GomBurZa
(A Movie Review)
GomBurZa is a Philippine historical biographical film co-written and
directed by Pepe Diokno. Starring Dante Rivero, Cedrick Juan, and Enchong
Dee, it features and follows the lives of the Gomburza, three native Filipino
Roman Catholic priests executed during the latter years of the Spanish
colonial era in the Philippines.
Summary: Father Pedro Pelaez retells the story of Apolinario de la
Cruz, an Indio who was rejected for priesthood on account of his race and
founded a sect of his own before being suppressed and executed by the
Spaniards, to his student, Jose Burgos, and fellow secular priest Mariano
Gomez. The trio fight attempts by the friars from the religious orders led by
Padre Mosqueda to take over parishes administered by predominantly Filipino
secular priests. Pelaez later dies in the 1863 Manila earthquake, while Burgos
finishes his studies for the priesthood.
1869, Burgos is a teacher at the University of Santo Tomas and
develops a close relationship with his students, Felipe
Buencamino and Paciano Mercado. They rejoice at the arrival of the liberal
Governor-General Carlos Maria de la Torre, and Felipe and Paciano form a
group of liberal youths. However, they are disillusioned when Felipe is
arrested and Dela Torre tells Burgos to tone down his liberal advocacies in
exchange for Buencamino's freedom.
In 1871, De la Torre is replaced by the repressive Rafael Izquierdo,
who asks the friars about Burgos' activities. He also lifts tax exemptions for
indio soldiers at Fort San Felipe, prompting a failed mutiny the following year
by Sargeant Lamadrid, who had been paid to launch the rebellion by a group
of radicalized Filipino elites through their intermediary, Francisco Zaldua.
Gomez, Burgos and Zamora are arrested for their alleged involvement in the
mutiny and are subjected to a hurried court-martial during which they are
subjected to numerous judicial injustices. In contrast, the real instigators of the
mutiny are sentenced to exile.
During the trial, Zamora suffers a nervous breakdown after a written
invitation he made to a card game is misconstrued to be a letter about an
arms delivery, while Gomez and Burgos denounce the trial as a sham as
Zaldua, bearing signs of torture, falsely implicates Burgos in the mutiny. The
three priests, along with Zaldua, are convicted and sentenced to death
by garotte. After witnessing the course of the trial, Padre Mosqueda realizes
that they have been used by the Spanish government to absolve itself of
responsibility and voices regret at how history will blame them for their
impending deaths.
Prior to their execution, Izquierdo requests that Archbishop Gregorio
Meliton Martinez strip the cassocks of the priests for their crimes, but the latter
refuses, believing in the innocence and insisting that they will die as priests,
and restores their cassocks, which had been confiscated during their arrest.
Paciano along with his brother Pepe, Felipe and others witness the
execution at Bagumbayan. Zaldua is scorned by the crowd as a traitor as he
is being executed. A catatonic Zamora is lifted to the scaffold, followed by a
nonchalant Gomez, while Burgos, who accepts an apology from his
executioner, protests his innocence as he is killed. The crowd kneels in grief
over their execution as Martinez lets the church bells toll for their deaths.
In an epilogue, an adult Pepe is shown dedicating his second novel, El
Filibusterismo, to the three priests, and is executed at the same place where
they were died in 1896, while a former servant of Padre Mosqueda, who
witnesses the execution of the three priests, joins the Katipunan in their fight
for independence against the Spaniards.
