When plump is beautiful

When my parents enrolled me in prep many years ago (and I really mean many years ago) in Don Bosco, the town of Mandaluyong still looked very rustic to me. A section of the school, to begin with, was on top of a hill and was dotted with acacia trees. One of the buildings – supposedly built in 1716 – used to be an orphanage and this was where the secrets of the Katipuneros were revealed to a nun by Pedro Patino in 1896.

Outside the school was a public market, so students had to learn math, language and science in between the shrill cries of pigs being slaughtered.

Just like in most provinces, the streets of Mandaluyong – particularly those in the area within the San Felipe Neri parish – were narrow and this often caused a lot of traffic especially in the morning and during the rush hour in the afternoon.

The other side of Mandaluyong – in contrast – looked very cosmopolitan, especially that part of Wack-Wack subdivision (with its fabulous golf course) and Cherry supermarket along Shaw Boulevard.

Mandaluyong – in general – however, was still basically an inconsequential Rizal town in those days and was known only for three institutions: Welfareville, Correctional and the Mental Hospital. Mandaluyong residents, in fact, were often subjected to the cruel joke, "taga-loob o taga-labas," in reference to the town being the site of the "psychopathic," which was how the Mental Hospital was sometimes called then.

Today, you can’t laugh at Mandaluyong anymore because it continues to laugh its way to progress. For one thing, it boasts of some of the finest malls in the country at present. (The Shangri-La mall in my opinion, is better than most malls in the United States.)

I am writing about Mandaluyong (which is now a city) because a few weeks ago, I was invited to judge a contest there – at the Mandaluyong gym to be exact.

When Odette Galino of the office of Mayor Benhur Abalos invited me to the affair, I thought it was one of those usual beauty pageants again. But when I arrived at the Mandaluyong gym via a side entrance, I was surprised to see some rather healthy looking women on stage performing a rousing opening production number.

It was then that I realized that I had misheard the details of the contest on the phone. All along, I thought I was judging Binibining Mandaluyong. To my surprise and mild shock, it turned out to be Bilbiling Mandaluyong and it was a contest for pleasingly plump women.

For a while there, I even stopped to ask, "Why hold a contest for fat women?" In fact, the only fat I can associate Mandaluyong with is Adelina’s ham, which – I think – is still in its original store on General Kalentong Street.

But Bilbiling Mandaluyong, it turned out, had been around for the past 16 years and is supposedly being copied in other parts of the metropolis by copycat politicians who can’t think of a more original concept to entertain their constituents.

Actually, what’s really worth emulating was the way the city of Mandaluyong handled the Bilbiling Mandaluyong affair. The presentation was smooth and professionally handled. Surely, those who handled the fiasco that was the Manila Film Festival awards night could have learned a thing or two from the people who organized the Bilbiling Mandaluyong contest. Also commendable was the handling of the host, Nolan Angeles, who – not once – made fun of the contestants.

Well, the contestants themselves seemed like they were all having fun – except maybe for the older ones in the batch (the oldest was 58), who probably would have been happier just being in bed when the contest was in full swing (the affair started rather late at a little past 9 in the evening).

There were actually 17 contestants in all – from the different barangays of Mandaluyong. Of course, they were all overweight and there was really enough fat on that stage to keep Dr. Vicki Belo in business for the next decade.

But despite their plumpness they managed to show to the world that they were fit enough to compete with the Binibining Pilipinas contestants when it comes to beauty of face and especially in the talent portion.

Like in most talent competitions, the Bilbiling Mandaluyong contestants chose either to dance or sing. But the dancing was really more fun and it is to the credit of the people who built the set that the stage didn’t cave in during the fast modern dances. And then, there was this contestant who danced the Hawaiian and I thought that her grass skirt was big enough to pass off as the grass shack in the popular Hawaiian song.

But really, a lot of them did their dance numbers with the grace and polish of Charlene Gonzalez during her Eazy Dancing days.

At the end of the contest, Mary Juana Guiang was adjudged fairest of the night. A Priscilla Almeda look-alike, Ms. Guiang at 20 also turned out to be the youngest among the contestants.

The previous year’s winner Grace Estayane unfortunately, failed to make it to the affair to crown her successor. She was at the maternity ward of Lourdes Hospital – having given birth two days earlier to an almost 9-pound. baby girl, who this early – if we are to believe speculations is already being primed (and fattened) for Bilbiling Mandaluyong 2020.