Beauty queen as rebel with a cause

MARIA ISABEL LOPEZ wants to make a difference.

Though famous for her scathing one-liners against the organizers of the pageant that crowned her queen in 1982, incorrigible rebel Maria Isabel Lopez has found bigger battles to wage, more significant causes to espouse of late.

During her recent birth anniversary party at the Skin Rejuve Spa, Maribel fearlessly announced her real age (57!) and courageously declared her support for the People’s Initiative against pork barrel.

The bash was meant to be a relaxing day at the spa, with Maribel pampering fellow queens Joyce Anne Burton and Alma Concepcion and actresses Liz Alindogan and Melissa Mendez with myriad beauty treatments. Still, Maribel and Gabriela activist Liza Maza managed to spread the word on the campaign to “abolish all forms of pork,” between facials and chikahan sessions.

Maribel and daughter Mara Lopez later made good their promise to attend the People’s Congress rally held at Rizal Park on Aug. 25. As a vice president in the Actors’ Guild, she is active in the campaign to declare Nora Aunor a national artist through a People’s Initiative, too.

Maribel told the Inquirer: “If you want to make a difference, you have to speak up.”

She explained why she feels strongly about political activism: “I love our country. I want to see real progress in the Philippines. I want to see where our taxes are going.”

If she’s passionate about safeguarding public funds, it’s because she works hard for the money, honey.

These days, she is juggling mainstream and indie projects. She is in the cast of the GMA 7 afternoon soap opera “Ang Lihim ni Annasandra” and the Cinema One entry, Sigrid Andrea Bernardo’s “Lorna.”

“It’s all in the scheduling,” she said. “I tape the series three times a week and shoot indie movies and take care of my advocacies on my free days.”

Supernatural creature

“Annasandra” is a huge challenge for the former Binibining Pilipinas winner who plays a supernatural creature in the series. “I am an awok, a shape-shifter, a human who transforms into a razorback, an aswang,” she related.

In her monster scenes, she is often required to wear a body suit and get down on all fours. “I have no problem with the physical demands of the motion-capture scenes, but we had to roll around in the mud in the forest once. We were exposed to the elements.”

When the spotlights were turned on after the take, she noticed that she had been crawling near an ant mound.

“The ants were big—hantik! Good thing we didn’t get bitten,” she recalled. “I am such a neat freak [but] I have to get down and dirty for this role.”

She has nothing but praise for “Annasandra” director Albert Langitan, though.

“It’s my first time to work with Albert and I am impressed. His camera work is very Hollywood,” she said.

She is grateful to be back in the Kapuso network. “Joining GMA 7’s ‘Survivor Philippines’ (in 2012) resurrected my TV career, after all.”

She will likewise appear as a mentor in the GMA News Live’s coming reality search “Beauty Academy,” with fellow titlists Joyce Anne, Evangeline Pascual and Precious Lara Quigaman.

She pointed out that the show is looking for “the beauty queen of the millennium—a stunning face and figure is a given, but she has to be empowered, independent, fearless. She should not be afraid to be herself, multi-faceted, ma-angst and has the will to survive!”

Sounds familiar.

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