time period malagtok to explain undercooked rice that is still arduous in texture. True to its identify, Set B served up difficult-to-swallow realities:
Malasimbo dives deep into the sexual exploitation of girls by American colonizers in the course of the Philippine-American Battle from 1899 to 1902, whereas Sako exposes the harrowing struggles confronted by the households of desaparecidos (victims who vanished as a result of alleged state abductions) within the area.
Sorsogon’s Malasimbo finds how numerous girls had been drugged and sexually exploited by American troops in the course of the occupation, with native communities typically blaming engkantos (legendary creatures) for the victims’ trauma-induced signs.
Although wartime sexual violence is a chapter of the previous, the Bicol area continues to be haunted by rampant rape circumstances, notably in remoted rural areas.
In keeping with a 2023 PSA knowledge, no less than 11,479 victims aged 16 and youthful fell prey to rape nationwide. Within the Bicol area alone, no less than 700 circumstances have been recorded, together with over 260 new circumstances logged in 2025 alone.
In the meantime, Sako humanizes the lives of activists and their family members — particularly the households of desaparecidos.
Highlighting this ongoing disaster in Albay are the latest disappearances of activists James Jazmines and Felix Salaveria Jr., each of whom have been lacking since 2024.
In an effort to make theater extra inclusive, the solid of Sako discovered and utilized fundamental signal language, pushed by a personality within the story who’s deaf. The efficiency featured an indication language interpreter stationed beside the stage to relay the dialogue to deaf viewers members.
The play was produced in partnership with the Albay Affiliation of the Deaf, a area people group championing deaf rights and advocacy.
Matigsom
Set C: Matigsom facilities on the bitter, bitter turns life takes, very similar to meals that has begun to rot.
That includes the performs Libing Issues and Sallong Banggi Matapos Maglakaw ang White Woman sa Baybayon buda Magrigid sa Tinampo ang Divino Rostro, the set trains its lens squarely on the grim realities of gender-based violence.
Libing Issues follows the unsettling work of morticians who groom the our bodies of abused girls. Over time, Ara, one of many morticians, begins to note a recurring, horrifying sample: the corpses bear the plain bruises, blood, and scratches of violence endured each in life and, hauntingly, in dying.
In a chilling and surprising climax on a chilly, wet evening, Ara is compelled to use make-up to the bruised physique of her personal coworker on the funeral house.
Hailing from Catanduanes, Sallong Banggi equally shocks and subverts expectations.
Shifting effortlessly from mild, humorous scenes right into a harrowing exploration of male abuse, the play shatters the silence surrounding males who’re victimized and silenced by poisonous gender stereotypes. The piece hauntingly weaves collectively components of humor, horror, and profound emotional depth.
Marugi
And eventually, Set D: Marugi challenges audiences to look at the damaging intersection of religion and politics — exhibiting how blind obedience and misplaced devotion can curdle, very similar to an excessive amount of rice water left to make a pot unpalatably mushy.
That includes Might Bunyagan sa Kapitolyo and An Mga Voyador, the set powerfully opens up a vital dialogue on each political and religious corruption.
Might Bunyagan sa Kapitolyo fires sharp tirades at native politicians who prioritize consolidating energy and sustaining a decent grip on workplace over serving their constituents, utilizing each non secular posturing and mass deception as instruments of management.
This dynamic hits near house in Bicol, the place entrenched political dynasties routinely manipulate info to fabricate their very own truths, portray themselves as anointed saviors to a populace battered by systemic inequalities and calamities.
However, An Mga Voyador appears into the tough societal prejudices confronted by previously incarcerated people attempting to rebuild their lives, notably from self-righteous non secular conservatives.
The play acts as a fierce reminder that true devotion and compassion — embodied by the area’s patroness, Our Woman of Peñafrancia — hearken to the prayers of the marginalized indiscriminately, providing redemption fairly than exclusion. –Rappler.com
