Nora Aunor, the Philippines’ superstar and national artist, is no more.

Among the many outstanding films* that showcased her artistic firepower, HIMALA stands out one of the most compelling, if not the greatest movie that depicts the long-standing plight of our people.

The Superstar actually passed away during a season that Himala portrays so vividly: scorching heat mixed with the odor of parched earth. Cupang is an inhabited area that has been drained completely; it’s not even a location that bleeds. Himala makes a forceful message about the drain of value  from the impoverished rural areas of the Philippines to the central hubs of accumulation and greed. 

Released in December 1982, three years shy of the February People Power uprising, Himala features Elsa’s faith, tenacity, and willpower, which were greater than the collective punishment meted out to her people. She used faith healing to accomplish miracles.The sick, the dying, the unemployed, the landless, even the wicked señora and businessman for whom the ailing poor are living a life of poverty would wait long lines to be healed by Elsa’s power, an endowment from the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  

Directed by the revolutionary Ishmael Bernal and written by the radical novelist, journalist, and playwright Ricky Lee, Himala is a monument  to the intellectual, political, and organizational commitment of these two titans at a specific juncture in the  Philippine national liberation movement’s history. 

Himala is more than just a work of individual genius. It is yet the most powerful indictment of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial conditions in the Philippines. As this brilliant collective of artists understood, the enormous task of producing Himala at a time when large-scale protests against the atrocities of US imperialism and the Marcos regime were taking place called for the star power of Nora Aunor, the Filipino people’s beloved superstar. 

I once showed Himala to a group of locals (where I was the foreigner).

It was a class on sociology. After the film screening, one of the students immediately called my attention to what confused her about our syllabus’ reference to the film and how I actually introduced it. In both instances, I incorrectly referred to the film “Himala” as “Bayan Ko”. But wasn’t that a “correct mistake” or an unconscious slip considering how I’ve always felt for Himala? 

Before Elsa was shot dead while addressing a huge crowd, her words lifted up the revolutionary materialist standpoint (as opposed to regressive and bourgeois idealism): 

“Walang himala…Tayo ang gumagawa ng mga himala! Tayo ang gumagawa ng mga sumpa at mga diyos…” (“…There are no miracles…We create miracles! We create curses and gods…”)

Honoring Nora Aunor in her death by thinking through this magnificent classic, I, once more own up to Himala — my country, my people, my miracle, Bayan ko.  

High salute to the most accomplished showbiz figure, ang Superstar ng sambayanang Pilipino, Nora Aunor.

*Nora Aunor starred in many other film classics that slammed heteronormativity, the US military  bases and the Philippine State’s labor export policy. “Andrea, Paano Ba Maging Isang Ina?” is a 1990 film for which she received a grand slam (all award-giving bodies recognize her as Best Actress). Here, the Superstar is an NPA guerrilla.