I have a confession to make.
I am a Quezonin from Lopez town in Quezon Province but I have been living here in San Pedro City in Laguna Province for more than twenty years.
San Pedro City has always been my second home.
This is where I planted the seed of the blossoming of my third book, “SekSinema” in Filipino. I researched and wrote it intensively and diligently at home making day night and night day. I self-published it.
It was a successful creation which had a sold-out spree during its launch.
Then I was tapped by writer-friends like DJ Lazaro and Bonifacio Ilagan to write for an anthology on the recipients of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO)’s medical assistance for the book “75 Writers 75 Stories” which was published by PCSO during its silver anniversary.
Afterwards, I was commissioned by Rico Maloles, the only son of the first ambassador to the US, Octavio L. Maloles, to write his autobiography as told to me.
All these I researched far and wide from Manila to Quezon to Batangas to Laguna and wrote them here in San Pedro.
In no time at all, controversial Fil-Briton filmmaker Jowee Morel had pushed me to translate “SekSinema” in English because according to him, being in the promotion of books once upon a time in the United Kingdom, he knew my translation would sell abroad. “And there was a dearth of books in London about Philippine cinema,” quipped Jowee.
I was inspired with Morel’s words so I started translating my vernacular into the King’s Language.
Along the way, though, many of its chapters of discussions like gender equation, historical survey on the development of Philippine films from the silent to the talkies to the 35mm format to digital etc. were my own expressions. I also retained the Filipino versions on Filipino males and females in films and homoeroticism.
I also situated sex cinema in the context of the pandemic.
Now, “SekSinema (Gender Images in Philippine Sex Cinema Enfolding Pandemia)” is off-the-press and I dedicate it also to all San Pedro City citizens.
The book will have its virtual launch on Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 1 pm Philippine time with members of the panel, namely, actress and beauty queen Maria Isabel Lopez, internationally renowned director Brillante Ma. Mendoza, newbies Cara Gonzales and Rash Flores etc. to talk about the past and current employ of sex in Philippine cinema.
The book launch is also my virtual Christmas gifts to all San Pedro residents. It is a material thing but the ideas and insights are greatly spiritual just what Antoine de Saint-Exupery said in his “The Little Prince” novel, “what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
You can join the virtual launch by following my Facebook accounts Boy Villasanta and Julianito Villasanta where I posted the Zoom link of the event.