My dream interview

Lily Monteverde is here, yet everywhere. How’s that again?

When the landline was still the most popular means of communication, she was known to have had the capacity of juggling two phones at the same time — cooing endearments to one person and screaming invectives to the other.

Now that we have mobile phones, I dread to imagine how many she carries in her bag. I won’t be surprised if she gets to talk to six people on the phone, while texting four others all at the same time.

A couple of years back, when Country Waffles in Annapolis was still operational, people she set appointments with would just be surprised to find out that Ms. Monteverde was also conducting meetings with three other groups at the same time in different tables spread all over.

I myself had long wanted to sit down with her for an interview — just the two of us, without any interruptions. But given her schedule, that had remained a dream.

I first met Lily Monteverde or Mother Lily to everyone in 1995 — at a wake in one of the mortuary chapels below Mount Carmel Church in Broadway, New Manila. She said that she instantly liked me — “because I have a very nice aura” (her very words — although I didn’t exactly understand what she meant).

Around the time, units at Century Imperial Suites were being sold and I thought that since it was near the TV stations, it would make a good halfway house given the traffic situation in Metro Manila.

Immediately, I jumped at the opportunity to tell her that I’d like to get a unit from her. No, I wasn’t exactly angling for a discount (although that would have been very nice). All I wanted was to deal with a developer who had a good reputation because how many condominium buildings have we seen unfinished? With Lily Monteverde, at least you are sure that she won’t run away with your money. Oh, she said that she’d be more than happy to sit down with me and talk business.

That was a Sunday evening. We agreed to meet at a Tomas Morato restaurant Tuesday late afternoon. I showed up. She didn’t. Goodbye, Century Imperial.

In the last couple of years, Mother Lily and I had been bumping into each other every so often and I’d always tell her how I’d long wanted to interview her. “Oh, don’t interview me anymore,” she’d protest. “Let’s just sit down one time and talk.”

One late evening in December 2004, she called me up and asked what I was doing. I told her I had just wrapped up taping at Broadway Centrum. Perfect. Would I be free to meet up with her at Chili’s in Greenhills? Sure — I can be there in 10 minutes. She was already there when I walked in and we started ordering food. We also began to talk. Since Regal was into the final shoot of Aishite Masu, I asked her to tell me how it was like during the war years. She said that they were in Sorsogon that time and she was a baby then, but still had recollections of the war since it went on for a couple of years. (She was about to turn six during liberation time.) I felt she enjoyed telling those stories, but when she noticed that I was scribbling notes on the paper placemat, she said that she had to leave and rush to Laguna. It was the last shooting day of Aishite Masu and she had to be there. I guess she really had to go because that was the time they were rushing the film for the Metro Filmfest. And so goodbye, interview.

Last week, I got excited when I learned that Startalk had scheduled an interview with Mother Lily at Century Imperial. It was supposed to have been Thursday night at 8.

At 7:30, I left the house and reached the place before 8. But it was only when I got there that I found out the interview had been canceled. Everyone was actually told about it except — sob! — the host! And so there I was alone — without an interview, my supposedly dream interview with the woman who has contributed so much to the local film industry.

Then finally, another interview with Mother Lily had been set last Thursday — still at Century Imperial. This time it actually happened and it was such a delight to be facing Lily Monteverde face-to-face in our first formal interview. Although it’s My Kuya’s Wedding (opening on Aug. 29) that’s primarily on her mind these days, she gamely answered my questions. Who are her favorite Regal babies? What was her worst fight with them?

Later, I ventured to ask if she had crushes on any of the Regal matinee idols. Yes, she did — on two of them. Pushing my luck, I asked her that if she were a lesbian, who among the female Regal babies she would have wanted to have an affair with. She responded to that, too.

The answers to her questions are included in this afternoon’s edition of Startalk (right after Eat, Bulaga! on GMA 7) — along with her sentiments on the still raging Angel Locsin issue.

Lily Monteverde just turned 68 last Aug. 19 and that one-on-one interview she so generously gave Startalk was one truly delicious birthday blowout from her to me. Happy Birthday, Mother!