GHETTO SUPERSTARS
words: ALLAN P. HERNANDEZ
photography: LUIS LIWANAG
FHM gets down with Tondo's toughest street gangs as they set aside turf wars to find hope, peace, and unity through film and hip-hop!
We are attending the strangest movie press conference, to say the least. Everyone is seated on monobloc chairs around a party table. To our right Lloyd, a.k.a. Young Cent, a dead ringer for Snoop Dogg. But he has obviously already decided for himself the similarity is too strong so he has on an oversized blue shirt, baggy jeans, and his tresses are braided. Over to our left slouches Reggie, for all intents and purposes a kid, who is telling some stories about his gun running activities.
"May mga naglalako ng baril dito sa Tondo ako mismo may nakukuhanan," he half brags. He is wary to mention names but does say someone in a very good and legitimate position is his boss.
So Reggie has a gun. We also learn that of late, there have been four attempts on Lloyd s life. Evidently, the good news is that he's alive and so are his would-be killers. But that s just the way it is in these parts, Lloyd tells us. "Dito po kasi uso yung takpanan: Yung mga magkakalugar pinagtatakpan yung isang kalugar."
The original question was whether the scenes in Tribu, an independent film about the gangs of Tondo, to be shown at the Cinemalaya Festival this month, are in any way near the actual violence happening in Manila's infamous district. We get a cordial invitation.
"Hintayin ninyo mamayang madaling araw, may makikita po kayo diyan," Reggie says.
A group of girls come in with plates of sausages on toothpicks courtesy of the Vitas Slaughterhouse, the famous abattoir in the heart of Tondo that supplies practically all of Manila's meat needs. Here is where some final scenes needed for the film will be shot. We are told this is same place where Lino Brocka’s masterpiece Insiang was shot.
Rain is hampering the shoot so everybody’s on hold. In about an hour or so, cows will be herded up the slaughterhouse to be shot in the temple, then butchered clean. In the meantime, we are enjoying hotdog cocktails with members of Tondo’s youth gangs who were hitherto merely juvenile cutthroats and street hip-hoppers, unknown to all save for the turfs they rule in and the enemies they’ve terrorized, but who, in July, will become bona fide moviestars.
FILM AS PEACEMAKER
Tribu is Jim Libiran’s 2006 Palanca Award-winning screenplay he is committing to film as director, his entry to the 2007 Cinemalaya digital film competition. If you don’t know him yet, Jim was part of the original ABS-CBN The Correspondents team and is now head of production for ABC 5’s News and Public Affairs department.
In 2001, he had produced a docu on the burgeoning hip-hop/gangsta phenomenon in Tondo. He discovered that more than the violence, there was in fact a whole underground ghetto culture of hip-hop very much like those of the Black-Americans. “Tondo is our version of the ghetto,” Jim confirms.
Being a true-blue Tondeño himself, Jim felt there was a deeper story in these gangs so he immersed himself into their culture and eventually came up with the material for Tribu.
“Dito sa Tondo dalawa ang layers mo ng leaders,” he explains. “On the one hand, you have people who have studied and eventually become your[local politicians], your Samahang Kabataan, even your artists like Amado Hernandez. On the other hand, you have the Asiong Salongas and Mianong Magats. Lider din sila ng Tondo.”
Tribu follows in style and substance to movies like the brilliant Brazilian film City of God, Peque Gallaga/Erik Matti’s 1998 Gangland and to some extent Mike de Leon’ Batch 81. But Jim raises the stakes in that he cast real youth gangs to play crucial roles; kids who’ve had no previous acting experience whatsoever. They didn’t need to act because they lived the film.
Jim had audition posters pasted all over Tondo: “Miyembro ka ba gang? Gusto mo bang mag-artista?” Over 50 gang youths answered the cattle call. “’Tang ina, ang dami palang gang members na gustong mag-artista!” recalls Jim. “Pero lahat sila dumating may kargada because they were all from rival gangs.”
"We are enjoying hotdog cocktails with members of Tondo’s youth gangs who, in July, will become bona fide moviestars"
But in the end, the movie did for these gangs what the police couldn’t do—unite them. “That is why I felt that cinema could be a tool for conflict resolution,” Jim says. “These gang members were once enemies and this movie united them. Ngayon ayaw nang maghiwalay ng mga yan, tropa na sila. My point here is, kung mag-aaway din lang naman kayo, daanin na lang sa isang creative way like rapping, or in this case, the movie did it for them."
THUG LOVIN'
Lloyd belongs to the Dog Pound Gangsta and his hood (neighborhood) is what Jim likes to call Inner Tondo, where Vitas Slaughterhouse is. Lloyd lives in a particularly dangerous part of Inner Tondo, at Permanent—a former warehouse converted into tenement housing, where more than a thousand families shack. We are told there was a gang-related killing a couple of days ago at Permanent.
Gun-running and outspoken Reggie, on the other hand, is a Tayuman homeboy down with the Black Leather Gangsters. On the basis of turf, it’s safe to assume Lloyd and Reggie were not exactly the best of friends prior to working together on Tribu.
“Dito kasi, kapag may napupunta sa lugar ng isang gangsta nang hindi sinasadya, tapos mayabang pang maglakad, pinag-iisipan ka na kung saan ka ilalagay," Lloyd explains. It was exactly the kind of mistake one of
Lloyd’s tropa had committed, costing him his life. “Sa prusisyon po yun. Humiwalay siya sa grupo namin. Hindi po niya alam may nag-aabang
na ibang grupo sa kanya. Inakbayan siya, tapos binaril.”
Reggie volunteers a cause of death: “Kaya siya tinira dahil sa lakad niya. Parang lakad-penguin ”
Between them they offer many jagged bits of information on Tondo gang life, some very street smart, others hazy at best.
“Yung fraternity mas matindi pa po sa gangsta yan. Sa gangsta malaya kang gawin kung ano’ng gusto mo, sa fraternity may nagdidisiplina. Sa gangsta tutulungan ka pa kung paano manggago!” Reggie says in his
preferred active manner of speaking.
“Ang gang dalawang kulay po yan—pula at asul. Bloods yung pula, Crips yung asul. Nakikita yan sa kulay ng hood, ng panyo. Nakuha yan sa gangs sa America,” Lloyd points out.
“Nagsimula raw po yun sa dalawang founders…sa Jersey raw po yun hiniram…nagka-estafahan daw po…ayon po ang nangyari, nahati po sa dalawa,” Reggie adds
Lloyd and Reggie are right on two things: America's Blood and Crips are, indeed, red and blue in color and there are also two founders. But Reggie isn’t spot-on regarding the nature of the split. The Crips are an LA-based gang founded around 1969-1970 by a 15-year-old Black American, mainly as a defense mechanism in the ghetto communities against rising economic and social tensions between whites and blacks.
Later the Crips grew quite big and notorious, encroaching on other small neighborhood gang territories. An alliance was then forged between gangs terrorized by the Crips, which eventually became The Bloods.
But the crucial bit here is that day’s Tondo gangs, unlike the
criminal gangs of the old-school like OXO and Sigue Sigue Sputnik, are
much pop culture phenomenon than shady underworld activities; it’s probably more hip-hop than gambling prostitution.
In fact, it is more hip-hop than anything else.
Turns out Lloyd and most of 45-member cast of Tribu belong to some form of underground rap group, which, apart from doing freestyle performances on the streets of Tondo, have actually recorded their rap and distributed their music through bootlegging and “tau-tao na bentahan,” selling their CDs for as low as P35.
“Nagre-record kami sa may bandang Tayuman sa 187. Yung kabilang grupo sa Sigaw naman,” Lloyd says. “Naging kalabang grupo rin yun dahil sa rap—minsan personalan. Kadalasan mga rap showdown—nagsisimula lang po
mga videoke.”
BEYOND GANGS AND HIP-HOP
Shielbert, 21, a.k.a. OG Sacred plays a starring role in Tribu opposite Jamir Garcia of Slapshock and rappers Dice and Hi-C of Dice and K9. He has no previous acting experience whatsoever; the only solid credential he has that got him the role is being the Original Gangster (OG) of the
biggest youth gang in the Philippines, True Brown Style (TBS), in his hood in Velasquez Street, Tondo.
“Pumasok ako big-time na gang na siya lalo na sa Southside, Las Piñas, Parañaque,” says Shielbert. “Dito sa Tondo, mangilan-ngilan pa lang noon. Katorse ako nung pumasok ako. Hindi ko alam kung paano siya dumating dito. Kwento ng OG ko, nagsimula ang TBS sa Mexico, street gang lang, hindi masyadong pinapansin. May Pinoy na miyembro roon, pumunta rito at itinatag niya. Ngayon TBS na ang pinakamatindi rito. Tanong mo na lang sa ibang gangs kung anong meron ang TBS.”
We only had to check the tabloids for undeniable street cred. On June 4, a student from Sta. Mesa Manila was killed in a drive-by shooting by alleged members of TBS, on orders of their leader, a Jeffrey Morales, alias Epok. Last year, NBI operatives nabbed two gunrunners in Sampaloc who were believed to be supplying guns to Manila gangs, including TBS.
Apparently, TBS has become so big it has for members both juvenile types who are in it only for the hip-hop cred and the camaraderie and the criminal types who terrorize.
" Today’s Tondo gangs, unlike the criminal gangs of the old-school, are much pop culture phenomenon than shady underworld activities "
Yet you wouldn’t pin down Shielbert for a messy criminal activity if he were were standing right you holding a gun. Impeccably dressed in the current hip-hop mode, well-groomed and polite, you’d think he was some businessman’s bratty son. Only growing up in Velasquez, near Vitas and what used to be Smokey Mountain looming over, he’s a 21-year-old who talks like he’s holding a Tagalized script of The Godfather. Speaking on the difficulty of being OG to a growing number of wannabe gangstas who are young and brash, and how to check their loyalty, he looks us straight in the eye:
“Ganito lang yan: Hindi mo kailangang maging gangster para magkaroon ka ng gulang. Kung taga-Tondo ka, dapat lumaki kang may gulang. Kung may isang taong lalapit sa’yo’t bibigyan ka ng pagkain, kakainin mo ba agad? Susuriin mo muna, di ba? Baka may lason yun. Ganon din sa tao,
itatanong mo muna kung ano ba talaga ang pakay niya.”
But in an unexpected twist, Shielbert lets his guard down as he ponders what Jim’s movie will do him.
“Eto yung mga gusto kong mangyari noon. Ngayon nag-iiba na yung pananaw ko sa buhay—may asawa na kasi ako at saka magkakaanak na ako. Ang iniisip ko ngayon paano ko bubuhayin ang pamilya ko.”
Before he had gotten a girl pregnant, all Shielbert wanted was to be a famous rapper. He had hooked up with a couple of Tondo rappers and was able to contribute a couple of rhymes for an underground compilation.“Nagpasa kami ng demo kay Andrew E. kaya lang hindi napansin kasi hindi
pa kami magaling,” he half-jokes.
“Kung papipiliin mo ako, rap o trabaho, trabaho ako. Kung puwede nga sana akong pumasok sa call center—kaso hindi ako nakatapos ng college. Naka-apat na course na ako pero first year college. Eto, walang trabaho. Minsan pabenta-benta ng damit. Minsan pag nagra-rap naaabutan.
“Lie-low na rin ako [sa gang]. Nag-iwan na ako ng matataas sa lugar na hawak ko. Ang iniisip ko ngayon, kung paano magkapera pambili ng gatas sa magiging anak ko, pampakain sa asawa ko, tsaka pambayad ng ilaw at tubig.
“Nung buhay pa ang erpat ko, mayroon kami. Nagloko ako, nasanay kasi ‘ko nang mayroong pera. Ngayon nararanasan ko na yung hirap…”
You’ve never seen such vulnerability.
"Hindi tinitignan yung panlabas na anyo, tinitignan kung may bilang, kung ilan na ang nadali niyan, ilan na ang napatumba "
-- Lloyd on street cred
ALMOST A WRAP
It’s almost 6PM, the rain hasn’t let up and Jim’s cameras are still not shooting. We’re arranging a trip to the slaughterhouse to see how cows start out as cows and end up beef. We had paid a courtesy call to the director of Vitas Slaughterhouse and the man most everyone in Tondo seeks for help, butcher-philanthropist Delfin Alcorisa.
Shielbert, Lloyd, Reggie and the other boys in the cast are being prodded by the press to do a freestyle rap performance, which
they oblige to everyone’s enjoyment.
We gather again around the party table to wait it out. The boys look like they have loosened up with the press and are now joking around
with each other, so we ask the question that has been fascinating us
since we met the gang.
“Pare, sa totoo lang hindi kayo mukhang gang. Para lang kayong
ordinaryong teenagers. Katulad mo Reggie—ser, parang bata ka lang
talaga eh. Paano ninyo nalalalaman kung sino ang mas astig sa inyo?”
Reggie angles his answer in relation to his dangerous racket: “Tingin ko kaya sila kumukuha ng bata sa gang, kaya nila ako kinuha, dahil hindi agad sinisita ang mga bata, tsaka madaling magpalusot.”
Lloyd is more cynical. “Hindi tinitignan yung panlabas na anyo, tignan kung may bilang. May bilang, ibig sabihin kung ilan na ang nadali niyan, ilan na ang napatumba. Hindi mo na kailangang tignan sa panlabas na anyo, kasi ultimo mga bata rito nakakadisgrasya rin.”
The guy sitting beside Lloyd, Carlo, suddenly sounds off. He hasn’t spoken a word since the beginning the interview, only fidgeting a bit or shifting in his seat to vaguely signify he knew something about
the things we had been talking about. The only thing he did say in
beginning of the interview was that he is a member of the dreaded Trece Hudas Gang.
“Sa amin, basta pinakamaraming napatay, siya ang tinuturing naming founder. Pero pagdating sa mga gimik-gimik, sa mga babae, pantay-pantay lang.”
For a while there, it was back to the old-school. There was no hip-hop or street poetry or appearing in a movie. Carlo was about blood and
chalking one up against the other. And his eyes glared a sick yellow.
We are in the strangest movie press conference, that much is sure.
100 FHM JULY 2007 www.fhm.com.ph
www.fhm.com.ph JULY 2007
FHM 101
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