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DELA CERNA

Last week I recalled the Chinese who greatly influenced the economic life of my childhood days.

This time I fondly recall the contributions of an Indian trader named Gopa who put up a moviehouse in Carcar in the ’50s and ’60s which formed the movies of my childhood.

The local residents called it Bombay Theater since Indian nationals in the country are called Bombay (since the early Indian traders in the country mostly came from Bombay, India).

Located at the foot of the hill leading to the town church right beside the big house where Leon Kilat was assassinated, Bombay Theater stood on the street P. Vasquez leading to Luanluan proper where the Taboan was. Sunday was the market day of Taboan and people from other towns came to the market.

Electricity then was only from 6 pm until 6 am but on weekends showing started early in the afternoon using the generator for the moviehouse was standing room. Bombay Theater had the size of a small auditorium, bigger than the audio visual room and had a balcony.

I had the best movies of my childhood thanks to Gopa’s Bombay Theater.

There were the musicals like “Singing in the Rain,” “Carousel,” “Daddy Long Legs,” “Ziegfield Follies”; The Western/cowboy films; the Tarzan series; religious films like the “Song of Bernadette,” “Children of Fatima,” “The Robe”; horror films like the first Dracula film in black and white and the Cebuano “Mutya sa Saging Tindok”; Tagalog films like the Dolphy and Panchito comedy flicks, the Nida-Nestor Song and Dance revues, and the dramatic films of Lolita Rodriguez; Cebuano films of Gloria Sevilla and Mat Ranillo Jr, and the memorable “Gianod Ako” with Rebecca Torres.

Admission fee was only 30 centavos and children only paid one half but sometimes for General Patronage films children were admitted free because Gopa loved children and he was touched by the presence of children standing outside the moviehouse looking at the pictures on the billboard and listening to the ongoing film through the loudspeaker mounted at the entrance of the moviehouse.

I never met Gopa face to face but he must have been an educated trader because the choice of the films shown was varied, wholesome and of good quality. I am very thankful to Gopa, the Bombay Theater and the films I watched because movies were the only entertainment of my childhood. Occasionally there were free movies shown in the town plaza or the market place courtesy of Coca Cola.

Bombay Theater faded in the mid ’60s when there were more moviehouses in the city and many very good films flooded the moviehouses.

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The Resort World attack that killed 38 people not from gunshots but from suffocation and the stampede once again reminds us to stay calm and know where to stay or go to when a stampede is going on. It is also a wake-up call for security personnel not to be the first to panic.

I experienced two incidents of stampede during a film showing, one was in an outdoor setting in the Taboan in Carcar and the other was inside a big moviehouse in downtown Cebu City.

I was a high school freshman when I watched a free Western movies with a big crowd in the Taboan.

Some brought their own chairs while others used the “lantays” (low tables made of bamboo which were used by the vendors during market and which they leave inside the market). In the middle of the film showing, one of the legs of a lantay broke because it was overloaded.

At the sound of the crack, somebody uttered “patay” and then there was pandemonium — everybody was running in different directions thinking somebody was stabbed. On my part, I shouted at my three younger sisters to stay put at the side where there were no people.

We later learned that there were people hurt. All because somebody uttered “patay.”

The second incident occurred during Martial Law when I watched Lino Brocka’s “Angela Markado” in the moviehouse across Metro Colon.

I was alone, and in the middle of the film, there was a commotion in the middle section of the moviehouse and people started to rush out.

After a while the film was stopped and only a few people remained.

I asked the ushers what happened.

It seems that a couple was arguing when watching the film where Hilda Koronel playing Angela Markado killed her rapists one by one.

The wife was so carried away by Angela’s actions that the husband told her to behave and they argued.

People thought they were fighting so they started to run away and the rest followed.

These two incidents always guide me where to stay when in a crowded place or attending a very crowded event.