A birthday tribute to the one and only Diamond Star

BY ARNEL RAMOS
Maricel Soriano was born on the same day that would go down in the annals of Pinoy history as Edsa One, a bloodless revolution that highlighted the best Filipino traits of faith, unity, inner strength and calm. People Power of 1986, the other name by which the Edsa revolt would be called, was predated by Maricel’s birth by 21 years.

As Edsa One turns 25 this year, showbiz’s Diamond Star (one of the very few showbiz titles that caught on the same way that Superstar, Star for all Seasons and Megastar did) marks her 46th summer. Like in previous years, there would be no special show to commemorate the star’s natal day. No spot on this Sunday’s "The Buzz" for La Soriano to divulge how she feels about pushing 50 and how she plans to celebrate her special day.

By now, three decades after her reign as one of the two acknowledged cinema queens of the ‘80s, Maricel Soriano has become the immediate equivalent of elusive diva. The actress known foremost for her versatility and candidness on-and-off cam has turned into the biggest mystery of our time. The Greta Garbo of local entertainment.

Unlike in the past when her quiet stance went unblemished, Maricel’s self-imposed hiatus of late after a cameo in TV’s recently-concluded "Pilyang Kerubin" was not totally free from unpleasant talk, the most incredible of which was the tall tale of Soriano supposedly being hooked on drugs and submitting herself to a rehabilitation program in an undisclosed Makati hospital. Prior to that, reports of liaisons with different paramours, hinted at as both male and female, found their way in showbiz columns in the form of blind items, and as conversation piece in many a showbiz umpukan.

Someone who views everything with an objective eye cannot help but be confounded by the visible loopholes in reports that are the stuff of urban legends. How, one is tempted to ask, could that be when Maricel would occasionally surface in showbiz gatherings, the most recent of which was at her "Florinda" co-star Roxanne Guinoo’s wedding in January? Could she have been granted a brief reprieve from the rehabilitation program she has been subjected to for a chance to witness Guinoo’s nuptials?

Thankfully, Soriano has broken her silence through her manager and friend Malou Choa-Fagar who denounced the malicious rumors, saying that such speculations are unfair to the hibernating movie queen.

If this were the ‘80s, expect Maricel Soriano to deplore it herself most probably on the late Inday Badiday’s "See True" with her much-ballyhooed katarayan of yore. But this is 2011, the here and the now and Maricel Soriano is well aware of it.

She has evolved into the quiet, refined person that she is today and really, why can’t we leave her alone? Do we want her to stoop down to the level of today’s starlets who would gladly open up their private lives for the public to ogle at in exchange for a few minutes of airtime to promote their most recent showbiz gigs? Do we expect Maricel Soriano to behave like some overstaying movie queen who would, as some nasty stories floating around have it, plead to movie producers to give her a romantic movie and make her play an overgrown and oversized ingenue for all the world to mock?

It is not Maricel’s game. She is too much of a star for that. She is not about to tarnish our collective memories of her as one of filmdom’s greatest living actresses, despite her zero batting average at the Urian. Shame on the Manunuris really and we’re saying it like it is.

What could then be our best birthday gift to Maricel Soriano as she marks her 46th year on mortal grounds? RESPECT. The very kind that she deserves for all the colorful, heartfelt portrayals she has gifted us all with in the past. The lonely, dejected heiress of "Ikaw Pa Lang ang Minahal." The tomboy of "Galawgaw" and "Pabling." The wacky maid stuck in a strange land and addresess her reflection: "Maganda ka raw?" in "Pepe en Pilar." The way she walks with heavy steps as though she’s dragging her feet forward in one eerie scene in "T2." The quick shift of emotions from joy to despair as she sees her lover Aga Muhlach joined by his teenage wife Angelica Panganiban inside a boutique in "A Love Story." There are many and all of them made memorable and lifted out of the mediocre by that distinct Soriano touch. Intense one moment, reflective the next. Fiery one instance, only to go subdued afterwards.

Yes, Maricel Soriano deserves our respect. Our admiration, even for making us realize what true stardom really means. That is growing with the times and being acutely aware of the inevitability of age and changing public tastes. Drug-addict. Has-been. You can throw all the worst invectives at Maricel Soriano but at the end of the day, her glowing qualities will find a way to shine through. That unerring instinct for what will work on screen. Her being a true-blue survivor. And yes, that mystique, that sense of enigma that only stars of the highest order – think Lolita Rodriguez, Hilda Koronel, Marlene Dauden and in Hollywood Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve – possess. Mystery, after all, is the true essence of a real star. To evoke that aura of being inscrutable, unreachable, inaccessible that arouses in all of us an overpowering curiosity to learn more and obsess over knowing these almost celestial beings better only to realize in the end that if we were to be allowed that privilege, then the objects of our adoration will have been reduced to nothing but idols with feet of clay and are proud of it.

Intimacy, intimated Glenn Close in an excellent documentary on the late Swedish Sphinx Greta Garbo, is for mortals.

-article taken from Arnel Ramos column on Malaya newspaper.