Spanky Manikan has always been uncomfortable with big crowds. He preferred the company of his intimate circle of friends and people he trusted and valued.
This tendency to withdraw from the noise and chatter that characterized the crazy world of Philippine entertainment could probably be traced back to the late formidable actor’s theatrical roots.
Manikan started appearing in plays for the Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta) in the 1970s, at a time when theater folk regarded material as king.
When he turned to film and TV work later on, the mind-set would remain the same. It was always the material and the role that mattered to Manikan above all other considerations.
“He would always ask,” the actor’s manager Ed Instrella recalls, “‘What is my role?’” Having gone into talent management after his theater stint as production manager and occasional actor, Instrella took it upon himself to carefully screen offers for Manikan. “Looking back, I rejected quite a lot of
offers. I’d read a script and when I felt that Spanky wouldn’t like it, I’d say no on his behalf. I didn’t let him read it anymore, I didn’t want him to waste time. Rarely, a good script would come along and I’d call him right away.”
One such noteworthy project was the film Alienasyon, which became the opening film in the 2014 QCinema Film Festival, at a time when the festival still had no full feature competition category for local films. Written and directed by Arnel Mardoquio, Spanky Manikan was magnificent as a long-retired university professor about to be evicted by the government from his home of many decades.
Talented young actor Jess Mendoza played the younger Manikan. Mendoza had observed how his seasoned coactor limned his part. “Mas curious and focused po siya [Manikan] sa nasa loob ng character, kung ano ang iniisip nito. He was deep and profound. He was real. He told me that as actors, our level of sincerity in playing a role should be very high, so the audience can see the character and not the actor.”
Mendoza considers himself fortunate and privileged to have worked with his “Tito Spanks.” This confirms another seasoned performer’s insights on the great actor. Thespian Tessie Tomas shared, “I will always remember Spanky as a passionate and very committed actor who truly loved his craft. I distinctly remember what he told me that he didn’t want to watch any video of his works so he could stay pure, objective and unbiased with his acting.” Manikan and Tomas played husband and wife in Alienasyon.
Instrella added that aside from Alienasyon, which was one of Manikan’s last films (and certainly one that was very close to his heart), a Manikan primer should consist of his earlier performances in the works of the late film masters Ishmael Bernal and Lino Brocka. Consider Manikan’s appearance in Bernal’s Broken Marriage. In this Urian Best Film of 1983, Spanky played one of the friends of Christopher de Leon’s newspaperman character. “His acting there is different from Himala. Buhay na buhay, so dynamic, very physical,” Instrella recounted.
Much has also been said about Manikan’s award-winning portrayal of the small-time documentary filmmaker in Himala, the Bernal classic on the peddling of faux miracles like precious commodities. To film buffs who grew up appreciating movies in the 1970s up until the early-1980s, Manikan in Himala more than held his own against the quiet acting storm that was Nora Aunor, with whom he played most of his scenes.
The actor, however, was also memorable as the angry elder brother in Brocka’s classic Bona, the tale of a woman (Nora Aunor) obsessed with a movie bit player (Philip Salvador). Manikan again shared another difficult scene with the legendary actress. “That scene where Spanky got mad at Nora, that was shot in one long take. Before it was shot, Spanky would ask Nora, ‘Handa ka ba? [Are you ready?]’” In that scene, one of the many highlights of Bona, Manikan had to pull Aunor’s hair and drag her down from the second level of their house to the ground.
On television, Manikan also did excellent work as the Chinese older husband of Jaclyn Jose in Parola, a GMA made-for-TV movie sometime in the 1990s. He won an award for that, which was not totally new to the actor, who had been also recognized by the Aliw Awards for his performance as the patriarch in the stage play Mga Ama, Mga Anak, a latter-day career best performance.
Until he was diagnosed with lung cancer, Manikan lived for the next great acting part which sadly never came. “Ang dami pang pangarap ni Spanky na mga roles, marami pa siyang gustong gawin,” Instrella said.
And, perhaps, that is one of the hallmarks of a true-blue artist like Manikan, who retreated from the public eye in the span of his life as an actor. He could have pursued fame but instead he focused his energies on tackling every acting assignment that came his way. He heeded respect, not attention.
Manikan deliberately never played the showbiz game. When he was in front of the camera or playing before a packed theater crowd, he gave the public his all, everything he knew and had learned about the craft. But it was family that grounded him, a life he had built with wife Susan Africa, a fine character actress herself, and with whom he had three children: Eli, Mika and Miguel.
Africa was Manikan’s beloved pangga. Instrella observed that during her husband’s wake, Africa was trying to hold it together, mindful that she had to be strong for the kids. This was the same woman who understood Manikan’s deep passion for acting as much as his refusal to fall into the trap of being just another actor who succumbed to the call of commercialism and compromises.
By example, Manikan had lived a life devoted to the finer pursuits in life, the quieter joys and the more lasting rewards that could only come from long-nurtured relationships.
In the end, that’s really all that matters.