REVIEW: ‘Bongga Ka, ‘Day!’ serves us a ’79 Manila as a glossy fantasy

REVIEW: ‘Bongga Ka, ‘Day!’ serves us a ’79 Manila as a glossy fantasy

There’s an elephant in the room as you watch Bongga Ka, ‘Day!, the newest OPM jukebox musical at Newport. And no, it’s not the question of whether Atasha Muhlach should have led a major musical, but the jarring apoliticalness of a musical set in 1979, well within Martial Law.

It’s not that every Filipino story that happens in the ’70s and ’80s ought to foreground Martial Law. But Bongga Ka, ‘Day! itself gestures toward the unrest of the time: early in the second act, a man runs across the stage, gets caught by the military, and is never seen nor referenced again. The moment comes and goes. The show just carries on.

Behind closed doors

Coco Banana opened in 1977, in the middle of Martial Law, and became one of Manila’s great social contradictions: selective at the door, but inside, a haven for queer expression and a meeting place for socialites, artists, drag queens, celebrities and bohemians. The door matters because Annie Batungbakal is supposed to be standing outside it.

Annie is a saleslady at House of Pasion who dreams of becoming a fashion designer, not merely a modista like her mother. Though the musical never quite connects one aspiration to the other, she also desperately wants to get into Coco Banana, but she doesn’t have the right clothes nor does she know the right people. Still, she persists.

The original Hotdog song already contains the class contrast: dispatsadora by day, queen of Coco Banana by night. There’s a fascinating musical somewhere in that transformation, especially when Manila Sound itself emerged from a particular urban milieu before crossing social boundaries into mass culture. What does it mean for a working-class woman to enter this rarefied but unusually fluid world?

Bongga Ka, ‘Day! mostly isn’t interested in finding out.

True to name

For all its potential, Bongga Ka, ‘Day! shows mostly fluff. As frilly as the, ahem, creative dress designs by the eponymous Annie that would ostensibly save her place of employment from the threat of ready-to-wear, Bongga Ka, ‘Day! is mostly all pa-bonggahan.

Director Chris Millado keeps revealing something bigger than what came before: bigger transitions, bigger dance numbers, bigger costumes, bigger set pieces. 

Newport World Resorts has become something of a destination for literal spectacular shows, and Bongga is no different. Musical director and arranger Vince Lim gives the Hotdog catalogue the requisite scale, while Stephen Viñas’ choreography fills the stage with bodies whenever the production calls for another blowout. The Coco Banana sequences naturally lean into disco, with plenty of period moves worked into the choreography.

Hershee Tantiado fills the stage with outlandish costumes, while Ohm David’s House of Pasion opens up like a little Polly Pocket in high-contrast pastels. Turn it around and the store gives way to Coco Banana, complete with a grand staircase. John Batalla’s lighting goes appropriately big with it, helping turn these reveals and dance numbers into the kind of full-stage spectacle the production is chasing.

Bene Manaois’ video projections are similarly vibrant, though strangely placeless. They have the vaguely generated, vibey quality of images designed to communicate a mood rather than a place: colorful enough for the broad musical happening in front of them, but not particularly evocative of Manila, much less Manila in the 1970s.

Everything looks fabulous. What’s underneath is another matter.

Crowded 

Liza Magtoto’s book is crowded with subplots that elbow their way into the storyline until the musical becomes almost hard to follow. Some of this may be the familiar problem of forcing a discography never designed to tell a linear story into one. Yet the production is already willing to alter the material to make it fit, such as when “Panaginip” got new lyrics. The songs can bend toward the story, yet the story still struggles to cohere around them.

There are holes large enough to invite picking. Take for example Romer Pasion, Aurora’s (Jackie Lou Blanco) frustrated-photographer son, played at this performance by Sam Concepcion, just disappears at the second act to return to his day job as a flight attendant. Aurora also spends much of the musical irritated by Annie’s insubordination, only to emerge later as a supporter of her talent and eventually her business partner without enough development to make the transformation land. And although Annie’s designs are supposed to help save House of Pasion from ready-to-wear, it remains unclear how the fashion show at the end solves the store’s underlying problem.

Millado’s staging can disguise the flimsiness by moving before you have time to ask too many questions. The production has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of things to look at, which makes its reluctance to look more closely at anything increasingly conspicuous.

Going deeper

Some of the actors nevertheless make more of their characters where they can.

Blanco is fabulous as Aurora, giving her the energy of the rich main-character tita you would simultaneously love and hate to have as your mother-in-law. John Lapus, as the catty Tarurit guarding Coco Banana’s door, is a crowd favorite that delivers zinger after zinger.

Gerhard Krysstopher begins Toots as what could easily have remained the flamboyant gay best friend, then wrings something more affecting out of the role. When Annie finally gets into Coco Banana and promptly pays him dust, his hurt registers.

KD Estrada does something similar with Burn Rivera. Where many of the characters are pitched big and broad, Estrada finds levels by playing Burn as a comparatively realistic center. It makes him both root-worthy and swoon-worthy, which is something to write home about when his karibal is Sam Concepcion bringing in the big guns. (and by that I mean his ample singing and dancing chops, of course)

Big role

The internet has discoursed to death whether or not Atasha Muhlach, on talent alone, ought to be starring in major musicals. Starring in this major musical, though, reveals a more specific problem.

Muhlach can hit her notes, marks, steps and cues. But Annie requires more than getting those things right. Her ambition only exists because the text tells us it does. There is little variation in the performance beyond scenes that call for overt emotion, and so we don’t see Annie’s experiences changing her. 

And Annie, of all characters, should be about transformation: dispatsadora by day, disco queen by night. House of Pasion and Coco Banana should require different Annies. The girl outside the door should not be quite the same person as the woman who finally walks through it.

Muhlach doesn’t sufficiently delineate those people. At moments, even the posh twang in her delivery remains intact. That need not disqualify her from playing a working-class character; acting is the business of playing people one is not. But casting someone born into show-business privilege as Annie places an even greater burden on both performer and director to make that distance disappear. Instead, it remains visible.

By the end, Annie has gotten into Coco Banana. She has a boyfriend. She has gone from meddlesome saleslady to designer with a supremely connected business partner. She gets, in other words, almost everything she has spent the musical pursuing.

Yet there is curiously little sense of what any of it has cost her, changed in her, or even meant to her. Some of that is in Magtoto’s book, which moves Annie from one achievement to the next without making enough of the distance traveled between them. But Muhlach doesn’t carry that journey across either. Annie arrives at the end much as she began, only now with the external proof that she has succeeded.

Beneath the Bongga

It is perhaps the neatest expression of what Bongga Ka, ‘Day! has been doing all along. The production gives us all the surfaces of transformation such as the clothes, the nightclub, the romance, the career, the spectacular reveals without finding much underneath them. Even the contradictions of its 1979 Manila, where all this glamour and aspiration unfold under Martial Law, remain largely part of the scenery.

Millado’s production certainly knows how to make an entrance. What happens after it gets through the door is another matter.

This reviewer watched the 8 PM, September 25 gala show.

 

Tickets: ₱4500, ₱4000, ₱3400, ₱2400, ₱1300
Show Dates: September 18–October 31, 2026
Venue: Newport Performing Arts Theater, Newport World Resorts, Pasay City
Running Time: approx. 2 hours and 30 mins (w/ 15 min intermission)
Producer: Newport World Resorts, VIVA Communications, Inc., The Philippine STAR, PETA Plus.
Creatives: Dennis Garcia (Music and Lyrics); Rene Garcia (Music and Lyrics); Jimmy Borja (Additional Music and Lyrics); Lorrie Lustre (Additional Music and Lyrics); Mon Torralba (Additional Music and Lyrics); Chris Millado (Director); Liza Magtoto (Playwright); Vince Lim (Musical Director, Arranger & Sound Designer); Stephen Viñas (Choreographer); Ohm David (Set Designer); John Batalla (Lights Designer); Hershee Tantiado (Costume Designer); Johann dela Fuente (Hair and Make-up Designer); Bene Manaois (Video Projection Designer); Eric Dela Cruz (Dramaturg); Johnnie Moran (Assistant Director); Tep Logmao (Assistant Choreographer); Tofie Falcon (Assistant Video Projection Designer); James Lanante (Associate Sound Designer); Ceejay Laudato (Sound Engineer); Rodel Colmenar (Musical Director – MPO); Mickey Jacinto (Conductor); Abi Sulit-Racho (Vocal Coach)
Cast: Atasha Muhlach (Annie Batungbakal); Sam Concepcion (Romer Pasion); Jeff Moses (Romer Pasion); Anthony Rosaldo (Romer Pasion); KD Estrada (Burn Rivera); Jackie Lou Blanco (Aurora Pasion); Ring Antonio (Aurora Pasion); Air Paz-Pablico (Suzy Batungbakal); Andrea Babierra (Iste Batungbakal); Yani Lopez (Iste Batungbakal); Gerhard Krysstopher (Toots); Akie Cedilla (Amor); John Lapus (Tarurit/Tito Tambay); Dindo Divinagracia (Tarurit/Tito Tambay); Rapah Manalo (Burn Rivera Understudy); Abegail Turiano (Ensemble); Coleen Paz (Ensemble); Misha Fabian (Ensemble); Yna Arbiol (Ensemble); Franco Ramos (Ensemble); Mark Panganoron (Ensemble); Richardson Yadao (Ensemble); Jannah Baniasia (Female Swing); Abi Sulit-Racho (Ensemble); Mia Bella (Ensemble); Paui Luzuriaga (Ensemble); Bombading (Ensemble); Gerald Magallanes (Ensemble); MC Dela Cruz (Ensemble); Vyen Villanueva (Ensemble); Iya Villanueva (Annie Batungbakal Understudy); Tep Logmao (Male Swing); Chez Cuenca (Ensemble); Mica Fajardo (Ensemble); Sam Marasigan (Ensemble); Dan Wesley (Ensemble); Jay Cortez (Ensemble); Moi Gealogo (Ensemble); Yahweh Sangalang (Ensemble)