Back in the late 70s and 80s, while I was immersing myself in the local movie industry, Mother Lily Monteverde was there to feed me. There’s a metaphor there somewhere.

After work at Mr & Ms Magazine where I served as an editor, I would be usually tired and hungry. Our office was located along EDSA in Mandaluyong, and Mother Lily’s home-office was in Greenhills, right smack along my way home to Quezon City.

She would ask me to come by to talk shop, eat dinner with her family in a huge round table filled with delicious food prepared by her cook, a big fat woman   called Ining, who whipped up dishes good enough to serve in first-class Chinese restaurants.

I would usually come early, only to find Dolor Guevarra already seated in the garden area. Before 6 p.m., the table would be laden with food, almost like a buffet spread. Even as Mother Lily would still be in her room, waking up from an afternoon nap, she would holler to any of her helpers to bring us to the dining area to eat.

Being obedient, hungry children, Dolor and I followed like soldiers ordered to break our fast. Mother’s children have not yet come home from school by then, yet there we were, Dolor and I, already feasting on their dinner so much ahead of them.

By the time we would get to our dessert of either butchi or almond-lychee, Mother Lily’s husband, Remy Monteverde, would be home to join us at the table. It would take some time more before the children, Roselle, Sherida (Meme), Dondon, and Goldwin would come home from school and eat the rest of the dinner fare left at the table.

What I’m saying is that throughout her lifetime, Mother Lily was generous, oftentimes, too generous to a fault. She bought houses for her contract stars in nice villages and gifted them with cars when their films were declared hits. She loved the entertainment press and showered them with goodness gracious, and so much more.

At the filming of Strangers in Paradise in Honolulu, Hawaii, she graciously gave me a ticket to cover Snooky Serna and Lloyd Samartino with their director, Lino Brocka. It was to be my very first trip to the United States.

Mother Lily and I kept in touch throughout the many years that Regal Films actively produced movies. I would like to think she treated me like I was an adopted son of hers, whom she would spoil every now and then.

I felt so close to her that when I got married in the early 90s, I asked her to stand as one of our ninangs. She graciously accepted and showed up in church so early in the morning, completely made up and dressed in a beautiful Filipiniana gown.

When the tide started turning against the print media in recent years, Mother Lily valiantly fought for us. She kept saying the mainstream media, unfairly labelled by some as traditional media, remained the true source of information, and the one she trusted.

While others preferred online vloggers, she believed print media journalists continued to impact heavily on a movie’s promotion and publicity.

I shall miss you terribly, Mother. So sad that in these last few years of your life, we had not seen each other much.

There was the pandemic, and then of course, your illness.

I thank you for having called me one last time a year ago, just to talk shop. Wala lang, as you asked about my family, the children, your pieces of advice to them on what roads they should take in life.

It felt like the good old days in your old, unrenovated Greenhills home with a garden covered by Bermuda grass fronting the dining area while we waited for one of the helpers to invite us over to feast on your generosity.