Yes, science fiction --or fantasy, if you want to be a stickler for definition. Just like in our local teleserye/sine novela/insert your own derivative here (because it's not hip to just call it "soap" anymore) where people keep getting amnesia. When in fact, in a country of 80 million people, I still haven't met or heard of anyone who's had amnesia. But in the sudsy science fiction world of our local tv, people keep forgetting who they are, they keep changing names and identities at every plot point. Now she's Katherine, but actually she's Mylene the long lost sister, whose fortunes turn and she becomes a pop star, and then somebody tries to kill her and so she's called Carmelita now, or whatever outrageous names these tv people think of in their spare time.

Ang Galing Galing Mo Babes opens ominously with a prologue. It's about a girl from a town up north who was abused by her father, and then became a young mother and a Japayuki, and this is her story. Fair enough. Then the background music swells, and it's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," where the chorus goes "I love you baby, and if it's quite alright, I love you baby, all throughout the morning light, so let me love you, baby, let me love you..." The director Ed Palmos must have a very strong affinity for this song, because the song blares at every important moment, from opening credits right down to the cast list and acknowledgements.

We then see two little girls playing this hand-clap game that little girls who are best friends play often. We see the two of them grow up together, from six year olds sitting by the boulevard with the sun setting behind them, to adolescents in thin white kamisons lying on the grass. Together they they chant: "Pek. Pek. Pek. Pek. Sara bibig. Sara bibig. Pek. Pek. Pek. Pek. Sara bibig. Sara bibig" I started laughing. I kid you not, these were the very words. We all have our childhood songs, but I've never heard of this one before.

The girls grow up and they become Ruby Moreno and another washed up starlet. Ruby Moreno goes to Japan as an entertainer and becomes involved with the Yakuza. She must be very good in bed, because they all scream "Ang galing galing mo, Babes" in Japanese. She learns something about their operations and they now want her dead. But this Yakuza guy fell in love with her, and couldn't bear to kill her. Yakuza guy gives her a huge amount of money and tells her to escape. The other Yakuza guys learn what he did so they chase Ruby Moreno who becomes desperate and jumps outside the window, down three floors and lands on a car with the windshield glass shards buried all over her face.

The Yakuza guys failed to hear the glass shattering. Babes manages to flee, bloody and all, back to Manila, where she checks into an unidentified hospital and they perform plastic surgery on her. This is where the science fiction elements kick in. When they take off the bandages, Ruby Moreno has miraculously transformed into Joyce Jimenez. Babes couldn't stop staring at herself. Where once she looked plain or at least interesting looking, she now has the face and the boobs of someone who used to be the premiere sex star in the Philippines. Joyce Jimenez, imagine that. And she had the operation done right here in Manila, no less.

So she begins a new life in a bar owned by Jackie Castillejo. Even the three storey fall did not take away Babes' amazing powers with pleasing guys. She becomes the most wanted GRO in Jackie's bar. Everyone wanted her: guys, girls, politicians who send cars and thick envelopes of money. There is a waiting list for those who want the pleasure of her services. And they are all united in their pronouncements: "Ang galing galing mo, Babes!"

But she's not happy. She approaches a teenage boy named Jess (Lester Llansang), who spends his time playing basketball. She gives him a cell phone and some money. If a really hot girl who looks like Joyce Jimenez comes on to you like that, and claims to be your sister, wouldn't you just drop everything and follow? But Jess is a sensible boy. He clearly knows that this is not Babes his Japayuki sister, who promised to change their life. This is Joyce Jimenez. This is every boy's fantasy, someone whose photo spread in the local FHM he might have jacked off to. And you don't jack off to photo spreads of your sister. But Jess is also a boy in need, and if this girl says she really is his sister, and promises to give him his allowance and keep him in school. Then why the hell not?

Then one day, Babes gets hired by a bunch of boys about to graduate from college and are bound to leave for jobs in the Middle East. The guys give Babes as a gift to one of their buddies, and they hie off to a resort and shove the guy inside a room with a huge box in it. The boy enthusiastically rips the box open, but nobody's there. Then Babes comes out of the bath in a towel and things start to get nasty.

Philip (Marcus Madrigal) wants to do the nasty as well. He peeps into the room, and sneaks in to touch the sleeping Babes -- with his buddy right on the bed beside them. The sleeping boy must have been very tired, because he didn't wake up even when Babes and Philip start getting it on right under his nose. Or maybe he's just really stupid. Philip and Babes get it on in the shower, on the bed, well into the morning when his buddies decide to just leave him. He manages to put on his pants, shower and run after their truck and rush back to Manila with just enough time to slip on his toga and attend his graduation.

But Philip just couldn't forget about this girl. Who cares about graduation when he's just had the greatest lay of his life? He rushes to the bar where Babes is preparing to leave for a politician's place. Her services had been paid for. But you know she's not happy. When Philip barges in her dressing room, they start making out, he professes eternal love and they shoo Jackie Castillejo out of the cab she called herself. Philip hies her off to a judge in the middle of the night, and realizes that he doesn't even know the name of the woman he's marrying. (It's Helen Quirino, if you're interested.)

It's a doomed marriage. His parents weren't particularly happy that they bothered to cook him up a graduation party when he's not attending anyhow, and bring home a strange girl in orange beads as his wife. Even Babes isn't happy to learn that her husband leaves her for the Middle East a few days after getting married. Not when your in law are making you do two week's worth of labada and locks you out of the house. What's a girl to do?

Babes flees to Olongapo, where she hunts up her old best friend. Best friend wouldn't believe the woman who looks curiously like Joyce Jimenez is her childhood playmate. But when Joyce/Babes starts doing the hand-clap game with the strange chant (Pek pek pek pek. Sara bibig, sara bibig), she hugs her and introduces her to Tol (Albert Martinez), who happens to be her good for nothing, druggie and abusive live in lover.

In one night, Tol manages to get Babes drunk, seduce her, and make his lover hang herself. After some false grieving, Tol wastes no time in proclaiming that Babes is his lover's replacement. Babes must now satisfy his lust, earn him some drug money, and keep his all white outfits fresh and crisp. He is also in debt, and arranges for Babes to convince an old man to write off Tol's deficits. They settle the deal under the table.

Meanwhile, at that very moment, Jess and his buddies has just escaped from their class field trip in order to score in the city's brothels. It is at this unfortunate moment that he spies Babes going into the old man's den with Tol, and Jess witnesses his sister's deal under the table. This drives Jess to rebellion. He leaves the boarding house, quits school, and hangs out with the other guys drinking gin pomelo. When Babes confronts him about his behavior, he turns to her and tells her that going down on her knees under the tables occupied by old men isn't exactly the way out of the poorhouse. He leaves Babes, and the boarding house consisting mostly of adolescent guys think Jess is so stupid to leave a sister like that crying.

Meanwhile, Philip has discovered the nasty things his parents did to drive Babes away. He traces her to Olongapo and pleads with her to come back and live with him again. Babes tells him that she's better off with Tol, who likes the same backbreaking sex as she does. Philip bargains with Tol to just take the money and let Babes live with him, and Tol lets them go, only to show up at Philip's house to spoil the party.

Tol and Babes are back having nasty sex on window sills, until Tol gets too rough and starts strangling Babes. Jess comes to his sister's rescue and hits Tol with a pipe, or a baseball bat, or even perhaps a table leg -- it wasn't clear what he used. But it was clear that he had killed Tol and Babes is reduced to a screaming bloody mess while the cops haul off Jess to jail, where Jess could probably do a sequel to Deathrow, only better.

Then we see a quick montage of all of Joyce Jimenez's best moments in the movie and the film's theme song starts blaring all over again as I can't help wondering if Babes' life could have been better if she had chosen another face to copy instead of Joyce Jimenez's.



###############