The present generation of movie fans maybe don’t know who Myra is – rather, was. She was one of the so-called Softdrink Beauties built up by the late talent manager Dr. Rey dela Cruz (whose murder has remained unsolved up to this day). Except for Myra who was discovered later, the three other girls were named after softdrinks: Sarsi Emmanuel (who has her own stranger-than-fiction story to tell), Coca Nicolas and Pepsi Paloma (who committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in the early ’80s).
I know, of course, that Myra went through hell before she found The Lord, driven by drugs to try taking her own life a few times – unsuccessfully, luckily. But until I read the Kerygma article, I didn’t know that she was barely 13 when she was discovered by Rey dela Cruz who shoved Myra as replacement for his other discovery, Myrna Castillo, when Myrna backed out of a movie (Snake Sisters, being directed by Celso Ad. Castillo) due to some misunderstanding.
The Kerygma article started with Myra’s account of how, at age 14 when she was already starting to make a name as a bold star, she and her mother attended a party at a disco joint where she met a stranger who turned out to be her long-lost father who left on the day Myra was born.
Recalled Myra, the stranger, who apparently had been watching her and her mom, asked, "Are you Geraldine Zervoulakos?" When Myra said yes, the stranger introduced himself as her father, showing her his ID. (Myra has three brothers, each sired by a different man.)
As the tearful Myra and her newly-found father embraced, a jealous woman who turned out to be the man’s mistress came and, without warning, hit the man on the head with an empty bottle of beer.
"That was the first and last time I saw my father," said Myra.
But as early as age nine, according to Myra, she experienced untold cruelty in the hands of her stepfather who repeatedly molested her. Afraid that her mother wouldn’t believe her, Myra kept everything a secret.
Dirt poor, her family subsisted on lugaw (porridge) day in and day out as her baon to school which she ate at the back of the auditorium to avoid being teased by her richer schoolmates. To get away from her abusive stepfather, Myra said she decided to quit school and find a job as a print-ad/commercial model at age 11, taking her family with her, on the side modeling in afternoon lingerie shows.
And then, she was discovered by couturier Romy Lopez who introduced her to Rey dela Cruz.
Her showbiz career was on the upswing when she fell in love with a dancer working in Japan. She followed him there, only to discover that he was married. Devastated, Myra fell on the rebound for the man’s co-dancer whom she married in 1987 when they came back from Japan. She got fat after giving birth and her husband, starting to lose interest in her, advised her to take shabu for her "to lose weight fast." Soon, the two of them were hooked. Her husband began to go astray. They had by then gone back to Japan.
"It was during that time when I desperately wanted to come home," recalled Myra. "But I lost my passport and I didn’t have money for the plane fare. Then, an ‘angel’ came into my life in the person of an officemate I disliked who gave me a prayer book as a Christmas present. That got me praying every day."
A stroke of fate, which Myra called a "miracle," happened. Without her knowing it, her manager had filed a "missing person" report, prompting the Philippine Embassy in Japan to look for her and provide her all that she needed to come home.
Back home, Myra landed her first post-Japan job – as manager of a club called Impiyerno. Was The Lord playing a trick on her? "That was where I was all the time," said Myra, "in hell."
At Impiyerno, another "angel" came to Myra’s life in the person of a lawyer-fan who wanted her out of that place and volunteered to introduce her to Rez Cortez, one of the moving spirits behind the Oasis of Love.
"That’s when I surrendered myself to God," said Myra.
Now a single parent, Myra works as an entertainment consultant at one of the progressive call centers in the country. Her eldest son, Gerald Albert, 19, is a seminarian whose education is sponsored by the Immaculate Heart of Mary Community. Her two other children, Von Aiki and Alekzandra, are also in school.
"I lost my father the day I was born," concluded Myra. "All the while, I didn’t know that God the Father was just waiting for me to surrender to Him."
(Note: If you want to read Myra Manibog’s full story, get a copy of the Kerygma magazine’s Sept. 2006 issue. Call 411-7874 to 77 for inquiries.)