3 movie stars entertain, give live chicken, eggs to Mayon evacuees

By Juan Escandor Jr. LEGAZPI CITY --- Popular movie stars provided entertainment and gave away food stuff to evacuees of Mt. Mayon eruption on Saturday (Feb. 10) last week in the hope of easing up the stress they are experiencing while living for weeks in crowded evacuation centers here. Sponsored by the SND Charities Foundation, or SND Charities, movie stars Cesar Montano, Epi Quizon and Bayani Agbayani visited the evacuation centers to empathize with thousands of evacuees and at the same time entertain them with songs and gags. “We want them to lessen the stress they are experiencing even for a few moments after staying in the evacuation centers for weeks away from the privacy of their homes,” Montano told the Bicol Mail. He said he heeded the invitation of Noel de Luna, chairman and founder of SND Charities, to come to this city with the intention of donating food stuff and providing entertainment to the evacuees. De Luna said the SND Charities provided 10,000 live chicken and 10,000 eggs for the evacuees in the different evacuation centers in Albay which was turned over to the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD). Montano, Chief Operations Officer of the Tourism Promotions Board of the Department of Tourism, led the turnover of the chickens and eggs to the OCD. In Barangay Cumon in the town of Camalig in Albay province, the movie-star-turned-government-official was welcomed by rousing crowd and giggling women inside the evacuation center. A woman who came up the stage and joined Montano in singing did not hold back her feeling towards the movie star and unabashedly kissed and embraced him on stage. “Are you married? Your husband might get mad at me,” Montano told the woman, jokingly. “No. I am not. My name is Lovely and I am single,” she said. Even before Lovely could finish her statements, a man raised a toddler, suggesting the boy is her son, which made the people laugh out loud. Montano also visited the evacuation centers in the town of Guinobatan and Ligao City. In a separate team, Quizon and Agbayani went to the Gogon Elementary School and Albay Central School in Legazpi City and eight other evacuation centers in Tabaco City. Known for his hit song “Otso-Otso”, Agbayani hammed it up with the evacuees, many of them farmers and ordinary workers, who danced and sang with him during the entertainment program held in every evacuation center they visited.