‘Bagets the Musical’ star says he wouldn’t have wanted to live during the martial law era

WHEN I was writing this, I had yet to see Bagets the Musical, which opened on Jan. 23, 2026, at Newport Performing Arts Theater (NPAT). Audience reactions have been very encouraging. Like many Gen-Xers who were navigating life from grade school to high school in the 1980s, I look forward to seeing it with high expectations bordering on nostalgia.

The thing is, I belong to that generation who saw the seminal Maryo J. delos Reyes’ films Bagets and Bagets 2 in the movie houses when they were released just a few months apart in 1984, or about two decades and a year before the arrival of YouTube and the advent of streaming platforms.

Coincidentally, Viva Films made the two titles available for free on its official YouTube channel since September last year. I’m disappointed to say they’re not good copies of the films, since there are lots of muted portions due to copyright issues. It so happened both used popular hits by foreign artists, like Irene Cara’s Why Me?, Kenny Rogers’ You and I, Deborah Allen’s Baby I Lied, Sheena Easton’s Telephone, Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, among others. It’s YouTube’s policy to mute videos with copyrighted songs. It’s sad because the two films are filled with song-and-dance segments that were common in commercial films in that rather tumultuous decade. The viewing experience is worse than watching a pirated copy taken illegally inside a movie house. 

Despite that, what a viewer can hear are the original compositions by local musicians, such as songs by Odette Quesada. There is Growing Up, the film’s theme song recorded and performed by Gary Valenciano, and Farewell, which became one of Raymond Lauchengco’s all-time hits. Another was Cecile Azarcon’s So, It’s You, which has been another of Lauchengco’s signature ballads. 

“We used 18 songs and most of them are associated with the movie. They are a combination of foreign songs and OPM, like those composed by Odette and sung by Raymond, who was part of the movie,” Melvin Lee told The Diarist. He is president of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) and program director of PETA Plus, the theater company’s arm responsible for partnership and collaboration. Bagets the Musical is co-produced with Viva Entertainment, Newport World Resorts, and The Philippine Star. 

“So, you can hear, among the foreign songs, Sheena Easton’s Telephone, Industry’s State of the Nation and all that. Farewell is very much associated in the film. Hindi sya kanta lang because it has been integrated in the story and very much incorporated in the narrative,” Lee added. 

He assured that the musical is loyal to the movie, except for some tweaking.

“There are characters who have the same story, like two of them fall in love with an older woman. So what JMee Katanyag, the playwright who adapted Jake Tordesillas’ screenplay, did, was to weave their stories into one character. Ganong tipo. We want the narrative going forward. You are engaged, it’s compelling, ganon ang naging basehan.”

Katanyag told The Diarist, “Since this is theater, we have the luxury of expanding the story arc. We can include the back story of each character. There are five of them, so we highlight their individualities. The reason I chose to have one character involved with an adult woman is because in the 1980s, the term ‘grooming’ wasn’t used. Now, we have that stigma na. Another one is expounding on the concept that if you fall in love, you also face some responsibilities. Then again, the story is loyal to the ’80s set-up. I just ‘framed’ the narrative.

‘The reason I chose to have only one character involved with an adult woman is because in the 1980s, the term ‘grooming’ wasn’t used. Now, we have that stigma na,’ says playwright JMee Katanyag, who adapted Jake Tordesillas’ original screenplay

We wonder how PETA got the opportunity to do the musical. Sometime in 2024, in our feature story for The Diarist.ph about PETA’s One More Chance the Musial, featuring the songs of Ben & Ben, we asked why no theater company like PETA ever thought of staging Bagets. It was a side comment when we questioned the production’s decision to not include I’ll Never Go, the unofficial theme song of the blockbuster movie featuring the bankable tandem of John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo. 

We wrote: “To sum up this middle-aged tito’s irrelevant gripe: The song is the movie, the movie is the song. Removing I’ll Never Go is like creating a musical adaptation of Bagets with SB19 songs, and not including Odette Quesada’s Growing Up or Cecile Azarcon’s So, It’s You.  (By the way, why is there no established local theater group doing a musical adaptation of something from the 1980s, as iconic as Bagets?)

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We asked Lee and Katanyag about this, and they told us as early as 2024 that PETA already had talks with Viva. “We were conceptualizing Bagets when we were doing One More Chance. It’s just that we don’t tell people about it,” Katanyag said. 

Lee said, “Viva is so protective of their work, and a lot of theater companies were vying to get Bagets. Viva owned the rights to Bituing Walang Ningning, which was also staged at Newport Performing Arts Theater [by its resident company, Full House Theater], more than a decade ago.  Just to be clear, with PETA, there is PETA Plus, which is in charge of collaborating and partnering with other entities who would want to tap the creative process, the kind of theater that we do. Matagal na ‘to (Bagets), since 2024.

“Maraming pinagdaanan, bago pa kami na-approach. Gusto ni Boss Vic (del Rosario, Viva Communications, Inc., chairman and CEO) makatrabaho si Maribel (Legarda, director of Bagets, retired artistic director of PETA). An executive of Philippine Star is a friend of a former colleague, so we had meetings with them,” Lee added. 

But why not stage it in PETA-Phinma Theater?

“Magandang opportunity with Boss Vic. Theater is booming now, but in PETA theater, we only have a 450-person capacity. We go for a wider reach in terms of the theater going public, that’s why we collaborate with Newport World Resorts and the other stakeholders,” Lee said.

The Newport Performing Arts Theater has a flexible seating capacity ranging from 1,500 to 1,710 people. 

Legarda, who is known for directing PETA’s most staged hit jukebox musicals like Rak of Aegis, Care Divas, and One More Chance, said, “For Newport World Resorts, sometime in 2019, there was a plan to stage Bongga Ka ‘Day, the one written by Liza Magtoto. It was the musical featuring the songs of Hotdog that was supposed to follow Ang Huling El Bimbo (AHEB). In fact, it was announced already during the curtain call of AHEB. There was a dance production that was performed after the announcement. I was supposed to direct Bongga Ka ‘Day, reding-ready na and it was going to be called Annie, but it took so long. The COVID-19 pandemic happened in 2020, as we all know, and live shows stopped until three years later. Then, the original producer from PETA Plus, si Queng Reyles, passed away. I thought, baka it’s not meant to be, nag quit na ako sa project and I’ve also retired from PETA. Then sometime in 2024, I was told, we were approached to do Bagets, and they asked me to direct it.” 

She readily said yes, since the film’s director, Maryo J. delos Reyes (1952-2018), and his assistant director, Khryss Adalia (1946-2008), were PETA artist-teachers. “If you read my notes in the souvenir program, I actually dedicated this musical to Maryo J., who was my drama teacher in my early years in PETA, and Khryss, who was a very dear friend,” Legarda said. 

“I joined PETA in the late ’70s. So in the early ’80s, I was a full-time member and aktibista ako. Actually, di ko napanood ang movie when it was shown in theaters in 1984. Wala akong memory na pinalabas ang Bagets,” she said, laughing at the thought of it. 

“But I wasn’t really detached naman from pop culture; it’s just that in PETA, we were very much involved in political theater and street protests kasi nga, it was a year after pinatay si Ninoy,” she added. 

Bagets is one of the rom-com musical films directed by Maryo J with his frequent collaborator, screenwriter Jake Tordesillas (1949-2017). It was released in theaters in February 1984, and its sequel, Bagets 2, was shown in November the same year.  

Take note, as Legarda said, this was a year after the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. on Aug. 21, 1983, which sent shockwaves all over the world. The Marcos conjugal dictatorship was on the brink of collapse. Like the bold films so prevalent in the ’70s and early ’80s, youth-oriented movies like Bagets were meant to soften the socio-economic impact of Ninoy Aquino’s assassination, which triggered street protests. The economy plunged into the gutter. The country was also still dealing with the Debt Crisis of 1983. 

I was still a grade 4 pupil in 1984, but I remember a peso could buy me snacks and lunch at the school canteen, and there would still be some spare change. Years later, when I was in college and managed to watch movies on my own, I remember the ticket price was around P11. It’s really migraine-inducing if we consider the P300–P500 ticket prices nowadays. 

Bagets became the yardstick for how local coming-of-age films were done by the next generation of filmmakers. I saw similarities in other youth-oriented movies focused on a group of rowdy male teenagers. Jose Javier Reyes’ classic teen flick, Pare Ko, in 1995 launched the careers of Jomari Yllana, Mark Anthony Fernandez, and Jao Mapa. Johnny Manahan’s hilarious Oo Na..Mahal na Kung Mahal (1999) featured the teenaged John Lloyd Cruz, Baron Geisler, and their contemporaries. 

‘Bagets’ became the yardstick for how local coming-of-age films were done by the next generation of filmmakers

In Bagets, the story revolves around five boys in their senior year in high school, and their misadventures as they try to tame their hormones. The film was meant to launch the careers of Viva’s up-and-coming talents Herbert Bautista, Lauchengco, JC Bonnin, and Aga Muhlach. Back then, William Martinez was already part of the Regal Babies under showbiz mega producer, the late Lily Monteverde. 

From an article titled Nostalgia: The Making of Bagets or How Five Boys Rocked Philippine Movies in 1984 by Jerome Gomez for the defunct ANXC, that has been uploaded on the ABS-CBN News Channel, we learned it was William Martinez’s personal manager, Douglas Quijano, who pitched the idea to Mother Lily, but the grand matriarch of Regal Films reportedly wanted only Regal talents called Regal Babies to be in the film. Quijano disagreed, because at the time, Martinez’s contemporaries were not teenagers anymore, so he went to Vic del Rosario Jr. of Viva Films. As it turned out, Del Rosario and Quijano were on the same page, so the deal was made.  

Martinez played Tonton, the oldest in the barkada because he’s been trying to pass high school, or something like that, three times. He has an overprotective mother (Lita Gutierrez) with a strong personality. Almost every day, she nags his father (Rodolfo “Boy” Garcia). Despite being the older guy in the story, he is portrayed as impulsive, overindulgent, and a playboy. But he falls in love with Rose (Yayo Aguila), a no-nonsense, decent girl.

Bautista starred as Gilbert, the nerdy friend with an uncaring, financially selfish dad (played by his real-life father, Herminio Bautista), a policeman who spends most of his free time in a sauna bath. His mother (Luz Valdez) augments the family income by selling all kinds of products, including life insurance and memorial plans. The fumbling Gilbert pines for Melissa (Jobelle Salvador), daughter of a military man.

Lauchengco played Arnel, the typical rich kid living in a posh village in Makati City, with a busy, emotionally unavailable father (Romeo Rivera) and an over-protective socialite mother (Rosemarie Gil) who still treats him like a baby. Bonnin played Toffee, the fitness and martial arts enthusiast being raised by his free-spirited, emotionally unavailable single mother played by Liza Lorena. In the movie, she was just called “’Ma” or “Mama,” a movie actress who prioritizes her love life more than her son.   

And then there was the 14-year-old Aga Muhlach who played Adie. For some strange reason, Adie and Toffee fall in love with older women. Adie becomes infatuated with his neighbor, Ivy (played by Baby Delgado). Ivy is a beautiful married woman and sorority sister of Adie’s mother, played by the inimitable Celia Rodriguez. 

Toffee’s mother is very unpredictable, the artist type who makes flighty decisions. For example, she disappears without a word on his birthday to spend time with her boyfriend, despite promising Toffee she will spend the special day with him. So, Toffee looks for “motherly attention” somewhere. He is swept away one night by the charm of a flight stewardess, an older woman named Christine, played by Chanda Romero.

Arnel, meanwhile, falls for his classmate, Janice (Eula Valdez), a strong-willed teenager. She is from a typical working-class family who lives in a rented apartment. Janice is also shown tending a fruit stand after school, while Arnel lives in a mansion with a swimming pool. 

There was talk that during the conceptualization of the project, when Quijano approached Mother Lily, that among the directors considered were Ishmael Bernal and Lino Brocka, At the time, she was into films with socio-political themes—in Filipino, “pang-aktibista.” It can be recalled that, also in 1984, Mike de Leon directed Sister Stella L. for Regal Films. It was based on the real-life stories of two Catholic nuns who joined laborers in a factory strike. In his memoir, Mike de Leon’s Last Look Back, he wrote that Mother Lily did Sister Stella L not because she’s an activist herself. Being a businesswoman, reportedly, she felt there was a potentially big movie-going market among activists. “Pagkagaling nila sa rally, siguro naman gusto nila manood ng pelikula,” De Leon said, quoting Mother Lily. 

Bernal’s prodigious output in previous years, Himala (1982), Relasyon (1982), Broken Marriage (1983), and Working Girls (1984), sealed his stature as a filmmaker who did award-winning “serious stuff.”

Meanwhile, Brocka has also established himself as director of equally acclaimed social realist films like Bona (1980), Cain at Abel (1982), Strangers in Paradise (1983), and in the same year Bagets was released, Bayan Ko: Kapit Sa Patalim (1984).

Given the themes Brocka and Bernal infused in their works, Bagets, in either of the two iconic directors’ hands, might have had characters attending street protests or questioning the status quo with a raised fist, and not with a beer bottle. One character might have gone to the mountains to join the armed revolution. 

Viva reportedly wanted purely entertainment fare, devoid of “Makibaka, Huwag Matakot” subjects. As it happened, they decided to hire the directing and writing tandem of Delos Reyes and Tordesillas. Prior to Bagets, they had done feel-good comedies, musical films like Bongga Ka Day (1980), which starred Nora Aunor, featuring the songs of the Hotdog band. Delos Reyes also did Pepe en Pilar (1983), Rock ‘n’ Roll (1981), and Annie Batungbakal (1979), among others. 

Viva reportedly wanted purely entertainment fare, devoid of ‘Makibaka, Huwag Matakot’ subjects

Then again, in the film, Maryo J., as he was often called, and Tordesillas paid tribute to Brocka and Bernal, inserting them in the dialogues of Toffee’s mother. In one of earlier scenes in the film, she is in a quandary preparing her clothes, makeup, all the things she needs for a shoot that Bernal is directing. She says, “Naku, pag na-late ako, baka hagisan na ako ni Bernal ng script!”

In one scene after the mother broke up with her boyfriend Steve, she suddenly shows up at home to do motherly things, like arranging furniture and cleaning Toffee’s room. Toffee asks his “Ma,” “Why are you here, it’s too late. I’m used to not seeing you at home and doing stuff like this. Don’t you have work to do?”

“Ma” tells him she’s supposed to act in a film being directed by Brocka, but suddenly felt guilty for neglecting Toffee, so she declined the role and would rather stay home with him. Says Toffee, “Why did you refuse? You could have won an award for the role!” 

In another scene, on the dinner table, Celia Rodriguez as Adie’s mom is venting to her husband (played by the late Eddie Arenas) how children of broken marriages tend to rebel, quoting a line from a book on parenting, complete with reference to the publisher (probably Tordesillas’ way of attributing the proper quote). Adie is her son from a previous relationship, and Adie’s father is an absentee parent. 

Rodriguez says, “Hindi kaya I’m to blame for what’s happening to Adie? Kasi I read yesterday in a book by Sylvia Mackinson, Parenting in the 21st Century, Macro Hill Company. Quote: ‘Children of broken marriages will fully misbehave as a way of showing their resentment and rebellion towards their parents.’”

Arenas as the exasperated husband tells her: “Kung ano-ano ang binabasa mo, bakit hindi na lang magbasa ng cookbook, para sumarap naman itong niluluto mo?”

Rodriguez, in a calm manner, says, “But darling, I’ve tried, you know that…”

Classic lines and delivery we look forward to in Bagets the Musical. 

“‘Di ko na ma-imagine a year ago that I’d play the role my dad did in the movie,” Andres Muhlach, son of original Bagets actor, Aga, told The Diarist. He is playing Adie, Aga’s teenage character. “Kapag nasa shooting ako, I sing the songs, it helps me.

“My family has always been there for me. My dad, of course. Am just grateful I get to do Adie. It’s really a blessing.”

We asked him if at the dinner table, his parents would give him tips on how to handle the role. Unlike in the movie, there is lots of singing, not only dancing. “There’s pressure but at home, we talk about normal things,” Andres said.

Understandably, Andres has a lot on his shoulders. Friends who’ve seen the musical told us the moment Andres emerged on stage for his first scene, people already applauded his presence, even before he delivered his first line. Obviously, he has been the main attraction of the production. 

Now, there’s also KD Estrada, who plays Arnel, the role of Raymond Lauchengco. During the press conference a couple of weeks ago, the cast members were asked by the media if, given the chance, they would want to live in the ’80s. Everyone gave the same “no cell-phone, no Facebook, more personally-connected” answers, a simpler but happier life. Estrada, one of ABS-CBN’s homegrown talents who had his theater debut in PETA’s Walang Aray, said, “To live in the ’80s, but not during the martial law years!” Some of the media people and cast members applauded him.  

After the event, we cornered Estrada, who was on his way out. We initially praised him for being, as how millennials and GenZs would term it, “woke.” We clarified if he really meant what he said.

The 23-year-old heartthrob said, “Yes, that’s what I said, kasi kasama na ang ’80s sa martial law, di ba? So yun lang naman. Why would I choose to live in that era?”

‘Bagets the Musical’ runs until March 14, 2025 at NPAT. For cast schedules, check https://www.newportworldresorts.com/press-releases/bagets-musical-2026-cast-schedule) 

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