It is almost nine in the evening at Mow’s, a bar at the basement of a Chinese restaurant in Matalino St., Quezon City. In front of the seats is a mic stand. Beside it, a stool. It is Wednesday, which means tonight is Comedy Manila’s open-mic night for stand-up comedians.

One by one, my “fellow” comedians start arriving. I still have a hard time calling myself one. It has only been six months since I started. Many of the performers tonight have been doing this for years.

Observational stand-up comedy in the Philippines has been around long enough to develop a community of comics and followers, long enough to have produced its own established personalities: Rex Navarrette, Tim Tayag, Mike Unson, Alex Calleja, and GB Labrador, who founded Comedy Manila.

“Mostly men,” I interrupt myself. “Do they even need me here?”

I bum a cigarette from Ese, the doorman for the night. He’ll be performing later too. In fact, many if not most of the people here come from their day jobs and homes to tell jokes. An open-mic night means comedians are free to try out new jokes, or to rehearse or polish old ones for upcoming paid shows. If you’re an optimist, that means the audience might give you a break if your jokes suck (“bombing,” as we call it). But if you feel like a fraud, like me, that means being scared of embarrassing yourself in front of “real” comics.

Perhaps I’m making it sound dour. It isn’t. There is a reason why aspiring comics like me come back to do open-mics, even if we bombed the last time. It’s the same reason why even comics who are already household names – like Victor Anastacio or Red Ollero – still sign up for open-mics. This brand of comedy requires repeated practice and workshopping your material in front of an audience and other comics. Asking a famous stand-up why they still do open-mics is like asking Lebron James why he still trains: they need the practice. And sometimes, practice is fun.

It almost seems anathema to a lot of people’s sensibilities to hear that comedians need to practice. After all, we are so used to finding funny things “in the moment.” Eat Bulaga’s Sugod Bahay isn’t rehearsed. Wow, Mali! isn’t scripted. Some people after shows have even asked me why stand-ups repeat jokes they’ve already told elsewhere, as if they were being duped. My answer is always that you wouldn’t want Aegis to only play new songs in their shows. Because that’s impossible, and the old stuff is good.

It cannot be denied, though, that the Pinoy stand-up comedy scene is having a moment right now. This is evidenced by sold-out stand-up shows in bars and in theater stages almost every week, and by comedy sets which have gone viral on social media, exposing more and more people to what used to be considered a “niche” art form, at least here in the Philippines.

Even international acts are taking notice. In 2020, even before the pandemic, comedy legend Dave Chapelle filled Solaire Theater’s 1,740 seats in his first-ever 80-minute set in the Philippines. In 2022, world-renowned Fil-Am comedy rising star Jo Koy filled the Mall of Asia Arena. And just last March 2023, Jim Gaffigan performed in the Music Museum, where the aforementioned Fil-Am comedy pioneer Rex Navarrette also performed on Saturday, July 22.

It isn’t just foreign and Fil-Am acts who are selling out theaters in the thousands, too. The comedy group KoolPals – GB Labrador, James Caraan, Muman Reyes, Ryan Rems, and Nonong Ballilan – sold out their show last May 2023 at Solaire. Just a month later, headliners from Comedy Manila sold out their show at the Samsung Theater.

It is hard to imagine why this boom is happening, considering that for many Filipinos, comedy is strictly found on television: noontime variety shows, sitcoms on the weekends, and the occasional gag show. Rarely do Filipinos go out of their homes to laugh. And now, with social media and streaming, there are more avenues for Filipinos to get comedic content without seeking it elsewhere, much less pay the price of admission.

But I can point to a number of reasons for this boom. In places like Metro Manila and other urban centers that come alive at night, more and more bars and restaurants are opening their doors and setting up their stages to host live events. There is also the abundance of “open-micers” willing to perform just for stage time, exposure, and the occasional free food. And it can’t be denied that many people have been starved for live events since the pandemic locked them inside their homes. Performers and audiences alike are raring to create and immerse themselves in experiences outside the virtual realm, and it is in this peculiar set of circumstances that stand-up comedy is thriving at the moment.

Maybe we can also look at how emotionally exhausting and stress-inducing mainstream comedy has been in the past years. Perhaps people are also looking not just for something new, but something familiar: away from the controversy of comedy-variety shows changing names, channels, and time slots, and away from the noise that is Pinoy social media, populated by “content creators” who gain popularity by provoking controversy and rousing emotions by inciting conflict. Sometimes, people just want to laugh.

I grew up in a family that likes to laugh. We tell Porkchop Duo jokes. Eat Bulaga is – was – appointment viewing, especially on Saturdays. We watch MMFF comedy movies every Christmas morning. But as is the case for many people, a lot of things have changed in the past few years. Do we blame it all on the pandemic? Or have we, as a society, made comedy more and more about commerce and getting likes, and less about trying to make each other laugh? I mean really try.

Like many people, I miss the simplicity of people gathered around to tell jokes and laugh with each other. But more and more, I am realizing that such simplicity never comes easy. It takes effort and intention to make the person next to you smile and chuckle – and feel less alone.

It is this electricity, this huddling around in the dark to hear funny stories, that make me come back every week. That makes me want to tell jokes of my own. It isn’t easy. It takes work.

But making people laugh is serious business. And I guess I really am a comedian. – Rappler.com

Vin Buenaagua is a graduate of BA Political Science in UP Diliman. He is currently completing his Juris Doctorate degree in San Beda College Alabang School of Law. He tries his hand at stand-up comedy from time to time and has featured in comedy shows once or twice.