A gallery of pretty Rosebuds

If and when a movie is made about the life story of Mary Ong a.k.a. Rosebud (although I doubt very much if it will ever be or it can ever be), it will surely be a big, big hit, but… And that’s the Big BUT!

But it will have to hurdle a lot of roadblocks and obstacles before "the movie that might never be, not now anyway" can make it to the big screen because it will definitely go the way of similar controversial bioflicks like The Ruben Ablaza Story (done in the mid-’60s, about the late convicted rapist of Annabelle Huggins whose own harrowing experience was filmed only a few years back by Carlo J. Caparas and Donna Villa’s Golden Lions Films, with Dawn Zulueta playing the title role), The Sarah Balabagan Story (starring Vina Morales) which was frozen for months due to a protest from the Saudi government and The Jessica Alfaro Story (about the key witness against Hubert Webb and company in the celebrated Vizconde murders, with Alice Dixson as lead star) which suffered the same sad fate (not only on its way to but even at the tills).

With those huge headaches ahead, what sane producer would sink millions of pesos into even a "surefire hit" project destined to chill out only in the freezer (there’s also the "vigilant" MTRCB to beware of, remember)?

Like most soaps which bomb at the box office when transported into the big screen, the Rosebud saga is explosive and effective only on the small screen in the tradition of current popular soaps like Ikaw Lang ang Mamahalin and Pangako Sa’yo because the episodes are brought "live, in living color" right into your and my living rooms, keeping soap-sucking Filipinos glued to their TV sets the way they were during the rudely-interrupted impeachment trial.

The Senate – killjoy!!! – has gone into a three-week recess, leaving most of us less-fortunate Filipinos roasting in mid-September humidity while grappling with the never-ending diurnal task of (vainly) trying to make ends meet, while ’em lucky "lawmakers" are taking it easy abroad after brazenly putting all of us in a cliffhanger in the ongoing "Senate soap." You know, abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

Meanwhile, as you and I keep on guessing how the top-rating "Senate soap" will end, we tsk-tsk over the news that a Rosebud bioflick is in the offing (although Viva Films, producer of the Alfaro and Balabagan movies, denied having bought the rights to Rosebud’s story), we concede that the material is full of "box-office potentials." It has drama, comedy, suspense, romance, mystery, action, espionage – name it, it has "it." It’s a veritable James Bond thriller, isn’t it?

Showbiz headlines are focused on who will play Rosebud, if and when. Rosebud herself has two choices, Vilma Santos (if it’s mainly a drama movie) and Rosanna Roces (if it’s going to be a sex-romance). Other names are being tossed into the brew (as mentioned by Inday Badiday who even conducted a listeners poll on her DZMM radio program), including Claudine Barretto, Sen. Loren Legarda, Regine Velasquez and, why not, Kris Aquino (who admitted having many things in common with Rosebud) who topped Inday’s poll.

From the gallery of Rosebud "clones" on this page, can you tell who’s the perfect pick?

Abangan ang susunod na kabanata!