MANILA — One night was clearly not enough to celebrate 50 years of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA).

On Saturday, PETA marked this milestone with members of the theater community and its partners with the second staging of its anniversary concert “Singkuwenta” at the PETA Theater Center in Quezon City.

Seen at the venue were several guest artists who have appeared in previous PETA productions including Pepe Herrera and Cacai Bautista (“Rak of Aegis), Thou Reyes (“Care Divas”) and Gab Valenciano (“3 Stars and a Sun”).

The two-hour show which features songs from some of PETA’s most acclaimed musicals made its premiere on Friday, which was attended primarily by alumni members of the theater group to mark the exact day 50 years ago when PETA was “officially christened” at a national conference attended artists, teachers, social workers, local officials, and the youth.

PETA kicked off this weekend’s celebrations earlier Friday with an inter-faith service and thanksgiving mass at its original home at the Rajah Sulayman Theater at Fort Santiago.

Noticeably absent at Saturday’s concert was founder Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, although she did attend the previous night’s performance.

When she started PETA in 1967, Guidote-Alavarez was only 23 years old, “brimming with dreams and courage” and “armed with the steely determination to implement her blueprint for a national theater in the service of the people,” recalled PETA president CB Garrucho in her welcome speech.

In her message released to media, Guidote-Alvarez, now 73 and legally blind after battling cancer and rehabilitating a broken knee, described theater as “a mirror for our national identity; an arbor against social ills, a memory bank to prevent a nation’s amnesia, an engine for employment and entrepreneurship, a conscience and a lighthouse for a pathway of moral recovery and international understanding.”

She furthered: “It is a blessing that… I am still alive to witness the creative growth of PETA to its golden years.”

MORE THAN A CONCERT

“Singkuwenta,” the concert, presents this creative growth in a brisk two hours with 17 song numbers and a running narration of PETA’s journey by former members led by PETA stalwarts and directors Joel Namangan and Soxie Topacio.

More than just a greatest-hits concert of PETA’s most memorable musical productions, “Singkuwenta,” which was written by Anj Heruela and directed by Melvin Lee, tracks the story of PETA from its beginnings and the tumultuous Martal Law years, when Guidoti-Alvarez opted “to escape to elude arrest or being kept hostage,” to the post-1986 People Power period, which, under a restored democracy, allowed PETA to expand its advocacies to include women’s and children’s rights, issues about gender and the environment, and even disaster preparedness.

Musical directors Jeff Hernadez and Myke Salomon carefully curated 50 years of music, many of them included in the commemorative 13-track album “Sa Hiram at Ginhawa,” to create themed suites that narrate PETA’s story.

But ultimately this was more than just about a theater company, since the history of PETA — from its very first production of "Bayaning Huwad," an adaptation of Virginia Moreno's "Straw Patriots," to its most recent, “A Game of Trolls,” which asks millennials to #NeverForget — closely reflects that of our nation.

As PETA board chair Marlon Rivera noted in his message: “PETA’s theater is a response to our society’s unfolding drama: a mirror, an interrogation and a voice where it is silenced. In all spaces, partnerships and performances, you always seek to transform the audience as much as you are informed by them.”

While “Singkuwenta” is indeed a showcase of stage talent — from the show-stopping "Awit ng Karnabal" performed by actor-playwright Rody Vera to the contemporary dance piece led by Carlon Matobato and Gold Villar-Lim — it is ultimately the passion and commitment to Filipino culture and nationhood of these artists-teachers that truly stand out.

When the entire cast, joined in by proud PETA alumni, many of them teary-eyed, gathered for the finale to renew their vow via the stirring Makabayan Suite, a medley of songs "that speak about love of country, solidarity, oath to freedom, and the liberating power of the arts,” it was hard not to be moved.

After the show, PETA took to Facebook to thank those who joined them in their celebration.

“Ang pagmamahal niyo sa PETA ay ang pagmamahal niyo sa aming sining, pagmamahal sa pagtuturo, at pagmamahal para sa bayan,” it wrote.

“Ang sukli namin sa pagmamahal na ito ay ang pagpapatuloy, masugid na pagpupursige, sa mga taong sunod pa sa singkuwenta.”

Until the next 50 years, PETA.