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Back when I was a kid, I thought Andres Bonifacio was The One True Hero. In many ways, he still is. The textbook image of him figuratively flipping the proverbial finger to the colonizers will forever be etched in my mind. Never mind if Gardo Versoza, the very same actor who played the title role in Machete 2, played him in Jose Rizal. (Come to think of it, the reel version Rizal, Cesar Montano, starred in the first Machete flick.)

But I digress.

I realized that I used to have impossible standards for heroes. This year, I have vowed to consciously look for non-traditional heroes. Heroes may come in all shapes and sizes. They don’t have to have their faces printed on money or matchboxes. They don’t have to have monuments. They don’t have to have streets named after them. In fact, my minimum requirement for heroes these days is that they should at least be able to make me laugh even on a really bad day.

With that said, I have to thank my friend, UP Manila teacher and graphic designer Chong Ardivilla, who blogs over at www.copingmechanisms.wordpress.com, for introducing me to my personal hero of the moment: Temptation Island.

Not to be confused with the cheesy US reality show, my Temptation Island is a 1981 Regal Films production starring Dina Bonnevie, Deborah Sun, Bambi Arambulo, Alfie Anito, Ricky Belmonte, and Azenith Briones. Except for the divine Dina Bonnevie and Deborah Sun, most of these stars are now out of the limelight. I was six years old when this movie came out. Obviously, I had no means of going to the movies by myself back then. But if I did, I know I would have.

Temptation Island is campy beyond belief. Even the Regal Films logo still had a forlorn-looking and somewhat anorexic lion sitting on a throne. The crazy film is the work of the late director Joey Gosengfiao. As my friend Chong put it: “Basically, the story is like William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.”

Oh, but believe me, that’s not even half of it.I love Filipino flicks (campy or otherwise). I always have. When I was a kid, my dad forbade me from watching the daily noontime Sampaguita Films reruns because I had to take a nap. Of course, I snuck out of bed as soon as his back was turned. He caught me a few times and I got spanked. But I never gave up my noontime vice. I withstood the pain on my butt just to see Carmen Rosales and Lolita Rodriguez looking gorgeous even when they were crying.

But, gosh, those two Philippine cinema divas would never have starred in Temptation Island, which tells the tale of the candidates of the fictional Miss Manila Sunshine Beauty Pageant. The beauties ride on a yacht that blows up so they end up marooned on an island along with a waiter, a photographer, a cute stowaway, and a very stylish gay man whose wit is so acerbic it almost makes up for one of the most glaring script oversights in film history. (Nowhere in the film does it show how the castaways get drinking water.) It’s complicated (only because the nutty plot defies logic) and unbelievably funny (for so many reasons). My favorite scene has got to be when the beauties start hallucinating about ice cream.

Ice cream dream. Who knew that an ice cream cone could seem this dirty?

Then, of course, the film’s leads spew out the most laughable lines. Here are my top five favorites:

1. “Everyone needs a shipwreck once in a while.”
2. “Sa katunayan…itong wedding ring na binigay mo, kung keso lang ‘to kanina ko pa ‘to kinain.” (”To tell you the truth, if this wedding ring you had given me were cheese, I would’ve eaten it a while ago.”)
3. “Call me Nero and he’s my favorite poison tester.”
4. “Mahirap i-achieve ang golden tan.”
5. “Tubig! Kahit maalat ka pa ay iinumin kita!” (Beauty contestant goes to the sea and drinks water then spits it out.)

Runner-up line: “Sabihin mo sa driver na ilabas ang Mercedes na charcoal gray."

Needless to say, when I encounter a personal shipwreck these days (from creepy cab drivers with halitosis to a bad knee that keeps me from running again), this is the movie that’ll get me to sail again. I dare say that it’s a much better shipwreck flick than Titanic. (Sorry, Leonardo DiCaprio.) God knows, everyone has to watch a surreal shipwreck flick once in a while.