Reaction Paper

Ganito kami noon, Paano kayo ngayon?

Eddie Romero's film "Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?"

was a masterpiece in Philippine cinematography arts. The whole story
revolves on showing what kind of life was like for Filipinos in the
nineteenth century, when Spaniards were still our colonizers. And
depicts how our Filipino ancestors lived under the Spanish colonization
and how Spaniards and priests abused, maltreated, and belittled
Filipinos. As well as how our ancestors fought the Spaniards for their
independence from the colonizer and how great our ancestors desire to
succeed in life. And because of the length of time the Spaniards
colonized us, Filipinos became confused about their own identity and
began to doubt who the true Filipinos were.

The plot of the film centre around Nicolas Ocampo, the main
character. He is a Filipino, also known as Kulas, who lost all of his
belongings and his mother, leading him to start on his adventure. and
throughout of this journey he started to confront numerous challenges
and started to hear different meaning on the word "Filipino" and asking
himself of who are the real Filipinos. In the beginning of his journey, he
encountered Father Gil, who defined the term "Filipino" as Spaniards
born and raised in the Philippines. Along the way, he then met a
Chinese trader Lim who identified Filipinos as Spaniards residing in the
Philippines, however kulas argue his statement and said that those who
reside and are born in the Philippines are the true Filipinos. This journey
showed kulas that simply being born in the Philippines does not
qualified him as a Filipino. And being Filipino entails accepting
responsibility for defending our country, as well as our culture and
traditions.

We learned a lot by watching this movie. The lessons we may take

away from this film transcend time. Starting with the main character's
attitude, which demonstrates how we Filipinos can smile even when
confronted with many problems in our lives, but also through his
experience of wanting to fit to the life and to his surrounding, the bright
of his smile started to fade from him. And to never give up on your
dreams and to focus all of your efforts on what you love. Yet the main
message of this film is that, while we are fortunate to have forebears
who battled for our nation's freedom, we as Filipinos should appreciate
our nation and not let their sacrifices go in vain.