A toast to 48 fruitful years

Today is the birthday of Lipa City Mayor Vilma Santos Recto.

At 48 (she never really hid her age), she has accomplished a lot, lot more than any other public figure (whether in showbiz or politics) could only hope to achieve.

As a politician, her reputation remains untarnished. I just don’t have any idea how many awards and citations she has received in this field.

As an actress, however, I know pretty much all her accomplishments. Vilma, for instance, holds the distinction of being the first Best Actress winner (1982 – for Relasyon) in the annual Film Academy Awards.

She is also the first to win the Urian Best Actress award for three consecutive years (Relasyon, 1982; Broken Marriage, 1983 and Sister Stella L., 1984).

And you can also add to that the fact that she has won the most number of Urian Best Actress trophies – seven in all. (Nora Aunor comes in next with six Best Actress wins.)

But the most impressive achievement of Vilma Santos as an actress was her having scored three grand-slam wins as Best Actress (Relasyon, 1982, The Dolzura Cortez Story, 1993 and Bata, Bata, Paano Ka Ginawa, 1998). Vilma, incidentally, was also the first actress to ever hit a grand-slam victory.

It’s just unfortunate that Vilma – because of her current position as mayor – doesn’t get to do that many movies anymore. Even the filming of her Dekada 70 had been stalled because of those serious death threats she received a few months ago.

Last week, I had the chance to talk to Vilma at the opening of Dr. Vivian Sarabia’s Amoeba Restaurant in Eastwood City and she already seemed okay. According to her, she is now very happy and has, in fact, gained weight (although she still looked thin to me) and doesn’t wish for anything else on her birthday.

However, I’m still asking her friends, fans and admirers to please pray for her safety. The last time the whole nation offered prayers for her was six years ago – when she was still pregnant with Ryan Christian Recto who is now a healthy, intelligent and adorable boy (aside from Vilma’s lips, Ryan got all his features from his father, Sen. Ralph Recto). If those prayers worked for Vilma then, whatever prayers we shall be offering on her behalf should work for her now. Happy birthday, Vi!

A Probe Halloween

Days before All Saints’ Day, a lot of local shows cashed in on the tradition of Halloween by featuring stories about ghosts, the occult and the world beyond. The most interesting (and most frightening), however, was the one presented by The Probe Team.

For its Halloween presentation, The Probe Team sent two of its reporters, Jay Orense and Love Anover, to places supposedly teeming with ghosts (first in Baguio and, later, in Cebu). Orense and Añover were actually guided by members of this group called Spirit Questors.

In Baguio, their first stop was at the Teachers’ Camp which – if we are to believe stories – is a haven for earth-bound spirits. From Teachers’ Camp, Orense, Anover and the Spirit Questors moved to Casa Vallejo near Session Road.

At Casa Vallejo (which was built before the war), the group supposedly encountered several spirits – including those of two girls who were rivals for a man’s affection. While communicating with one of the female ghosts, an aswang supposedly also made an appearance and disrupted the séance. That portion – I have to admit – really gave me the creeps.

In Cebu – in an old house in Carcar – Orense and Anover, accompanied by members of the Spirit Questors chapter there, got in touch with an elemental posing as a 7-year-old boy. This elemental proved to be playful and didn’t give the group any useful information that could have been shared with the viewers.

This Halloween episode of The Probe Team didn’t actually give the television audience any concrete evidence regarding the existence of ghosts and elementals. And to me, this was rather disappointing.

I was hoping that after having gone through the trouble of traveling all the way to Baguio and Cebu, they should have at least returned with proof that would convince us that spirits really do exist in our midst. Now, if there are really no ghosts in this world, maybe they should have said so. (Perhaps they were afraid they’d end up discrediting the Spirit Questors who were with them on their "journey" into the unknown.)

In the show’s final segment, Jay Orense and Love Anover chose to play it safe by leaving it up to the viewers to decide for themselves whether or not we should believe in ghosts.

With that parting statement, I got even more confused. You see, I had the chance to stay in Casa Vallejo for almost a week many years ago and nothing strange happened to me there. Maybe I just don’t have a third eye. Or if I do have, maybe it’s not open yet.

But had Orense and Anover been firmer with their statements on the existence of ghosts, I would have believed them – in the same manner that I’ve believed many (if not all) of the reports presented in The Probe Team these past 14 years.