TIME
WARP:
Reliving
the Rizal-Bracken Romance
in
the Al-Dub Love Team
(This is the unedited version of the article published
in Women Today in 2016)
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On the left: A
right-side portrait of Josephine Bracken carved by Jose Rizal
On the right: A
left-side portrait of Jose Rizal painted by Juan Luna
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What if televisions and social media were
already existing during the time of Dr. Jose Rizal? What if instead of the
Al-Dub phenomenon people would be watching a Joe-Jo love team (Joe being the
pet name of Josephine Bracken for Rizal, and Jo as a shorten form of Bracken’s
name)? What if we compare the historic Joe-Jo with the present
talk-of-entertainment-world Al-Dub? Hmmm... Quite intriguing wouldn’t you say.
Allow me to borrow Herbert George
Wells’ Time Machine and take you back
in time and give some enlightened glimpses of the romance between Jose Protacio Mercado Rizal (1861-1896) and Marie
Josephine Leopoldine Bracken (1876-1902) at the same time make some candid
comparison of their “love team” with that of Richard Reyes Faulkerson Jr and
Nicomaine Dei Capili Mendoza, a.k.a. the Al-Dub.
Around 120 years ago, Josephine
Bracken heard about Jose Rizal’s skill and success as an ophthalmologist and
was eager to meet him if he could do something about her foster father’s blind
eyes. Meet they did. An acquaintance that developed like a modern day soap
opera complete with spicy moments and unexpected twists.
Jo (Bracken) was already anxious to
meet Joe (Rizal) after the many good things she heard about the Filipino hero,
his talent and intelligence. Jo’s kilig
(tickled pink) moment was switched on the very first time Joe started a
conversation with her. Jo was immediately mesmerized. She was, shall we say,
“hero-strucked” in an instance.
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Alden Richard and
Maine Mendoza
(“People of the
Year”),
on the cover of People Asia
(December 2005 – January 2016) |
In the same manner, like reliving that
instance in time in 1895, in the Eat
Bulaga soap opera parody Kalyeserye
(street series), Yaya Dub (Maine Mendoza), which is already “star-strucked” beforehand
about actor-singer Alden Richard, felt her first kilig moment upon seeing Al (Alden Richard) in the show’s live
split screen monitor. Deja vu!
This is but one coincidence. There are
more similarities between these two century-elapsed love pairs. In addition,
there are also interesting contrasts that only the keen imagination can
underscore.
Back in 1895, Jo accompanied her
foster father, Mr. Taufer, coming to the Philippines. She served as his alalay or personal assistant. When Joe
and Jo got quite attached to each other, Mr. Taufer was the first to vehemently
object. He even tried slashing his own neck in protest. Eventually, as the
saying goes, sa tamang panahon (in
the right time), Mr. Taufer gave his tentative consent for Joe and Jo’s
relationship.
Fast-forward to the present, Mendoza
was cast as Divina Ursula Bukbukova Smash or Yaya Dub for short, initially as
personal assistant/yaya to Wally Bayola’s
Lola Nidora character. In this storyline, Lola Nidora forbids Yaya Dub to meet,
more so to have a relationship with Alden. The cunning lola even used her
ailments to dissuade Yaya Dub from meeting Alden. Later on, however, she also
gave in to the saying “love can be achieved sa
tamang panahon.” Or did she?
What about the villains and the kontrabidas? How do they compare and
contrast?
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| Jose Rizal |
In Rizal’s time, his family was
lukewarm in accepting the Joe-Jo relationship. A couple of Joe’s siblings
didn’t mind it at all and are happy for whatever makes their brother happy.
Some like Maria was suspicious about Bracken. Rizal’s mother for her part was
worried about the burden that his son is carrying in his heart and mind. She
knows that no Catholic priest will marry the two unless Rizal retracts his
charges against the friars and Catholic Church of sexual misconduct and
political corruption.
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Josephine Bracken
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The real kontrabidas were in the Catholic Church hierarchy and their puppets
in the persons of whosoever sit in the Spanish colonial government in the
Philippines. Yes, the obispos and prayles who gossiped about Joe-Jo living
together without the benefit of church wedding, while they themselves wallowed in
sexual exploitations and perversions, abusing women and having mistresses. The
very charges that Rizal accused them, which he refused to retract, and thus the
Bishop of Cebu forbid all priests to marry the two, constituting the burden
that he carried until his death. Yes, the guardia-civil,
who constantly harassed them upon the instigation of the prayles, even if they were peacefully living unmindful of the
intrigues sowed against them.
Notice the similarities and the
contrasts with today’s Al-Dub love team kalyeserye?
Since the start, Alden and Yaya Dub have gone through literally a labyrinth of
obstacles, and that’s just for their first meeting. Lola Nidora (Wally Bayola),
Lola Tinidora (Jose Manalo) and Lola Tidora (Paolo Ballesteros) are acting like
prayles concocting all sorts of
impediments to prevent Alden and Yaya Dub’s love from getting even to first
base. The Tres Lolas’ bodyguards are
like guardia-civil always on the
follow-the-lolas’ biddings.
The Joe-Jo love team was, shall we
say, the newsmaker of 1895, while Al-dub is the newsmaker of 2015. The huge
difference, though, is how it came to be. In the case of Joe-Jo, it was the
gossiping clergies of Dapitan that started it all, while Al-dub’s popularity
was ignited by the fans of “Juan For All, All For Juan” segment of Eat Bulaga. In a trivial funny way, the
Joe-Jo’s affairs was blown by the Bishop of Cebu’s fart into scandalous wind, while
Al-Dub, curiously, was initiated by a mere burp by Yaya Dub on live television.
No matter what the friars and their
cohorts gossiped or dastardly stirred up against Rizal and his beloved
Josephine, their marks in the Philippine Revolution stood firm. The incidence
and the surrounding circumstances became a blot in the Catholic Church’s
reputation rather than on Rizal.
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Alden Richard on the
cover of
Inside
Showbiz (October 2015) |
With regards to Al-Dub, the Manila Times did an editorial cartoon
that criticized the pouring reception towards their love team. The editorial
cartoon depicted that several national issues in the Philippines are being
ignored because of people’s seemingly magnetized attention to it. Even such
social impetus did not deter the fanaticism towards it. On the contrary, the
newspaper even got lambasted by Netizens because of the cartoon criticism.
Al-Dub is like the Marvel comic book
character Juggernaut, unstoppable the moment it started moving.
Coincidentally, the initials of the
lovers’ names – R & B –
are also akin in some silly way: Rizal to Richard and Bracken to Bukbukova. Now
that’s “Rhymth and Blues!”
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Maine Mendoza on the
cover of
Style
Weekend (March 11, 2016) |
By now, you’re getting the point.
Al-Dub is much like Joe-Jo with a certain entertainment twist and sans the
heroic aftertaste! Plain in simple, if Rizal had his “Sweet Foreigner,” Alden
has his “My Bebe Love!” But the deja vu
continues.
Historically, written exchanges
between Rizal and his mother and siblings showed our national hero defending
his beloved Josephine, praising her person and everything she did. Presently,
we hear Alden’s Lola Babah trying to belittle Yaya dub. In a debonair’s move
similar to Rizal, Alden tells her lola, “Lahat
sa kaniya ay mahal ko” (“Everything about her, I love”). In both
circumstances, neither Jo nor Yaya Dub, nor any normal woman, for that matter,
wouldn’t get tickled pink or giddy.
Even in the waving of hands, we can relive
the Joe-Jo experience in Al-Dub. In the Joe-Jo affairs, we read Bracken waving
goodbye to Rizal several times. The last time was with tears in her eyes seeing
her beloved uttered the words consummatum
est as he felt the bullets hit his body. During the Spanish times, waving
of hands, whether to greet or to bid goodbye, was done in a demure way akin to
what beauty pageant contestants are doing today. Yaya Dub, on the other hand,
has a more entertaining and amusing waving of hands, the so-called Pabebe Wave, which is a running
gag-parody of a beauty queen’s gesture.
Rizal wrote beautiful verses and
created wonderful arts for his dulce
extranjera. Bracken cooked delicious food and took good care of Rizal while
they were in Dapitan. In contrast, Alden sings “Wish I May” and “God Gave Me
You” (which he also did a duet with Yaya Dub) for the Dubsmash Queen. Yaya Dub,
for her part, using dubsmashes and pabebe waves, fought tooth and nail for
Alden.
Finally, a revolutionary coincidence
for Josephine Bracken and Maine Mendoza. The role that Bracken played in
Philippine History is not merely limited to being the wife of our national
hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. She also supported the cause of the Katipunan and helped, in whatever she can, in the Philippine
Revolution against Spain. Mendoza, for her part, is not merely a wacky
dubsmasher love team partner of the national male hottie, Alden Richard. She
also has a much profound side being a vocal supporter of the cause of the Lumad.
In a frivolous thought, it can also be
noted that both Joe-Jo and Al-Dub are accidental lovers. Although the women of
both love teams already carry admiration for the men, both couples met
nonchalantly and both were love-strucked the moment they saw each other’s
partner. The Joe-Jo love team lasted for 22 months, give or take a few days?
How long will the Al-Dub love team last?
The Al-Dub Kalyeserye touches on the most popular topics: love and the
predicaments and scruples of people. This is the reason why it has gained so
much following. It has reached phenomenal proportion. On record, with over 41
million in total tweets in 24 hours, it has overshadowed the tweets for the 2014
FIFA World Cup semi-final match between Brazil and Germany. Worldwide, it is
the most tweeted event of 2015-2016. It is the talk of the town; the talk of
the entire archipelago; nay, the talk of the entire world. It is a love team of
global magnitude. Who knows, Enochian extraterrestial beings from Alpha Aquilae could also be watching
Al-Dub and deliberating on coming to Earth for a close encounter with them.
Al-Dub has become so popular that even
international celebrities are tweeting about it. Who knows, Pope Francis might
be the next one to tweet, or he may have already secretly offered to marry them
if they really end up with each other, sans the comedy scripts. Speaking of
Pope Francis. Would it been different had Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio lived
to be the Bishop of Cebu and, hypothetically, allowed Rizal to marry Bracken?
That would be something. Rizal’s Last
Farewell could have been Now and
Forever! Then again, his martyrdom could have been diverted to a different
path and we wouldn’t have a national hero.
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Alden Richard and
Maine Mendoza (Al-Dub)
with Wally Bayola
(Lola Nidora) and Jose Manalo (Lola Tinidora)
on the front page of the Philippine Sunday Inquirer (August 16, 2015) |
There’s an argumentative tenet that
says “Nothing lasts forever.” Even the expansion of the universe, scientists
are now saying, has an endpoint. Well, perhaps the only forever in the universe,
biblically speaking, is God and life-everlasting. The Joe-Jo love story, sadly,
went to a somewhat tragic trajectory. Rizal died on the firing squad, Bracken
became a widow, went revolutionary for a while, disinherited by her husband’s
family, remarried, and died poor and lonely.
At present, for three years Al-Dub is
on a roll, full of unexpected turns and twists. The Chinese would say that no
matter how delicious the viand, there would come a time that people would shun
from eating it. At present, we could say that the Al-Dub phenomenon is merely
peaking. What would happen after a hundred Saturdays more?
Where would the Al-Dub love story
leads? Will it follow a similar path that the Joe-Jo love story went? Is the
love team altar-bound, an event that didn’t happen to Rizal and Bracken?
The kilig should now progress to satisfy itself. If Rizal and Bracken,
against all odds, went on to marry each other under Heaven’s witness, what
would be the next step for Alden and Yaya Dub? If their families would not
allow their union, would they elope and marry each other in the same manner.
If, on the other hand, everything went their way, will they really go “all the
way?” That would be the “grand celebration” for Eat Bulaga!
There’s no such thing as an endless
series. They kept on floating the word “forever,” even in commercial endorsements.
Take a cue from a rubber band, it is very elastic, but if you stretch it beyond
its elasticity it would eventually snap. Forever lies in the sense that a
rubber band is circular. It goes round and round endlessly. Applying this
principle to Al-Dub, the kilig factor
continues to captivate its audience. For how long? Only time, twist and taste
can tell.
The phrase “sa tamang panahon” must now
have a clear storyline and, of course, conclusion. Twisting the storyline
several times may be good, but too much twists can also lead to a boring wall.
Filipinos have a peculiar taste that dramatically changes the moment they sense
repetitions. This is true even in comedy. The moment giggles turn into forced
laughter, it’s over. Perhaps the word “forever” will have a tangential meaning
if and only if Al-Dub translates into reality. If and only if Alden Richard and
Maine Mendoza, not merely the characters they portray, really, truly, falls in
love with each other. The soap opera will not end, but continue to the
“reality” level, where they would encounter what Rizal and Bracken experienced
in their relationship. Hopefully, it would go a different path, and Alden and
Maine would then “live happily ever after!”
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Alden Richard
portrayed Jose Rizal
in the GMA7 TV
series Ilustrado.
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One more startling coincidence: Alden
Richard won his first Best Actor Award (29th PMPC Star Awards for Television)
for his portrayal of Dr. Jose Rizal in the TV historical drama series Ilustrado (2014).
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