Timeless thespian of Philippine theater

Rustica Carpio, an institution in theater, recently reprised her role as Sisa in the one-act dramatic monologue she herself wrote. Entitled Sisa, it was shown at the Paco Park in coordination with the National Parks Development Committee and the National Broadcasting Network and at the Far Eastern University (FEU) Auditorium in coordination with the FEU President’s Committee on Culture.

Carpio, a Who’s Who in Philippine arts and letters, has distinguished herself as an academician, performing artist of stage, film and television, writer and translator. An alumna of the former Philippine College of Commerce (PCC), now Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), where she finished Associate in Commercial Science with honor, she holds an AB major in English, magna cum laude, from Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU); MA in Education, major in Speech Education, from New York University as Fulbright grantee and International House scholar; and a Ph.D. major in Literature, meritissimus, from the University of Sto. Tomas.

Carpio is a lecturer at PUP, UST, and FEU. She is consultant in Arts and Culture at PUP and Executive Director of the President’s Committee on Culture at FEU. Her poems have been set to music and are being recorded in the US.

She first gained international recognition when, as a college student, she became the youngest member and singer of the First Filipino Entertainment Troupe sent by the Philippine government to war-torn Korea in the winter of 1951 where she fought, not with arms, but with songs to bring Christmas cheer to the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea (PEFTOK) and other United Nations armies. For her patriotism and extraordinary courage, the 20th Battalion Combat Team of the Armed Forces of the Philippines adapted the name "Rustie Hill" in the war maps of Korea in her honor in 1952.

Hailing from the coastal town of Hagonoy, Bulacan, Dr. Carpio was awarded the prestigious Dangal ng Lipi by the provincial government.

One of the most enduring characters in Noli Me Tangere, Jose Rizal’s novel, Sisa is the symbol of the Philippines under the abusive segments of the Spanish conquistadores.

In the dramatic monologue, Sisa’s tragic plight was portrayed by Carpio with great depth. In the last scene, she is a moving study in pathos, as she sings an old Tagalog dalit.

"I learned this songs when I was a child growing up in the barrio," she says. She and her childhood friends sang this as they gave their May floral offerings to the Virgin Mary. Similarly, the insane Sisa draws from her own childhood the fleeting memories of bliss which eluded her in her unhappy life as wife and mother, as she sang in the forest in the dead of night.

Sisa has outstanding dramatic impact despite the minimalist production requirements. From the first to the second scene, Sisa awaits the return of her sons inside her hut, bare except for the banig, the dulang and banggera. The sound effects of the horses, the pounding on the doors of the guards, the fatal shots from their muskets, serve to heighten the denouement of the woman’s cruel fate.

In the one-act play Calamba, Carpio recreates a vignette in the life of national hero Jose Rizal. Reminiscent of her role as Rizal’s mother in the celebrated film Rizal in Dapitan, starring Albert Martinez and Amanda Paige, this episode evokes a paragon of the woman behind Rizal’s genius and glory.

Carpio teaches Filipino Literature in Spanish at the UST Graduate School.

The timeless thespian, whenever she graces the stage, promises a glimpse into the agony and the ecstasy that is Philippine theater and a memory worth cherishing about our literary treasures.