Getting to Know Vince Tañada

Ni Oggie Medina

My first meet with Vincent Tañada was quite intriguing. It was in December, a few days after Christmas Day, of 2023, and we were both awardees in an award-giving body headed by multi-awarded film director and actor Romm Burlat.

Vince, together with actor-singer Johnrey Rivas and Peter Parker Tañada (Vince’s son) joined our table, where most media persons, including from NET25, were seated. Without finishing eating the food on the table, Vince, Johnrey and Peter left abruptly due to an inevitable circumstance — some critics still doubted his winning as best actor and best director in disputatious FAMAS awards for the movie Katips (2021), a Philippine historical musical drama film that chronicles the struggles of student activists during the Martial Law era in the 1970s. Written and directed by Vince himself, the film is based on his 2016 stage musical, Katips: Ang Mga Bagong Katipunero.

On New Year’s Eve, I was invited by Vince to spend the celebration with them in Sampaloc, Manila where the PSF Blackbox Theater is situated. Johnrey first welcomed me. As I went upstairs, I saw Atty. Vincent M. Tañada’s law office where I and Filipino film, TV and theater director Emmanuel dela Cruz waited for some hours as transgender actor OJ Arci, known for Katips (2021), La Traidora (2022) and Ako si Ninoy (2023), and other PhilStagers members chatted with us for a while. Later, Vince and his mother Emy welcomed us. One hour before midnight, we all went up to the top of the Tanada building to wait for the New Year 2024. I left in the wee hours and returned home to check on my pets, the 19 dogs.

Vince has been mesmerized by the world of theater and music since his student days at De La Salle Green Hills in San Juan City, Metro Manila. He even joined the secondary music ministry, the LSGH’s Kundirana, which is one of the most renowned and prestigious high school musical groups in the Philippines. He also joined Tony Espejo’s Bulwagang Gantimpala at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

After his college days at San Beda University-Manila (he took AB Philosophy), he decided to briefly live in New York City to try his luck in musically theatrical arts where he met and got in touch with the crème de la crème. From there, he was exposed to the “renaissance man” theory, an ideal that developed in Renaissance Italy from the notion expressed by one of its most accomplished representatives, Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72), that a man can do things if he will. So Vince is encouraged by that idea to be a writer, educator, actor, singer, director, entrepreneur, businessman, marketing genius, thinker and lawyer rolled into one.

It is interesting to note that he took law at San Beda’s College of Law to fulfill his promise to his father, Tony Tanada.

“My dad was kind but outspoken. That is what I learned or inherited from him. You know that I come on too strong, or sometimes, I am brutally frank but you know my heart. Alam ko hindi ako mabait (I know I am not good) but I want to believe na mabuti ako. Magkaiba ang mabait sa mabuti (that I am kind. There is a difference between being good and being kind),” he opined to this columnist.

For him, there is a distinction between being “good” and being “kind.” Being good often implies adhering to moral principles, societal norms, and personal values, while kindness emphasizes empathy, compassion, and selfless actions towards others.