The Laxa Brothers of Macabebe

BLACK and white television sets started to be sold in our country in 1954, then the colored TV in 1957. In my hometown of Porac, there were no movie houses. And the only time we can watch a movie was when propaganda mobiles of unregistered pharmaceutical companies sold their products, which were preceded by an old movie. They were the counterparts of those oil slick operators in the Midwest United States during the depression years in the 30s.

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It took weeks to save money, and l had to plan a month ahead in order to watch a movie. There were a few movie houses then in Angeles. I remember Devry, Marte and Rio theaters were showing Hollywood-produced films. The Paraiso Theater exhibited mostly Tagalog films. Entrance ticket was at 25 centavos for orchestra, and l can't remember how much was for balcony. I never had the luck to sit and watch the movie from the balcony area.

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Until this day, I love going to movies, and am biased in favor of Tagalog films. In my youth, there were three movie production outfits which were in competition -- LVN, Sampaguita Pictures, and Premiere Productions.

The three production outfits milled blockbuster after blockbuster and produced thespians and glamorous faces in the silver screen until a Kapampangan from Macabebe came up with his own film organization called Tagalog Ilang Ilang Production in 1961.

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The first movie TIIP produced was shot in our hometown of Porac. The movie “Baril sa Baril” starred the late Fernando Poe Jr., Joseph Estrada, Perla Bautista, and Mariquit Soliman. Senator Lito Lapid was still in shorts then and appeared in that movie as a crowd extra. Laxa's movie outfit produced in succession memorable movies, mostly action films starring Poe, Estrada, Jess Lapid, Romeo Vasquez and Tony Ferrer.

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The success of TIIP ushered in the closing of doors of the three big studios. Doc Jose Perez of Sampaguita Pictures, Doña Sisang de Leon of LVN and the Santiagos of Premiere Productions stopped production activities. And for many years, it was only TIIP which competed with the imported Hollywood movies. But who was Espiridion Laxa, and why did he succeed?

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Laxa was a lawyer. He was senior partner of Laxa, Mapile and Associates. He was not really a successful lawyer in the mold of Estelito Mendoza of Bacolor, though he can count on moneyed clients.

But it seemed that he shared a dream with younger brother Tony of going into the movies. That's what he exactly did and in his lifetime he produced almost 100 movies, and in doing so it resulted to the closing of shop of giant studios.

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Because of his contributions in the country's film industry, he was conferred a lifetime achievement award by the Film Academy of the Philippines and several more citations. When he retired from doing movies, he was appointed by then President Joseph Estrada as a member of the board of industrial giant San Miguel Corporation. Laxa died of cardiac arrest in September 2009 at age 79.

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When in the early 60s, the dashing Sean Connery first appeared as the license to kill secret agent James Bond in “Dr No”, it broke box office records in all the theaters all over the world. Not to be outdone, the local movie studios came up with their own secret agents. The most successful was Tony Falcon aka agent X-44. Tony Ferrer was agent X-44 in the silver screen.

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Tony Ferrer, the younger brother of Atty. Espiridion Laxa, was a theater usher before he became a movie actor. He shared top billings with Fernando Poe Jr. and Joseph Estrada. He appeared in close to a hundred movies, mostly as the secret agent Tony Falcon. He had a daughter with movie actress Imelda Ilanan, Maricel Laxa, and another one with beauty queen Alice Crisostomo, Mutya.

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Tony Ferrer was not only a successful actor but he became one of the fashion models and poster boys of Kapampangan tailors based in Manila. He was fastidious dresser, always dressed in high fashion, which typified Kapampangan males.