Let's Say A Prayer For Stage And Film Director Behn Cervantes

STAGE AND FILM director Behn Cervantes passed last Thursday due to pneumonia and complications from diabetes. He would have been 75 years old this Monday, August 26. He taught drama and theatre arts in UP for so many years and directed so many plays for the UP Repertory. As a filmmaker, he directed the acclaimed “Sakada” about oppressed sugar workers starring Rosal Rosal, Gloria Romero, Robert Arevalo in 1976, and also “Bawal na Pag-ibig” with Alma Moreno and Rico Puno. He’s likewise a noted activist who fought the Marcos dictatorship and joined protest rallies against censorship.

Ben and this writer worked together as members of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino from 1978 to 1981 and we were co-hosts of Armida Siguion Reyna in the RPN-9 talk show, “Let’s Talk Movies” for more than a year, from 1982-83. He has a very warm and jolly personality, always wanting to be the life of the party. He can be very opinionated, especially when we deliberate in the movies we consider for nominations in the annual Urian Awards.

He joins other former Manunuri members who have gone to the great beyond: Pio de Castro III, Manuel S. Pichel, Agustin “Hammy” Sotto and Petronilo Daroy. Let’s all pray for the repose of their souls.