Poe hails inclusion of father's films in Unesco program

SEN. Grace Poe is grateful for the inclusion of the FPJ Film Collection in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) Memory of the World (MoW) heritage program.

Unesco's MoW program aims to preserve and honor a country's documentary heritage and make it accessible to the public. The senator graced the launch of the Philippine leg of the global MoW at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The FPJ Film Collection is one of nine Philippine documents and collections inscribed in the Unesco MoW International, Regional, and National Registers.

The rest are the Presidential Papers of Manuel Quezon, Radio Broadcast of the EDSA People Power Revolution, Jose Maceda Collection consisting of musical archive and field notes, Philippine Paleographs (from the Hanunoo, Buhid, Tagbanua, and Pala'wan), Culion Leprosy Museum Archives, Doctrina Christiana (1593) — one of the earliest printed books in the Philippines, Hinilawod Epic Chant Recordings, and Eddie Romero's "Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?" — a film classic.

Poe appreciated Unesco's decision to include the film collection of her father, the late National Artist Fernando Poe Jr., as part of the MoW Program.

She said 168 movies of her father are in the FPJ Film archives, which their family established to properly preserve the films. "We have put in a lot of effort to maintain it," Poe said.

"We are grateful that the Unesco, through Professor Nick Deocampo, has recognized the significance of the FPJ Film Archives and is now committed to ensuring that this legacy of my father to the Filipino people remains protected, remembered, and passed on to future generations," Senator Poe said.

Deocampo, a renowned filmmaker, serves as the Philippine MoW committee chairman.

FPJ's films became the "cinematic chronicles of the travails of the Filipino working class. Many identified with his portrayal of a man fighting the forces of oppression, and found vicarious joy in his character's ability to attain justice."

Poe said many of FPJ's movies, including those he produced, came at a "crucial historical juncture when the country was recovering from the devastating effects of World War II, political uncertainties, social inequality, injustice and poverty."