Beloy Montemayor
Isabelo “Beloy” Montemayor
Movie VS Reality
In the Movie: [Montemayor: Tulisang Dagat Ft. Rudy Fernandez, 1984]
Beloy grew up in a remote Visayan islet, away from the pressure of urban centered cash economy.
Folk-hero of sorts forced to take justice into his own hands.
In one scene, his men unloads contraband foreign cigarettes into the ocean.
Villagers implore Beloy to protect them from pirate gangs ransacking the coastal village.
He dies in the end while avenging his wife who was held hostage, maltreated, and almost raped by smugglers.
Absence of law enforcement agents
In Reality:
The movie was highly romanticized and hardly based on fact.
A. Humble Beginnings [Pre-gangster life]
Beloy was born in 1930.
Grew up in a small island off the coast of Bohol, a place less rural and remote.
Gathered shells to sell in Cebu City.
Worked in the Carbon Market selling fish and shells from nearby islands.
By the early 1950s, was married, residing in barrio Ermita, and owned a tailor shop in the Carbon Market.
B. Two important barrios: Ermita & Pasil Ermita:
Premier retail center (vegetables, poultry, pots and pans, etc.)
Barrio where the Carbon Market is located. currently Cebu’s oldest and biggest produce market used to be a place where carbon waste was dump during the time when steam was used for electricity offers a wide variety of goods
Pasil:
Wholesale fish market for the entire metropolitan area
These 2 areas grew dirty and teemed with informal settlers during the post war era.
Became identified with illegal activities (smuggling, gambling, syndicates, gangsters)
The small crowded area also attracted pickpockets and petty thieves along with organized crimes.
Became the center of Cebu’s dramatic economic growth. Cheap, motorized US Army surplus engines (2-5 horsepower engines) made inter-island commerce possible, as well as highly mobile forms of crimes.
C. The Catalyst: How the thug life began.
- Killed a drunken assailant armed with a bolo using only a hunting knife
Movie VS Reality
In the Movie: [Montemayor: Tulisang Dagat Ft. Rudy Fernandez, 1984]
Beloy grew up in a remote Visayan islet, away from the pressure of urban centered cash economy.
Folk-hero of sorts forced to take justice into his own hands.
In one scene, his men unloads contraband foreign cigarettes into the ocean.
Villagers implore Beloy to protect them from pirate gangs ransacking the coastal village.
He dies in the end while avenging his wife who was held hostage, maltreated, and almost raped by smugglers.
Absence of law enforcement agents
In Reality:
The movie was highly romanticized and hardly based on fact.
A. Humble Beginnings [Pre-gangster life]
Beloy was born in 1930.
Grew up in a small island off the coast of Bohol, a place less rural and remote.
Gathered shells to sell in Cebu City.
Worked in the Carbon Market selling fish and shells from nearby islands.
By the early 1950s, was married, residing in barrio Ermita, and owned a tailor shop in the Carbon Market.
B. Two important barrios: Ermita & Pasil Ermita:
Premier retail center (vegetables, poultry, pots and pans, etc.)
Barrio where the Carbon Market is located. currently Cebu’s oldest and biggest produce market used to be a place where carbon waste was dump during the time when steam was used for electricity offers a wide variety of goods
Pasil:
Wholesale fish market for the entire metropolitan area
These 2 areas grew dirty and teemed with informal settlers during the post war era.
Became identified with illegal activities (smuggling, gambling, syndicates, gangsters)
The small crowded area also attracted pickpockets and petty thieves along with organized crimes.
Became the center of Cebu’s dramatic economic growth. Cheap, motorized US Army surplus engines (2-5 horsepower engines) made inter-island commerce possible, as well as highly mobile forms of crimes.
C. The Catalyst: How the thug life began.
- Killed a drunken assailant armed with a bolo using only a hunting knife