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THE somewhat eccentric Mother Lily Monteverde has
lately partly transformed herself into a political patroness by
sponsoring huddles between some senatorial bets she supports and
showbiz press.
Politics and showbiz seem to be
in harmony these days in the minds of most entertainment writers.
After all, we have been barraged with invitations to sit down with
political aspirants in between our coverage of purely showbiz
events.
Monteverde continues to arrange
for meetings between the showbiz press with the likes of Chiz
Escudero, Kiko Pangilinan, Loren Legarda, Tito Sotto, Migz Zubiri
and will soon do the same with Edgardo Angara and Manny Villar. Of
course, she didn’t forget about her former Regal baby Richard
Gomez.
Notice that the names mentioned
are a mix of opposition and administration candidates. Mother Lily
says she is non-partisan and goes beyond party loyalty. “I just
feel that in my own small way, if I can help these candidates who
have eventually become my friends in my many years of being a movie
producer, then why not help them?”
Still about a month to Election
Day, the film matriarch might yet find other candidates worthy of
her support. And who knows, she might go beyond the senatorial
aspirants and back up some congressional and mayoralty bets.
What does she get in return? That
question still puzzles a lot of entertainment people. Well, I guess
it’s cheaper to sponsor press conferences than to make a lump sum
donation to the campaign fund of these politicians. Also, she gets
to be ‘bida’ in one way or the other and if these candidates
win, then she’d be ‘malakas,” one way or the other.
Actually, Monteverde started
holding press huddles for political canditates as early as 1992,
with then-presidential aspirant Fidel V. Ramos (who eventually won
over Miriam Defensor-Santiago) as one of the candidates she
supported. That was followed in 1998 by a press huddle for
then-senator wannabe Loren Legarda who gave up her then 14-year-old
broadcast journalism profession in favor of a career in politics.
It’s only this year that Monteverde has gone full-blast in playing
patroness to politicians eyeing seats in the Senate.
At the huddle for Legarda,
Monteverde admitted she has a vested interest in supporting a bunch
of senatorial aspirants: “they might seriously work to support the
film industry, specifically in the reduction of taxes which she
claims eats up, to some 51 percent of a movie producer’s income
for every film. And that’s very good for a producer like me!”
Monteverde feels the local film
industry will become as prolific as in the seventies and eighties if
only taxes could be reduced to yield bigger profits than what
producers like her have been earning lately. The truth is, even as
several actors have landed in the Senate and House of
Representatives, no serious and collective effort have been
initiated by anyone to retore the local film industry as a powerful
economic and cultural force to reckon with.
Despite our supposedly
star-studded movie awards nights, the local film industry is really
just barely alive. It’s actually television that has primarily
been keeping the entertainment scene vibrant. Even actor turned
president Joseph Estarda seemed to have paid more attention to
accumulating more wealth for himself and his many families than
doing something exceptionally good for the film industry.
Meanwhile, Legarda revealed that
Mother Lily has never asked her for any personal favor except once:
for her to be a sponsor in the wedding of one of Monteverde’s
daughters. Well, that’s the official release, if we can call it as
such.
Will we be raving or
ranting for Rounin?
The new fantaserye of ABS-CBN
titled Rounin has begun airing, featuring a stable of the
network’s second lead stars headed by Diether Ocampo, Geoff
Eigenmann, Rafael Rosell, Angelica Panganiban, Nikki Gil and Luis
Manzano as superb and practically legendary warriors.
It’s supposedly being marketed
as yet another TV epic in the tradition of the network’s
short-lived Panday, who bombed at the ratings game. Well, lets hope
Rounin does not turn out as boringly grand and spectacularly
mediocre as Panday. The defunct epic top-billed by Jericho Rosales
created more noise than sense, substance and excitement. But then
maybe Rounin will not be as noisy and confusing as Panday if only
because the new epic is directed by Erik Matti. Panday was helmed by
Toto Natividad who has a reputation for giving more shock to viewers
than credibly telling a meaningful and insightful story.
Rounin also stars Carlos Agassi,
Rayver Cruz, Shaina Magdayao, Joross Gamboa, Jhong Hilario, Melissa
Ricks, Aubrey Miles, AJ Dee, Agot Isidro, Emilio Garcia and Monsour
del Rosario. Take note that most of the support actors were
unsuccessful in their bids at stardom that’s why they have been
demoted to playing the roles they are getting now. Ouch!
Rounin has been in the can for a
long time now. It is a special project that took more than a year to
shoot in a set built at a sprawling estate in distant Binangonan,
Rizal, with Dondon Monteverde’s Reality Entertainment company as
line producer. Dondon is a son of Mother Lily who is not only into
movie-TV production but is also into talent development and
management. We heard that his production needed to re-shoot some
scenes in order to add more flavor and spice to an otherwise shaky
plot.
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