Lino Brocka’s Tubog sa Ginto MHL circa 1971

Lino Brocka’s Tubog sa Ginto MHL circa 1971

By Pablo A. Tariman (The Philippine Star) | Updated August 12, 2013

MANILA, Philippines - The good thing about YouTube is that you can access old films that you thought have vanished with beepers and telegraph messages.

An example of YouTube goldmine is Lino Brocka’s 1971 film Tubog Sa Ginto starring Eddie Garcia, Lolita Rodriguez, Mario O’Hara and the then teenage loveteam of Jay Ilagan and Hilda Koronel.

The story is a comics original by Mars Ravelo (with illustration by Elpidio Torres)  and it appeared in the comics of one’s youth, Tagalog Klassiks. In the ’70s, talking about homosexuality is still taboo but a few managed to invade the popular medium enough to disturb the mindset of the polite society.

Like it or not, Brocka’s Tubog Sa Ginto in 1971 is what the now popular teleserye My Husband’s Lover (MHL) is in 2013.

Here, the part of Tom Rodriguez was played valiantly by Eddie Garcia with the role of Dennis Trillo going to the much younger Mario O’Hara. The role of the martyr-wife now played by Carla Abellana was played by the distinguished Lolita Rodriguez.

In the Brocka film, Garcia is Don Benito married to Doña Emma played by Rodriguez. As the film opens with a birthday party for his son, Santi (played by Ilagan), you get to see the character profile of the respected patriarch. His eyes keep on  surreptitiously following his son’s friends in swimming trunks. As the story progresses, you see Don Benito’s seduction scenes with the family driver, Diego, then  played by the very much young O’Hara.

The film managed to give moviegoers a chance to see a good family eventually break up as the patriarch’s pursues an unusual dalliance with the family driver.

The son (Ilagan) has a love affair with a lovely teener (Koronel) and later finds out the unusual happenings in the family set-up.

Discovering his husband’s love affair with the family driver, Doña Emma couldn’t help turning to other men for comfort. The young lovers discover Doña Emma’s other man during a movie date. And to make matters worse, poor son  accidentally discovers his father’s liaison with another man.

The 1971 film has a well-thought-out script that allows character studies of other protagonists in the story.

Seduced by his boss and later discovering that he can use his body to improve his income, the family driver turns to blackmail. In one of their supposed secret trysts, a photographer records their intimate moments. The moment of truth shocks the boss.

In one drunken scene as he loses his blackmail money to gambling, the driver turns to the wife and gets caught by the husband-lover. The altercation between the two ends in a tragic end for the main protagonists.

The film was made before his classic Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag  and Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang. But already, Brocka showed his film sensibility in this 1971 film.

His excellent cast is of course a big bonus.

To get Garcia to act as gay macho man in the early ’70s was a coup.

Here he delineates a respectable husband with a stable job and a social status fit for the respectable middle upper class. Garcia’s portrayal as the big boss and  the patriarch and then as the closet gay is indeed commendable as he wrestles with the inner turmoil of his character. Rodriguez turns in a quiet but powerful portrayal of a betrayed wife who must get even with the husband.

The film gives you a rare glimpse of O’Hara as a young actor in a highly challenging role. From the innocent driver introduced to the lure of the flesh from the same sex, he turns cunning in the end realizing he can turn his boss’ obsession with him into cold cash.

The roles of Ilagan and Koronel in this film provide a  beautiful contrast to what the other members of the family are going through in Tubog.  The Ilagan-Koronel love team in this film is pure, young love personified and the two are just perfect for the part. The disintegration of the dutiful son  after discovering his father’s secret  love life provides Ilagan some acting challenge he was able to deliver. As for Koronel in this film, she is the epitome of young love before the trial and tribulations.

In this film, Garcia received the Best Actor trophy while Brocka ran off with the FAMAS Best Director citation.

In an interview with this author, Garcia admitted he had no qualms accepting the part when it was offered to him in 1971.“It was a very unusual role that comes once in an actor’s lifetime. What I particularly liked about the part was the role is not the caricature of the Filipino gay. The parts often played in the movies are the beauty-parlor-type and the town-screaming faggot. In the role, nobody knows I was gay because I was married, I have a teenage son (played by Ilagan) and I have a respectable job. It was when I started looking for pick-up boys that my gayness comes to the fore.”

The actor also intimated he researched quite a lot to prepare for the part. “I asked my gay friends about what gives way to a fag even if he looked macho.”

The actor once played gay in a film called Paru-Parung Buking.

The late film critic Hammy Sotto noted that Tubog was invited to the 1972 Venice Film Festival by Italian festival agent Luciano Marzouli. At that time, Ilagan had problems with Lea Productions and for this reason alone, the Blas sisters — who owned the studio — refused the invitation. According to Sotto, Brocka was so downhearted he left Lea Productions.

One notes that Tubog…“was made some 42 years before Rustom Padilla metamorphosed into BB Gandanghari and before Charice Pempengco made headlines with her admission on her true sexual identity.”

Which means Brocka was ahead of his time and capable of disturbing the status quo when he felt he had to.

One wondered if Brocka could have made a sequel of the same film in these liberated times when same-sex marriage was no longer shocking.

Compared with the Brocka film, the teleserye My Husband’s Lover has very little insight to offer.

Brocka beat everyone to say in his early film that yes, husbands had male lovers as early as 1971 but were only quite coy and secretive about it for obvious reasons.

(http://www.philstar.com/entertainment/2013/08/12/1079551/lino-brockas-tubog-sa-ginto-mhl-circa-1971)

Hilda Koronel: ‘I am happier now’

Hilda Koronel: ‘I am happier now’

by Janet Nepales

September 11, 2013

Los Angeles – “I am happy where I am right now,” Hilda Koronel said as she sat in a garden chair, dressed comfortably in a flowing white skirt and flowery top. “I am now just a regular housewife and semi-retired.”

For someone who just turned 56 last Jan. 17, Hilda looks vibrant, youthful and blooming.

Now based in Los Angeles and happily married for 13 years to Filipino-American businessman Ralph Moore Jr., Hilda took a break from show business for seven years and did one movie recently, the Star Cinema film “The Mistress,” which was directed by Olivia Lamasan and starred John Lloyd Cruz, Bea Alonzo and Ronaldo Valdez.

“My kids are all grown up so I am trying to enjoy my grandkids,” she said. (She has four grandkids)

Hilda has five children: Leona (with the late-actor Jay Ilagan); Ivy (adopted); Isabel (with the late Bambi del Castillo); Gabby (with Spanky Monserrat); and Diego (with Dr. Victor Reyes). She enjoys her quiet domestic life as a simple housewife, mother and grandmother.

Recently, she made a splash again when the late Lino Brocka’s 1975 film, “Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag,” was featured at the Cannes Classics section of the recently held Cannes Film Festival this year.

“Maynila” was digitally restored by the World Cinema Foundation, headed by Martin Scorsese. It was shown at the Salle Buñuel of the Palais.

Of her recent Cannes experience, Hilda admitted that it was a “bittersweet, fun, nerve-wracking and nostalgic experience. I thought of Lino Brocka who brought us to Cannes the first time with ‘Insiang.’ He would even do my hair and he would ask his fashion designer friends like Christian Espiritu to do my gown. He was like my mom. We were proud to represent the Philippines.”

She noted, though, “Too bad Bembol was not able to come. It was more his film.”

After seeing the movie again, she marveled, “I looked so young and slim. I was only 17 years old then. The film looked really crisp. I am glad they were able to restore it.”

The first time she went to Cannes in 1978, Hilda made a splash at the Croisette where “Insiang” was screened at the Section Parallèlle/Directors’ Fortnight. She remembers wearing a Christian Espiritu gown that made the front page of the daily, France-Soir, upstaging Farrah Fawcett.

This year, Hilda went to Cannes with her hubby Ralph, her good friends Dr. Tess Mauricio and husband Dr. James Lee.

“It was raining at Cannes,” Hilda recalled. “Thank God it stopped when we reached the red carpet or else it would have been hard for us to walk around in the rain with an umbrella in our gowns,” she said. Forgoing a designer gown for something off the rack, she pointed out, “There were a lot of designers who were willing to dress me up but there was just no more time.”

Among the many stars on the red carpet, her eyes were glued on the statuesque and lovely Nicole Kidman. “She was the first one we saw and I just couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

She also recalled, “We were so nervous to be on the red carpet. We said let us just go up. We were shy.”

Hilda confided, “I miss the people,” adding, “It will always be my country. Filipinos are very warm. When I lived here in the US, it was a culture shock for me. People here mind their own business. So I just got busy with my children and my garden. It is so quiet. I was used to having my own maids. I miss my maids!”

Speaking of Lino, she said, “He is very frank. You hurt people when you are very frank. He says what is on his mind. He is like a brother to me.”

On some of her leading men, Hilda revealed:

“Jay (Ilagan) and I were very young when we got married. He entered show business earlier than me; he was a child actor. When he died in that motorcycle accident, it was only six months difference when Lino died. Our marriage was not going to work. He had so many girls. But we always put our kids first before anything else.

“Walter Navarro, I heard, died horribly. I feel sorry for him. He was very talented as a singer but very shy.

“Christopher de Leon was my best leading man. We are (of) the same age and we were both talents of Lea Productions. Most of my films were done with Boyet. He is very professional and a very good actor.”

As to doing more movies, “I don’t think my husband would allow me,” she disclosed. “If he cannot go with me, I cannot do it.” She disclosed that she got many offers to do indie films after “The Mistress” but she declined.

Hilda married Ralph in May 2000 in Laughlin, Nevada. She said one of the secrets of their marriage is their friendship. “We do everything together and I always ask him first for his opinion before I do anything. We respect each other in that sense. It is better to find out what the other one is thinking before you do something.”

Ralph, looking at Hilda lovingly, said, “I love her. I respect her. I believe God put us together. So I worked at that. For me, I always think of her when I am at work. We text each other. She tells me everything that she is doing.”

He added, “I am grateful to God. Every time I wake up and she is lying beside me, I am grateful for another day with her. She is a wonderful wife. Her cooking is amazing – the best cook in the world. I love her dinuguan. I say, ‘Honey, stop but don’t stop. It’s so good, it’s bad. But it’s so good.’”

Ralph admitted crying when he first saw “Maynila.” He said, “I am so proud of her.” When he saw “Insiang” for the first time, “It was emotionally disturbing for me to see her crying in the movie.”

He said he didn’t know Hilda Koronel the actress when they first met because he was born in Oregon. “I just went to the Philippines when I was eight years old. Now I try to watch bits and pieces of her movies on YouTube… I was excited to see ‘Maynila’ in Cannes. I just wish I met Lino Brocka, too.”

The two also are into healthy living, taking care of themselves with good diet (organic food) and exercise.

Ralph, who is turning 60 years old this year, looks young for his age, just like Hilda. They credit their youthful appearances not only to healthy living and good attitude but also to Dr. Tess Mauricio’s non-surgical Time Machine procedure, which is not actually a machine, but the use of several machines to make a person look young and produce more collagen.

Hilda also added, “I am happier. I am not stressed. When I was younger I was more high strung. Now all my kids are grown up and I just have one son who is going to Nursing. I am more relaxed now. I feel that it is now more about taking care of myself than my kids but I think of them all the time.

“Now, I take care of how I eat (and) maintain myself. Well-being is important now that we are aging. We exercise daily so, hopefully, we will have 30 more years. I am kinder to people. I have become a better person.”

(http://www.mb.com.ph/hilda-koronel-i-am-happier-now/)