Pilar’s life journey continues

We first became aware of Pilar Pilapil’s life-altering transformation only after years in the movies and we get a call from her to attend Viva’s powwow at the Viva office. The result of this meet, we wrote about in our 2012 Live Feed on Pilar and the film Leona Calderon where she shared honors with iconic Virginia Mckenna.

After watching the Philippine premiere, we reported on Pilar’s remarkable portrayal of a UK-based OFW who scrimped and saved for her trip back to her homeland. Suddenly, she is told she has terminal cancer. What will be her decision? It is a plot we have seen before in Bucket List and its many inspirations. It merely involves giving in to her dreams like buying the dress she long wanted, and getting herself a beauty parlor treatment before she dies. And yet, in the hands of Pilar, the simple tale is sadder, truer like she was reliving part of her own life story.

Leona Calderon was the opening film at the 12th Gwangju International Film Festival in South Korea. After that, we again lost touch until the ABS-CBN press confab for the teleserye Muling Buksan ang Puso, in celebration of the network’s 60 years in television. The epic drama features three generations of the country’s most respected actresses with Pilar, Dante Rivero and Susan Roces; plus the second generation of Cherie Gil, who plays Pilar’s daughter (both Pilar and Cherie are deglamorized), Agot Isidro, Daniel Fernando, Dominic Ochoa, Jestoni Alarcon; and the network’s primetime idols Julia Montes, Enchong Dee and Enrique Gil.

Pilar had never been out of circulation, as we recall the Bb. Pilipinas-Universe title in 1967; snippets of her activities from friends; the gossip mill that spoke of her many relationships with movie kings, plus the most public one with Vice Pres. Salvador “Doy” Laurel (giving them daughter Pia); her TV dramas and more than 100 movies that brought her early on the Best Actress Award at the Manila Film Festival for Ang Uliran in 1971 and at the Gawad Urian for Napakasakit, Kuya Eddie in 1987.

She had married and divorced Spanish journalist Michel Ponti; became a born-again Christian in 1995; remarried Pastor Bernie Penas in 2002; put up the Pilar Pilapil Foundation helping battered and abused women, among others; and released a tell-all autobiography, The Woman Without a Face, sold out after days where she bared her soul relating that “I soared to the highest levels of success...   only to find when I got there that I was empty, did not know who I was… really did not have a face of my own.” She had nothing to hide as she gave interviews right and left and admitted to years with drugs, sex and depression. She also got into an abduction and stabbing incident which landed her in the hospital, coming out good as new and lovely as ever.

The few minutes we shared with the senior cast of Muling Buksan ang Puso was our most recent encounter with Pilar after the Leona Calderon premiere. She and Susan were having a lively stimulating conversation on observations of current filmmaking, with a few remarks from Dante, which we joined as audience. Then, they were gone, with Pilar promising to call us.  

She did, after some time, what with a thrice-weekly taping schedule, her foundation’s needs and living in the dream island of Malapascua. Below are her latest pronouncements via e-mail:

Among the many trials in your life, what was the most stressful?

“I have always been stressed about people who don’t use their common sense, which most of the time is not very common.”

What would you say ruled your life, your heart or your mind?

“I have been a victim of love in the past because I was emotional and based my decisions on my emotions. But because of the gift of a strong mind and spirit from the Lord, I have overcome all.”

When did your lifestyle change from a woman of the world to a child of God? What caused the change? What will you tell critics who say you are just using religion to cover up all your past sins?

“My lifestyle changed when I decided to give my life to the Lord in 1995. There were many instances when the Lord had already called me at different stages in my life. But it was in God’s time that I felt ready to commit my life to Him. I am not a people pleaser, I am more concerned about what the Lord thinks of me, so I don’t really care what judgment people may have of me.”

How was your childhood? Did you ever undergo such battering from your family?

“I was an abused child but all of those experiences the Lord turned around for good, for the betterment of myself and other people around me.”

And now her journey continues. What could be the next chapter?      

(E-mail your comments to [email protected].)