Sometimes one wonders what would have happened if Eddie Romero–National Artist for Film and Outstanding Sillimanian Awardee for Film–had chosen to remain in the United States in the mid-1970s after a number of years churning out highly-successful B-movies that were slowly giving a name for himself as a craftsman of note in Hollywood.
His was already the regular track taken by future auteurs such as Martin Scorsese or Brian De Palma, who cut their teeth working for B-movie producers like Roger Corman. Mr. Romero by then was already working with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Burgess Meredith, and Pam Grier. But he was beginning to hear of this new wave of Filipino filmmakers who were coming up with films of startling originality and vision–Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal among them. 
“I took the path of least resistance and returned to the Philippines,” Romero told Agustin Sotto in an interview with the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino. But he did return to the Philippines, to a kind of filmmaking that proved a watershed. Consider Ganito Kami Noon… Paano Kayo Ngayon (1976)–a film that explores what it means to be “Filipino” in its story of an everyman journeying through a changing landscape as the country starts to overthrow its Spanish yoke.
This is the film that has made his reputation, but there are also such gems as Sinong Kasiping, Sinong Kapiling (1977), Banta ng Kahapon (1977), Aguila (1980), and Hari sa Hari, Lahi sa Lahi (1987).
Any director with only these films as outputs would already be considered a master.
That there are other titles–wildly different ones–that constitute his filmography — more than 70 of them, in fact — only cement his reputation as local cinema’s godfather.
This reputation has gained him a following, including Quentin Tarantino, who has publicly acknowledged Mr. Romero’s work as seminal in his training as master filmmaker.
As a screenwriter, film director, and producer, Mr. Romero truly embodies the hopes and the evolutions of the Filipino filmmaker. Many of his films have explored the Filipino psyche through the various historical backdrops of the country’s history.
That Mr. Romero stumbled into filmmaking as a young boy in Dumaguete seemed remarkable given his output.
As a student in Silliman High School, he was publishing short stories in the Philippines Free Press, which attracted the attention of director Gerardo de Leon. The latter sought the boy out when he was in Dumaguete to visit his future wife who was studying in Silliman, and offered him the chance to become a screenwriter. The boy balked at first, considering the language requirement of the local industry (he was not conversant in Tagalog), as well as the realities of the landed family to which he belonged.
He did eventually begin making films for Mr. De Leon, starting with Ang Maestro, which he wrote when he was still in high school. That led to his directorial debut in 1947 with Ang Kamay ng Dios, and more films followed.
The filmmaking momentum was cut short when his father became Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and he joined the family in London. His acquaintance in Europe with directors David Lean, Karel Reisz, and Roberto Rossellini brought back his passion for the movies.
Returning to Manila in 1951, he poured his energies to making films of varied genres for Sampaguita Pictures, and later to Lebran.
When he ventured towards Hollywood, he was set on making his mark on global cinema by aspiring towards American standards, but it is with his Filipino films that we truly see the heart of a storyteller intent on a nationalist ideal.
We see this vision even on television, with his 13-part series adaptation of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere.
And he has never forgotten Negros Oriental, which he featured twice in his films–as a pre-colonial land of fantasy in Kamakalawa (1981), and as a place of Sugarlandia melodrama in Passionate Strangers (1966).
In 2003, he was named National Artist for Cinema & Broadcast Arts, cited for films that “are delivered in an utterly simple style–minimalist, but never empty, always calculated, precise, and functional, but never predictable”.
Last May 28, Mr. Romero passed away at 88. He would always be remembered.
(Adapted from the entry on Mr. Romero from the forthcoming book “Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts at Silliman University”, edited by Ian Rosales Casocot.)
