A Conversation with Rommel Rebollido

by Estan Cabigas

Rommel Rebollido’s work, Crumpled Dreams, Wrinkled Realities was voted by his co-participants in a documentary photography masterclass that he attended a few months ago as the best in the batch. This body of work, a series of intimate portraits of the elderly living in a privately run institution is very personal to him.

Rommel looks up to the following photographers as inspirations: Eugene Smith for his way of presenting images, Henri Cartier Bresson for his use of elements and Luis Liwanag for his artful subtleness.

He sits with Aninag and talks about his beginnings, photography and his Crumpled Dreams work.

Early years
Born from Ilocano parents, Rommel had his first engagement with the camera during his teenage years, around 12 or 13 years old, while growing up in Mindanao:

I got fascinated with an instamatic camera that was given by a visiting relative. That was when I tried to learn framing, comparing what I saw in magazines. I also had my younger sister as a model, asking her to do this and that, trying to imitate pictures and even ads in newspapers.

That fascination with the camera in high school, however, was short lived as he set his eyes on becoming a military officer like his father. During the Mindanao war in the 1970’s, his family lived in a military camp in Cotabato where living and breathing the conflict was a way of life: waking up at dawn amid exploding mortars; seeing cadavers of soldiers and enemies laid at the parade grounds; choppers bringing in the wounded; having to crouch on their way to school to evade sniper bullets. One might consider this as traumatic but Rommel says:

…I was in my teens and I saw it as a normal situation as it was the same images that I have seen in magazines that my father would bring: Time, Life, Newsweek…

But that conflict made a huge impact on the then young man’s life that his dreams of becoming a military officer would change after losing classmates, mentors and friends to the war or even covering similar situations in the future as a photojournalist.

Work life and becoming a broadcaster and DJ
Rommel got a job at the Department of Public Information in Cotabato City as an artist and illustrator but this stint jumpstarted his photography skills under the watchful eye of Rod Manuel, a retiring photojournalist at the department. He was taught in three weeks the technical aspects of the craft: camera handling, film developing and darkroom techniques.

Composition was self taught under the critical eye of our Regional Director and photography buff, Emilio Corrales. For him, I have no good pictures, only bad and unacceptable photos. I would stay in the darkroom until 3 or 4 AM. Later on I realized he was doing this to drive me to perfect my craft.

In the late 1980s, he was transferred to Iligan City in Lanao del Norte by Mr. Corrales, who also started him into writing and broadcasting. The office had only a limited budget for photography with the camera only used for special events due to limited film supplies. With a provincial boss, a broadcaster, who was more inclined to using the radio as the main medium of information dissemination, he got into it as well.

Nabarkada nako ang (I became a close friend of) station manager of another radio station and he offered me a time slot, including a weekend music program. Wala pay TV (there was no TV yet) and I developed a following. Fans bring me food, t-shirts and anything that would make me sadya (happy)!

Back to Photography and ACFJ
The arrival of digital cameras in the late 1990s stirred Rommel to try his hand again with Photography. He joined local seminars in General Santos City and contributed for news wires and local tabloids. Although he has been shooting for a while, he felt that there was something lacking in his pictures, something inadequate that he can’t readily articulate.

In one of the peace seminars conducted in Cotabato City in 2007, Dr. Violet Valdez of the Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ), announced the Diploma in Photojournalism program. At first, he was hesitant to apply considering that he has a fulltime job but constant egging by photojournalist friends Froilan Gallardo and Keith Bacongco, both ACFJ alumni (including this writer) made him submit the requirements in the nick of time.

Then ACFJ came. It was able to confirm and fill in my doubts and what I consider lacking – a clearly presented message in my images. The ACFJ experience not only taught me how I should look at a situation, but also to be conscious on how a subject feels. It changed a lot on how I look at my subjects, things not normally taught in seminars and workshops.

After the diploma course, he did some personal work with the Ubo, a vanishing tribe in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. Asked how he approaches a particular topic:

I do some readings, search the web or magazines for any good features and try to look into a more interesting peg of that story. Sometimes, I would just go around and see what would interest me, then make an assessment on whether it’s doable even without outside funding.

Joining a documentary photography workshop
A week before the ACFJ final portfolio presentation, his laptop crashed and with it his three month’s work on the conflict in Lanao. He has to go over his stock photos to have something to present. Although he was able to graduate, he was quite dissatisfied with his work that later on, upon learning about Alex Baluyut’s Masterclass on Documentary Photography (MCDP), through Facebook, he decided to join.

Dako ang tabang sa MCDP (MCDP was a big help) in terms of getting deeper and having to know better your subjects especially when doing a photo essay. Ang discussions tua ngadto nagfocus (The discussions are more focused on) and its with more depth. In ACFJ it’s more like how to go about in shooting the story. As I see it, the masterclass reinforces the learning in ACFJ.

On Crumpled Dreams, Wrinkled Realities
…she replied, “my chidren, they are not home yet and its already dark.” Her children actually have long died much ahead of her.The main work was his portfolio for the MCDP. Originally, it was on school children of the Tboli tribe, a minority group, who are living on their own in a remote village in Maitum, Sarangani. But because of a conflict that broke out between the authorities and a group of illegal miners that proved risky to him, he abandoned it.

Then I saw on TV news about the home for the elderly in General Santos City and it caught my interest as to how they cope with their one-day-at-a-time situation. I talked with the head caretaker of the home and learned that it was privately owned and that they operate from donations made by local residents.

Asked why he became interested with this one, Rommel looks back:

I am always fascinated by people older than me. Sagad sa barkada nako magulang nako ug (Most of my close friends are older) five years or more. Maybe because I was not able to spend more time with my father. As early as second year high school until I got into college, I seldom saw my father who was often on assignment.  At 20, I was living by myself in Cotabato City, the time when I landed a job with the Information Department. My father retired from service and went home to Ilocos along with my mom and sister. I then would often befriend people older than me.

He continued:

There are 28 of them living at the home. Everyday giputos ug kamingaw ang mga tiguwang pero mausab ang mood kung duna mga caregiver magatiman nila (Everyday, the elderly are shrouded with loneliness but the mood changes when they are attended by caregivers).

I was with them for about four days and heard mass with them on a Sunday. The most memorable was the crying lola (grandmother). It was after dinner (they take supper at 5 PM) when Lola Genoveva, 92, grabbed a chair as she used to do and sit by the doorway as if waiting for someone. As darkness fell, she retreated inside and started to sob. I asked her why and she replied, my chidren, they are not home yet and its already dark. Her children actually have long died much ahead of her.

My intention was to bring out their story and hopefully get attention about a seemingly changing Filipino culture (of caring for the elderly) as well as to get much needed intervention for help and to improve their situation at the home. I would have wanted to focus on a process/routine, but thought that a portrait of these people would be stronger.

Photographer’s notes
My intention was to present them in the situation that they are in — suffering from sheer solitude and abandonment, even if they have roof above their heads, food to eat and some people who care for them.

In the days I was there, I observed that there is something that they all long for, more than what they have. I think it is this “longing for” thing, perhaps, that  they dream,  giving them hope, pushing them further to see another day. Maybe it is also that hope that brings them to live in the institution even as they are left with no better option.

Ironically, it is their situation as abandoned elders that have limited themselves in their confines, putting them in a virtual cage, to each his own. It is also a means to give recognition for what they have gone through in their respective lives of pursuing their crumpled dreams amid wrinkled realities.

Check Rommel Rebollido’s work Crumpled Dreams, Wrinkled Realities