Content warnings for colorism, misogyny, and homophobia. These issues are still prevalent in Filipino society today. I included them as a critique of our society, not an endorsement of those things.
Do you like old movies? I like some of them. I like some 90s movies, even a few 80s ones. But for those of us in our generation, we don’t usually care about really old movies, yung tipong galing sa 1960s, diba?
I didn’t care about them either. But it changed when Miss Bettina Aragon contacted me. I knew her from teleseryes. Usually siya yung gumaganap ng lola ng bida sa mga teleserye. I had no idea about the colorful life she lived, and the woman she loved, na binura ng industriya sa kasaysayan.
So eto. I’ve tried to transcribe my recordings of what Miss Aragon told me. Sana makinig kayo, kasi this kind of stuff goes beyond movies. They’re real women who loved each other. Who cares about a movie romance? This is the kind of love we should immortalize.
BETTINA POV: MARCH 15, 1965; SAMPAGUITA PICTURES HEADQUARTERS; GRANADA STREET, NEW MANILA, PHILIPPINES
I almost tumbled out of my stilettos. Galing pa ako noon sa shift ko sa Shoe Mart. A stranger caught me; tinulungan niya akong bumangon. When I rose, I was towering over him, a compact young man.
He smelled strongly of vanilla perfume. Kahit ngayon, natatandaan ko pa ang pabango niya. His gentle face was caked in powdery white foundation. And the grease in his dark hair glittered under the chandeliers. The liquid set his hair into a slick pompadour, like Ricky Nelson’s.
His eyes were gentle, his face round. A Bisaya word slipped out of his mouth — “Aguy!” I looked at him and thought he must be one of those wealthy Chinese-Filipinos from Cebu.
It seemed clear from his face. His skin was light, but lacked those tiny little porcelain features that the Filipino men of European admixture possessed.
And yet he was strong. Despite his modest height, he held onto me with a firmness that startled me. I wondered what a pretty boy like him could even be doing to develop such strength.
He was good-looking, but don’t get me wrong, hindi ko siya type. Well… I guess I’m at a stage in my life where I can admit that men, as a whole, were never my type.
“Hey!” someone yelled. When I looked, a young woman was crossing her slim arms, glaring at the guy. A dark bouffant framed her heart-shaped face — very Audrey Hepburn, isip ko — and she was wearing a polka-dotted dress.
She pulled me away from the guy. Her voice raised, she said, “She’s new and you’re already trying to con her, are you?”
Sabi ng guy, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What did you take from her?”
“What?”
She slid her hands in the pockets of his shirt, but they came out empty. “Where did you hide it?”
“Nieves, I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” he said in Bisaya, voice lowering as his eyes stay fixed on hers. Hindi ako marunong mag Bisaya, pero nakakaintindi ako dahil sa mama ko. Sobrang interested ako sa usapan nila. Hindi ko mahula kung ano talaga ang vibes nilang dalawa noon. They seemed to hate each other, yet I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was some underlying fondness.
“Was that just an excuse for you to touch me?” tanong niya.
“If I slap you across your stupid face right now, would you ask the same thing?” sagot ni Nieves. She batted her eyes at him. She didn’t wait for him to respond, instead grabbing me by the arm, pulling me into the dressing room for female extras.
“Nieves,” she affirmed, offering a hand towards me. “Just ignore him. Salot sa lipunan.”
“I’m Bettina.” I took her hand and gave it a firm shake. “Who was that?”
“That was Francisco.” Nieves huffed. “He’s an extra too. He and I have unfortunately been doing a lot of extra work together.” She handed me a pink porcelain jar.
“What’s this?”
“That’s cream foundation. You know, to make you fairer.”
“Well, my father is a white man. He’s an American,” I said.
Nieves lifted a sculpted eyebrow, giving me a once-over. “You can never be too white for the silver screen, my friend.” She looked into the big mirror in front of her, smoothing out her hairdo. “I don’t know why, but you look a bit tanned, you know that? Have you been spending time out in the sun?”
Sabi ko, “Um… I’ve been working at the Shoe Mart.”
“Ah. Must be the daily traffic on your way there.” She sighed. “Francisco likes to be called Paco, but that’s a little too friendly for me.”
“Why don’t you like him?”
She pried her gaze away from the mirror and looked into my eyes. “Because the man is a liar and a libertine!” Her eyes fluttered shut, her hand clutching her temples. “I don’t believe a word that he says! He claims that he’s from a wealthy Chinese-Filipino merchant family, but his hands… they’re strong. They’re coarse.”
“So you’ve held his hands?”
Nieves glared at me. I tried not to laugh.
“Anyway, I bet he only got his mestizo de sangley looks because his mother was ravished by a Japanese soldier, or something like that. Everything about him is a lie,” she told me. I opened the jar, trying out the foundation. “And he’s got a new woman every week. I try to be a good Catholic woman, but he… oh my goodness, I can’t help saying unholy things because of him! He is a revolting, utterly despicable babaero.”
I looked down at my feet again, unsure of what to say. Nieves seemed to have very intense feelings about the man.
“I hope you didn’t fall for his little show of ‘heroism,’ my friend.”
“Oh, no. I didn’t really feel anything,” says Bettina. Totoo naman. Like I said, good-looking naman si Paco; in fact, in a sea of European-looking actors and actresses, I actually found Paco’s chino mestizo looks quite refreshing. But it’s true that he didn’t make me feel anything. Our encounter earlier mostly felt awkward.
Nieves stared at me, as if assessing the truthfulness of my statement. She let out a satisfied hum after a few seconds.
“I find that women are often cleverer than men. And yet they turn into swooning fools in his presence — it’s unfathomable,” she said. “It’s nice to meet a woman who doesn’t lose her head around the first man who flashes some pearly teeth at her.”
I nodded. Amen, sister.
Under the bright lights, Nieves’ arms were as pale as a sheet of paper. The name fits perfectly, I thought. Nieves — snow. Except there was a spot of a different color, and I grabbed it, wondering what it was.
Nieves frowned, looking down at her arm. She was shaking when she saw it, the spot of brown on her own arm.
“What’s…?”
“That’s… that’s my skin.” Nieves bowed her head, as if ashamed siya sa totoong kulay niya. “That’s what my skin looks like under the makeup.” I gasped, not because I judged her for her real complexion. I was just unaware that makeup could change someone’s complexion to such an extent. The spot of brown was a rich, deep hue, like a patch of earth.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” bulong niya sa akin.
“Oh, Nieves…” I tucked in a strand of Nieves’ black hair. “You’re beautiful. (Editor’s note: Bading ka talaga, Bettina.) The color of your skin doesn’t change that.”
Nieves fell silent for a moment. “Maybe that’s true. But the executives don’t agree.” She took out another jar of makeup. “For my arms. You want some?”
When we walked out, I saw the other female extras. We all looked the same. Extremely thin waists, bright-eyed, white-skinned, with thin noses and medium-sized, heart-shaped lips. My time with Nieves in the dressing room made me realize that this is not simply the product of careful selection. No — if you scrub off all our makeup, we all would’ve looked very different from each other.
But for this film, we all needed to look the same. Like a narrow ideal. One size fits all. I felt anger bubbling inside me.
That’s when I saw “him” for the first time.
Robin Villanueva, ang director ng pelikula namin.
My feelings towards him were immediate. I resented him right away. Sobrang pogi niya, oo. But he was handsome in a way that women could never look like in the industry. We all had to be dainty white figurines, but he was free to look like that.
Just another goddamn man. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Ang mali ko pala.
I didn’t have time to wallow in my resentment. The director told us all to partner up and start dancing with each other. Foxtrot, foxtrot, I reminded herself. I’d had to learn the steps to this dance just for this, a film set a few decades ago in 1940, in the Crystal Arcade.
TO BE CONTINUED…
