Armida’s song
IF
there was anyone with a claim to a signature song, it was Armida Siguion-Reyna with her “Aawitan Kita.” Everything she touched turned into a statement of who she was and what she was about. Strong-willed, headstrong, highly opinionated, and fiercely combative with a sword’s-edge sense of humor, she truly enjoyed trouncing her enemies – not that she was right all the time. Is it a reflection of our times that women like Miriam Defensor Santiago and Armida have bred no successors? There’s not even an echo of their voices ringing out to shatter the halls muted of intelligent debate, articulate argument, or just plain venting of views.
Her Aawitan TV series ran for many years on Channel 9 The Leader. Time to pack up for good, though by then Midz had found another stage, no longer the music of the islands but the mantle of regulation, i.e., the board of censors. Only the quirky handiwork of Destiny could’ve placed her in the chairman’s seat immediately after the reign of Etta Mendez, her exact opposite. The fair Ms. Mendez’s aim was to influence moviemakers to reflect her lily-white purity of intentions, that the medium of entertainment be made an agent for morality.
Midz scoffed at the board’s puritanical rules of censorship whereby morality was measured in terms of the number of seconds a breast could be shown – two breasts were taboo! – and how long a kiss on the screen could be allowed to last. Aha! Nice to know that the chief censor was a movie fan who loved movies like Casablanca and Wuthering Heights, for she was later to produce her own movie based on the latter. Her favorite location was Paoay but for “Hihintayin Kita sa Langit,” the setting could only be Batanes. Starring Richard Gomez and Dawn Zulueta, directed by her son Carlitos, the movie has since then earned the brand of a classic.
Midz was a softie when it came to romance and love stories. When her husband, the famous Atty. Leonardo Siguion-Reyna, passed away, “Midz all but lost her appetite for life,” recounts a friend. Gone was her best buddy and traveling companion; she had no one to share her funniest and cruellest jokes with, and so the movie in her mind had come to The End.