Keep Dreaming: Not a Review of "Pinoy Sunday"

Dado and Manuel are friends and co-workers in Taiwan played by Bayani Agbayani and Epi Quizon in a Netflix movie called "Pinoy Sunday". The third main character of the story could be the red couch, the one that Manuel wanted desperately to take home and bring up to the roof-deck of their dormitory, so he could relax on it while sipping ice-cold beer and watching the stars.

So Manuel enrolls the help of Dado to be able to bring the sofa home, and the long route this takes them eventually reveals to the viewer that we all have a couch - something we desperately want, a dream we want to chase, a goal we would do almost anything to have. Or do we?

A scene from "Pinoy Sunday", where Epi Quizon played Manuel opposite Bayani Agbayani's Dado (image from https://www.justwatch.com/in/movie/pinoy-sunday)

My childhood dreams were manifold. One of them was to be a soldier and serve my country, and I carried that couch over to my teens. I wanted to get into the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), but it turned out at that time they had a minimum requirement of 5 feet and 7 inches, and my height was a couple of inches short. So that was the end of that. 

A cousin, who was taller than I was, was more fortunate. He was able to enter the academy, but he had to go back home sometime while he was there. For what reason I have not been able to ask him, but that was the end of that for him. Today he's a lawyer and works for government somewhere down south.

My other dream was to be an astronaut or astronomer, so I could explore the mysteries of the universe. I looked up articles in the encyclopedia - yeah, ironically you can Google that up in case you don't know what it is - on how to make your own telescope. Remember, that was a time when there was no Google yet where you could search "how to make your own telescope" and there was no YouTube yet where you could watch how to actually make one.

Back in the day, you couldn't find "Google" in any encyclopedia.

As a boy, my parents bought me an astronaut costume, but I am now not so sure if they actually knew I wanted to be an actual astronaut. In grade six, maybe thinking I could never be one, I researched on the lives of astronomers and submitted it to our science teacher and I got an "O". No, that's not the same as "0". It means Outstanding. 

I tried to find out how to become an astronomer, and realized there was no such college course as astronomy in the Philippines. I would later realize that I could have taken geology or perhaps physics and then pursued higher studies abroad to become an astronomer. When I found that out, it was sort of too late. So that was the end of that.

It was in high school I suspect when I thought of becoming an architect. I did well in my drafting classes, I was interested in design, I did well in freehand drawing too. But a lot of people discouraged me from taking up architecture in college. They said it would be expensive, and it was a time when the family economy was not yet in an upswing. Besides, I was awarded a scholarship and I needed to take a science course and had to choose from a list of courses and architecture was not in that list. So that was the end of that. 

Poster of "Pinoy Sunday", from https://www.cnn.ph/entertainment/2020/5/25/Five-new-Filipino-films-to-hit-Netflix-this-June.html

Sometimes, dreams are like Manuel and Dado's red sofa. You know you want it, but you soon realize it would take much effort and much time and much money. Manuel and Dado were short on cash, but they found the couch just there on the sidewalk and decided to take it home. They could have hired a truck to bring it home, but again money was the issue. What did they do? You've got to watch it and find out, as I don't want to be the spoiler here.

Often during the movie I was asking my wife "What could be the point of this movie?" and "May kwenta kaya itong kwentong ito? (Does this story have any sense in it?)". And looking at that wonderful, comfortable red couch and how Manuel was fighting (quite literally) to bring it home so he could enjoy being on it with a bottle of ice-cold beer in hand and eyes on the stars and maybe even have Celia beside him (Celia was played by Alessandra da Rossi, by the way) - I could not help coming to the conclusion that the couch represented something we aspire for, something others desperately want (just to have a more comfortable life, for most overseas Filipino workers or OFWs, which the main characters were), something you would give much of your life for.

It makes you go back and think, whatever happened to my dreams? 

Anyway, here I am now, a writer, another couch I desired and one that I have in the palm of my hands.