An afternoon with Chayen and Robin Padilla

My youngest sister Chayen is back in the house--at least for two days and two nights. With her husband Regie away for a planning in Baguio, she decided to sleep in her old bed and stay in her old room, pre-Mrs. Emperado days.

Part of our mid-morning conversation went like this:

Chayen: Pasok na lang kaya ako sa office? Ang init dito eh.
Beng: Ha? Sabado, pasok ka? Wag na. Punta na lang tayo SM.
Chayen: Wala akong pera eh. Libre mo ko?
Beng: Alam mo, mas makakatulong ka sa kumpanya mo kapag pumasok ka.

Of course, I was joking and she knew it. After my laughter subsided, I suggested we watch a movie. Starwars? No, she had another movie in mind.

La Visa Loca. With no expectations at all about the movie, I was surprisingly entertained by it. An effective satire of the Filipino people and culture, it was thought-provoking. The dialogues were crisp and natural; the plot, believable. Robin Padilla didn’t seem like he was acting; he was Jess, the dutiful-son-cum-driver-cum-aspiring-US-nursing-aide. La Visa Loca, self-tagged as an intelligent comedy, lived up to its assertion. I was laughing so loud in one hilarious scene, Chayen felt embarrassed for me.

But much as I enjoyed watching Robin Padilla, I enjoyed spending time with Chayen even more. The afternoon ended with me becoming a few hundred pesos poorer. But it was but a small investment for etching one priceless memory.