Sagip Pelikula: A 14-year journey of rescuing ‘records of nation, society, culture’

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Since the inception of the ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project, popularly known as Sagip Pelikula, in 2011, project head Leo Katigbak has always intended for the restoration unit to be a long-term effort, only for that vision to be halted as the project took its bow on March 31, 14 years after rescuing over 240 classic Filipino movies.

The shutdown chiefly has to do with the network’s financial losses and massive layoffs after the previous Rodrigo Duterte regime refused its franchise renewal in 2020. The restoration arm has since had its sources depleted.

“Had the events of 2020 not happened, we would have completed restoration and remastering of all the Star Cinema movies shot on film stock last 2024 assuming we maintained the 20 to 30 titles a year pace we have been following,” Katigbak tells Rappler.

After that, Sagip Pelikula would have focused on the non-Star Cinema titles in their catalogue, stored in the ABS-CBN Film Archives, one of the few state-of-the-art film archives in the Philippines, on top of possibly acquiring more marquee titles as well as scanning outtakes, b-rolls, and other materials they had. 

“The idea was always to make these available in a more desirable condition so they would not be lost and forgotten,” Katigbak continues. “They are documents and visual records of many aspects of our nation, society, and culture.”

Among the iconic titles Sagip Pelikula reimagined are Ishmael Bernal’s religious epic Himala, Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s feminist mastercraft Moral, Carlos Siguion-Reyna’s sweeping melodrama Inagaw Mo ang Lahat sa Akin, and Mario O’Hara war movie Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos.

‘Goldmine’

When Katigbak set up the ABS-CBN Film Archives in 1994, remastering and rescuing movies from the ravages of time was already part of the plan. But having deep pockets was the barometer for restoration glory.

“For a long time, we were already trying to do research and development on how to do film restoration,” says Manet Dayrit, then-managing director of RoadRunner, an ABS-CBN subsidiary and post-production firm. “And at that time, it was very difficult [and] very expensive.”

It was only in 2008 that film restoration got more financially sound through technology. In the next three years, Katigbak and Dayrit pushed the initiative until they got the support of then-ABS-CBN president Charo Santos-Concio and chairman emeritus Gabby Lopez. “If it wasn’t for the two of them, Sagip Pelikula would never have happened because it was very expensive, but they were very forward-thinking,” Dayrit says. 

“They were ahead of their time,” she continues. “Yes, they saw the value even if it was expensive [and] that it was a long-term investment to restore these films. That’s really their library and that’s a goldmine, if you think about it in the long term. Those are assets that they can use aside from the cultural value that it has.”

Though RoadRunner closed down and got rebranded as StarPost after a part of it merged with Star Cinema in 2013, the other part turned into Central Digital Lab, Dayrit’s own post-production company, which eventually became Sagip Pelikula’s restoration partner, alongside Thailand’s Kantana Post Production, Italy’s L’Immagine Ritrovata, and Narra Post-Production Studios by Wildsound.

Restoration process

Digitally remastering film at 24 frames per second demands a whole lot of patience and rigor. Although the initial objective is to restore titles housed in the ABS-CBN archive, Katigbak says they adhered to certain measures, prioritizing writer-director collaborations.

“So you have a better cross section of films,” he explains. “It took a while before we started doing more works of a particular director.” Beyond that, they had to decide based on “what is available and accessible in terms of rights, completeness, and condition of materials.”

“While we would want older titles,” Katigbak continues, “we also have to balance the 20 to 30 titles we do to be a combination of maybe two difficult marquee movies, five to seven moderate, and 10 to 15 relatively easy [titles], so we can have volume quickly for the events and awareness.”

The restoration process, says Katigbak, rests on three key steps: digitization through scanning; grading, which involves image correction and enhancement, from color to mood; and the actual restoration process, which repairs damages like scratches, mold, fungus, tape marks, wobble, dirt, and tears.

“Costs are relative with restoration being [the] most expensive,” Katigbak clarifies. “In many cases, an archive can opt to do scans first and save restoration for later. A scan would already preserve the movie in a more stable state since film stock degeneration cannot be reversed, especially with the onset of vinegar syndrome (the film stock breaking down and it smells like vinegar).”

As for the actual restoration costs, grading included, Katigbak says it can range from under a million pesos to several millions depending on the condition and damage. “I usually put a cap of five million pesos,” he notes. “When a film exceeds that cost, the damage is typically heavy, and the film may not look brand new even with all the work done.”

Audio restoration is a separate concern, and duration also relies on the extent of the damage as well as the number of people working on it. “In our case, we negotiate that restoration be done during their downtime so we get the best rates even if it takes longer,” Katigbak says.

In fact, Himala, the very first movie Sagip Pelikula restored, took eight months to be completed, as compared to more recent Star Cinema titles, which were done around four weeks. 

“Misteryo sa Tuwa and Soltera took seven years with work split over three facilities to bring down the cost from an estimated P25M per film to roughly P3.5M each, give or take,” says Katigbak.

Katigbak adds, “When we had to pivot due to the loss of people after the franchise cancellation, we worked in-house with Marco [Gatpandan] doing scanning, translation and subtitling, Mik [Pestaño] handling grading and restoration/enhancement, Julie [Galino] overseeing music and technical submissions, while Jane [Tenorio] and I focused on how to market and promote to our partners and other tie-ups.”

The biggest hurdle in the actual fine-tuning process often has to do with movies that are missing frames or virtually damaged beyond repair. “In some instances where parts are missing, you can opt to skip,” explains Katigbak. 

“On occasion we have somewhat tweaked the ending like in Haplos, where the closing scene with credits was missing and the adjusted version was actually the preferred [version] of the director Butch Perez. To the extent that we can, we try to clear with the directors or writers who would have better insight as to the original intent.”

“Minsa’y Isang Gamu-gamo had the first nine minutes missing,” adds Katigbak, “but when we found a bad reel with the opening intact, we opted to have a complete version and just have an explanation in the beginning so people know the reason why the first nine minutes do not look as good as the rest of the film.”

For audio issues, Mike Idioma, sound engineer and owner of Narra by Wildsound, explains that the process involves either standard restoration (cleaning the audio) or total reconstruction (recreating the audio using other available materials), depending on the extent of the impairment.

“Meron bang pneumatic or betacam? ‘Yon ang mga lumang medium. Meron ka bang optical sound negative? Meron ka bang print? So from there kukunin namin ‘yan, tapos ‘yon ngayon ang ime-marry namin doon sa nire-repair namin [na audio].” (Do you have pneumatic or betacam? Those are the old mediums. Do you have optical sound negative? Do you have print? From there, we can take the audio, and marry it with the audio we’re repairing.)

In some instances, Idioma searched for pirated copies online. “And then you clean it, from hiss… electrical noise, hum, or static,” he clarifies. At times, they also used artificial intelligence-based restoration plugins for noise cleaning and reduction.

In cases where the music cannot be cleared, it would have to be replaced, with music producers Sunny and Sherbet Ilacad at the helm.

Beyond the actual restoration, the movies were also brought to life through the posters designed by graphic artist Justin Besana, who describes the process as “studying history.” “You travel back in time to understand the milieu, characters, culture, and their distinctive qualities,” he says. 

For Besana, the perfect film poster depends on the viewer and how it speaks to their soul, the same logic behind coming up with multiple posters for every film, like those he designed for Jerry Lopez Sineneng’s romance drama Soltera, which marked a shift in the team’s visual approach as they went for posters that were “sleeker, easy on the eyes, and more accessible.”

“I think one of the challenges was that we didn’t really have access to the original files of each film, so I had to make sure to watch every film and screengrab scenes I could use as material,” Besana explains. “I explored a plethora of creative execution techniques just to make sure we reached both the existing audience and new viewers. There were posters that were still-based, manipulated/enhanced, digitally drawn, 3D, manually executed, and a mix of traditional art.”

End of an era

While the restoration arm ceases to operate for now, Katigbak says that Sagip Pelikula’s advocacy will carry on under Cinemo, headed by Lota Rosales, who worked with the restoration team in the past. “It’s difficult to fault our young audiences for not appreciating the old movies if they are not exposed to it,” he argues.

“The idea behind Sagip Pelikula is making the movies available in a good condition so audiences can watch and appreciate [them],” he continues. “It’s impractical to demand that they like it since that is ultimately a matter of taste and preference but for every 10 people, if some two to four enjoy the movies enough to watch more of the classics, then we keep the essence and memory of all that have gone before alive.” 

“That is the only way it will survive.”

For Dayrit, who’s now set to remaster the Viva Films library, restoring films also means rescuing cultural history. “Even just seeing the streets of Manila in 1972 compared to today, seeing how people dressed, how people talked, and their beliefs,” she says. “These are all very important snapshots of our culture and life in the past.” 

A couple of weeks ago, Himala screened at the necrological service for the late Nora Aunor, who bookended the 14-year run of Sagip Pelikula, from Himala to Mario O’Hara’s Tatlong Ina, Isang Anak. 

Dayrit was among the mourners. At that point, she realized what kind of legacy the restoration project leaves behind. 

“Of course I was crying for Nora,” she recalls, “but at the same time I also thought, ‘Thank God, we were able to do that.’ ABS-CBN gave us the opportunity to save Himala and all the films of Nora because she’s gone now, but her legacy will continue because of Sagip Pelikula.”

For over a decade, Sagip Pelikula rescued movies from cinematic decay and ushered in new audiences to witness the once-glorious days of Philippine cinema, even as the restoration arm got scaled down, even as the network lost its franchise.

As Katigbak puts it, “How often can people say that what they did, their passion, their commitment, has the ability to inspire and touch the lives of people for generations to come?” – Rappler.com