On being child no. 82

Ex-Pinoy Big Brother Gen 11 contestant JM Ibarra has landed his first lead-actor film assignment. But then he is not paired in the movie with on-screen sweetheart Fyang Smith (who seems to have become his real-life girlfriend, too).

Both stars are managed by ABS-CBN since the show where they were discovered is produced by the TV station as the Philippine franchise holder of the global reality contest whose final winners emerge from viewers’ texted votes. (Smith, a Fil-Am born and raised in the Philippines, is the grand winner in the show’s 2024 edition in which Ibarra was the last evicted. “Fyang” is Smith’s very Pinoy nickname from her first real name Sophia.)

Ibarra’s recently announced film project is mysteriously titled Child No.82.

When we received the invite to the film’s media launch without a word about what the movie deals with, we thought it was about the maternity ward of a hospital and the upcoming actor portrays a young handsome pediatrician.

No, Ibarra is not a medic in the movie in which Smith is not even in the cast.

At the media launch held at Luxent Hotel in Timog Avenue Quezon City, we learned that the movie is about a wildly famous Pinoy action-fantasy movie actor who has more than 80 children. Ibarra portrays a senior high school student who is allegedly the 82nd son of the extraordinarily virile actor who dies mysteriously but leaves behind enough money to distribute among his numerous children most of whom were born out of wedlock.

The film’s storyline has several urgencies and complications. One urgency is: the mother of the 82nd child learns about the availability of inheritance for her son on the last day of showing up at the actor’s wake with proof and papers that the young man is indeed the dead actor’s son.

The young man has to beat the midnight deadline of turning up at the wake which has a long, long queue of fans and claimants as the dead actor’s children. Could he beat the deadline?

The film is a fiction comedy and one complication is that the 82nd child badly needs so much cash because his girlfriend is pregnant and due to give birth soon.

A fellow PBB product, Kai Montinola, was at the media launch and she vaguely announced that she has been signed up to portray a sister of Ibarra in the film. Sorry, she can’t play the pregnant sweetheart!

There’s a buzz that Kai or any actress her age (18) is not allowed yet to be cast as Ibarra’s sweetheart in any project since ABS-CBN has launched the Fang-JM loveteam, and the career plan for the tandem includes some movies. If ABS-CBN signed up Ibarra to Child No. 82, it’s most likely because the movie will be released in October yet--and only in limited number of theaters.

And, oh, the child-making factory in the narrative is portrayed by Vhong Navarro. For some sane and silly reasons, we think he’s perfect for the outlandish character.

The film also stars Rochelle Pangilinan, Vance Larena, Irma Adlawan, Iya Mina, Che Ramos, Donna Cariaga, Dexter Doria, and vlogger Zairene Fernandez.

Child No. 82 is one of the 10 entries in Cinemalaya 2025, which will be held mainly at the Shangri-La cinemas in Mandaluyong city. However, the film may be booked nationwide later by its independent producers. The festival this year runs in October, and not in August, which is when the festival is traditionally held. The CCP’s retrofitting is taking long and it will be Cinemalaya’s second year this 2025 to be held in another venues. Cinemalaya is mainly a project of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Tim Rone Villanueva directs Child No. 42 from the script of Herlyn Alegre. Both have done well-noted movies in the past.

A graduate of the film school of De La Salle’s Benilde College, the young, portly and genial Villanueva is known for the films Santa Nena! (2017), Alingasngas ng mga Kuliglig (2022) and Paano Bihisan ang Isang Ina? (2018).

Villanueva has an intriguing fondness for storylines that require suspension of disbelief. For instance, his Paano Bihisan ang Isang Ina (How to Dress Up a Mother) is about a 12-year-old millionaire who pays a transgender sex show performer to pretend to be his mother and apologize for a grave mischief he committed in school. Villanueva cast a transwoman indie actor to play the role.

Sweet-faced and soft-spoken new actor JM Ibarra seems to us perfect for the role for which Villanueva singled him out from a long queue of young actors some of whom have played lead in theater and indie movie productions. Ibarra has been mouthing in interviews that before he made it to PBB, he had to take odd jobs to help her keep the family because his stepfather left them, and his the oldest child. But since Day 1 at PBB Season 11, he looked like a rich family’s son incapable of tough tasks inside or outside the house. He was in fact a senior student in Aviation, a course that’s hardly for poor students.

Ibarra gestures a lot when he talks. Watch his unusually long fingers and broad palms and note how smooth and well-shaped they are. He has been using his hands mainly for driving the family’s cars, perhaps even for maneuvering a plane at the pilot’s cockpit. They are definitely not a poor boy’s hardworking hands.

Meanwhile, scriptwriter Alegre has created worlds both for stage and films. For the PETA Studio Theater just last February, she wrote “Monit-oh! Monit-Ah!,” a play about a waiter who hopes to win his boss’ favor by giving him gifts.

She has written scripts for films directed by Lawrence Fajardo, including those screened in regional festivals. She has written scripts in Filipino about overseas workers in Japan.

Her credentials include doing research in participatory development communication for development and public health.

She may still be connected with Asian Development Bank and she was for some time a researcher at the Philippine House of Representatives and at Waseda University where she is a PhD candidate in applied theater and HIV/AIDS communications. She holds a Master of Arts in Asian Studies.