Mowelfund needs our help

WHEN YOU’RE outside, looking in, the world of show business appears to be beautiful, exciting, prosperous, the shimmering stuff of which its lovely, popular and incredibly wealthy denizens are made!

That’s pretty much the actual case when you’re young and a top-earning star—but, what happens to the “dream industry’s” ordinary workers, serfs and slaves—and even to once-popular stars in aging decline? That’s a completely different story—one that’s often not beautiful and wonderful, at all!

That’s the case for many of the biz’s faceless workers and old timers because the entertainment world is actually an amorphous transitory “industry,” one that’s shallowly rooted in hay—as in “make hay while the stellar sun shines,” to mouth a hoary but still much-quoted show biz cliché.

Many of the biz’s denizens, famous or not, go from one temporary assignment to the next, are paid per job or per day, have little or no insurance to fall back on when the sun doesn’t shine, charge no overtime, and can’t retire to greener pastures when they’re too old to work—and exploit.

That’s why the Movie Workers Welfare Foundation (Mowelfund) has been a much-needed and most welcome social welfare and educational service organization ever since Joseph Estrada and like-minded industry veterans (been there, suffered that) put it up in 1974.

It helps movie workers when they’re sick, disabled, get into an accident or pass away, with services including medical, health, livelihood training and housing.

Its prime movers currently include Estrada, Boots Anson-Roa and Marichu VP Maceda, who constantly have to solicit and elicit funds, and sometimes dig into their own pockets to find the many millions of pesos needed to pay beneficiaries’ bills—with some (not enough) help from the annual Metro Manila Film Festival’s net profits.

What can we do to help? If you’re a show biz worker, make sure you pay the modest annual membership fee! If you’re a star who’s earning much more than you need, make a commensurately sizable donation!

Boots’ “style” is to celebrate her birthday and request that, in lieu of gifts, her well-wishers make a generously loving donation to Mowelfund, instead. —So, when Boots’ birthday nears, like her many supportive friends and relatives, we know the drill!

But, all of our combined efforts have never been enough, so this year, we enjoin everyone to make a donation to Mowelfund (call 727-1915)!