The revolution inside ‘Pingkian’
Riding the momentum of its seven-win sweep at the 2025 Gawad Buhay Awards, Tanghalang Pilipino’s original production Pingkian: Isang Musikal made its return to the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez last month, running until Oct. 12. It’s the theater company’s 39th season opener, a new season centered on three figures of the Philippine revolution to call into question our relationship with the making and unmaking of heroes throughout history and how we locate their storied lives in our fractured present.
“We don’t learn,” says playwright Juan Ekis. “As a people, we don’t learn from history. It’s disappointing, it’s frustrating. Maybe because it’s boring the way it’s taught in schools. It’s dates, events, and sometimes biased accounts. So I think it’s important to translate them into art.”
The award-winning musical returns, exhibiting heightened form and spirit.
It’s only apt that in Pingkian, Ekis insists on a kind of reframing. Rather than a conventional biopic method, the musical plays as a delirium, a series of vignettes in which the past and future are one and the same. The intention is for the audience to view Emilio Jacinto, the young revolutionary at the center of the staging, as a real person instead of a saint or heroic ideal.
“I don’t want this to be (his) greatest hits,” says Ekis, who co-wrote the historical rock opera Lorenzo in 2013. “Pero dahil manipis din ‘yong biography ni Jacinto, sabi ko, ‘Sige kakapitan ko ‘yong works niya,’ and for me that’s the more interesting part: To explore his mind through his works and to imagine what he was thinking and why he wrote what he wrote.”
Directed by Jenny Jamora, who won Best Director at the 15th Gawad Buhay Awards for the play’s original run, the critically acclaimed musical follows the eponymous hero through the final years of the Philippine Revolution and the start of the Philippine-American War. Its prologue finds Jacinto in a delirious state following a battle with the Spaniards en route to Majayjay, Laguna in February 1898. In his critical hours, dreams and dirges hack through the revolutionary’s psyche, which allows for a kind of surrogacy where the audience lives vicariously through the protagonist, forced to wrestle with disorienting textures of history.
“I can do anything I want within a dream and within a delirium,” explains Ekis. It’s a form of deception, the writer admits, but one that offers the audience a new lens with which to contemplate the struggles and vexing choices that Jacinto had to go through. And it is in these what-ifs that the musical becomes a work of fluidly accomplished form and compelling depth.
“Marami sigurong magiging critic na magsasabi na hindi naman ‘yan historically factual,” the writer surmises. Yet he stands by his choices. “Lahat ng sinulat ko ay may basis sa text. Lahat ng sinulat ko ay based sa research.”
“Ang natutuhan ko sa playwriting, especially writing historical content, is that the playwright always conquers the gaps,” he continues. “‘Yong undocumented gaps in history, ‘yong mga hindi naisulat, hindi napatunayan pero pwedeng mangyari. Maraming patunay sa nangyari sa A at sa C pero may gap na B, doon papasok ‘yong playwright, director, at actors na naglalagay ng sarili nilang interpretation, kasi hindi naman sinabi sa kahit na anong dokumento na ganito si Pingkian.”
Pingkian began as a concept for the annual theater festival, Virgin Labfest. Through the urging of National Artist Virgilio Almario, Ekis wrote the material as a one-act play, centering on a conversation between Jacinto and Jose Rizal, which later turned into a full-length musical. He relied on the works of Jose P. Santos, Edberto Villegas, and Jim Richardson as his primary sources.
“In fact, ang unang sinulat ko was Ikaw Ang Liwanag,” he says. “Ang unang kong inisip ay anong iniisip ng isang 17-year-old na katipunero.” The impetus was Jacinto’s unfinished work Liwanag at Dilim, shaping the musical, at least initially, into a story of romance, until it became a broader interrogation of the revolutionary struggle—its urgencies, its follies—and what it means to be Filipino.
The incarnation now running at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez is already the author’s ninth draft. And, as with any reruns, there are recalibrations in both text and music, helmed by composer Ejay Yatco, just as there are new additions in the ensemble and core cast, which now includes Tex Ordoñez-De Leon, playing Jacinto’s mother, Josefa Dizon.
Vic Robinson, who plays the titular character, says Pingkian is “always evolving.” He’s still discovering a lot about Jacinto after further research, including an immersion in Laguna and a history expo in Cubao weeks prior to the rerun’s opening night. “Hindi talaga sila ultimately neophytes lang when it comes to battle. Mayroon silang na-implement na certain tactics when it comes to warfare,” he explains.
The restaging puts Robinson in a new light, after winning Best Male Lead Performance in a Musical at the 15th Gawad Buhay Awards, but he says it’s just extra motivation. “We’re not working to get an award. We’re working to just tell the story. It’s an inspiration for me to be recognized and get an award to make it better. I mean to challenge myself on how to perform and to tell the story better this time around.”
Robinson continues, “Tinatanong ko ang sarili ko: Paano ko pa gagalingan? Paano ko pa mas gagawing malinaw? Paano ko pa mas mako-convey ‘yong message na gustong sabihin ng musical na ‘to sa audiences? May konting responsibility na kaakibat ‘yong award.”
Meanwhile, Gab Pangilinan—who doubles as Catalina de Jesus, Jacinto’s better half, and the defector Florencio Reyes—says that the opportunity for further experimentation is what’s so fascinating about reruns. “Syempre, we’re not the same people we were a year ago. Coming back to rehearsals, medyo mas fresh din ulit ‘yong mga mata namin in terms of seeing the story, especially now that we have feedback from people who’ve already seen it.”
Pangilinan also asserts that though Pingkian has inhabited different spaces and setups (from theater in the round to proscenium) throughout its many incarnations, its spirit remains intact.
“It’s exciting to go back to its original form, which is back in CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines),” she says. “But after going through all of that, for sure (the experience will be different). I mean, even if it has the same set, the same costumes, the same choreography, because it went through all of that, ‘yong mga tao na tatapak sa stage na ‘yon will be changed.”
“We always say na ‘pag theater, no two shows are the same. So what about a show that went through all of these forms and these people who went through multiple productions throughout the year, and then we come back to CCP with this?” she adds. “Ang daming pinagdaanan ng lahat. At sa nangyayari sa mundo ngayon, ang dami nating ibabaon sa pagkukwento.”
What’s more hypnotic about Pingkian, as heightened by Ekis’s shrewd writing, is that it refuses to offer us neat answers. “Emilio Jacinto was not perfect,” Pangilinan says matter-of-factly. “Kaya sobrang nakayapak talaga sa lupa ‘yong character ni Pingkian (that) it reminds us that he’s not just a hero. With the bright lights and all.”
“Even this person, this supposedly revolutionary Filipino, had a moment in time where he questioned his beliefs and where he was standing. He questioned what he was fighting for. And there’s just something so nuanced about that kasi right now, nawawala na ang nuance. People kind of see things as black and white.”
The musical, above anything, harnesses “the war inside the mind and soul of Pingkian,” as Ekis deftly puts it. “It’s the revolution inside. Ano ang gusto namin maramdaman ng audience kapag nanood na sila? I think Ejay was very intentional with the way he wrote the music na when you hear it, you wanna sing and fight and go out there in the streets and join the revolution. Mag-aalab ka sa galit. Hindi lang sa galit pero sa inspiration na we can do better.”
As for historical accuracy, Ekis says, “It will always be accurate as long as you’re talking about the humanity of the person.”