Tag Archives: Sarah Geronimo

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Notes on OPM: Re-considering pop

The question of supporting Original Pilipino Music (OPM) is one that isn’t simple anymore, not in these times when cultural systems are so intricately intertwined, and television networks and cultural empires are kings. In this series I look at contemporary Pinoy music’s production(s) and unpack the contradictions and discriminations inherent in, and the context(s) crucial to, the fight for OPM as we know it.

It is often said: Original Pilipino Music (OPM) needs more support because it is suffering in the face of piracy, good songs don’t get radio airplay, great CDs don’t sell well in record bars. We talk about globalization and the cheaper foreign CDs it brings, we talk about colonial mentality and the preference for what isn’t local it continues to wreak.

Except that when we say OPM has no chance of winning against the big bad foreign artists, that isn’t really true. Since Sarah Geronimo’s recent CD came out, it’s been in the Top 10 Best Selling Albums list in most local record bars, battling it out with Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and J Lo, recently even topping those lists.  (more…)

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Kilig down pat in Catch Me I’m In Love

And when I say that this movie proves Sarah Geronimo and Gerald Anderson individually and together have the kilig down pat, it’s that someone my age, with my history of bad love, could actually still get kilig. Yes, kilig to the bones circa 1980s, complete with stomping foot, loud laughter, sinking into my movie seat, nudging elbows with my younger sister (ex-student now friend) beside me, in the end tired from the roller coaster ride that a two hour love story can still be. Kapagod pala kiligin. Some things I’ve forgotten.

In Catch Me I’m In Love, the kilig is difficult to ignore, as it carries what is an otherwise expected story through to its logical happy end. It’s also a surprisingly believable love between a girl and boy who are really only bound by country, and when I say that, I mean the government of the Philippines complete with scenes of Malacañang Palace.

Gerald plays Eric, presidential son, who’s unhappy with being in the Philippines and is sent by the President to a far away provincial community so he may learn of purpose. Eric is accompanied by Roanne (played by Sarah), an NGO worker who deals with nation from the grassroots level, a confident girl who inadvertently shoots down the presidential son at an awarding ceremony in her NGO. She is appointed by the President (Christopher de Leon) to be Eric’s mentor in living with a community he would otherwise not care about.

The rocky start is obvious, even more so in the context of impoverished Isabela: between waking up at 4 AM to walking long distances, Eric was beyond his comfort zones of clubbing, girls, the gym. Never mind, since all that would be forgotten by the time he comes home from Isabela and is in his words, “a better man” because of Roanne. She who challenged his spoiled boy sensibilities, pointed out in cliché terms the fact that what these children in impoverished communities need is time and attention, not money.

Eric was changed by the experience, Roanne was only in her turf. But Roanne’s intelligence and confident stance about nation was happening alongside her crisis as a girl, who wants to stand in front of a boy, and ask him to love her. This she will do at the end of the movie, but in the meantime she is just sad about her status as NBSB (no-boyfriend-since-birth to the unlearned in local pop culture), as she is teased by her three older brothers about it, as she is oblivious to the fact that the rapper neighbor Vito (played so well by Matteo Guidicelli) is trying to court her but doesn’t know how.

Suffice it to say that between Eric’s need to become a better presidential son, and Roanne’s dream (literally) of getting a love life, this movie set it up so it all seemed possible. It also speaks of NGO life and the nation it builds as wonderful, where changing the world begins with talking to people and knowing how they live — a great thing to see in a mainstream commercial movie.

It’s in this setting that the NGO worker and presidential son fall in love, without the trappings of the usual. After another trip where boy surprises girl in Isabela (that’s what I call going the distance), they come home to Roanne’s lower middle class family to tell them the truth: without the process of conventional courtship, they were now together (kami na, in the vernacular).

Which as it turns out is unacceptable to the general public who think Eric to be eligible bachelor, and who will make Roanne subject of tsismis, evil as that becomes: she doesn’t deserve him, she looks like a maid, it won’t last long. To add salt to wound, a socialite who is the complete opposite of Roanne in looks (Sam Pinto) enters the picture and makes like she’s out to win the presidential son. Now Sarah is no ugly girl, in fact she was overwhelmingly Pinay pretty in most the movie. But vis a vis the socialite and the trappings of a presidential dinner she pulls out that social class card and it just works.

In fact discomfort and insecurity is a game that Sarah plays well, and it’s in these moments of crisis that we see how she’s gotten better at acting, allowing us to forget her iconic character Laida Magtalas (her role opposite John Lloyd Cruz). In this movie, Sarah’s role as intelligent NGO worker comes in painful contradiction with the insecure girl-in-love, and when Roanne breaks down and breaks it off with Eric, Sarah proves a broken heart in real life does wonders for one’s acting.

Gerald meanwhile needs to get over the fact of his good looks, and into acting like it doesn’t matter. Because his role here is that of Fil-Am heartthrob, Gerald sometimes seems like he’s playing himself. Yet when he was an arrogant presidential son in the beginning, it actually worked; when he became the gentleman who would carry Roanne on his back because she had a sprained ankle, he knew to balance arrogance with machismo; when he became this boy who’s pushed against the wall by Roanne’s insecurities about herself that brings her to suggest they break up, Gerald’s helplessness as he asked “Kaya mo?” will melt your heart. And let you forget his abs.

Which is what there’s plenty of in this movie, generally un-needed since it’s done in relation to pagsasaka, and Sarah isn’t one to show some skin or have a kissing scene. If the goal was to establish Gerald’s, uh, hotness, then one scene with abs seems enough doesn’t it? Plus there are his good looks, which is used to the hilt in this film; and those eyes, the use of which Gerald has mastered.

Sarah meanwhile, has mastered this role of the lower middle class girl getting paired off with the rich guy, fulfilling the layers of impossibility in love. Now this isn’t a new role at all (think Judy Ann opposite Piolo Pascual, Marian Rivera opposite Dingdong Dantes), but it’s one that’s done only by Sarah in her age bracket. This is all fine, but maybe it’s time to give Sarah something she can sink her teeth into. After Laida and Roanne, it would do commercial audiences well to be shown a role that doesn’t peg Sarah to financial and emotional immobility because of love. Maybe a role that doesn’t put such a premium on the latter, and lets the intelligence and independence shine? Maybe a movie that stars as well that bunch of supporting characters who make for Star Cinema movies.

Ketchup Eusebio and Janus del Prado play two of Roanne’s brothers here. These two were not only comic relief, they point to the value of supporting characters that hold the main story up, and remind us of the travesties that surround the fact of star power in this country. That the infinitely talented Eusebio and del Prado are not starring in commercial films has become normal to us. That I dream for these two a bigger project, becomes possible given a star like Sarah, who I think will ably carry a film all her own, maybe with Eusebio and del Prado as (gay) friends to a Sarah without a big time love interest, if with love at all. Now that would be a powerful image, wouldn’t it. One that hasn’t been done before. Ah, the dreaming is what happens after the kilig.

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the enterprise of the impossible

their first movie, A Very Special Love was anything but believable. Laida, Sarah Geronimo‘s character, was too giddy, too pa-cute, too over the top, for comfort. And Miggy, John Lloyd Cruz’s character, was so confusingly inconsistent: one moment he was a scary boss, the next he was someone who would go to an employee’s birthday party; one moment he was singing videoke, the next he was downright mean.

the love story was also such a stretch, given the fact that Laida was a new employee in the office where Miggy was boss, and she does look younger (no matter the clothes and make-up) than him. given Miggy’s general attitude towards his employees, it was unbelievable that he would even be remotely interested in this girl who obviously had the hots for him.

it is in this sense that You Changed My Life was an interesting sequel, because it had to have more than just the kilig factor and John Lloyd’s laglag-panty looks — both of which are on overdrive here. while Laida’s character had evolved and matured, Geronimo’s take on her was still on “I love you John Lloyd!” mode. it was clear that Laida here had very little sense that love doesn’t equal dependence, and that she couldn’t save this man from messing up his new job as head of one of his family’s businesses, even with more love for him. even more interesting is the fact that Laida, even when in her head she could always help save Miggy from self-destruction and shame, had no idea what kind of help Miggy actually needed.

he, who wanted to revive the business by taking on the challenge of an account that would require more than the company’s standard quota. he, who decided that the only thing he could do was overwork his employees, hire more contractuals, and remove all incentives so that he could have more money to go around. he, who screamed at the workers, without realizing the kind of work they were doing.

it was clear here that what Miggy needed was a change in ideology — not just Laida saving his ass by, well, becoming his employee (which was what she wanted to do). when the movie dared allow for the workers to stage a rally and stand by their refusal to work, i couldn’t help but be hopeful that there would be a spiel on workers’ rights. instead, all the movie did was talk about the value of the worker in the context of this particular family enterprise. instead, all they talked about was the universal liberal notion of “our company is our people” and we must “care for them” — without realizing that this sounded more about charity than about valuing the worker.

without Laida’s help, Miggy is forced to take responsibility for the company and its people. meanwhile, Laida was kept in the dark about how horrible this man she had fallen in love with was, a tragedy in itself given that she comes from a working class family and is in fact an employee of Miggy’s family.

which does make it almost impossible that this rich, super guwapo, yummy young man — an eligible bachelor as he is wont to be created by the movie — would fall in love with this spit of a girl, who barely knows herself and is obviously of a different social class. in reality, someone like Laida would dream of a man like Miggy, but never get him. in reality, Laida’s social class would dictate a particular ideology, the kind that would allow her to take stock and realize that she is an employee and he is the boss, and nothing else.

but this is a Pinoy love story after all. the kind that wants us to believe that the impossible is possible, that we can all be Laida and have someone like John Lloyd take us on a helicopter ride, pick us up at work everyday, do the sundance with us, and will want our powerhug. and yes, when I shift from Geronimo’s Laida character to the real John Lloyd, i mean to say this: that like the images of real and true workers’ empowerment, in the context of capitalism, this remains as fiction. and it is almost entirely impossible.

p.s.: Rayver Cruz‘s acting here was priceless as Macoy. as the third member of a love triangle that never happens, his longing looks should be put in a bottle for the enterprise of the forlorn. this kid will give many of those hunks on ABS-CBN a run for their money — and i’m not even talking about his dancing.