El Presidente

Plot synopsis:
The story is told in flashbacks as Emilio Aguinaldo (E.R. Ejercito) thanks the U.S. government for giving him the opportunity to attend the full restoration of Philippine independence on July 4, 1946.
The film begins with his capture by Kapampangan and U.S. forces under Frederick Funston's command in 1901, then flashes back to 1886, when an old woman gives Aguinaldo and his childhood friend Candido Tirona (Ronnie Lazaro) cryptic prophecies. Ten years later, Aguinaldo is inducted into the Katipunan by the Supremo, Andrés Bonifacio, and later assumes leadership of its Cavite chapter the Magdalo while becoming mayor of Cavite El Viejo. When trouble breaks out in Manila in late August 1896, Aguinaldo tries to assure the Spanish provincial government of non-interference and covertly marshals his forces despite a lack of weapons. Learning that the Spanish mostly put their forces in Manila, Aguinaldo finally mobilizes his troops in Cavite and takes on Spanish troops at Cavite El Viejo, Imus, and Binakayan.
As the Katipunan rebels gain ground in Cavite and several provinces, its Magdalo and Magdiwang factions convene to elect a provisional government. Bonifacio oversees the Tejeros Convention, which elects Aguinaldo as president, Mariano Trías as vice-president, and himself as interior minister. He storms out of the convention when Daniel Tirona objects to his position. Aguinaldo's brother Crispulo informs him of his accession and convinces him to leave his troops just as he was seeking to defend against the Spaniards at Pasong Santol. However without reinforcement they were overrun and Crispulo was killed. Meanwhile, an embittered Bonifacio establishes his own revolutionary government in Naic and was later arrested during his act in the village. Aguinaldo is concerned about Bonifacio's actions and wanted him exiled, but the War Council advises his execution.
Several months later, Aguinaldo leaves Cavite with most of his forces intact and makes it to Biak-na-Bato in Bulacan, where he signs the Pact of Biak-na-Bato and heads for Hong Kong. There he meets with U.S. officials who approach him with offers of support and recognition of a new Philippine republic amidst the Spanish–American War. Aguinaldo returns to the Philippines winning his military victory under the First Philippine Republic and formally declares independence from Spain. As the Malolos Congress convenes, Felipe Agoncillo tries to represent the new nation at the Treaty of Paris negotiations, but gets stonewalled at every turn even as U.S. forces gradually arrive in the Philippines.
War with the Americans breaks out in February 1899, and General Antonio Luna is appointed supreme commander of the army. He is assassinated by disgruntled troops three months later, and the Filipino forces are gradually routed by the Americans. As a result, Aguinaldo flees to the north of Luzon. General Gregorio del Pilar volunteers to hold them off at Tirad Pass and buy Aguinaldo time. His loyal courier is later captured by the Americans while getting some medicine for his son. Now aware of Aguinaldo's hideout, Funston plans his capture.
Having been made to accept the American occupation over the Philippines, Aguinaldo lives a quiet life, which is marred by Hilaria's death in 1921. He meets and marries Agoncillo's niece Maria in 1930. Over the next few decades, the couple witness Philippine history unfold once more as he is defeated in the 1935 presidential elections, Japanese occupation, and the restoration of full independence. In 1962, an elderly Aguinaldo and his wife comfort each other over President Diosdado Macapagal's decree to restore the actual date of the Philippine declaration of independence.
As Aguinaldo lies on his bed, the same woman who gave him his prophecy appears to him one more time.

Tags: suspenseful, avant garde, cruelty, murder, violence

Review:
History That Needs to Be Viewed Critically and Discussed.
Being a history buff, I really made time to watch "El Presidente," an entry in the 2012 Metro Manila Film Fest about the President of the First Philippine Republic, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo.
It is about time that that era in Philippine History was given a definitive movie rendition.
I had high hopes about this film, since producer Laguna Gov. Jeorge "E.R." Ejercito (as Jeorge ER Estregan) gave us a very well-made biopic of gangster Asiong Salonga in last year's MMFF.
It had not been easy to find time to watch since this film had a formidable running time of two hours and thirty minutes.Because of a very slow line at the ticket counter, it was so annoying that I got a seat already 10 or so minutes into film.
Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo (Estregan) and his generals were about to launch an attack to take over the town of Cavite Viejo.
From there, it follows the life of Aguinaldo, from the events leading up to the declaration of Philippine Independence on June 12, 1898, to his capture in Palanan by the Americans, up to his death at the age of 94 in the year 1964.
The battle scenes were very well shot with a huge cast of real extras playing the soldiers of all nationalities.
There were some impressive close-up stop-motion special effects during the fight scenes, as we saw in films like "300" or "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter".The film did not shirk to tackle very controversial historical issues about Aguinaldo's role in the deaths of Andres Bonifacio and Antonio Luna.
They did not hide the fact that all this was based on the memoirs of El Presidente himself, hence the probable bias in point of view.
Now, what truly happened is still the bone of historical contentions.
Bonifacio in particular was presented in a very negative light here.
Montano's acting highlight as Bonifacio for me was his pained reaction to losing the vote for president at the Tejeros Assemby to his breakdown when someone protested his win as Secretary of the Interior.
This scene alone was worth his Best Supporting Actor award.
Too bad I did not get to watch the recent film biography of Andres Bonifacio entitled "Supremo" to see and compare its version of these same events.
Antonio Luna was played by Christopher de Leon in his typical acting style.
The script basically concentrated on his nasty temperament, not on his military prowess.
But then again this was not a film about Gen. Luna anyway.So, how was Estregan as Aguinaldo?
Unfortunately, as with the problem of Estregan as Asiong Salonga the year before, he tends to be very melodramatic in his acting style.
He indicates almost everything he says with some awkward gestures.
There was a scene when Aguinaldo was exiled where Estregan silently pours out his emotions in unrealistically exaggerated bawling, accompanied by swelling dramatic music.
If this was his attempt to add points to his quest to be best actor, someone should advise him that less is more when it comes to acting nowadays.
It is also remarkable that every time the camera focuses on his face, he has skin so flawless that it radiates like a halo.
That was some impressive special effect right there.The huge name supporting cast was a veritable who's who of Filipino character actors.
It was actually fun to try and identify all of them when they appear on screen playing all the revolutionary heroes we can think of and more.
It can be amusing to see them in very fake- looking stiff hair and make-up though.
There was everyone from the expected likes of Ronnie Lazaro, Sid Lucero, Allan Paule, John Regala, Joko Diaz, John Arcilla and Yul Servo, to the unexpected likes of Epi Quizon, Ian de Leon, Dennis Padilla, Will Devaughn and Bayani Agbayani.
Baron Geisler is really quite stereotyped as an antagonist, and he really delivers the goods as a smirking Spanish officer, despite the puny mustache they made him wear.
He was quite good in sword fights too.
The only realistic Spaniard in my opinion was Ian Veneracion who did not need to don fake facial hair.
Emilio Garcia, Gary Estrada and Wendell Ramos could have been realistic Spaniards but instead they play Filipinos.There were only two female supporting roles.
The first wife Hilaria, played by Cristine Reyes, was practically a silent role where all she had to do was look pretty, and die later without aging despite after having four kids.
Much ado had been made about Ms. Nora Aunor playing Maria, his second wife.
Unfortunately, this was such a bad case of miscasting.
She looked ill at ease from her first scene as a shy young (?!) lady to her last scene as she lay in bed with Estregan as senior citizens.
This last scene was woefully shot in such an ugly angle for Aunor that she looked unrecognizably bad.
Too bad as that was an important scene about Aguinaldo's joy upon Macapagal's transfer of Independence Day celebrations from July 4 back to June 12.
Oh yes, Sunshine Cruz also had a cameo as Gregoria de Jesus, and you can imagine that it was unrealistic.Overall though, despite all the imperfections, I still think this was a very earnest film made with the very best of intentions, and obviously produced with generosity of budget.
I commend Gov. E.R. Ejercito for taking on this huge project, as this is a story that needed to be told.
Students nowadays can use this film to gain interest with the history of the Philippine Revolution as this movie brings all those historical characters to life, from Apolinario Mabini to Gregorio del Pilar.
It is up to their teachers to guide them in those contentious issues, especially the events involving the iconic revered hero, Andres Bonifacio.
This is a movie that will serve its purpose when it is watched critically and discussed afterwards..
Simply awful.
Terrible movie.
It is historical fiction which copied battle scenes from Robin Hood, Braveheart, and Asiong Salonga...
and portrayed Andres Bonifacio as ego-centric, heartless and a traitor- the worst you can do to a national hero.
They said they based the story on Aguinaldo's memoir??
But who provided the details??
I don't know if Ambeth Ocampo said something about this movie, I doubt he did.
Even the acting was terrible.
Anyway, what will you expect when the actors in the movie are also involved in politics.Too bad, I read that Prof.
Randy David did not see the lies and intentional errors in the movie.
Watching this movie was like allowing The Bonifacio brothers to be murdered over and over again, and be silent about it..
A clunky and awkward biopic, but with good intentions..
After last year's surprisingly good period gangster film that is "Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story", here is E.R. Ejercito again with an Emilio Aguinaldo biopic entitled "El Presidente", an infinitely trickier film to pull off, scope and exposition-wise.
If E.R.'s previous film focuses mainly on gangland altruism, "El Presidente" is all about patriotic resilience amidst imperialism, and it definitely shows on the film's abundant dose of sentimentalism.
And if E.R. seems tailor-made for the role of Asiong Salonga (after all, he has already played Asiong in the '90s film "Asiong Salonga: Hari ng Tondo"), he seems feverishly out of place in this whole historical drama, especially when he's surrounded by character actors that are ten times more talented than him.
Now do not get me wrong, when I think of a more suitable and relatively bankable actor to play Aguinaldo, I can't really think of anyone save for Ejercito himself (as of the moment, that is).
Except for his bulldog-ish cheeks, Ejercito nicely fits the title role specifically because of his relative mass appeal and sense of authority.
But then, somebody has seemingly forgotten to remind him that "El Presidente" is, after all, a film and not a theatrical play.
With his repetitively oratorical hand gestures and monotonous line deliveries, despite of the stature of the person he's playing, E.R. is easily dwarfed by his co-actors in the film, specifically Cesar Montano, whose brief but strong turn as Andres Bonifacio is a mild cause for celebration.
Except for his hair that's anachronistically gelled upwards, Cesar Montano's Bonifacio is so well-portrayed that I wouldn't bother for him to have more screen time than Aguinaldo himself.
Granted, "El Presidente" is quite sophisticated with its cinematography and action sequences, but its whole narrative seems fairly derivative and very 'Philippine History 101' that the film's human aspect was left terribly wanting.Complete with cursive texts beneath every establishing scene that continuously remind us that the film is more of a crash course on the history of pre-republic Philippines rather than a fairly humanizing story of a great man (this, of course, depends on who's seeing the film), "El Presidente" never quite connects on the emotional level.
Instead, and this is quite saddening, it merely gives out the occasional 'wow' factor with its action set pieces, mammoth scope and nothing more.
And although I also liked Baron Geisler's intense performance as a Spanish captain, the film's supporting cast was fairly uninspired and a tad too unconvincing; indeed, a bunch of artificially mustachioed lads sputtering things about independence and going slow-motion on simulated battles is not enough.
Well, maybe that is the ultimate downside of a historical drama: the scope is almost always so big that the characters are rendered as nothing but glorified plot details.
In a way, "El Presidente" is "Jose Rizal's" (the film, not the man) campy and overly sentimental half-brother who gets into too much unjustified scuffles.
If Cesar Montano's portrayal of Jose Rizal is one founded upon complexity, dedication and utter intensity, E.R. Ejercito's Emilio Aguinaldo is founded upon monotony, misplaced emotions and uncalled-for action star-ism.
In one action scene when he has suddenly pulled out a very gangster-looking boot knife, I even expected E.R. to suddenly show his ever-wriggling tongue and shout "Ako si Boy Sputnik!" His performance is just so all over the place that at the end of the day, "El Presidente" has made me root more for Andres Bonifacio.
Now I have this sudden craving to watch Richard Somes' Bonifacio biopic "Supremo".
But in all fairness, the film's final 15 minutes or so is quite powerful.
In a way, it reminds me of the final moments of Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" in how both finely convey the elegy of time in the lives of the most powerful and seemingly immortal leaders.
The appearance of Nora Aunor as Emilio Aguinaldo's second wife though, who was cast just so she can be put into the posters as a potential crowd-drawer, is a complete non-event.
In my opinion, they could have put Lilia Cuntapay in the role and it wouldn't really even make a strand of difference.
"El Presidente", although admittedly a grand, sweeping production, is a very clunky film that offers little to nothing that our history text books have not taught us yet.
Perhaps showing some of Aguinaldo's trivial humanity wouldn't hurt.
And yes, "Manila Kingpin" is better..
Greatest movie i have seen in years!
it has a lesson to it!...
I enjoyed watching the movie..
i cant believe that this movie didn't become the best film, but at least they become 2nd runner up, that means most of the people here in the Philippines enjoyed this film because it's about Emilio Aguinaldo (the first president here in the Philippines), i cannot say anymore about this film but I'm gonna tell this that this movie is worth watching and you will learn more about the life history of Emilio Aguinaldo and how he became a president.
I rate this movie 7.2/10 because this film means something rather than the other films in the 38th Metro Manila Film Festival.This movie is awesome/great!
and i recommend it to people who haven't watched this film yet!
El Presidente!!.
Don't waste your time.
From the beginning of the movie some of the details are not accurate such as the ammunition used for their revolver during the introduction scene, it displayed a .45 ACP (not existed during that period) instead of .45 LC.Some of the scenes uses slow motion effects kinda like the Matrix stuff which really ruins the movie, the selection of actors are also not matching their character.Their fictional characters such as "Inang bayan" also makes the movie more Sci-Fi or Paranormal, they could have shown the love for the mother land in a different way.There are a lot more unless you are interested on the negative comments about this movie then watch..
A Comprehensive Biopic About Aguinaldo.
Jeorge "E.R." Ejercito stars in this Filipino historical drama entitled El Presidente a.k.a The President about the biography of General Emilio Aguinaldo, the first President of the Philippines.
Nora Aunor,Christopher de Leon and Cesar Montano co-star in this film that was based on the "Memoirs of a Revolution", which was written by Aguinaldo himself.The screenplay starts when Aguinaldo starts to write a letter to the United States for granting full independence to the Philippines.Then flashbacks of stories occurs starting with he was in his teens who receives visions from an old lady about the future of his life.It progresses until he becomes a member of the Katipunan,a revolutionary movement headed by Andres Bonifacio against the country's Spanish colonists.The revolution starts as Filipinos starts to battle the Spaniards and managing to gain victory despite lack in fire arms and armaments.Aguinaldo becomes the leader of the Filipino revolutionaries and becomes their general.
After gaining further victories, the Filipinos starts to have a revolutionary government with Aguinaldo being chosen as the first president.This leads to more problems after Aguinaldo's group and the Katipunan has had their quarrels and divisions which led them to fight the Spaniards separately.This leads to Bonifacio being charged for treason and eventually gets death sentence.
After the Spaniards have ceded the Philippines, Aguinaldo's revolutionary government battles the Americans.Problems arises when General Antonio Luna instill hatred among the other Filipino soldiers loyal to Aguinaldo.
This leads to Luna's assassination.Eventually,the Americans battles against Aguinaldo and his men until the Philippines fall under to their submission to become a new U.S. colony.
The film finally concludes showing Aguinaldo leading a quiet life after the Philippines-American war and shows other important events in his life like marrying his second wife Maria after his first wife Hilaria died.The film Bonifacio: Ang Unang Pangulo a.k.a Bonifacio: The First President is what brought me to El Presidente a.k.a The President.While the film about Bonifacio showed that Aguinaldo was feels that Bonifacio is a threat to his position as president which led to having him killed, this movie based on Aguinaldo's memoirs certainly have a different story.It definitely portrayed Bonifacio as an arrogant leader that the Filipino revolutionaries do not need.Also,it shows that he does not possess the kind of military leadership that Aguinaldo have and has made threats to the first president's life to fulfill his desire to become leader of the Filipino revolutionaries.There was a justification for why he needs to be killed and Aguinaldo readily admits to it.
On the death of General Antonio Luna,Aguinaldo has made no admission being part of the conspiracy.
The film just showed that Luna was an arrogant general that irked many Filipino revolutionary soldiers.Added to that,the film somehow hinted that Luna was a threat to the cause of revolutionaries and that his presence will be a hindrance especially when the Filipinos battled the Americans.Causing the death of these two Filipino heroes - Andres Bonifacio and General Antonio Luna - has somehow hurt the legacy of Aguinaldo as a Filipino hero.What is admirable is that the movies made no means to escape these controversies and gave the position of Aguinaldo based on his memoirs.
Evidently,this will head me to another film entitled Heneral Luna a.k.a General Luna to see what his biopic has to say about Aguinaldo in these historical controversies in Philippine history.
Controversies aside,I felt that the Aguinaldo biopic being almost three hours was ambitious to present the first Filipino president to become a deserving hero of the Philippines.His military leadership and immense love for the country were definitely highlighted.
It just showed how vital was Aguinaldo for the Filipino revolutionaries.As for the performances,I am satisfied with Jeorge "E.R." Ejercito performance as Aguinaldo.He definitely was sincere and genuine.
He also tried his best with regards to his acting abilities.As for Christopher De Leon as Luna,I think that he was good enough to portray the general as pretty well.Cesar Montano was definitely great once again as Andres Bonifacio.
Many Filipinos would probably not agree on whether he portrayed who Bonifacio truly is since many Filipinos would not regards him as arrogant nor lacking in leadership but at least he managed to portray him extremely well on how Aguinaldo viewed him.Finally, Nora Aunor's performance was definitely forgettable as she played Maria as a cutesy second wife.As for the action scenes,I felt that they were somewhat exaggerated to make it feel like an action movie.It was a good thing that it did not refrain from the controversies involving Aguinaldo which sort of made up for it in a film that really tried to present him to be a worthy Filipino hero in spite of them.
I felt that alone is enough for the price of admission.