Alfred: Movie industry should wait it out
As what industry experts said in a recent Funfare forum, Quezon City 5th District Congressman Alfred Vargas agreed that it would take time before people return to moviehouses. Even if he has an entry, Alfred said that he is in favor of postponing (to next year?) the first Summer Metro Manila Film Festival (SMMFF, originally scheduled last month).
“Public health is of paramount importance,” Alfred told The STAR. “There is still so much uncertainty now about our future. Until such time that we are ensured of our safety by overcoming this pandemic through a new vaccine or a ‘new normal,’ even as producer and actor, I would say that the movie industry should take a back seat and wait it out. No one will go to the movie theaters anyway if there is still fear of getting the virus.”
Directed by Mac Alejandre from a screenplay by Ricky Lee, Alfred’s entry is titled Tagpuan (formerly ML/HK/NY) which is a love story between an ex-couple (Alfred and Iza Calzado) and also about having no roots, the loneliness of not having a home, people traveling but not establishing real connection.
“It’s about love, family and finding oneself in the midst of loneliness away from home,” was all that Alfred would say (no spoiler alert, please).
With Shaina Magdayao as the other star, Tagpuan was filmed in different cities including (the pre-COVID-19) New York where scenes were shot in the Chinatown area.
As a public official, Alfred is currently preoccupied with taking care of the more than one million residents in his district.
“Doing relief operations for more than 45 days already has been quite a challenge,” admitted Alfred. “Legislators do not have the budget to implement such programs. So what we do is just use our personal resources to buy goods to be given away and we also rely on generous friends for donations. These are still not enough at all but we try to help as many as we can. Monitoring the district requires 24/7 efforts. I answer around 800 to 1,000 text messages a day. I don’t know how I do it, but thank God, He finds ways for me. God gives me strength and understanding during these times.”
Supporting him are his wife, Yasmine Espiritu-Vargas, and their daughters Alexandra and Aryana who offered their savings to buy masks for frontliners in San Bartolome Hospital in Novaliches. The couple’s third child (a boy) is a toddler.
But Alfred is never too busy to spend precious time with his family in ECQ (Enhanced Community Quarantine).
Assured Alfred, “Despite my busy, in-house and ECQ schedule, I am still able to spend all three meals together with my family, play with my kids, watch films online with them, and have quality time with my wife on a daily basis. I make it a point to do these. It’s all ‘scheduled’ every day so I have time for everything.”
My daily bread from Wilson’s Kamuning Bakery
So where do you get your supply of daily bread when most bakeshops are closed? Me? From Wilson Lee Flores’ 81-year-old Kamuning Bakery Café (KBC) that continues baking traditional breads and pastries, also adapting by now adding the home delivery service and innovating with new products. (Yes, I order for delivery.)
For the first time since 1939, Kamuning Bakery Café is now offering new products like sourdough breads, baguettes, ube cheese pandesal, cream loaf, ube cheese loaf, raisin monay, rye breads, etc. in addition to its traditional pandesal, pan de suelo, loaf breads, pies, cakes, cookies.
According to Wilson, to support distressed Central Luzon carabao farmers and dairy cooperatives hit by the lockdown, Kamuning Bakery Café now also sells their delicious and healthy carabao milk products such as pasteurized milk, choco milk, yogurt drinks (plain, pineapple, blueberry, strawberry flavors), Gouda cheese, kesong puti (white cheese) and Pastillas de Leche.
“As long as we can source ingredients, supplies and logistics,” said Wilson, “I promised the bakers and staff that we will continue Kamuning Bakery Café’s operations because it is a form of public service to help sustain food supply and to share good cheer in crisis. KBC has also survived World War II and a destructive 2018 fire caused by a neighboring resto bar. I believe every piece of pandesal and each loaf of bread we create is an act of resistance against the epidemic of fear and despair, because breads symbolize happiness, love of life and indomitable hope.”
Kamuning Bakery Café, Eden Cheese and Phil. Foremost Milling have gifted free pandesal and loaf breads to medical frontliners and urban poor families in Quezon City. Kamuning Bakery Café has also tied up with the Quezon City government and San Miguel Mills to distribute free pandesal, Pan de España (called “Spanish bread” in other local bakeries) and mongo hopia for frontliners of Quezon City. Kamuning Bakery Café also encourages philanthropic people or groups who wish to donate pandesal or loaf breads to frontliners or disadvantaged communities.
For orders or deliveries, Viber to 0922-8901892 (Lanie), 0933-8536429 (Grace), 0936-3095017 (Clarissa), 0922-8901893 (Joan), 0995-3187436 (Joy), 0933-8536431 (Janet), 0933-8536431 (Rose). To follow up orders or customer service, text or Viber 24-hour numbers 0917-8481818 or 0918-8077777.
Walk-in buyers are welcome daily from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Kamuning Bakery Café on Judge Jimenez St. cor. K-1st St., Barangay Kamuning, Quezon City (Judge Jimenez St. is a side street of Kamuning Road near Caltex and East West Bank).
Remembering Leila Benitez
Here’s a letter from Dolores “Dee” Marquez Litchfield, reacting to Funfare’s recent story about the death of Leila Benitez. Dee is the cousin of Bibsy Marquez Carballo, who wrote a TV column for STAR until her passing sometime in 2016.
Dear Ricky,
What fun it is to see Leila Benitez on your 4/14/20 Philippine Star Entertainment cover! Your article brought back memories for me of Manila TV in the 50’s, as I was enrolled as foreign student at UP (from NY), invited by schoolmates to do some TV.
My Filipino father met his US bride-to-be as an engineering student, at the University of Michigan, while Mama was a young working girl in Detroit.
In reverse, about 19 years later, I was the first of eight kids — from the union of Manila and Detroit — sent back for college at the University of the Philippines. Tuition-free for Filipino families.
My TV show was pretty much trial and error — live-production done by my schoolmate-producers at UP. There were no facilities for recording live shows in those early days of TV... We took photos for review and fanmail of live 50’s telecasts.
Teddy Yabut, his partner and crew from Admakers were still learning TV production US-style. Our Pacosta Show (ice cream makers) was popular and we soon became “A Date With Dee” with a following.
Does Leila have any recordings of her early shows? I must look around to see if I have any photos from the 50’s here to show for that lovely experience.
Anyway, thanks for the memories! —Dee Marquez Litchfield
Help for Mowelfund’s marginal members
Mowelfund, Inc., the foundation for film workers catering especially to the marginalized sector of the industry, is offering financial assistance to the members through the program Mowelfund Cares (COVID-19 Alleviation and Recovery Enhancement Support). For the requirements, call these numbers: 028-7271961/0961-5801896/0977-6904434.
(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos, visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on Instagram @therealrickylo.)
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