Bananas With Subpoenas
Before anything, happy birthday, Mr. Shuli!
I’m watching Dahil May Isang Ikaw for three reasons. One, it airs between 8 PM and 10 PM, when I have time off part-time work and chores. Two, it features actors I can watch for a whole 30 minutes — I swear Kristine Hermosa and Jericho Rosales got better at staring googly eyes at one another, and I never got to the point of wanting to stab my eyes. That counts for a lot. And three, it features lines and situations most suitable for de-stressing with disbelief.
The premise: little orphans Angel and Miguel thrive in the slums of Manila and fall in love while various lowlifes make api. Yet they manage to win the hearts of attractive and good-hearted pillars of society who take them into their respective rich families in which there are high-brow meanies who proceed to continue making api. Nevertheless they grow up to be attractive lawyers who wear designer clothes and wield iPhones and drive Honda sedans and SUVs. Technically, this show is a fantserye set in urban Philippines. Little did our protagonists know the adults who adopted them figure in a complicated love rectangle, thus planting and convoluting the indispensable curse of drama queens on both their houses. Will their love survive? This is Philippine TV. Of course it will.
But as with everything, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Story starts with a chipper little girl, Angela. She’s lived in the slums but has somehow managed to retain a good amount of baby fat even as we see she’s raised by an abusive, foul-mouthed woman who seems to have made Angel work since she could walk. Stepmother is so mean she sabunots Angel after she sees Angel, who was wishing for her stepmother to love her, throw a peso coin off from one of the bridges over Pasig River. Angel opines stepmother was mean because her piso wish was botched by a dump barge which was passing below below the bridge, upon which the peso coin plops beside a little boy who was hiding from the barge operator, who sees him anyway because the peso coin clattered on his roof and so he tells the stowaway to scram. We see alternating scenes of kids being led off camera by abusive adults pulling their respective ears. Angel vows with tears running down her healthy cheeks that Scary Stepmother would love her, botched wish notwithstanding.
One of Angel’s attempts to win her love is bringing home the bacon, which she does by washing dishes at a carinderia along the Pasig River behind Escolta. Of course, the carinderia is run by a mean, foul-mouthed woman who screams demeaning words at Angel; Angel remains sunny and optimistic about life. She takes home her day’s pay but runs across a sullenly silent bad boy who proceeds to swipe the money from her. Angel cries some more and dreads facing Scary Stepmother.
And so she should. Because Angel failed to pay for her slummy childcare for the period, Scary Stepmother loses her temper yet again and decides to do away with raising Angel just as one of her lowlife boyfriends proposed they live together and start a new family of lowlifes. She throws out Angel’s clothes and personal effects, which includes a dirty blankie cross-stitched with a badly-drawn bukid, along with a pink backpack for thoughtful measure. Angel doesn’t want to go and falls on her knees to grovel, like this will change Scary Stepmother’s mind, stat. Scary Stepmother closes the door of their cardboard hut. Angel bangs the door with her fists. Scary Stepmother bursts out from the door screaming and waving a pair of shears, and proceeds to cut huge chunks of Angel’s long locks to get her point across. Angel is heartbroken, whimpering.
Angel pitifully stumbles on and I can’t stand this kind of stalling, anyway, so I go off to do something urgent and when I came back she’s found herself among extremely mean slum kids who live along the Pasig River just behind Escolta. They jeer, “Kalbo!” (bald) while tears fall down her cheeks. One of them is Chacha Bulilit. Great casting, guys. The leader of the pack is the Stowaway, who we learn is called Miguel. And the sullenly silent bad boy who swiped Angel’s money is his “younger brother”. We learn sullen bad boy has issues and would not talk. Stowaway calls him Pip, short for pipi (mute, and no, I am not kidding).
The mean kids refuse to give Angel shelter and… how about that? It rains! Angel sits forlornly on a stone bench. Miguel takes pity on her because he has a good heart. Despite Pip’s furious mime language, he takes in Angel into their humble abode, which is an abandoned barge that’s anchored along the river.
Angel finds out what a great kid he is. He tells her not to mind Pip so much given Pip has had a lot to deal with, for instance, a father who smacked him around. I forget what happened to the father. Miguel, on the other hand, lost his parents to a car accident. He dreams of becoming a singer. One scene shows them getting down to “Mga Kababayan Ko”. Angel tells him her life’s dream is to emulate Tessa Ramirez (Lorna Tolentino), a brilliant lawyer who takes pro bono cases concerning abused women and children. Miguel files that for future reference. Meanwhile, the two fall into the first throes of puppy love. Miguel promises to take Ella to his very special place, the address of which he writes on her pink cap as “Gumamela Park” in Arrocerros. But before all this totally sets in, bad luck befalls the youngsters. Angel is hit by a car and the driver picks up Angel to drive her to the hospital. Miguel ran after her, but Pip chose that very moment to get busted by a cop for another petty felony, and seeing Miguel about to rescue Angel, he yells, “K-K-KUYA!” for the first time. Miguel feels he must save his sorry ass and ditches chasing the car that took Angel in favor of poor felonious Pip.
Angel’s mystery rescuer is Jaime Alferos (Gabby Concepcion), who we learn was Tessa Ramirez’s sweetheart of yore. He was sent to the States to study whatever for 18 months. During that period, Tessa finds out she’s pregnant and somehow manages to get his phone number in the States. To her shock, a woman answers and says she’s Jaime’s fiancee. Tessa launches into the walanghiya ka cryfest/monologue and vows vengeance.
Then we see the “fiancee”, Patricia Aragon (Chinchin Gutierrez in her baddest mewling rampallian role to date), who turns out to be just a visiting family friend who has a crush on Jaime and whom Jaime’s devious mother (Alicia Alonso) coaches through Machiavellian machinations to split Jaime and Tessa apart because Tessa is so beneath their social strata, much to both Jaime and Tessa’s requisite good-teleserye-character cluelessness. This development flings Tessa into the arms of Daniel (John Estrada), her long-suffering friend/neighbor/secret admirer, who offers to marry her to cover up her disgrace. Coincidentally, Jaime finishes his 18-month course and flies home to see Tessa on the date of Tessa and Daniel’s wedding. Jaime is in shock as he arrives in time to take in the wedding banquet scene from the confines of his car. He launches into the walanghiya ka cryfest/monologue and vows vengeance.
Tessa gives birth to a girl whom she names Melissa, and she tucks a badly drawn bukid cross-stitch work for a blankie into the baby bundle (Here we commune with the everybody watching this: Gasp! You mean, Angel…! And she’s with…! And Tessa doesn’t know…! She doesn’t look anything like Lorna or Gabby…!). Shouldn’t she use something more baby skin-friendly, like cotton or flannel? Then Tessa suffers some sort of problem with the ovaries and they take away her ovaries, so she can no longer have kids. While recuperating from the operation, she tasks Daniel with Melissa’s appointment with her pediatrician. Daniel cheerfully complies, and as he ambles along the sidewalk, a shifty man approaches him. He has a gun! Daniel stammers he’s not loaded. Goon wants Melissa and takes the baby. Goon hits Daniel’s head with butt of gun for good measure. Daniel goes home and whines, “I’m sorry!” But it’s not good enough and Tessa damns him to hell.
Daniel knows he screwed up big time so he has no choice but to let Tessa cool off. Tessa seeks help from the authorities. Policemen attempt to help and comfort Tessa by informing her of probable reasons why a crime syndicate would want to kidnap her baby: a) to hold for ransom b) to sell for prostitution c) to sell for organs d) to keep regular customers Angelina Jolie and Madonna happy. Days pass by, no request for ransom, and so the situation narrows down to b), c) and d). At this point, Tessa finally cools off and tells Daniel she’s accepted the situation, but she will never give up looking for Melissa. Then she announces that from now on, she will be his wife on paper only, because she cannot bring back the love (nice try, honey, but you married the guy because you had a bun in your oven by another baker). Daniel, still remorseful, agrees with her, and vows to put Tessa through law school to make up for failing to protect Melissa. He achieves this by entering a life of crime. During a bank robbery, however, his partner fatally shot a civilian who’s trying to be a hero. His partner dies in the ensuing struggle, so too bad for Daniel, who is put in maximum security. And just his luck, the victim is the brother of some congressman, so even Tessa’s powers of logic and loopholes cannot save him. Daniel festers in prison full of hate, suffering, and tobacco fumes.
Back to the present. Miguel followed the police car and is dismayed to see that Pip managed to land himself in jail. What to do? He pesters the policemen. They are mean to him and so he hangs in the parking lot to pester other people to help him. He meets Tessa Ramirez, who was just from a counseling session with her husband. He wears her annoyance off with his earnest expression and agrees to see Pip, who somehow has managed to get rescued from the clutches of mean jailbirds by Daniel, who feels for the sullenly stuttering Pip.
Tessa gains temporary custody of Pip and Miguel. Miguel makes hay by cleaning her house while he was away. She falls for his innocent charm and decides to keep him and Pip permanently. Daniel has a soft spot for Pip, so he agrees adopting the dynamic duo. But Pip, who can stutter now, tells them his name is Alfred, and wants to be called by a contraction, which is neither Al nor Fred, but Red.
City hospital. Jaime feels for Angel (Communion: She’s your… And you… Get a brain, quick!). Angel plays up the awa effect. Jaime decides to adopt her, much to the disgust of his wife, Patricia, and their bratty daughter Denise. Denise is used to getting what she wants and resents Angel for keeping it real and charming her dad (Communion: ¡Maldita!). One day during a lavish party, Denise tricks Angel into interrupting her fearsome Lolo Aragon (Chinggoy Alonzo) while he was blathering his duty party speech. Denise’s yaya tells Angel that Lolo Aragon is so forceful and mean that he once caused Denise to pee in her pants. However, Angel possesses the power of bibo and value of the piso and charms fiscally prudent Lolo Aragon. Jaime beams (Communion: Lukso ng dugo!) Patricia seethes. Denise seethes.
Denise tosses Angel’s pink cap off the mansion’s verandah the next day, the one with the Gumamela Park location which Angel couldn’t read due to her lack of primary education and miserable childhood. Angel runs after the cap, only to learn the Aragon groundskeeper’s extremely prompt, having tossed the cap into the garbage can, whereupon the garbage collector, also extremely prompt, heaved the garbage into the truck and drove off. We see Angel pitifully running after the departing garbage truck.
But goodness trumps badness all the time. In an admirable display of great EQ, Angel pushes Jaime to give Denise the proper parental attention she so craves, which earns her Denise’s love. In an effort to establish the affinity of bad seed characters, Denise rechristens Angel with a non-usual name contraction, which is Ella (from the last two syllables of ‘Angela’, duh). More eyebrow-arching and eyeball-rolling and nostril-flaring from Patricia (Communion: ¡Bruja! What great eyebrows!).
Round-jawed, straight-haired Miguel grows up to be chiseled-jawed, curly-haired Jericho Rosales, dusky, wide-eyed Red grows up to be fair and stocky Sid Lucero, snub-nosed Denise grows up to be strong-boned Karylle (who left GMA 7 because of her breakup with Dingdong Dantes, who’s rumored to be dating Marian Rivera, with whom he co-starred in the Philippine Marimar. Boy’s been linked to almost all his leading ladies, K, what did you expect after Encantadia wrapped up?), and curly-haired, almond-eyed Ella grows up to be fair and doe-eyed Kristine Hermosa.
Ella stays true to her dreams and studies law. Miguel, out of inspiration from thoughts of Angel, also studies law. They check into the same hotel with respective study roomies to prepare for their bar exams (Communion: Ano ba yan, nag-flirt na by phone, hindi pa magmeet! Sarap pag-umpugin!) Miguel is bar top notcher and Ella comes second. Ella applies at Ramirez & Associates but Tessa hates her on the spot because she’s an Alferos (Communion: Eh, asan na ang lukso?). Red is a real ladies’ man who gets into fights that Miguel always bails him out of. He sees Ella at his mother’s firm and is smitten. And because it’s so trendy for Pinoys to use chic, non-ordinary name contractions, Red doesn’t realize Ella is the girl whose guts he’s hated during their Pasig barge days. Miguel declines good pay and perks at his mother’s firm and works at the Public Attorney’s Office (Communion: Talaga lang, ha?). At work, Ella and Miguel get on each other’s nerves but cutely call each other Attorney 1 (top banana) and Attorney 2 (second banana). Attorney 1 moonlights as a lounge singer the better to augment his gas money. With his self-penned song to Angel, he unwittingly captivates Denise, who swills drinks and is on first name basis with the bartender and waiters. Elder Ramirezes and Alferoses meet and burst pimples at each other. Woe to Denise who has the hots for Attorney 1 and Red who has the hots for Attorney 2. Whew.
And that’s what we have so far. Will I manage to hang on until the end this time? I have no idea.
