Pangarap na Bituin

Im bummed that I left the Philippines just as the new teleserye, Pangarap na Bituin, was starting up.

I use the term "new" loosely.

I dont know how "new" it is. As far as Ive pieced together from personal memory and things Ive picked up during my research trips to the Philippines the past few years, Pangarap na Bituin has had several reincarnations.

The song- about the necessity of dreaming and the possibility of turning a dream into a reality- was a song written who knows when? The 70s? Early 80s? It's quite poetic. Tagalog, not the kind of everyday Tagalog I use and the type heard nowadays is really beautiful, the kind of Tagalog I used to hear my grandparents and their friends use or the kind of Tagalog I associate with the rites of formal courtship and other social conventions and graces that are no longer observed or practised. Anyway, so it was a song then it was a movie in the early 80s starring Sharon Cuneta. I forget the story. Sharon's a poor girl, she becomes a famous singer, the end. That's probably pretty accurate. Throw in a rich land owning family who tries in one way or another to oppress her and thwart her class transcending affair with the landowner's son and I bet you that really is the plot. There's a scence towards the end of the movie where Sharon sings the song, Pangarap na Bituin, on stage, a dark stage and it's only her face under a spotlight. The song was also used as a theme song for Jewel in the Palace, a Koreanovela imported to the Philippines a year or so ago. And, now, it's an ABS CBN teleserye starring Sarah Geromino.

Aside from the song being really poetic and beautiful, my real interest in the historiography of the song, the movie, and it s various versions and incarnations. Ive said before that the Philippines is a place where odd things exist side by side. Rich and poor live cheek by jowl. But more than that juxtaposition, I think the real issue in a place like the Philippines, in the third world, in a place that's only partially developed in terms of, say, physical infrastructure (sidewalks are an afterthought to roads) or civic ones (fair and free elections, for example), is recycling.

Yes, Manila is one big garbage dump. Patayas and Smoky Mountain. But things are salvaged out of this rubble. The desperately poor who come out at night to sift through garbage, whether on street corners or in Manila's dumps, pick out recyclables, bottles, shopping bags and so on that they can re sell or re use. But Im talking about symbolic recycling, the recirculation of not only goods but ideas and cultural artifacts. Like songs or movies so that Pangarap na Bituin, a song, is made into a movie is used as a song for an imported drama and is then resurrected as another soap opera with the original song as the soap's theme song.

It's another matter as to why this is. Is it because there are some things, some cultural products, that are so well made that they re timeless, classics and can endure the particular tastes of one generation to be equally appreciated by the next? Is it because the Philippines has run out of ideas and can only keep going back to the past?

Regardless..regardless...

Pangarap na Bituin is a beautiful, poetic and utterly moving song. Of the versions Ive listened to, I like this one the best. It's sung by the three finalists of the latest installment of Pinoy Pop Supertar which was eventually won by Mark Gagarin.