Inside the Bayaniverse: ten years, three films, one radical take on Filipino heroes

In the Philippines, history is often taught as a neat procession of heroes and villains, dates and victories. The Bayaniverse disrupts that by refusing to flatten heroes into patriotic symbols, but presents them as complicated, contradictory figures.

Asked about what ties the three men together, Tarog explains, “Luna, Goyo and Quezon were flawed people cast into monuments. In a culture steeped in hero worship and ‘utang na loob’ [debt of gratitude], there might be value in rediscovering the grey areas of these monuments—not to shame people or tear down statues, but to simply understand where we came from and, perhaps, find some clues on how to move forward.”

The trilogy spans decades of Philippine history—victories, losses, betrayals, compromises—and highlights a difficult truth: many of the systemic issues we face today have long been part of our national story, as underscored by Tarog.

“It is not a black and white picture with well-defined heroes and enemies,” Tarog says of the historical period depicted. “It is full of mistakes and bittersweet turns. And many of the things we complain about today have been present in one form or another in the past. How do we move forward? Are there ways to break out of the cycle? The trilogy doesn’t paint a complete picture of history. It can’t. But it has always tried to spark conversations about national identity, endemic traits in our culture and how we define the word bayani.”

Read more: Jericho Rosales on stepping into the shoes of 'Quezon'

While the films have found new audiences through streaming, Tarog is adamant that the Bayaniverse was made for cinemas. “On a selfish level, I want to keep making movies for as long as I can, and I want them to be seen on large screens with many people because nothing beats that feeling of shared laughter, grief, suspense, joy—collective effervescence,” he says.

But his larger argument is cultural. “Algorithm-based entertainment and the continued atomisation of society have weakened our capacity for collective mythmaking,” he notes. “We exist in our little bubbles now. Once in a while these bubbles intersect, but rarely are they big enough to spark large-scale conversations. As a fragmented nation, it’s even more important that we keep mythmaking and nation-building alive and not surrender to the irresistible pull of isolated, mindless consumption and scrolling.”

Read more: Karylle reveals her fated connection to the role Aurora Quezon: ‘Everything just connected’

This was exactly the message TBA Studios hoped to convey through the reunion shoot: to remind audiences that cinema is a communal space. “There are always high hopes for every film that a producer creates and releases in cinemas,” says Daphne Chiu-Soon, TBA Studios’ president and COO, and the trilogy’s producer.

“TBA Studios has always been self-funded when it comes to producing films,” she adds. “Several of our movies were made through co-production funding between two or more production companies.” Government agencies such as the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, the Department of Tourism and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts provided logistical support, while Quezon received a grant from the Film Development Council of the Philippines’s CreatePH program.

But Chiu-Soon credits the trilogy’s success to collective effort. “There was a real bayanihan spirit among the filmmakers involved, the brand partners we collaborated with, and the cinema operators—many of whom had the privilege of seeing the film before anyone else and were clearly proud of what they saw,” she says.

Confiado, who appeared in all three films as Emilio Aguinaldo, sees the Bayaniverse as a bridge across generations. “Being part of all of them feels surreal,” he reflects. “You see how history folds into itself, how different leaders faced the same battles in different ways. As actors, we’re living that repetition too—learning, unlearning, carrying it forward.”

As the cast sat in cinema seats pretending to react to an imaginary film, photographer Artu Nepomuceno calling out “devastated!”, “scandalised!”, “overly excited!”—the scene dissolved into laughter and popcorn fights. History, once again, was brought to life.

Alves, who played the younger Quezon, summed it up best: “It’s easy to think of these films as just history lessons, but the truth is they’re living things. The screen makes it larger than life.” But Tarog is cautious when asked about legacy. “It’s for other people to decide what that is,” he says. “That means there’s no reason for me to think about what it should leave behind. I’m only focused on the goal, on telling a good story, on getting a chance to make the next one, on getting people to have interesting conversations about our society.”

More from Tatler: Iain Glen dives into Philippine history for his role in ‘Quezon’

Whether viewed as a trilogy, a movement or a rebellion, the Bayaniverse stands as one of the most significant cultural projects in contemporary Philippine cinema—a mirror held up to the nation, asking uncomfortable but necessary questions about who we are and how we remember. It invites us to look closer, past the patina of textbook heroism, to confront the messy, human stories beneath our monuments.

As the cast drifted out of the cinema that night, the lights blinking back to life, the room was littered with popcorn and echoes of laughter. It was chaotic, warm and profoundly human—much like the history the Bayaniverse has so vividly brought to screen.  

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