What's the connection between Bongbong & Amparo?

Amparo Muñoz dead.

I only read that in Ricky Lo’s column the other day, courtesy of one of Funfare’s beauty experts, Felix Manuel.

While I breathed a prayer for the repose of her soul, I did not weep. No choked emotions. Not a tear shed. I never even met her.

But I knew her as the Malaga starlet, who initially placed second in Miss Europe before conquering other continents, the solar system and all the constellations as Miss Universe.

When she flew to Manila for that year’s (1974) pageant, she wasn’t even among the popular bets. However, she instantly endeared herself to Filipinos when she readily admitted right after her victory that she was poor and only had four dresses during the contest.

She also had a few movies in the can waiting for release in Spain. Of course, these were immediately exhibited after she won Miss Universe and one of those, a rather sexy film titled Lolita, was shown in Manila months after her coronation.

The Filipinos adored her and called her by her nickname, Amparito. Nine years later, she returned to Manila to film Hayop sa Ganda that bombed at the box-office. She also got into a legal tussle after she slapped her lady producer due to tensions on the set. Her Filipino co-workers claimed the misunderstanding could be traced to cultural differences.

A local magazine, for instance, wanted to put her on the cover and she later demanded payment, which was the usual practice in her native Spain. That’s unheard of in this country. Not then. Not now. Celebrities sometimes have to bribe their way through to get publicity.

The legal case filed against her was eventually dropped after she unceremoniously packed up and left the country. Today’s generation and maybe even the one before probably don’t know her anymore.   

I’m only writing about Amparo because even Sen. Bongbong Marcos is also in the news after saying that had his father not been ousted by EDSA I, the Philippines could have been another Singapore. Of course, nobody bought that and you have to read the column of Billy Esposo (also last Tuesday) because the Chairwrecker’s unsolicited advice to the senator said it all. 

No, there was no mention of Amparo Muñoz there. But in my head, there had always been a connection between them — a strange one. No, they weren’t romantically linked to each other. They probably never even met in person.

I began associating Bongbong with Amparo during a Montalban outing in April 1975. Family friends organized a picnic that time and in the group was one of the sisters of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin. She was very close to my parents and years later even stood as principal sponsor at my eldest brother’s wedding.

In one of the conversations, somebody insisted that the Bongbong Marcos the public saw that time was fake. The real one had been killed the year before. How? I don’t know because I was unable to throw a follow-up question to clarify that. I didn’t have the liberty yet to ask and at that particular moment I was only allowed to do two things: Swim and finish my fried chicken. I wasn’t even supposed to be listening to them talk.

To lend credence to the story, the one who brought up the topic about the First Family having a fake Bongbong cited the Malacañang courtesy call of Amparo and her court that day in July 1974. She was crowned in the morning and was in the Palace by afternoon to see Imelda Marcos, who told reporters that her husband Ferdinand was out to attend to a very important matter.

Bongbong was supposed to have died that day and the father was either making funeral arrangements or was already in search of a look-alike that could pass for his son. With a little tweak here and there on a plastic surgeon’s operating table, they were later able to produce a new Bongbong.

Why didn’t they just admit the fact that Bongbong had died? Somebody in the group was inquisitive enough to have pursued that. Well, because the Marcoses were bent on staying in Malacañang forever and they needed a male successor to take over in time.

The part about Marcos wanting to hang on to power was incontestable. But the fake Bongbong Marcos? I don’t even understand why I even believed that tale in the first place. I never even got around to asking my parents if they, too, bought the story. I bet they wouldn’t even remember having heard that piece of gossip.

Surely, that was all part of one of the countless martial law rumors that time. That’s what happens when you gag media.

The fake Bongbong Marcos talk apparently died a natural death. It was one of the silliest rumors I’ve heard in my life. Looking back, I’m even embarrassed to admit that I fell for that piece of crap. I should have automatically buried that… now I don’t know where. 

But certainly not at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.