“The Millionaire’s Wife” is GMA Network’s latest Afternoon Prime block Filipino drama series that will replace the intriguing “Destiny Rose”.
Set to air on this March 14th, “The Millionaire’s Wife” features Andrea Torres, Mike Tan, and veteran actor Robert Arevalo as the millionaire Alfredo “Fred” Vergara.
Robert Arevalo, known in real life as Robert Ylagan is currently 77-years old and is still active practicing his craft. One could say all this passion for the acting craft runs in the family as Robert Arevalo is the son of Filipino film actor, composer, and musician Tito Arevalo and his uncle Gerardo de Leon was a national artist and an award winning movie director.
Robert is married to actress Barbara Perez who is dubbed as the Audrey Hepburn of the Philippines. Amidst all the impressive performance and milestones in Robert Arevalo’s belt, he is still a human susceptible to stress of work.
Robert Arevalo plays the role of millionaire Alfredo “Fred” Vergara who falls in love and proposes marriage to Andrea Torres’ character, Luisa Ignacio. Luisa along with her son was abandoned by her partner Ivan Meneses (played by Mike Tan). When her son was diagnosed with diabetes and she can’t seem to make ends meet, she will swallow her pride and do what is needed. What struggles will Luisa face?
Thursday afternoon of March 10, 2016 at 4:11 PM, the veteran actor’s daughter, Anna Ylagan, went to her social media to express her concern and grievances to the seemingly unfair working hours her father is currently following in his work which is the ‘The Millionaire’s Wife’. Anna Ylagan’s post goes as follows:
My dad will be angry with me for posting this but he left for taping of his TV series yesterday at 5am. He came home at 9:30am today. Tell me, is that a decent & respectful way to treat a 78-year old veteran actor? Is it now a liability that my dad loves his craft that’s why he’s putting up with such practices? #StopInhumanWorkingHours
~ Anna Ylagan
Anna went on with her concerns about this seemingly unfair industry practice on the replies she made to those who commented on her post:
After the recent deaths of young directors, social media was very loud on the issue. Something really had to be done. The question is, who will monitor the working hours? In commercial shoots, we had to get a DOLE permit for shooting of minors after which they sent representatives to attend the shoots to monitor.
This is not the first time that someone concerned for the welfare of people in the Philippine entertainment industry have voiced their concerns. In an earlier article, Quark Henares thinks Industry’s Working Schedule and Conditions are Killing Directors.
I think if there are people who are more than familiar with this seemingly unfair practice by the entertainment industry, it would probably be the the talents and their closest friends and families.
Can we blame Anna Ylagan for simply voicing out her concern for her passionate father who has seemingly has accepted this harsh reality of the industry? Should there be any need for the government or legislative bodies have to strictly impose laws that would remind companies and networks to standardized working schedule and conditions for talents and staff alike; that they are dealing with lives of human beings and not some inexhaustible robots for entertainment of the populace? Why can’t the industry change this themselves and would want to simply ignore some basic human logic that they might have a hand to play on the health and wellness of their talents.
