the return of juday

I had been laughing at the line “‘crazy female lost piglet’” of Fil-Indian poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s “Swear Words” when my attention was lured by the trailer of Humiling Ako sa Langit. It is ABS-CBN’s new soap opera offering topbilled by no other than Judy Ann Santos. Here, she plays a nurse, a light-year away from the cook role she played in her recent soap Ysabella. I bet my gay friends will yet again refer to me campily as a nurse after having been called Pirena, Lavinia, among other villainous characters at various times in the past.
Next thing I’m watching was another program teaser from the same network: Fear Factor South America which will be hosted by Juday’s fiancé Ryan Agoncillo. That makes perfect sense: I may not be seeing the gorgeous Latinas and Latinos most of the time because the contestants are Pinoy, but I will be able to marvel at the lush Latin American milieu that’s produced inventively in that continent’s magic realist fictions. Neither Juday nor I will be there, but with Ryan around, it’s as if the open-ended world of Macondo on the one hand and that of Krystala on the other have come full circle.
If that is not enough, I chanced upon the news that Regal Films will celebrate its 48th anniversary with the Juday-starrer Mag-ingat Ka sa…Kulam! which is about a wife who started to behave strangely after a car mishap. The picture below so fascinated me that I immediately used it as my new Friendster profile primary photo:

Then, it should not be forgotten that Juday’s beautiful film Ploning becomes the official Philippine entry to next year’s Oscars Best Foreign Language film. Indeed, love sells: a labor of love which is itself about the many manifestations of love will never go unnoticed no matter what sabotaging it gets along the way. See, the world is about to witness not just Juday speaking in Palawan Island’s native Cuyonon but, most especially, one way by which Filipinos imagine themselves.
Welcome back to my world, Juday. Then again, with your ads and showbiz articles about you populating the multimedia, you have never left at all.