Women
BY ALLAN P. HERNANDEZ
Part 2
THE COMPLEX ART OF BEING BELA PADILLA (PART 2)
BY ALLAN P. HERNANDEZ
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAIRA LUNA
Sep.28.22
Bela hates and will NEVER do horror movies. But she will read all the books she can get her hands on. A smart woman is always a joy to be with, assuming your ego has no problems with that (obviously, the presumption here is that you are a guy. Whether you are smart yourself is up for debate). So how does Bela handle men who are not on the same wavelength as hers? Let’s just say her patience has its limits.
Part 2
The Smartest Girl In The Room
Sometimes we wonder if Bela Padilla finds herself playing dumb in front of people when she has to.
Not on account of arrogance or indifference or anything like that. Just that having to realize you could be the smartest girl in the room must entail some sort of adjustment. Bela is a celebrity after all, and this is show business—for what it’s worth, it’s all about keeping up appearances and being interesting to a general audience. It doesn’t often happen that she gets to be asked about the books she’s read more than getting requests for a video greet, say, on Instagram.
But AO asked her about those books because we knew she read. Not only read but wrote. She has written a book, screenplays, is venturing into blogging (as overthinkween), and even goes so far to say that her words probably mean more than the images you see of her.
“I hope I get the chance to do that [writing] and I hope it becomes even more lucrative 'cause I know what writers make here in the Philippines, it's not sustainable, it's not something that will really allow you to live a comfortable life. I started my blog because I feel like my words right now mean more to me than the images you see of me at the moment. I think I'm returning to my core, like you know, fun fact: growing up, my mom and I had a camera—an old-school film camera, and from the age of seven to sixteen you will not find a single photo of me because she never used it. So we had no appreciation and no need for photos in our family, there are no picture frames in the house I grew up. But I had diaries, tons and tons of it and so did my mother.”
Words over images. Memories that she uses to build material on. Bela has to be smart. And we are not saying this to patronize her—it’s just that she is, and we picked up on this immediately after the initial introduction.