Bad Girls

By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

“PARA kang si Bella Flores!”

This, is usually hurled at me by assorted white-knuckled siblings holding their water, while I mopped the bathroom floor. “No, you shall not pass! Wait till I’m through and the floor dries. You should have gone yesterday,” I would declare, summoning my inner villain. And that is why they often called me Herr Bella to my face.

Now there’s a compliment. I’ve always been enamored with kontrabidas, these strong-willed women who know exactly what they want, and that is to make life miserable for the often insipid leading lady. Why, I don’t mind coming across as a kontrabida myself, thanks to being the second in a brood of six and having to holler to be heard. No wonder I identify so much with Zeny Zabala, Carol Varga, and oh yes, Bella of the blood-curdling brow-beating bluster. (Right, so I’m dating myself. Well, no one else will, ho ho ho!)

I call them Ladies Who Launch into Diatribes. Boy, how they make plots more interesting in the often saccharine Sampaguita Picture movies we’d come home to in the early afternoons of our childhood. Totally evil was the way to go for villains among us weaned on Walt Disney’s black and white morality plays. And what joy to see these maleficent caricatures finally stir up some starch in the lead’s mewling character who, for the better part of the movie, stoically accept the scheming, the plotting and the hissing asides of the slithering villainess.

But while I relish the cathartic explosions of the ballistic Bella that considerably enriched my vocabulary of street slang, I am enthralled by the saucy and sassy rejoinders that today’s younger kontrabidas dish out with throwaway casualness. How many of us can forget Cherie Gil’s iconic spiel from “Bituin Walang Ningning?” How many times have we used it in jest ourselves when faced with an unexpected nemesis: “You’re nothing but a second rate, trying-hard copycat!” Feels good just saying that, one plucked eyebrow raised infinitesimally.

Of course it does not hurt that this villainess looks cool and soigné even while mouthing those toxic words. There are none of those blazing Bella eyes that surely would mean crow’s feet a few years down the line, or the temple-thrumming veins that telegraph a stroke waiting to happen. There are none of the hair curlers and dirty dusters, or the red gash of too much lipstick that identify the kontrabida as fat, frumpy, slutty or totally déclassé.

Alas, now that we’re fast becoming that Woman of a Certain Age, we realize how emulating the once beatified Bella can wreak havoc on our face value. Imagine the wrinkles! The knotted brows! The deeply-lined forehead! The downward turn of the mouth! The turkey neck from too much screaming! The migraines from too much scheming! And of course those terrifying tight curls in this age of rebond. Well, who wants all that? It’s bad enough that we’re sliding there no matter the tons of moisturizer we pour on our faces, but to bring them on ourselves from misplaced idol worship…

So I guess I’m shifting alliances at this late point. From now on, whenever I feel contrary, I shall channel Miranda Priestly, that glamorous and imperious fashion editor from “The Devil Wears Prada,” whose impossible commands take on a murderous ring even when murmured with nary a facial tic. Now, excuse me while I practice stalking without wobbling on these Manolos.

For more on why we love to hate kontrabidas, their most memorable lines, and the villains from Filipino literature, check out this Sunday’s Inquirer Magazine. Free with your copy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.