Ilagan's Katipunan: Sigaw Ng Bayan won First Prize in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Playwriting Competition in 1977. The play explores the reasons why many Filipinos in the 1890's felt that only a non-assimilationist and revolutionary organization against Spanish rule was the last, remaining alternative to the social conditions of the time. In dramatic form, the play also illuminates on the other historical factors, social conditions, and personalities that converged in order to make the Kataastaasang, Kagalang-galangan na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK) the apparent heir to the organizations that preceded it, all appealing for reform.

At the same time, Ilagan's work, which was likewise reflecting the workings and the situation of the anti-imperialist, anti-Marcos resistance movement of the 1970's, also tackles the problems that the revolutionary organizations faced, especially those resulting from weak commitment on the part of some members.

Demonstrating the growth of the Katipunan as a mass-base revolutionary organization, Ilagan carefully tackles the role of women and the growth of the women's arm of revolution.

True to the style of proletarian drama in which Ilagan wrote his work, this production will feature aspects of the Beijing opera and Brechtian theatre styles, among other generes, from which much of Philippine theatre in the Philippines of the 1970's had culled.

The play consists of about 144 characters set in a series of extremely short scenes welded together by narrators. This makes the acting extremely challenging, so that it fulfills part of our project's objectives which is to provide as many opportunities as possible for the training in and the performance of different Philippine theatre arts and traditions to as many sectors of undeserved communities in Hawai'i, such as in areas where large Filipino populations reside.