Earlier this year, I was one of the few invited to Rolling Stone Philippines’ “State of Affairs” event at Sine Pop in Cubao, Quezon City.
The program opened with “The State of Culture,” a live panel that confronted the challenges and possibilities at the intersection of culture, economy, education, and technology.
After that, we were treated to a private screening of Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea, Baby Ruth Villarama’s timely documentary on Filipino fisherfolk navigating the contested West Philippine Sea. Then came what many of us were waiting for: “The State of Film.”
TBA Studios shared a 10-minute work-in-progress clip from Jerrold Tarog’s Quezon, the long-awaited conclusion to his Bayaniverse trilogy that began with Heneral Luna in 2015. Tarog was joined by producer Daphne Chiu-Soon and cinematographer Pong Ignacio, with Film Development Council of the Philippines chairman Jose Javier Reyes leading a conversation that felt half celebration, half inquisition.
When Reyes asked about the risk of humanizing those long considered national heroes and of reinterpreting Philippine history, Tarog simply said: “I can always point to the books.” His answer carried a calm certainty that history, when told truthfully, can withstand discomfort.
Quezon follows the Philippines’ second president across four defining chapters of his life, and like the men it portrays, the film refuses to stay confined within reverence. This year, I’ve seen two historical dramas that dared to confront the myths we’ve built: Lav Diaz’s Magellan, which questioned Lapulapu’s very existence, and Tarog’s Quezon, which drew fire for its audacity of tone.
But Quezon is no joke. It is one of the most technically accomplished and intellectually daring Filipino films in recent years, a masterpiece that knows how to teach without preaching and entertain without diluting its politics.
Tarog achieves something rare here, shaping a two-hour, dialogue-driven historical epic that remains deeply cinematic. It has the Bayaniverse’s sharpest production design and most polished cinematography, but Tarog uses that very gloss to question what it means to make heroes look this good. Its grandeur doesn’t come from spectacle or rhetoric, but from how it makes history feel tangible again, restless with contradiction.
And this is where the film transcends. Part of me is left debating if this is finally our next Oscar submission, and it certainly makes a strong case. While many Filipino historical films, by their very nature, struggle to find purchase with international audiences, Quezon is built differently. It demands local introspection while showing that a Filipino historical film can speak a universal language. It translates the colorful ambition and political machinations of Quezon’s life into something a global audience can genuinely and viscerally care about.
Jericho Rosales turns in a performance that feels studied yet alive. He captures Quezon’s cadence, the strange lilt and rhythm that historical recordings made familiar, but filters it through an actor’s empathy. There’s precision in the mimicry, but it never becomes parody.
For me, it’s Mon Confiado, as Aguinaldo, who quietly steals the film. He carries an air of fatigue, of a man whose justifications have outlived their conviction. What’s bold about Tarog’s direction is how it subtly reorients the viewer’s sympathy toward Aguinaldo, not to absolve him, but to understand the human frailty behind the myth. It reshapes the trilogy into something less about heroes and traitors, and more about the uneasy truths that history refuses to settle.
That’s what makes Quezon so compelling. It refuses the easy binaries of national memory. It doesn’t paint Quezon as a saint or Aguinaldo as a relic. It lets both men exist in their contradictions. The satire feels less like mockery, more like mourning for a history that keeps repeating itself.
And perhaps that’s why it unsettled the descendants. The story of Quezon becomes a story of what we choose to celebrate, and how easily heroism gets confused with infallibility.
Where Heneral Luna raged and Goyo brooded, Quezon contemplates. It is an ending devoid of fanfare or glory. It simply settles, leaving us with a clear, decisive thought that equips us to finally and confidently confront the narratives we’ve inherited.
The film offers no statues, no slogans, just men whose choices reverberate through generations. Only men whose fates become the ground we walk on. It’s less a conclusion than a quiet confrontation with the myths that raised us and the truths we are still too afraid to face.