There are so many question in this world and These listed below were just some few intellectual Question. Try Answering them, and life will be life always a bummer. :D
[1] Kung ikaw si Batman, sino ang bahala sa yo? Give three examples. [2] Ano ang mas malaki? BAG NI DORA o BULSA NI DORAEMON? Ipaliwanag. [3] Sino ang kumagat sa logo ng Apple, at bakit hindi niya ito inubos? [4] Kung may UPCAT, bakit walang UPDOG? Elaborate. [5] Sa produktong Crayola, ano ang pinagkaiba ng yellow green sa green yellow? Explain using logarithmic functions. [6] Kung ang 1 kg ay may 1000 g, ilang grams naman ang meron sa Instagram? Show your solution. [7] Kung sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas may “”Panahon ng Amerikano, Hapon, Kastila at Pre-Colonial”, kailan naman matatagpuan ang Panahon ng Kopong-kopong? Ilahad ang mga mahalagang pangyayari at magpakita ng archaeological evidences. [8] If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, bakit sila nagpunta sa Earth? [9] Should you give up or should you just keep chasing pavements? Expound. [10] Ano ang meron kay Brand X at galit na galit ang ibang brand sakanya? Explain. [11] Masasabi mo bang fair ang Ms. Universe kung lahat ng contestants at judges ay galing sa Earth? Explain. [12] Gaano kataas ang lipad ng Whisper with wings? Graph your solution. [13] Kung may mag-imbento ng powdered water, anong idadagdag mo? [14] Kung walang kamay ang mga ibon, then why do birds suddenly APIR? Ipaliwanag. [15] Sabi ng iba, napuntahan niya na lahat ng sulok ng mundo. Paano mo masasabi na may “sulok” ang mundo kung Oblate Spheroid naman ang hugis nito? Explain and draw your answer on a 1/4 sheet of graphing paper. [16] May nalunod na ba sa lalim ng gabi? Kung meron, enumerate. [17] Bakit ang tawag sa *building* building kung tapos na siya? Justify. [18] Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy? EXPLAIN. [19] Gaano kadalas ang minsan? Enumerate. [20] How did Adele set fire to the rain? Write the chemical formula. [21] Kapag ang ipis nahulog sa tubig na may sabon, dudumi ba ang tubig o lilinis ang ipis? [22]Bakit pababa nang pababa ang ispaghetti? Explicate using Newton’s Law of Gravitation. [23] Does the moonlight shine on Paris after the sun goes down? [24] Kung ang nakatusok na baboy ay barbeque, ang nakatusok na saging ay bananacue, bakit ang kabayo, carousel? [25] Ilan ang butas sa isang cracker ng skyflakes? Illustrate. [26] Kung ang tao nagmula sa unggoy, bakit may mukhang kabayo? Explain. [27] Nauuhaw din ba ang mga isda? Ipaliwanag. [28] Bakit pag rush hour tsaka mabagal ang daloy ng traffic? Explain your answer using sign language. [29] Nasaan ang Edge of Glory? Write your final answer in nautical miles. [30] In 140 characters, ibuod ang talambuhay ni Jose Rizal. [31] Ang breakfast ba at dinner, pwedeng ilagay sa lunchbox? Prove your answer. [32] Kung si Corazon ang unang aswang, pang ilan ka?
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Why Your Scars Are BeautifulBy Belinda Elliott
CBN.com Daily Life Producer CBN.com – “Bad things happen to good people.” We hear it all the time. We know that it is true. Yet, when the “bad thing” happens to us, we somehow often seem to be caught off guard. The deep hurts that we experience in life can plague us for years to come. Author and speaker Sharon Jaynes knows this well. For years, she carried around wounds from her past without even realizing it. Jaynes grew up in a home filled with fighting and violence. Her father was an alcoholic, and his drunken rages left her crouching under her covers at night trying to shut out the sounds of her parents arguing. At age 12, Jaynes met a Christian woman in her neighborhood and began spending time with her. Although her family attended church every week, she had never seen a relationship with Jesus modeled in her home. Through her new friendship with her neighbor, she saw more than just religious rituals like her family performed on Sundays. She learned how to have a relationship with Jesus, and she accepted Christ two years later. Within five years both of her parents also came to know Christ. Her story seemed to have a fairy-tale ending. However, the years of fighting and violence at home left her very insecure. Among her deep-rooted insecurities was the belief that she was ugly and unloved. “Even though I became a Christian, I still had those wounds,” Jaynes explains. “And I carried them around with me well into my 30s.” Jaynes began to feel like something was missing from her life. As she attempted to discover what it was, she sensed God telling her to let go of her past hurts. That’s when she began the process of healing – a process that she calls “turning the wounds into scars.” “There is a big difference between a wound and a scar,” Jaynes says. “Because a scar says, ‘I’ve been healed, and this is my story.’” In her book, Your Scars Are Beautiful to God, Jaynes encourages readers to embrace their scars and allow God to use them in the lives of others. She says God prompted her to write the book after reading the familiar Scripture passage about the resurrection of Christ. “When Jesus appeared to His disciples, they did not recognize Him when He walked in the room until He showed them His scars. Once they saw His scars, then they knew who He was,” Jaynes says. “And as I was reading that I felt like God was saying to me, ‘that is still how people know Jesus today.’” Jesus could have healed His scars and come back without them. Instead, He chose to keep them. Jaynes believes that is because He had a message for us. Our scars are important, and He wants to use them. When Bad Things Happen We will probably never understand some of the things that happen to us in life. When approached with the question of why God allows pain in our lives, Jaynes says she usually refers to something she once heard Dr. James Dobson say. “He said that for us to try to understand God’s ways is like an amoeba trying to understand how the human body works. We just can’t do it,” Jaynes says. “And that is something that we have to come to grips with.” It is during our times of struggle that we find out what we really believe about God. A tragedy in our lives often leads us to a crisis of belief, Jaynes says. “I think that it’s very easy to believe in God when life is good,” she says. “But when life is not good, then that’s when we really decide if we believe it.” She tells the story of Wendy, a young woman who was raped. “She was very angry at God because she had been a good girl,” Jaynes explains, “and she thought that if you were good, then bad things would not happen.” Wendy was left with a choice to make. In the midst of her pain, Wendy had to decide between three options: God was not powerful enough to stop what happened; God was powerful enough, but simply didn’t care enough to stop what happened; or God allowed it to happen and He has some greater purpose behind it. After struggling for several years, Wendy decided God must have a purpose for what she endured, and she chose to release her pain to Him and trust Him with the outcome. It is a choice we all face when troubles hit our lives. Choose to Be Healed Each of us can be healed, Jaynes says, but first we must answer a question. She recalls the story in John 5 of Jesus healing a man who had lived as an invalid for 38 years. Before He healed him, Jesus asked the man, “Do you want to get well?” Perhaps the reason Jesus asked this, Jaynes says, is because the man’s life would drastically change once he was healed. He would have to learn to walk and get a job, among other things. Our lives, too, will change when we allow Jesus to heal our wounds. “I think we can be so comfortable with that wound that it almost becomes who we think we are,” Jaynes says. “‘I am a rape victim.’ ‘I am a woman who has been abused.’ ‘I had an abortion, and that’s who I am.’ We can become very comfortable in that and to let go of it and be healed is scary. You take on a whole new life.” Healing, Jaynes points out, also involves choices about forgiveness. If our wounds are from poor choices that we made, we must ask God to forgive us and accept that His death on the cross is enough to pay for our sins. Then we need to release the guilt and shame that we have felt. Healing often involves forgiving others as well. “I think that many people believe forgiveness means that we are saying that what they did is okay,” Jaynes explains. “It’s not okay. What it is saying is that I’m not going to let that control me any longer. I’m giving it to God.” Until a hurting person accepts God’s forgiveness, forgives themselves, and forgives the person who hurt them, Jaynes says, healing can never take place. Show Your Scars Once we are healed, the way we allow God to use our scars is by sharing them with others. Too often, Jaynes says, we hide our past hurts from people around us either because we are ashamed or because we fear rejection. Carrying these burdens around – something Jaynes compares to the dust cloud that follows Pigpen around in the Peanuts comic strip -- can limit the ways in which God is able to use us. “I lost a child a long time ago,” Jaynes says, “and when that happened I didn’t want to talk to anybody except someone who had gone through the same thing I had. I think that is how most people feel when they have gone through a struggle.” Perhaps the increase in the number of people seeking help from secular support groups supports this idea. “People are going anywhere and everywhere to find someone who has struggled with the same thing they have struggled with,” Jaynes says, “and it’s a little heartbreaking to think that they are having to go outside the church.” One reason people are afraid to show their scars is because they feel that their past will disqualify them for ministry. Jaynes believes that this doesn’t happen in churches as often as one may think. And if it does ever happen to anyone, she says, they should seriously reconsider their connection with that body of believers. “If we are at a place where we share that struggle and people do not rejoice with us and with God for restoring our lives, then we need to go somewhere else,” Jaynes says. Churches should seek to create safe places, such as Sunday school or small groups, where members can tell their stories. When that happens, Jaynes says, congregations will see a lot of healing take place. Beauty From Ashes Often, if we allow Him to, God will use our deepest hurt to develop our greatest ministry. The reason our scars can be beautiful, she says, is because God gives us opportunities to invest in other people because of the struggles we’ve gone through ourselves. For this reason, we should not despair when we experience painful circumstances. Rather, we should look for how God may want to use those circumstances. Jaynes says, “I’ve learned over the years to stop saying, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ Instead, I say to God, ‘Okay, what now?’ This is a shattered dream, now what do I do with it? Where do I go from here?” If we allow God to replace our wounds with scars, and we are willing to use them to help others, He will redeem even our most painful experiences. As Jaynes writes in her book, Satan wants to use our past to paralyze us. God wants to use our past to propel us. The choice is ours. Panjee Tapales
27 August 2006 SOURCE: PHILIPPINE STAR What is it about truth that is so difficult to face? Every crisis, illness included, is a profound invitation to face the truth: about oneself, our choices, our sexuality, our relationships, every little detail about the life we’ve made. I was recently asked what I meant about living an authentic life: it’s peeling the layers of untruth—-as far as we can-—until we get to who we really are, stripped of all external and worldly trappings. It is a lifelong process; a process developed over lifetimes. I know people who lie and live exclusively in compartments. They will tell you that they do it out of love—-so as not to hurt others. What they don’t realize is that the pain inflicted by any form of lie and betrayal is far greater than any kind of pain that is borne out of truth. Truth, no matter how harsh, confers dignity upon its recipient. Compartmentalization is not the answer. Integration-—a deliberate striving for it—is. My first conscious experience of being lied to happened when I was a teenager. The culprit was someone I loved and revered. The lie slammed into my belly, rappelled through my limbs and caused such an ache in my heart that when I think about it today, a chill courses through me. I didn’t understand then how a lie—-that I felt then had nothing to do with me—-could hurt so much. I thought myself silly for feeling such blinding anguish. But now I know why. When you lie to someone, you are telling that person he doesn’t matter; that he isn’t worthy of the truth. That’s why the pain of betrayal is annihilating. It is a direct attack on your sense of self. The content of the lie hardly matters. It is the lie itself that wounds. I didn’t understand my pain then. I didn’t see it as the message. I was a teenager in a dark place. Instead, the betrayal taught me that lying is inconsequential. If someone so dear could do it to me (or even around me), then it was par for the course. So I learned to live in the shadows and attracted others like myself. If someone asked me out and I didn’t feel like it, I’d spin a story. If someone drew me into a lie, but between us we had truth, I rationalized it away. It took years and many trials for me to see that truth is the simplest way to live. It was only when I became a mother that I renewed a conscious allegiance to truth. Later, through a crisis of crushing magnitude, it became crystal clear that the only way out of any kind of darkness is to speak and live truthfully. Or die trying. I did it not just for my healing, but so that my children could have a headstart at wholeness. My life—-not just what they see of it, but my life in its entirety—-is their teacher. I cannot impart the value of integrity if I don’t live it. I work on it every moment and constantly ask myself: Did I act truthfully? Was my migraine the real reason I didn’t want to engage in conversation? Or was I angry? Was it anger or hurt? Was I really tired or just lazy? It is a process of un-layering; a constant reminder that truth cannot be rationalized. I realize now that I have been in situations where I have had to unconsciously deal with layers of untruth. Looking back, I know I felt it from the onset—-a heaviness I couldn’t put my finger on--a sense that I was always swimming against a raging but invisible current. Any form of lie weakens that imperceptible moral ground our lives stand on. Over time it takes its toll, not just in our physical bodies (causing illness), but also in the fabric of our life stories. A friend knew her partner was lying to her for years but each time she asked for the truth, he kept silent. She told him she felt the cracks beneath them beginning to grow. They separated shortly after. The cracks had reached their mark. Though they are apart, he continues to live opaquely. His lies still cause such a violent reaction in her because her wounds are so deep they have simply not healed. Lies never shield from pain. They breed the worst kind. Lies rob others of choice. It is insidious. It’s not just verbal lies, but lies that have to do with the very way we live. If we function in layers –one for when we are with our parents, another for when we are with our children, still another for church—-we live out of a very unhygienic inner space; energy murk that we unwittingly unleash on others. Our lies pollute others in the level of the soul, only they are helpless against it because they do not see the full picture and are therefore unable to make clear life decisions. I’ve observed that people who lie have difficulty receiving truth. You can go blue in the face trying to bring clarity into the picture but they are so muddled within that they see only what they choose to. Only their truth is valid; a familiar shadow to hide behind. Truth is a mirror they cannot look into because it demands change. But you cannot be touched by truth and remain the same. If you recognize and accept it, you can never walk the same path again. It could mean monumental loss, mostly of the material kind, but the spiritual gains are immeasurable. People say they cannot tell the truth because they are embarrassed, ashamed and afraid. Though the emotions are valid, choosing to lie is selfish. The minute you realize that every lie is a chain around someone else’s freedom—-not just yours--you will find the strength to stop thinking just of yourself and step boldly into the light. So you have a heavy secret. Keep the secret and you are its prisoner; come clean and those affected will probably be disconsolate. They could hate you and hurl their rage at you. It will get ugly. You probably deserve it, too. But now you are in that sacred, well-lit place of authentic possibility—-the only chance to begin anew. That is the gift of truth. And just like that you are free, owned by nothing and no one. Just like that, you have given others the chance to be free. But first, you had to get over your self-centeredness: fear, shame, embarrassment were all about you. Truth opened your heart and grace leapt in. Now everyone can begin to heal. (Hello, Malacañang?) Truth is the highest recognition of the other. It is a most sacred offering: a measure of mature love. You may still lose someone you love, or she might decide that a person of integrity is worth forgiving. But you were human enough to present the full picture because people you care about are worth it. That is love. It is the only way to make it right. I imagine the heavens playing a special tune each time a patch of darkness on earth is turned to light even if it doesn’t mean a conventional happy ending. What joy! Truth is the Christ-path. It is eternal. In a way, that’s why it is frightening. It is daunting to let go of all your worldly habits and transform yourself. It means being faithful, true to every word you say, responsible and accountable for every deed. It means living resolutely towards wholeness. The light of truth can be harsh and blinding and that is difficult to face, but it is the one sure path to freedom. It is part of the human struggle, I know. Perfection of the soul is not attained automatically, in a single lifetime, and never without pain. It is precisely through this struggle that we can slowly begin to integrate. I think it a beautiful, if difficult, process. It is through peeling the layers that we come to the whole. It is through fragmentation that we can become renewed. It means loss but also spiritual redemption -- and only the clear light of truth can show the way. I close my eyes
Memorizing every step 1, 2, 3 Not looking back Not looking forward Just moving on A pace I only understand 1, 2, 3 One step at a time Moving on... By yours truly :) Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
~Og Mandino Don't be yourself - be someone a little nicer. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are. ~Author Unknown How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these. ~George Washington Carver Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~Attributed to both T.H. Thompson and John Watson The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid. ~Author Unknown Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances. ~Saint Vincent de Paul Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr. Without Danny Zialcita, I would not be who I am today. My screen name was also given by him. My first 4 films were all directed by him, so whatever style I have mastered all came from his guidance. Danny will always be my director - I miss him a lot. THE ORIGINAL BLOG: http://jeromeifyouwantto.blogspot.com/2008/10/danny-zialcita-metro-him-sept-2008.html The heart, says Danny Zialcita, is 16 inches away from the brain. And today as I sit across him, listening to his stream of consciousness, his digressions, delivered in the rat-tat-tat manner the actors in his films are so good at, I worry that I can only barely keep up with his brain going full-speed, and I hope that by sheer proximity his heart is able to. He has just come from running on the treadmill—which should explain the adrenaline—and while he has already changed into jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt (three top buttons open like in the old days), he is still profusely sweating. Zialcita is now 67, his hair a deep gray with patches of white, his skin while ravaged by age is scrubbed clean. “Sabi nila when you reach 70, you’re already living on borrowed time,” he says, puffing on his first stick of Marlboro Reds, a pack of which sits on the table near a tall glass of Coke. “Before that you’re living on borrowed wings. Right now I just borrow money.” This is the first time he’s agreed to do an interview since he left the movies in the late ‘80s—although he’d like to think he quit in 1984, the year after he did the Sharon Cuneta-Miguel Rodriguez-starrer To Love Again, and the year before Bakit Manipis ang Ulap? which starred Janice de Belen. “I will never open my mouth except to ask a question. Because once you open your mouth, you lose something,” he says. “So now I’m on the losing end.” He has lived the life of a recluse for close to two decades, refusing interviews, turning down offers to do films again. His heart, he tells them, just isn’t there anymore. He doesn’t watch television. The last time he was in a movie theater was a few years back, for a Bruce Willis flick whose title escapes him at the moment. “Once you retire you’re a dead duck,” he says, quoting someone. “You’ll be spending your life on nothingness, you have so much time allowed to yourself, you start thinking of the past and the past is never that beautiful anymore, di ba?” He tells me this not with a hint of sadness, but with the voice of a man who has spent quite a bit of time in introspection. “You remember the good things, the beautiful things. When you’ve had the best in life, there’s nothing more to come.” This was, of course, in early March. When his plan to reprise Dear Heart, the movie that made Sharon Cuneta and Gabby Concepcion, seemed to be having a hard time getting an audience with the big producers. He was toying with the idea of putting KC Concepcion and her mom Sharon in one movie, with maybe John Lloyd Cruz as KC’s love interest. And then Gabby Concepcion came home from the US (after 13 straight years of absence) later in the month and, suddenly, it seems the picture is beginning to complete itself, the return of Zialcita behind the cameras seemed closer to reality. Fast forward to June and a project, while not a Dear Heart Part 2, is indeed growing legs. Gabby’s father Rolly Concepcion has been in touch with Zialcita to develop a movie he’s long had in mind. A Thorn Birds-style story, Danny’s daughter Beth tells me over the phone, which will have Gabby play a priest. Who do I think would be bagay to star opposite him? Claudine? Kristine? They’re planning to take the project to either Star Cinema or GMA Films. But more than the excitement of trying to peg a leading lady, or the production company that could carry it, Beth sounds more jubilant over the fact that her dad seems to be up and about again, going to the malls, meeting up with old friends, sitting down for an interview. Maybe the best in life isn’t over yet. Maybe there is more to come. While Zialcita began his career in the ‘60s directing action films like a few from the Palos series, and even dipping his feet on the bomba trend in the early ‘70s (he directed films such as Gutom and Hidhid when movie titles at the time were Uhaw, Hayok, Daing), his career peaked in the late ‘70s to the mid-‘80s when he started pursuing themes about marriage, adultery and homosexuality. His movies were famous for their kilometric titles—Nagalit Ang Buwan Sa Haba ng Gabi (or, as a joke said, Nagalit ang Buwan Sa Haba ng Title), Gaano Kadalas ang Minsan, Bakit Manipis ang Ulap?—and their dialogue: witty, poetic, delivered in rapid fire speed. His characters were always incredibly articulate, from the leads down to the yaya. “Bawal ang bobo sa pelikula ni Danny Zialcita,” says Mark Gil who starred in several of the director’s films including Sugat Sa Dangal. When Zialcita says “Action!” he doesn’t watch his actors do the scene, he turns his back and listens only to how his dialogue is delivered (Martin Nievera had to do 12 takes once on the set of Always and Forever. His line: “Goddamit.”). “For him, every dialogue is a song,” says Mark. “May intro, may refrain. You don’t go to the refrain right away.” Consider this confrontation scene between Vilma Santos and Nora Aunor in T-bird at Ako. Nora’s character, a lawyer, has just expressed her romantic intentions to Vilma, a nightclub dancer, who responds to the proposition, quietly, with “Nandidiri ako.” Nora Bakit, sino ka ba? Ano bang pinagmamalaki mo? Katawan lang yan ah, sa’n ba galing yan? Sa putik! Vilma Putik nga ako pero kahit ganito ‘ko nagsisimba ako kahit papa’no. At ang sabi ng nasa itaas ang sala sa lamig, sala sa init, iniluluwa ng langit, isinusuka ng Diyos! Which takes us back to Mark’s statement. First, you have to be a competent actor to come to work without a script. Danny is famous for not doing scripts, only rough storylines and sequence guides that get revised easily on the set when a new idea strikes him. “I don’t want them coming to the set with a planned line, a planned movement. So that they can surpass their own,” says Danny. Second, you have to be an intelligent actor to deliver lines like the ones above, to convince the audience that the character is capable of churning out knockout philosophical punches at the tip of a hat—which, incidentally, people wore in Zialcita films. Zialcita made some of the most glamorous movies in Philippine cinema. The phrase “glossy film” was coined during the height of his career, and it was his films that defined that phrase. In the celluloid world of Zialcita, women arrive by helicopters to appear in a hearing, and they wear clothes by Christian Espiritu. Men are always in well-fitted suits and aviator shades. People dine in hotels or, when at home, under a chandelier and around maids in complete uniform. They own antique shops and, as did the balikbayan Hilda Koronel to old friend Vilma Santos in Gaano Kadalas, they sit for a portrait while playing catch up. A romance begins when two young people meet after an equestrian game at the Polo Club (P.S. I Love You). “He was very sosyal,” says Gloria Diaz who wore a black hat with a tulle veil in the famous wake scene in Nagalit Ang Buwan… “I think he just wanted to work with me because I speak English.” It was the ‘80s, the Marcos years, and you were either a Lino Brocka making angry films about society, or a Zialcita who, well, captured his own realities. “His films were about the rich because that was his background,” says Gloria. “He would also hangout with the little people on the set, he was cool with everyone. He was down to earth—pero in English.” Zialcita is a son of a banker whose wife took care of the kids and the home. If he had a knack for narrative, it must have come from his paternal grandmother who wrote short stories for Liwayway Magazine. Danny studied at the Ateneo de Manila up to high school before he was sent by his dad to the Sophia University in Japan to take up business management—and to cut the budding romance between his son and the actress Charito Solis. While he was indeed enrolled in a business course in the beginning, he was soon moonlighting in the film editing classes, and ended up just focusing on the latter. He wasn’t able to finish his studies and at 19, got married to Leonor Vergara, a favorite leading lady and then girlfriend of Fernando Poe Jr. Despite Danny’s reputation for being a playboy, the two have been married for 47 years now, and have three grown children. “Ask the girls,” says Mark Gil, with a knowing laugh when I ask him to comment on the director’s ladies’ man image. And Zialcita always had the most beautiful women on the set: Lyka Ugarte, Dang Cecilio, Pinky de Leon, Rio Locsin, Hilda Koronel, and Gloria, of course. “My favorite is still upstairs,” he tells me when asked who among the actresses was his favorite. “I believe in duty, responsibility and continuity…I have a way of hiding what is important.” And then he adds, “Mapagbigay ako.” “He loved women,” says Gloria. “He is very cariñoso, very touchy, laging nakasampay sa’yo. Even with the men.” But Danny never made a move on her. “How can he? We were always shooting in his house; his wife was upstairs.” The Zialcita movie atmosphere, they say, is always relaxed. Mostly because he is the producer of most of his films he can take his time, and he was usually shooting at home, in the old Zialcita mansion on Lee Street in Mandaluyong. “Basta may painting at may salamin, it was shot in Danny’s house,” Mark Gil says. “Kaya ‘yung mga walls namin puro butas,” says daughter Beth. He would just change the paintings and the look of the house for every film. They would also shoot in the house across owned by a relative. “Even while he was doing his bomba movies, he would do it here,” adds Beth. “I would come home from school and see people in the house na walang damit.” While he did collect many paintings, ivories and sculptures not only for his films but also as a personal hobby, Danny also collected still photographs of scantily clad women whose blownup incarnations Beth would see posted in his private den. His wife Leonor, says Beth, never seemed to mind. “She is a very cool wife.” Zialcita also likes to pull off pranks once in awhile; he is always entertained by how people react. On the first day of shooting for Nagalit Ang Buwan, he asked Dindo Fernando to bring three choices of suits. And since actors have no scripts and are not informed of what scenes will be shot, Dindo just randomly chose the suits he brought to the set, picking bright colored ties to go with them. The day of the shoot, he was surprised to discover that Zialcita has decided to shoot the last scene first: the wake. And all Dindo need to do that day was lie in a casket—wearing his bright colored tie. From 1979 to 1986, Zialcita was on a roll, doing one film after another, pulling off nine hits in a row beginning with Gaano Kadalas in 1981 up to his sex comedies that include May Lamok Sa Loob ng Kulambo. He could demand anything from a producer and his wish would be granted. When Viva Films asked him to do Gaano Kadalas, he told Vic and Mina del Rosario that he will only do it if they get George Canseco to write the theme song (most of his popular films had songs by Canseco), and that Hilda Koronel would be one of the leads. Viva granted him both—even if it had to pay more for Hilda than for Vilma. “May utang ako kay Hilda eh, I took her out of Langis at Tubig.” He was in his late ‘40s and there was a time he was doing three movies all at once, all of them without scripts. Up to now, he seems amazed at what he was able to do. And it is amazing, especially when you are familiar with his films, and how complex the stories are, how six to 10 characters weave themselves into each others’ lives, how each one is able to make an impact. “Divine intervention,” he tells me now, seems the only reason he can think of. So why did he quit when he was at the top of his game? “Nagsawa ako,” he says. “I had the money at that time and there was no need to work. And besides I was beginning to make the bad ones.” When I asked his daughter Beth the same question, she traces it first to Dindo Fernando’s passing in 1987. They were like brothers, Dindo and Danny. Dindo was his favorite, a “compleat artist.” “He got depressed when Dindo died, parang he said he cannot find that kind of quality anymore in other actors.” While Beth wouldn’t readily say it was the drugs that did her dad in, she remembers the drugs came in around 1986. Because Danny would characteristically just hang out in his den for hours, no one in the family had an idea he was into shabu. “We didn’t know what shabu was,” Beth tells me on the phone, “my lolo felt so bad when he found out.” When then senator Ernesto Herrera gave a speech in 1990 naming people in show business who were suspected “pushers,” Beth went to See True to clear her father’s name. “He’s not a pusher, user siya,” she said on TV. Danny began spending more and more time in his den, entertaining guests. Whether they were selling him paintings or bringing him drugs, it was difficult to tell. He wasn’t interested in making movies anymore. In an effort to bring her dad out of reclusion, Beth decided to bankroll a project for him: the film was 1995’s Paano Ang Kahapon Kung Wala Na Ang Ngayon, starring Cristina Gonzales, Timi Cruz and Jaclyn Jose. Mark Gil, who was then in the US, was asked to come home to play lead. The movie took longer than the usual Zialcita film to make, and it bombed at the box office. A miracle would prove to be the turning point in the life of the Zialcitas. Beth, who was for a long time suffering from an extremely bad case of scoliosis that made it difficult for her to walk and kneel, was healed after hearing a Benny Hinn service at the Luneta. Since then, she had turned Born Again. When I visited her dad in March, she has just come back from Israel to get baptized. Danny, however, judging from the wooden bracelet with laminated Jesus and Mary images he is wearing, has yet to completely yield to conversion from Catholicism. “I believe we are only born once,” he says, cackling. Still, he tries to read the Bible, and while he avoids TV, is obligated to watch the Tristate Christian Television channel because that’s what Beth listens to most times of the day. Beth operates a small ensaymada business called Tender Trap in the Zialcita compound, and is now helping her dad put together the Thorn Birds project. Just recently, he asked her to teach him how to use the computer. Gloria tells me Danny paid her a visit at home a couple of years back. He was impressed at her collection of paintings. “Alam mo Danny, more than half of this collection came from my earnings from your movies,” she told him. “He is one hell of a person. A true genius. A great storyteller,” says Mark. “When you’ve worked with him, you’re a made actor, that’s why he only works with a certain group of actors.” “Danny was an original,” Gloria adds. “Sorry, is an original. He listens to his actors. I could tell him, ‘I don’t wanna get crazy na lang in the end, can you just make me feeble?” And he would change the storyline. “Even when he was just borrowing from an old film, he would give it a twist that would make the story his own. Most of the time he would be wearing his glasses, reading. He read a lot. Sometimes he would just throw away a script and read a book. But he was manic-obsessive. Pag may iniisip ‘yan, hindi siya makatulog. On the set, he would consume so many glasses of Coke, or when he was into coffee, overkill naman. I don’t know what happened to him. Pero sayang.” Gloria should see him now. Because he could regale her again with his wit, his charm and humor. At 67 and now long over the substance abuse, he is sharp again, and quick, his verve infectious. I worry, though, how his genius would fit in in the present moviemaking system, where the big studios have creative committees and it is not unusual for scripts to suffer up to a dozen revisions. Where a director and an actor has to get a scene right in one or two takes maximum due to the high cost of film stock—or else there will be a buzz about you and you may find yourself getting less and less work. But he is not interested in directing anymore. He is more interested in developing projects, conjuring storylines. He just might finally learn to sit down and write a script. “Why did you come here?” he asks me. “To find out if I’m still alive? Whether I can still come back?” He switches to poet mode, his voice lower now. “Maybe this time, my love, before my time is up.” And then matter-of-fact: “If I can contribute…I’m not asking for anything. Let’s see the project first before you give any kind of compensation.” And then. “Tapos, doblehin mo kung maganda.” For years, he refused the offers to go back to filmmaking because he said his heart isn’t in it. But his spirit seems to have been revitalized in the past months, his mind active again. And if it is true what he says that the brain is just a mere 16 inches from the heart, then all the better. At the risk of sounding like a title of his movie, madali nang utusan ang puso. |
AuthorLyka Ugarte: 1st Runner-Up Mutya ng Pilipinas 1983, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Phil" 1983. Represented the Phil. in "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1984. An Actress, A Model, A Mother, A Corporate Eecutive, A Call Center Agent, A Mother, A Wife, A Partner, A Friend, A Failure, A Survivor! Archives
June 2013
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