The Manila Public Library

A Television Series set in the famous Manila Hotel

(Science Fiction)

by Alan Nafzger and Shasel Arbues

READ THE ABS-CBN PITCH – http://freeebooks.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Manila-Hotel-Pitch.pdf

READ THE ABS-CBN PILOT – http://freeebooks.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Manila-Hotel-Pilot.pdf

READ THE EPISODES CHART – http://freeebooks.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Manila-Hotel-Episodes.pdf

From 2020 until 2030, it was the policy of the Philippines government to license corporations to clone certain celebrity individuals. The corporations contracted with great personalities of the decade. They collected DNA from popular political, movie, television and sports personalities and signed contracts with them and their their estates.

The policy was changed when it became clear that the venture would fail. It turned out that none of the clones had the initiative (all they wanted to do was sit around and read), and many never developed (because of environmental factors – no hands-on mother or father-figure for example) the talent or skill of their DNA donor. Also, there was a great deal of discrimination holding the clones back, and the expense on the companies to raise them made the whole operation not economically feasible. The practice of cloning was abandoned as a failed social experiment. But, where to put the 55,009 living clones world-wide?  There are 570 clones housed in the historic Manila Hotel. The Manila Public Library.

This is a television set in the 2080s.  The global population is seriously decreased, and society seems to have escaped the fate we frequently assign to it (another dark age), and the Philipines are highly developed. However, cloning is a technology that has fallen out of favor, and the clones are warehoused. There are seen as a drain on the economy and to recoup some of the expenses they are loaned out like library books.

Over 40 years into the future, the old Manila Hotel is converted into a public library (of sorts). It houses the clones of famous early 21^st century Filipino artists, poets, writers, politicians, the smartest professors, famous Americans. It’s all a “little creepy” so the government requires the clones to live in one central location (the Manila Hotel) with a moderate amount of supervision. The clones are termed, “benevolent state property” but are allowed to pursue whatever interests/hobbies they have, so long as they are available to help patrons of the clone library. Criminals in prisons are labeled “malevolent state property.

Technologically, this is actually possible.  And in the story before a celebrity or famous person dies, they are cloned. Until 2070, the clones study the experiences of their donor’s lives and are quizzed and coached. However, the technology used to clone people wasn’t perfect, which created imperfections – hurdles (obstacles) for the clone to overcome.

The collective intelligence of 21^st century Philipines is housed at the Manila Public Library and serves the public good, something like a public library or book store does today. People can go to the library can check out the clone of a famous person.

In the story, Manileños will go to a library (actually something between a half-way house and a luxury hotel), and a patron can check out a celebrity like you do a book from a library today.

Each week, a Manileño in trouble, not necessarily at odds with the police or the government, comes to the library to gain the assistance of one of the clones. They might have personal problems… or have problems at work or with their family that need to be resolved. Checking out a person from the clone library is like renting a friend, life coach or an expert, whichever the patron needs.  The clones help people.

I envision people checking out clones to visit their relatives in the hospital, cheering them up. Maybe they are on their deathbed and the clone comes to visit them and speak wisdom to them.

Men can use clones to persuade women, as a Cicero De Bergerac type story. A common of story line.

The clones can be hired out for birthday parties and celebrations.

Businessmen can use them as sounding boards, or they can be used as promotional gimmicks. There are 100s of scenarios to play out.

Sometimes, the patron (the person using the clone library) doesn’t even have a problem to solve but just checks out a clone for the novelty of it. However, the clone insightfully notices a problem on the horizon and together with the patron, they move to solve the problem before it becomes too real.

Doctors can use them in tests.  Lawyers can use them in mock trials. Professors also as experimental and study subjects.

This TV series is for an hour time slot each week, and there can be several plots in each episode.

• A-List celebrities – the main problem some political, legal, or cultural problems.
• B-List celebrities – a subplot can center on love, art, or nostalgia.

Who would need a to check out clone and for what reason?

1. A detective might use a clone to solve a crime?
2. Diplomat might use a clone to stop a war?
3. A doctor needs to cure a disease?
4. A business man needs help negotiating a business deal?
5. A writer uses a clone to pitch a film?
6. A teach might use a clone to teach a difficult/complicated lesson?

The draw (why they watch) for the audience each week can be who will appear as a guest. Business-wise, we are looking at targeting the readers of the celebrity trade magazines – Pep.ph, Yes!, Preview, Candy, Hola! The same consumers who purchase celebrity magazines will tune in to watch this series.

TELEVISION REFERENCES – The Manila Public Library

We see this television series as a cross between Love Boat (1977–1987) and Murder She Wrote (1984–1996). Or possibly a soft version of The Equalizer (1985–1989). These American TV series were broadcast in the Philipines.

FILM REFERENCES

Cloning is a viable idea in the audience’s mind. Several profitable feature films have centered on cloning technology…

1. Boys from Brazil (1978)

2. Replicas (2018)
3. Surrogates (2009)
4. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
5. Impostor (2001)
6. Replicant (2001)

1. Jurassic Park (1993)
2. Blade Runner (1982)

TWO “MANILA” BUILDINGS

This is 2080 and there will need to be two hotels, the OLD one is a public library and the other a NEW five-star hotel. The Manila Public Library (1 Rizal Park, Ermita), the building we are familiar with, has been taken over by the government to house the clones. Since 2070, it has fallen into less than glamorous circumstances.  Also, part of the story is a new ultra-modern New Manila Hotel, remodeled in 2030. Typically, the patrons who check out the clone sometimes are housed there but not always.  Many times the patron will be poor and travels to Manila and a wealthy patron put them in the nice new Manila Hotel while the clone solves the problem.

THREE PILOTS TO CHOSE FROM

The 7/8 Mile Club

When a teenage girl is abducted by a billionaire pimp who runs an anything-goes, invitation-only 737 brothel, the girl’s parents use the library to find their missing daughter. Two clones (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) must infiltrate the brothel, take a flight (out of US airspace) and discover that a billionaire hedge-fund manager is extorting guests, and the girls are under-age. In an out of place case; let’s put Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in the role of the Dr. William Harford character from Eyes Wide Open. The two clones learn the hedge-fund owner, turned pimp, is extorting politicians (for national security secrets) and royalty (for money and social position).

GLOBAL ENTERPRISE

All the global markets have both celebrities and grand old hotels. There are hotels with celebrity and television appeal in every major city. Once successful, this series can be expanded to many markets. We can license this television series out to producers around the world. For example…

• New York – Waldorf Astoria
• Tokyo – Imperial Hotel
• London – The Savoy
• Berlin – Adlon Kempinski
• Moscow – Izmailovo
• Rome – Hotel de Russie
• Beijing – Wanda Vista
• Los Angeles – The Roosevelt

EACH EPISODE

Each weak people go to the Manila Hotel, which is in 2080, is a public library full of clones. There are 570 rooms in the hotel and each is home to a clone, a different clone is featured each week.

Shasel and I believe with a successful pilot many celebrities will want to appear. The personalities (guest stars) portray clones of theirs. How many times does an actor get an opportunity to play themselves?  The guest stars are checked out and help someone different each week. We would pitch a guest appearance on this series as a “vacation” and “a chance to portray themselves,” and “inject a bit of their real personality.”

This TV series should have a very long run; there is an endless supply of personalities to appear on the show.  While there are a permanent cast, many many actors can by cycled into the show.

Filmmakers visit the hotel looking to use the clones as actors in historical films.

A student has alienated his professors by thinking too progressively; he can’t pass his doctoral examination without help and advice. He hires one of the clones to coach him.

A Filipina can’t pay her rent, and she receives the help of a business-savy clone (John Gokongwei).

A Filipino parole officer can use a clone (Baron Geisler) to teach wisdom to a group of rebellious kids.

A Filipino writer can’t complete his novel without a muse (Susan Roces).

Two clones, from different demographic groups, written into each story can increase the audience. For example, one clone from Luzan and another clone from the southern islands would appeal to the highest number of people. Contrasting celebrities work opposite each other. Urban and rural. Old and young. Dramatic and comedic. We want this series to appeal to everyone!!!

Life Inside the Manila Library

• The clerk is an unsmiling “Russian passport inspector.” Very meticulous and methodical. She has an attention for detail. She is legalistic and the law-and-order type. The clones are all criminals… while they aren’t she treats them this way.
• The concierge is an idealistic/dissident teenager, willing to break the rules and tell the bad guys to F-off! Each episode, she’s portrayed as lazy, but midway through each episode, she begins to work hard only after being enlightened.
• The food is rationed and unflattering. Worse than any prison or school cafeteria food. The cafeteria ladies try, but the clones are out of fashion and the system simply doesn’t provide.
• The closed and over-regulated economy inside the Manila Hotel means that consumer goods from the outside are coveted by many clones. There is a healthy black market at work.
• The telephones and computers inside the Manila are outdated, at least 20 years behind the technology outside.
• In the “official” shop in the library, the shelves are empty. Several Beryozki have sprung up in the rooms of clones. Only clones who have hard currency to spend can have cell phones, fresh fruit, and Kindles. All tolerated but illegal for clones.
• The more talented singer and musician clones’ songs are pirated on CD disks. They are not allowed, or must have special permission to distribute their art. No clone is allowed to profit from their “genetic” talents. So many of the artists perform underground inside the library. Many artists continue working clandestinely, painting, sculpting, writing, architecture, music-making, photography and filmmaking, under other non-artists names or pseudonyms.
• There is an underground theater, newspaper and even a hidden Zerox machine for Samizdat documents. The clones are oppressed but have an underground economy. It is very difficult, impossible, to break the creative spirit of the clones.
• The lack of consumer products inspires extraordinary resourcefulness among clones: television aerials made out of forks and coat-hangers, a bath-plug made out of a boot heel, a road sign recycled as a shovel.
• Right up to the very end of the series, we still encounter monocular “humans” non-clones from outside the library who are defenders of the library system for clones. They support what is happening at the Manila, what they still believed, against all the evidence of their senses, to be a good public policy.
• There are pro-clone propaganda posters. Huge posters in the library celebrated the towering intellects of the LA mayor, CA governor and US president (the oppressors). The clones can’t vote, but are subjected to the propaganda. There are posters, and even TV commercials, pointing to the societal and individual problems they are collectively solving; and the achievements of whichever five-year circulations goals they were supposed to reach.
• Occasionally, almost randomly, the directors of the program come and award a clone with a medal. It’s invariably AOC, the first female President and the leader who took executive-action (eminent-domain) to house the clones as “public goods” and for the old hotels to be used for the public good, like librarys.
• Stationed at a desk on each floor of the library is a government employee. Always a female, she keeps an eye on clones, maintains order and is the person clones must speak to get soap, toilet paper, a bath plug, or to dial an outside phone call. Somehow, these characters are always icy to begin with and then crack to show an unexpected warmth that makes you wonder how loyal they are to the government.
• The concierge is the only driver for the clones and when a clone gets into her vehicle and they reach for the seat belt, “You don’t need it” is the first thing the concierge says. She feels that it is a kind of derogatory statement about her competence as a driver to wear a seat belt.
• There are lectures on the official, in house, television channel on the “scientific” (they are all orphans and social programming hadn’t yet caught up with genetic technology, schools failed to educate them properly), and “unexplained” phenomena  (ghost in the genes) that make clones untrustworthy. Everyone watches bootlegged programs from outside the library, but some clones document and debate the social control they are subjected too. One writer (clone) is penning something similar to Gulag Archipelago. Documents are being smuggled out.
• There is a saying among the clones, “Without papers you are nothing but a cockroach.” Friends help their friends secure trips outside the Manila. Because clones are searched for contraband (anything bought without permission) when returning to “purchase” or “gift” papers are the most forged documents.
• At least one Los Angelino has a business where clones pay him to check them out. And then the Angelino doesn’t put them to work but lets them free-lance or do what they want, unsupervised.

The Cast – The Manila Public Library

While most of the attention will be on the show’s guest. There are regular supporting actors involved.

• The front desk CLERK gives each person who needs a clone, the options – who they can and can’t check out. She also foreshadows the weakness or flaw in each episode, things that will create obstacles. The clerk also outlines the profession and abilities of the clones, in case the viewer doesn’t know the guest/clone’s personality. The clerk is efficient! She’s robotic, you can even make her an android if you want; the show is set in 2080.

• The CONCIERGE is a bad employee, but each week she becomes enlightened and helps the clones in the end; she is their uber driver (however in a real jalopy), she is their research assistant (but she must borrow a computer or use her own personal phone). She symbolizes both the anger and hope of youth. The concierge is every clones sidekick and sounding board. This character’s trademark in each episode is that she curses out the bad guy. Her trademark in the show is that she always insults the antagonist. She’s “savage” and always says something without a filter. She’s at times more raw and public with her words than people are comfortable with, but this is why she’s remembered/adored by the audience.

• I would like to pay homage to the CAFETERIA LADIES everywhere and create a few jobs for character actors (sweet older ladies) in Manila, by creating a few characters. Many of us have been on some campus, or other, from the time we were in the 1^st grade and even now we see professor emeritus eating in the college cafeteria. The women that run the library’s cafeteria are always in a stew about government cutbacks. They feel for the clones and do their very best.  One mature woman buys spices and other improvements with her own money. A second, older cafeteria worker brings spices from her own garden to liven up the bland meals. A third cook, some kid, is a dumpster diver or shop-lifter… but when asked where they got certain items, they respond, “Ralphs” or “Bristol Farms.”  Regardless of how they find the spices, they are selfless.

• There must be a HANDLER, a Stasi-like person who keeps an eye on the clones to make certain they don’t break any of the rules. This is a parole officer type, government bureaucrat, someone who was kicked off the police force. Someone who has the personality of Sue Sylvester in Glee or worse. This character is a Quixotic cop that needs to be a hero so badly they act foolishly. Or perhaps make the handler like Col. Klink from Hogan’s Heros.

• The GUARD at the front door is a teddy bear of a man. He’s well over seventy-years-old and lets most infractions go. He pretends to search the clones.

• The EXECUTIVE LIBRARIAN is always mentioned, but his/her office door is always shown closed. The shades are perpetually pulled closed. She/he might be dead for all we know. This person is supposed to exist but there have been cases where bureaucracies continue to function without leadership, sometimes for years. The employees of the library do what they want to. One, because the head librarian never answers the phone, and second, the employees have learned to call and fake a conversation that results in the librarian “allegedly” giving them instructions to do whatever the employee wants. In the last episode, you can open the office door and someone checks the voice mail… 829 messages. Or Cheech Marin is at the desk stoned out of his gord.

Realism for Television – The Manila Public Library

Realism for television may not be the norm for television; however, bad things happen, people aren’t all created equally (clones aren’t allowed to be the men and women their donors were) and so they face obstacles, both internal and external. This series can’t avoid politics. Everything is political. So this series confronts the current issues — health care, immigration, animal rights, income inequality, workplace diversity, sports and presidianial politics, etc.  Both sides of any issue would be equally represented in theory. Filipinos today live in turbulent times and TV should compliment that.

In conclusion…

Manileños have many problems that need solving. Some problems are societal, and some are individual. It is a comforting thought that, in the future, there might be such a public library where people can go to check out help.

Alan Nafzger, copyright, 2019

Manila Public Library

In 1954, President Ramon Magsaysay issued an executive order forming the José Rizal National Centennial Commission, entrusted with the duty of “erecting a grand monument in honor of José Rizal in the capital of the Philippines”. The Commission then decided to erect a cultural complex in Rizal Park with a new building housing the National Library as its centerpiece, a memorial to Rizal as an advocate of education. The Manila Public Library, To finance the construction of the new National Library building, the Commission conducted a nationwide public fundraising campaign, the donors being mostly schoolchildren, who were encouraged to donate ten centavos to the effort,[14] and library employees, who each donated a day’s salary.[1] Because of this effort by the Commission, the National Library of the Philippines is said to be the only national library in the world built mostly out of private donations, and the only one built out of veneration to its national hero at the time of its construction.

Construction on the building’s foundation began on March 23, 1960 and the superstructure on September 16. The Manila Public Library. During construction, objections were raised over the library’s location, claiming that the salinity of the air around Manila Bay would hasten the destruction of the rare books and manuscripts that would be stored there. Despite the objections, construction still continued,[14] and the new building was inaugurated on June 19, 1961, Rizal’s 100th birthday, by President Carlos P. Garcia, Magsaysay’s successor.[4]

The current National Library building, a six-storey, 110-foot (34 m) edifice, was designed by Hexagon Architects (composed of Jose Zaragoza, Francisco Fajardo, Edmundo Lucero, Gabino de Leon, Felipe Mendoza, and Cesar Vergel de Dios)[15] and constructed at a cost of 5.5 million pesos.[1] With a total floor area of 198,000 square feet (18,400 m2), the library has three reading rooms and three mezzanines which currently occupy the western half of the second, third and fourth floors. Each reading room can accommodate up to 532 readers, or 1,596 in total for the entire building. The 400-seat Epifanio de los Santos Auditorium and a cafeteria are located on the sixth floor.[14] There are also provisions for administrative offices, a fumigation room, an air-conditioned photography laboratory and printing room, two music rooms and an exhibition hall.[14][16] The library’s eight stack rooms have a total combined capacity of one million volumes with ample room for expansion.[14] In addition to two staircases connecting all six floors, the National Library building is equipped with a single elevator, servicing the first four floors.

Part of the National Library building’s west wing is occupied by the National Archives. – The Manila Public Library.

Collections – The Manila Public Library

Facsimile copies of Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo are displayed at the Filipiniana Division’s reading room. The original copies are kept in a special double-combination vault at the room’s rare documents section.
The collections of the National Library of the Philippines consist of more than 210,000 books; over 880,000 manuscripts, all part of the Filipiniana Division; more than 170,000 newspaper issues from Metro Manila and across the Philippines; some 66,000 theses and dissertations; 104,000 government publications; 3,800 maps and 53,000 photographs.[12] The library’s collections include large numbers of materials stored on various forms of non-print media, as well as almost 18,000 pieces for use of the Library for the Blind Division.[12]

Overall, the National Library has over 1.6 million pieces in its collections,[12] one of the largest among Philippine libraries. Accounted in its collections include valuable Rizaliana pieces, four incunabula, the original manuscript of Lupang Hinirang (the National Anthem), The Manila Public Library. several sets of The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898, a collection of rare Filipiniana books previously owned by the Compañía General de Tabacos de Filipinas, and the documents of five Philippine Presidents.[1] The most prized possessions of the National Library, which include Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo and Mi último adiós, three of his unfinished novels and the Philippine Declaration of Independence, are kept in a special double-combination vault at the rare documents section of the Filipiniana Division’s reading room.[1][18]

A significant portion of the National Library’s collections are composed of donations and works obtained through both legal deposit[19] and copyright deposit due to the limited budget allocated for the purchase of library materials; the 2007 national budget allocation for the library allocated less than ten million pesos for the purchase of new books.[12] The library also relies on its various donors and exchange partners, which numbered 115 in 2007,[12] for expanding and diversifying its collections. The lack of a sufficient budget has affected the quality of the library’s offerings: the Library for the Blind suffers from a shortage of books printed in braille,[20] while the manuscripts of Rizal’s masterpieces have reportedly deteriorated due to the lack of funds to support 24-hour air conditioning to aid in its preservation.[21] In 2011, Rizal’s manuscripts were restored with the help from German specialist. Major documents in the National Library of the Philippines, along with the National Archives of the Philippines, have great potential to be included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Manila Public Library.