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Ricky Lee | |
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.jpg) Lee at a screenwriting seminar inColegio de San Juan de Letran, February 2018 | |
| Born | Ricardo Arreola Lee (1948-03-19)March 19, 1948 (age 77) Daet,Camarines Norte, Philippines |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1973–present |
| Awards |  Order of National Artists of the Philippines |
Ricardo Arreola LeeONA (born March 19, 1948) is aFilipino screenwriter, journalist, novelist, and playwright. He was awarded theOrder of National Artists of the Philippines for Film and Broadcast Arts in 2022.[1]
Starting in 1973, he has written more than 180 film screenplays. In addition to the Order of National Artists, the Philippines' highest recognition for individuals who have made significant contributions to the classical arts, his work has earned him over 70 trophies from various award-giving bodies. This includes three lifetime achievement awards from theCinemanila International Film Festival, theGawad Urian, and thePMPC. He was also the recipient of the 2015UP Gawad Plaridel and one of the Gawad CCP awardees for that year. In 2018, he received the Gawad Dangal ni Balagtas, the Apolinario Mabini Achievement Award, a Special Citation at ABS-CBN's Walk-On-Water Awards, and was one of the recipients of the CAMERA OBSCURA awards from theFilm Development Council of the Philippines.[2]
As a screenwriter, he has collaborated with many of the Philippines' most notable film directors, includingLino Brocka,Marilou Diaz-Abaya, andIshmael Bernal. Many of his films have been screened in international film festivals, includingCannes,Toronto, andBerlin, among others.
Lee grew up with his relatives inDaet, Camarines Norte. His mother died when he was five years old, and he saw his father only on a few occasions. He completed his primary and secondary education in the same town. It is said that Lee often sneaked into film houses and buried himself in books at the school library, tearing out pages with striking images. An intelligent student, he consistently topped his class from grade school to high school. His writing career began when he won his first national literary award for a short story he wrote while still in high school. Driven by his passion to pursue his dreams, he ran away from home and took a bus to Manila. He roamed the streets, taking on menial tasks as a waiter during the day and asking his townspeople for accommodation at night until he eventually collapsed in Avenida from hunger.
He was accepted at theUniversity of the Philippines Diliman as an AB English major but never earned his diploma. He later taught screenwriting in the university's College of Mass Communication.
He started writing fiction in the late 1960s, gaining confidence with the publication of his first short story, "Mayon," in thePhilippine Free Press while he was still in high school. His early efforts earned him several national awards, including Third Place in the Pilipino Free Press for "Pagtatapos" (1969) and first prizes in consecutive years for the short story at the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature for "Huwag, Huwag Mong Kukuwentuhan ang Batang si Weng Fung" (1969) and "Servando Magdamag" (1970).
A rare achievement for a writer, two of his short stories won first prizes at theDon Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in two consecutive years, 1970 and 1971.
He became an activist during those politically turbulent times and was affiliated with Panulat para sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan (PAKSA, or Pen for People's Progress), alongsideBienvenido Lumbera andJose F. Lacaba.[3]: 10
SinceFerdinand Marcos was arresting numerous academics and writers when he placed the Philippines undermartial law in 1972, Lee and Lumbera made themselves scarce and avoided being caught in the initial wave of arrests. However, they were both apprehended by Marcos' forces in 1974.[3]: 10 [4]
Lumbera had gone to Lee's house onEspaña Boulevard to warn him about a recent wave of arrests, only to find that soldiers were already there arresting Lee. Lumbera ran away and made it as far as the corner of Banawe Street, but the soldiers eventually caught up with him.[5]
Lee later described the circumstances of his arrest, saying inTagalog:[6]
"They asked, ‘Where’s your gun?’ I said, ‘I don’t know how to hold a gun, why would I have a gun? They would find reason even if it was not legitimate because when they captured you, they would call you detainees, not prisoners. There were no charges. You don’t know why. They would just detain you so you can’t move, you can’t be an activist. They’d detain you without any hearing, no charges, and you have no idea when you’d ever get out because you’re a detainee.[6]
Lee and Lumbera shared a cell at the Ipil Detention Center inFort Bonifacio.[7][8] According to the recollections of many fellow detainees, Lee became very ill withrheumatic fever, and Lumbera is remembered for his efforts to take care of him.[7][8]
Lee and Lumbera were eventually released a year after their arrest.[7][8]
Lee and Lumbera eventually returned to the site of the Ipil Detention Center after Fort Bonifacio was privatized. They were amused to discover that the area where Ipil was located had become the vicinity ofS&R andHome Depot, near 32nd Street and 8th Avenue inBonifacio Global City.[9]
Lee was released in 1975, and his friendsNinotchka Rosca andRolando Tinio helped him reintegrate into life after detention and find work.[9]
He was a staff writer for thePilipino Free Press in the 1970s. Throughout that turbulent decade and into the 1990s, he wrote features and interviews forAsia-Philippines Leader,Metro Magazine,Expressweek,TV Times,Malaya Midday,The National Midweek,Veritas, andSunday Inquirer Magazine on topics as diverse as street children, vendors aroundQuiapo Church, anNPA commander, unsung workers in the film industry, a defunct Gala vaudeville-and-burlesque theater, film actors, an activist martyr during a tragic peasant protest march, and teenage prostitutes, as well as DirectorLino Brocka, among others.
Lee started writingHimala soon after his release.[9] He cites his prison experiences as the reason for the film's themes,[9] recounting in aRappler interview:[10]
"I was in prison for one year, so what I wrote in 1976 imbued my experience of being an activist, of being imprisoned for a year at Fort Bonifacio, the questioning, the struggling against this and that belief and so on and so forth" (Translated in reference)[10]
Lee spent six years looking for a producer for the film, but he had no success.[11] Eventually, the screenplay won a contest launched by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, which meant that Lee would ironically be working withImee Marcos. Despite this irony, Lee remained silent to ensure the film would be produced. It was eventually released during the 1982 Metro Manila Film Festival.[9]The movie was highly successful during its run, receiving nine awards at the festival and becoming the first Philippine film to be included in the "Competition Section" of the33rd Berlin International Film Festival in March 1983.[6][12]
At the turn of the decade, Lee was introduced to directorMarilou Diaz-Abaya as the screenwriter forBrutal (1980), which premiered at the 1980 Metro Manila Film Festival and became very successful. This marked the beginning of a widely acclaimed feminist trilogy of films that includedMoral (1982) andKarnal (1983), featuring Diaz-Abaya as director and Lee as screenwriter.[13][14] Lee's screenplay forSalome/Brutal won the 1981 Philippine National Book Award for Best Screenplay. This began a series of frequent collaborations between Diaz-Abaya and Lee, lasting until Diaz-Abaya's death in 2012, and saw both inducted into the Order of National Artists of the Philippines in 2022.
Lee wrote extensively over the next two and a half decades, with some of his most critically acclaimed works includingSandakot Na Bala (1988), co-written and directed by Jose Carreon;Dyesebel (1990);Juan Tamad at Mister Shooli: Mongolian Barbecue (1991);Mayor Cesar Climaco (1994);The Flor Contemplacion Story (1995); the psychological horror filmPatayin sa Sindak si Barbara (1995);Sharon Cuneta starrerMadrasta (1996); andLabs Kita... Okey Ka Lang? (1998).
The late 1990s and early 2000s marked a period during which Lee penned screenplays for several highly acclaimed films, most notably the 1998 bio-epicJosé Rizal, which he co-wrote withJun Lana and Peter Ong Lim;Muro-Ami (1999);Bulaklak ng Maynila (1999); the 2000 filmsAnak,Lagarista, andDeathrow;Mila,Tatarin, andBagong Buwan (2001); andAishite Imasu 1941: Mahal Kita (2004).
In 2000, he was one of the recipients of the Centennial Honors for the Arts from theCultural Center of the Philippines and the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas for Tagalog fiction from theUnyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas.
In 2011, he was awarded the Manila Critics Circle Special Prize for a Book Published by an Independent Publisher. His two-stage playsPitik-Bulag sa Buwan ng Pebrero andDH (Domestic Helper) played to standing-room-only crowds.DH, starringNora Aunor, toured the U.S. and Europe in 1993.
In November 2008, he launched his first novel,Para kay B (o kung paano dinevastate ng pag-ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa atin), at theUniversity of the Philippines-Diliman Bahay ng Alumni. This was followed exactly three years later bySi Amapola sa 65 na Kabanata, which was launched at theSM North EDSA Skydome and received similar public acclaim and support.[15]
In September 2024, he launchedKalahating Bahaghari (addressing the oppression and discrimination toward the LGBTQ+ community) andKabilang sa mga Nawawa (orAmong the Disappeared, about a teenager named Junjun, a “desaparecido”) at the Manila International Book Fair at theSMX Convention Center.[16]
Since 1982, Lee has been conducting scriptwriting workshops for free at his home.[17] He challenges his students to push their boundaries and explore the limits of their imaginations until they feel as if they might drown. In one of his workshops inTagaytay, participants were stuck on a concept that didn't seem to work. He refused to let the group eat until the concept was finished. Hunger, he says, does wonders for creativity; it makes you imagine things. To help them develop three-dimensional characters, he encourages his students to inhabit their characters by immersing themselves in the characters' world, either as observers, participants, or by acting out the roles of these characters in their own milieu. The more intrepid students may choose to act as a beggar inQuiapo, a bargirl inErmita, or a squatter inSmokey Mountain, even for just one day, often with hilarious results. Participants leave the exercise a bit shaken but full of life-sustaining insights.
On January 22, 2008, filmmakerNick Deocampo,director of theMowelfund Film Institute (1989–2008) and Center for New Cinema (2008–present), announced the Ricardo Lee Film Festival, which would be held from February 4 to 10, 2008, as part of the World Arts Festival under Mayor Tito Sarion inDaet,Camarines Norte. Lee’sscripts became Philippinecinemaclassics, contributing to the second golden age of Filipino movies in the 1980s. Five films were shown at the festival:Gina Alajar'sSalome,Anak,Muro Ami,Gumapang Ka sa Lusak, andMemories of Old Manila.[18]
Lee previously worked as a Creative Manager atABS-CBN Corporation. However, after theHouse of Representatives denied the network's franchise, he moved toGMA Network. He also established and heads the Trip to Quiapo Foundation, formerly known as the Philippine Writers Studio, which aims to provide support to new and struggling writers.
His body of work, which has spanned over forty years, includes writing short stories, plays, essays, novels, teleplays, and screenplays. He has written more than 150 produced scripts, earning over fifty awards from various organizations in the Philippine movie industry. He has never written, nor will he ever write, any literary work in English—a conviction he holds to this day.
Among the books he has published areSi Tatang at mga Himala ng Ating Panahon (an anthology of his fiction, reportage, behind-the-scenes musings, and the full screenplay ofHimala),Pitik-Bulag Sa Buwan Ng Pebrero,Brutal/Salome (the first book of screenplays in the Philippines),Moral,Para Kay B, andBukas May Pangarap. His screenplay forSalome has been translated into English and published by theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison in theU.S. as part of its textbook for film studies.
Lee has also published a screenplay manual titledTrip to Quiapo, which is a required text in many college communications courses.
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