Maria Clara at Ibarra: A portal fantasy TV show using Noli Me Tangere as its source

Noli Me Tangere (Touch me Not) was a required reading we had when we were in high school. The novel was written by our national hero, Jose Rizal, as a commentary on the plight of the Philippines as a colony of Spain experiencing injustice and inequality. More so it tackles the power of the Spanish Friars.

It is the story of Crisostomo Ibarra as he goes back to his hometown in the Philippines after several years of studying in Europe, in particular in Spain, seeing firsthand the difference in the rights and liberties of the citizens of Spain versus the lack of it in residents of a colony like the Philippines.

There is his strong desire to elevate the level of education as he believes this is the path to enlightenment and progress. Thwarting his plans are several Spanish Friars Padre Damaso and Padre Salvi who we later know what their motivations are.

We also meet Crisostomo's fiance Maria Clara who was being touted as the symbol of the ideal Filipina women. She is described as beautiful, religious, obedient to her elders and someone who is there to support the male figures in her life. Traits which are both strengths and weaknesses in her character.

I remember being so moved when I first read it years ago and feeling the injustice of being slaves to a colonizer. I can just imagine the fury of the people living at that time because that was their reality. It became a sort of galvanizing work of literature that helped create the Filipino identity who at that point was mired in regionalism which the Spanish had been able to exploit with their divide and conquer plan.

I do remember though asking my teacher then that through his works and action. I never thought that Jose Rizal was advocating for a war with Spain for independence, unlike the people like Andres Bonifacio who strove to free our nation with bloody means. The methods may have been different but it did eventually go through the route of war.

The ending was heart-wrenching as the narrative played out to a not-happy ending and was to be the start of the 2nd book El Filibusterismo (The Reign of Greed - as the English title but to me I always thought it had meand as being a subservient or as the Spanish Friars love to use it as a curse in the context of being useless)

Maria Clara and Ibarra

Fast forward to 2022, a show was produced by one of the TV stations here about a reimagining of the classic tale as seen through the eyes of a Gen Z student named Klay as she is transported into the literary world of Noli Me Tangere where she meets the various characters.

There will be several spoilers at this point so if you want to be surprised if you intend to watch the show it might not be a good idea to proceed in reading this.

Delving first on the character of Klay, we learn that her name is also Maria Clara as her mother had a penchant of naming her kids from the characters of the book. She is a working student taking up nursing and is dreaming of working abroad to leave this forsaken country as she puts it. She plans to take away her mom from an abusive partner and her younger brother and live a better life in another country.

She questions the need to read this book and upsets her professor when she turns in a plagiarized book report and admits not reading it since she does not see its relevance. As someone who likes reading history I am saddened by this statement as it has been increasingly been true that a lot of people are forgetting our history and even our government is not putting any importance to it by removing several key subjects and historical revisionism is so high at this point.

Her professor then gives her a book and a chance to do a better job of writing the report. Little did we know that this book was going to be her portal.

She wakes up inside the world of Noli and looks so displaced with her clothes, mannerism, and speech. It was in a way an isekai as she was brought into this world that was so different from her modern timeline. I think that is one of the reasons why I gravitated into watching it aside from liking the book itself. That idea of being isekaid was an interesting idea.

So even though she didn't finish the book she knew some minor details about some the characters and events. She then meets her namesake Maria Clara and the difference is so pronounced not just because of what they wear or how they speak but the difference in ideology. This is a theme that is reguarly shown in the series all throughout its run. There are several lines which I really liked especially in discussing the role of women, education, dreams and that symbolism of Maria Clara (the novel character) as someone who is living in a gilded cage. Personally, I thought before that Maria Clara was a weak person but in hindsight I have to remember the environment that she was raised and the expectations thrust upon her.

It was such a novel idea pitting modern-day sensibilities against the societal norms during that time period. It was an interesting conversation that also made us look in the mirror of how our society is right now and how the injustices we suffer from the few that holds power and the prevalence of corruption and power-hungry individuals are still present albeit in a different form.

We as the people watching the show knows how it will end (well for those that read the book anyway or at least know its synopsis because reading is a dying form these days) and so we await how Klay will react to certain events or even if she will be able to change the fates.

Sisa, Basilio and Crispin

Oh man, even reading it the first time my heart goes out to this family. Sisa is a character in the novel that had two sons who worked as altar boys to Padre Salvi. They experience physical abuse and is often hurt by the priest which eventually kills one of them. With one son dead and the other go missing Sisa goes crazy from the grief. She is abused by the townspeople and made to do stuff. Reading it hurt so much but seeing it acted out in the small screen by a great actress really pushed the emotional damage felt in the scene. The imagery of Sisa holding the body of her dead son invokes the image of the Pieta to me.

There were light-hearted moments as well and an addition of a side character named Fidel who is not in the original novel was something that really made the show viral. That FiLay (Fidel X Klay) sparked a chemistry that was hard to deny as there was a push-and-pull dynamic to it. Further fueled by the power of memes online people just kept coming back for more.

Fidel like Crisostomo is rich, well-educated, and in most cases haughty. This actually rubs Klay the wrong way as we see several scenes in that they are always in disagreement. It was made to appear that they disliked each other but we all know that the writers of the show were just manipulating us hahaha.

While it was light-hearted there would be some character development and I think they really made a good job of fleshing out his character and making him memorable amidst all the characters that we have.

The show is clocking into 90 episodes so far as we dive into the 2nd book El Fili but each episode is around 24 minutes. It is definitely binge-worthy and had to laugh because one friend of mine that I managed to convince to watch was able to finish and catch up in one weekend lol.

If you want to watch it there are a lot of options either watch it in free TV if you are in the Philippines, it was available for a time on YouTube and you could use the auto-translate function for subtitles but I am not sure if it is still there because last time I checked it was no longer being uploaded by the TV station there in their YouTube channel and I had to switch to their main website to watch it. Altough it is still free in their website no auto translate function though so if you are not fluent in Filipino it might be difficult to watch. It was funny as I saw one Youtube reaction of a Korean living in the Philippines that wanted to watch it and was asking for English subtitles as her mastery of the language was at intermediate at best. It was funny because so many of the comments in her video was telling her now she knew how other people felt when subtitles are not available for their favorite kdrama shows.

You can watch it here for full episodes https://www.gmanetwork.com/fullepisodes/home/maria_clara_at_ibarra