MariMar reinvented

When we were told that the most popular teleserye ever to be shown on local as well as foreign television was coming to town, we heard a sigh emanating from everywhere. At the press conference held by GMA 7 to announce the return of Marimar, the sigh was verbalized by members of the press  asking each other why it had become a fad to do repeats of shows that had been popular in the past.

We found the answer in the fact that MariMar had been showing since Mexican star Thalia portrayed her over a decade ago. This was followed when Marian Rivera portrayed the poor innocent girl who lived by the sea. Now, it is Megan Young’s turn to portray Marimar with Tom Rodriguez as her leading man, being cast in the role of Sergio Santibañez.

Jaclyn Jose as Angelika Santibañez

The story of MariMar not only ushered in the telenovela craze in the Philippines, but also led to the production of shorter, faster-paced teleseryes. The story tells of an innocent girl deprived of everything rightfully hers. Separated from her real parents as a child, Marimar is found and raised by an old couple who treat her as their own grandchild without knowing that she is the sole heiress to the wealth of Zoren Legaspi as Gustavo Aldama, the biological father of Marimar.

Sergio, on the other hand, is a spoiled guy who loves extreme sports and adventure. Using his good looks and charisma, he meets the unassuming Marimar, who easily falls in love with him. He decides to use her to get his inheritance from his father.

We get to meet Jaclyn Jose as Angelika Santibañez, the outrageous gold-digging second wife of the resort tycoon Renato Santibañez who loves attention and being at the center of it all. 

With director Dominic Zapata at the helm, recreating Marimar for the Filipino setting has become a most challenging venture. 

Also in the cast is the dog Fulgoso voiced by Boobay. He provides flavor and happiness to the heavy drama. As a lover of dogs, we thought of interviewing Ergie Estrela, the trainer of Fulgoso, also known as Princess the acting dog. Three-year-old Princess was apparently acquired from a client of Ergie as a trade to his balance in training. According to Ergie, Princess was very easy to train, following every new trick perhaps due to her temperament of being a confident dog.

Ergie runs a dog school where lots of dogs are trained. “I make sure that they are treated the same, no favoritism,” he said. He even has had both cats and dogs in the same house with no problem at all. Should he be made to choose between a cat and a dog, Ergie declared, “I have a lot of animals, both domestic and exotic, but for me, dogs are still the best to train.”

We go to the aspect of naming the dogs or cats, and Ergie replied that there are no set rules, it all depends on the owners. In the case of Princess, her name was originally given by her former owner. We wondered how many dogs he was trained to follow his command. “I started training dogs since 1998 so there was really a lot of dogs I have trained and taken care of,” he said, “around a thousand or more.” It does look like Princess will get more and more offers for roles in teleseryes. Her appeal is such that she could graduate to bigger and better roles. 

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