NEWSFLASH

Special to the Philippine Headline News Online
by Alex Jimenez
Newsflash Entertainment Columnist

---

DARK PAST TURNS BEAUTY INTO ICE QUEEN

The dark mystery of a battered childhood has forever hounded Alma Concepcion, yet sources close to her have consistently denied that this was ever true.

According to Alma's apologists, her behavioural quirks had been a result of her epilepsy, rather than the oft-speculated physical violence which she encountered as a child. She is a beauty queen twice over, having worn the crowns of Miss Hawaiian Tropic Philippines in 1993, and Binibining Pilipinas International 1994 thus becoming official Philippine representative to the Miss International Beauty Pageant that year.

On completing her reign, she immediately entered show business and got the nod of industry insiders when she was nominated in the category of Best New Actress in the 1995 Philippine Movie Press Club Star Awards.

Under the aegis of top magazine editor Cesar Evangelista, who presides over two of Manila's best selling fan magazines "Chika-Chika" and "Hot Copy", Alma appeared in a variety of sexy, dramatic and fantasy roles. Few of the movies lingered on in the public mind among the 21 films she has completed to date, including MASSACRE FILES for which she was nominated as Best New Actress in the Star Awards 95 and SA NGALAN NG PAG-IBIG which earned her best supporting actress nominations from 3 award giving bodies in 1996: the PMPC Star Awards, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, and ABS-CBN Showbiz Linggo's People's Choice Awards. That one film helped her project the image of a dramatic actress who can also be sexy and even daring at times.

Magazine centerfolds and covers also featured her in wet bathing suits or other slinky outfits. That has kept her among the select group of movie stars who earned a comfortable income on the side as product endorsers. At one time or another, she had endorsed Toyota vehicles; Asia Breweries' San Miguel clone Beer na Beer; cigarette brands of La Suerte and Fortune Tobacco; the ShoeMart chain of malls; House of Sara Lee's Playtex line of women's underwear and lingerie; the products of La Tondena Distilleries; and footwear by Spartan Rubber.

Yet more than anything else, controversy has been the hallmark of her public life. Feuds with other celebrities, sordid tales of assorted liaisons kept her in the news during the months when she was doing few films.

One ugly rumor has repeatedly ruffled her rather uneventful sojourn in the movies. Time and again, insiders have claimed that Alma was a battered child, one who was forced into beauty contests and subsequently into show business by a drunkard of father who was given to fits of violence that left her black and blue during her early teenage years growing up in one of the backwater barrios of San Mateo, Rizal.

Yet sources close to her family have denied any truth to these allegations. Her father, according to them, is a decent and respectable man who was only offended when his daughter took on bold and daring roles in the movies. It was at that time, according to them, that he slapped her. She reacted by leaving her father's household in order to exercise personal control over career decisions.

In the splash of publicity promotions that followed ABS-CBN/Star Pacific Cinema's P80 million budgeted B movie GOODBYE AMERICA, an ambitious tear jerker that lost money amidst the box office doldrums plaguing the local movie business, Concepcion released a multitude of glowing press announcements announcing her forthcoming trip to the US and trying her luck in Hollywood in the wake of her movie's alleged international success. Nothing ever came of that. Once in the US, she promptly disappeared from sight and nothing was ever heard of her aim to achieve international stardom. When Filipino showbiz folk occasionally spotted her, she avoided them and thus created another mystery about her long stay in the US. Nothing was happening to her there.

Back in Manila, a long-finished film APRIL, MAY, JUNE where she co-starred with Chin Chin Gutierrez and Agot Isidro came and went without any fanfare. Everything was quiet on the career front; Alma was enjoying a much needed vacation. She quietly and uneventfully returned to Manila after spending fruitless months in the US.

Among the showbiz community, jaded reactions instead of indignant surprise met the news of Alma's detention at Guam Airport for alleged possession of "ice" or poor man's cocaine. "Ice," which is locally known as shabu is the recreational drug of choice among denizens of the entertainment community who get addicted after first using it to keep themselves up and alert through long shooting schedules. So readily available is the substance that hangers on and groupies are sure to have some on hand should they or their idol need it.

Now the issue of shabu addiction comes under close scrutiny. Her father insists that any drug she takes is necessary to keep her epilepsy under control. She is a level-headed girl, he claims, and would not do anything to tarnish the family reputation. He insists this is so notwithstanding Alma's open confession that the shabu and related paraphernalia found in her watch case at Guam airport are indeed hers.

Whether or not Alma is a junkie, this incident will only add to the long- held impression that the current crop of beauty queens and stars are a sleazy lot out to indulge the fantasies of the starry eyed masses for some easy cash.

Alma's past as a troubled child casts its long and haunting shadow once more over her showbiz career. Since the past cannot be undone, it should be put to rest. It is silly to cling to it as another convenient scapegoat.

One can only hope that Alma Concepcion could rise above her sordid lot and do some solid work to realize the promise she displayed in her early years of film making. She surely can if she chooses to.