The showbiz side of Heidi Mendoza

by Boy Villasanta

Many are familiar with her as the former commissioner of the Commission on Audit (COA) and a principled, feisty, courageous and grounded whistle-blower against erring, brazen and corrupt public servants and politicians during her testimonies at the Senate hearings.

But Heidi Mendoza has another facet of her public life not known to many—show business.

Aside from the usual fragmented entertainment-related facets like her aborted biopic in 2011, Heidi was a showstopper in her school days at the Tayabas East Elementary School and in high school at St. John Bosco Academy, both in Tayabas town in Quezon Province.

“Sumasali ako sa mga (I was joining) declamation contests,” she recalled with fondness.

There was a time, she said, that she was apprehensive about bagging a prize as the contests were tight and competitive so she studied carefully the strengths and weaknesses of all her opponents who came before her.

Declamation pieces such as Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” William Henley’s “Invictus,” Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,” etc.

Heidi recalled she would recite or orate a thought-provoking or emotionally-laden lit with matching showmanship and blocking.

She would wait for a certain cue to emphasize a point with her gestures before the bell rang but before her time was up she was able to deliver the punch line and the corresponding action.

She won the contest, hands down.     

In her tertiary education, Mendoza was a campus figure at the Sacred Heart College in Lucena City.

Those were some performances she would measure up to an actor or an actress, particularly on stage.

Nonetheless, they were the foundations and fundamentals of show business.  

At the height of her series of expose at the Senate and congressional hearings on COA reports, the late Lily Monteverde, better known as Mother Lily, matriarch of Regal Films, approached her to translate her life into the big screen.

“Nag-meeting na kami (We already had meetings),” recounted Heidi who is running for a Senate seat as an independent.

She had also met actor Piolo Pascual who would play a major part in the film written by the late progressive feminist writer Lualhati Bautista.

Sadly, the film project was shelved, according to Heidi, because there was a disagreement at some points on the script.

In real life situation in the idyllic Tayabas, Heidi’s father and Sampaguita Pictures’ matinee idol and lover boy Romero Vasquez were friends and  

At the moment, a stage play on her life is in the pipeline.