The Philippine Online Chronicles

The buzz has been going around for quite a while. Grapes on the grapevine were ripe and ready for picking. Most of my friends were talking about it-over lunch breaks, over get-togethers, over card games. I am not talking about the Second Coming. But yes, perhaps it could be a second coming of sorts.

After a false alarm, she’s back in the Philippines.  The first week of August 2011 marked the return of the one and only Nora Aunor, otherwise known as Ate Guy. She is back in the country after an 8-year hiatus in the States.

If there is one guy which gays could share, that would be her.

In a society that witnessed a major division into being either a Vilmanian or a Noranian, gays, or at least those whom I know, took the Noranian route.

I believe that most gays can relate to the experiences of Ate Guy. A life punctuated by starting poor, fame, drugs, gambling, a string of younger lovers, a same-sex marriage, and yes, even a supposedly common aesthetic surgery.

A child of Guy

Growing up in the province, I didn’t have much access to media in its many forms.  For the most part of the 80’s our town didn’t have electricity unlike today where we can access just about any information we need with just pressing a button.

But I would be able to get my hands to very, very old issues of gossip magazines like Kislap (which I was reading even before I could properly pronounce them) which detailed the loves, lives, and controversies of the stars. And Nora Aunor was a certified magazine feeder.

Perhaps the closest I got to Ate Guy was my aunt who was nicknamed Guy due to her being a fan. I have been a Noranian since childhood, I should say. Ate Vi’s life based on what I read  just seemed to be so clean and straight. Not that it is a bad thing but my penchant for high and lows, for drama, the diva life, is ever alive in my Ate Guy.

I dreamed of standing on a hill with a white veil, telling people “Walang Himala!”

Oh, I was able to live that dream albeit different circumstances. I remember being assigned the role of Nora Aunor during one of the U.P. Diliman’s Lantern Parades in a SAMASKOM float.

And who could sustain people’s interest even after 8 years of absence?

Only Ate Guy.

Train tracks to Himala

The life of the Superstar of the Philippine Cinema is made more interesting due to her roots. It has been said that she was discovered while selling ice water in the train tracks in Iriga in Bicol where she also joined amateur singing contests.

She joined Tawag ng Tanghalan which she ruled for 14 weeks. She eventually ended her streak with a Grand Championship in 1976.

The Superstar went on to star in some 170 films and winning many acting awards both here and abroad. The most recent citation is the CNN APSA Viewers' Choice Award for Best Asia Pacific Film of All Time for Himala.

Breaking stereotypes

It can be said that Ate Guy’s meteoric rise to fame broke conventions.

At a time when the Filipinos were fascinated with porcelain skin, aquiline nose,  towering height, and generally mestiza features, the dark skinned, not so tall Ate Guy made it big, banking on sheer talent.

Ate Guy have alleged lovers half her age. She once again broke conventions when she allegedly married her long time manager, Norie Sayo in Las Vegas where rumors were then denied.

Ate Guy, Kapatid

I always feel a special kind of affiliation and loyalty for Ate Guy.

Ate Guy appeals to my being gay. She lives drama. She breathes diva.

And now, she is a contract star of the Kapatid Channel. She is also presently shooting a biopic ‘El Presidente’.

Ate Guy, as her name indicates, is an Ate. She can be your sister who made it big, failed, and is trying her luck again.

Come to think of it, life is a lot like that. You do well, you fail, but you never allow failures to define you.

And this is why Nora Aunor is my kind of guy.

As they say, ‘scratch an old Noranian…’