Garage Cover Boy: ALL EYES ON AKIHIRO SATO

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ALL EYES ON AKIHIRO SATO

If this were a movie, it would be about migration. It would tell the story of one person's migration, but instead of the usual—Pinoy, forced by circumstance, leaves home and settles in a land far from his loved ones—this would be about a foreigner who comes to the Philippines temporarily for work and decides to settle here for good. This would be about one Akihiro Sato, Aki for short.

"Migration" often refers to a move, usually on a permanent basis, from one country to another. All too often and predictably, it involves a new start in a new job, a new environment, a new culture, a new language. In Aki's case, it is that, definitely, but also more. The relocation goes well beyond the geographical, beyond even the physical. It becomes a locating, inward, of the self.

I think I just lost the big studio producers there. It's okay. Their movies suck anyway. They have sucked big time for the last five years at least. I admit I am not a little bitter that they still make shitloads of money from making shit. Stop. Must focus and get this movie made.

The protagonist:

I know from working with a Japino (half Japanese, half-Filipino) not to assume full-blooded Japenese-ness by virtue of looks or first and last Japanese names. True enough, Akihiro Sato's father is Japanese, his mother half-Brazilian and half-Italian.

Aki is a model—a highly sought after one—and looking at his set cards, you would probably say he was all about business. Severe. Reserved. Impenetrable. Very stereotypically Japanese. You would be wrong.

Raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Aki is open, easygoing, and comfortable in his own skin. He has a limitless reserve of giggles and guffaws. His joie de vivre is Brazilian through and through—again, another stereotype but one that, at least in this case, is true. Maybe that's why he identifies so easily with Filipinos. He, is after all, one happy person. He is one of us.

Brazilians and Filipinos share many things in common, he proffers, not the least of which is a common history of colonization (us by the Spaniards, them by the Portuguese). Another is that centuries of colonial oppression and repression have not tempered—and may even have stoked —our fire within, our predilection for living large, our sheer apetite for life.

Magellan, who "discovered" the Philippines, was Portuguese. Filipinos don't need a visa to enter Brazil. Surely there's no connection there, but Aki feels an even greater affinity for Filipinos just from knowing these things.

Act 1:

Aki's undisturbed world (see Scriptwriting 101) consists of endless photoshoots and fittings. He has been doing this for years—in Sao Paulo in the beginning, then Bangkok where the locals always mistake him for Thai. By now, he is a consummate pro. The model's pay is good, the life not too shabby. He meets a lot of beautiful, interesting people. But there is something about it that starts to bug him and will not let go. For one, the long waiting periods have gotten irksome bordering on intolerable. More than the waiting, however, it is the sheer mindlessness of the job that is really getting to him.

A Brazilian model friend tells him about his experience working in Manila. He paints a rosy picture. The language barrier, he says, is not as much, and work opportunities abound. Intrigued, Aki decides to give it a try.

The recognition is nothing short of startling. Coming to Manila is like coming home. Aki wastes no time and makes the arrangements. He changes home base once more.Sao Paulo and Manila look and feel the same for Aki. The people are warm and friendly, and they know how to party. They are usually late for appointments but charming enough to get away with it. The streets are jammed with traffic. Perhaps the main similarity, however, is the one that strikes Aki the most and not in a good way–the impossibly vast gap between rich and poor. At heart, the main character of our story is a humanist and an idealist who recoils at the sight of street children side by side with the filthy rich who sit unperturbed in their luxury cars. It is something our hero could not, and would rather not, get used to.

Act 2:

The transition to working and living in Manila comes easy for Aki. It is staying with the gruelling monotony of modeling that is proving to be more and more difficult.
He starts working out more regularly–physically as well as mentally. He picks up on his reading, prefering biographies that tell the true and inspiring stories of real, ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary things. More and more, he wants to do more, be more. He has had it with being "lazy". He decides it is time to go back to school.

Every morning from Tuesday to Friday, he troops from his condo unit in Makati to Quezon City to attend his private tutoring lessons at the University of the Philippines Diliman Campus. He takes

the MRT to Quezon Avenue and then the UP jeep. Going home in the afternoon, he goes public as well. It is an educational experience in itself, an immersion in the thick and pulse of life in this megacity. It is also a source of amusement occasionally. Like the time a girl seated across him in the train carefully, ever so stealthily, stole pictures of him using her cell phone. Soon enough, Aki realized what she was up to. Ever the pro, he posed.

His one-on-one classes in UP are Filipino (Tagalog), English, Speech, Voice, and Theater. You guessed it. He is arming himself –no, he's buying the whole arsenal–for an acting career in the Philippines.

Aki is going to battle.

At the peak of his modeling career, he tells his managers to decline jobs that conflict with his class schedule. To any manager, that is enough reason to balk. It is, after all, a huge chunk off Aki's income. But Aki himself isn't worried the least about the short term. He's in it for the long haul.

Further proof: The talent management arm of one of the country's giant TV networks offers him an exclusive contract. He tells his managers to decline it, deeming it unwise to tie himself down this early and effectively limit his options. He'd rather be a free agent plotting out his career plan and making the major calls without being beholden to anyone. Smart, very smart. And gutsy.
He has just signed on for his first acting assignment, a Filipino film called Handumanan. Filmmakers Seymour Sanchez and Richard Legaspi spotted him on the cover of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, which touted Aki as the country's next big model. They sought him out and offered him the role of a japino raised in Brazil (clearly based on Aki himself except for the Filipino part) who comes to the Philippines to look for his mother. It is a low-budget movie, sure, and it will take more precious time away from lucrative modeling gigs, but by now it should be clear that Aki knows what he's doing and that is investing in Aki the actor.
He cannot, no, does not, hide his excitement. He is all set–not just for this movie, not just for his acting career. He has set his heart and mind to spending most of the rest of his productive years in the Philippines. No, he doesn't mind growing old here.

Act 3 (Under Construction aka The Future):

This part is still being written. But it will feature the following scene:
Aki attends the premiere of his new film in which he plays a man who finds love, fortune, and happiness in a country far away from home. The role is that of a Filipino born and raised in the Philippines.

Aki's Tagalog, needless to say, is perfect.

-Garage Magazine (October-November 2008)