Last night we watched the Filipino movie The Last Beergin (2025) on Netflix. A play on "The Last Virgin?" A very precise English pun for a movie in Tagalog, and it's about gin, not beer: as two men argue over the last bottle of gin at a convenience store, a rich girl screams and makes them drop it, and crash into a display case. The boy who has been staring at her offers to pay for the damage, and I forget why a middle-aged woman gets involved, but they all end up at a restaurant, drinking, playing ice-breaker games, and eventually going through a Dark Night of the Soul:
The bellicose Hilo (Pepe Herrera, far left) has a gambling problem. He took out a mortgage on his in-laws' house, without their permission, to finance a bet. Then he lost it all.
Rich Girl Sandy has a spending problem, which caused her parents to cut off her finances. Now how can she support her three boyfriends?
Sullen teenage Isaac (Zaijian Jaranilla, center) is in love with Rich Girl Sandy, but she doesn't notice him. Also, he had a life-threatening disease, and his parents promised God that if he got better, they would force him into the priesthood. But he doesn't want to be a priest.
Middle aged Tere has been married for many years, but is still a virgin. Her husband is paralyzed, and unable to perform in the bedroom.
The morose RG (JC Santos, top photo and right) moderates the others' confessions and offers advice. He is particularly interested in Isaac, which makes Hilo suspicious: "Do you have a crush on him?"
When Teenage Isaac runs to the bathroom to cry, Reticent RG follows and hugs him. This enrages Hilo: "Are you gay?"
"Why do you have to be so insulting?" RG counters. "Are you homophobic?" You're the homophobic one, buddy, thinking that "gay" is an insult.
"Of course not! I support the LGBTQ+ community." He actually says the "plus." The guy knows up-to-date acronyms.
Later the two guys get so chummy that I thought they were interested in dating. Especially in the morning, when everyone else leaves, but RG and Hilo stick around.
Reticent RG offers to host the next meeting of the newly-formed friend group. To everyone's surprise, the address he gives is a church. He's a priest!
He explains that he was having a crisis of faith, not sure if he wanted to stay in the priesthood. But counseling the others at the restaurant convinced him to return.
"I'm so sorry, Father," Hilo exclaims. "I called you a pervert!" Ok, that's homophobic. Didn't you know the proper acronym five minutes ago?
Wait -- RG was staring intently at Isaac before he told the story of his parents forcing him into the priesthood. Is he gay after all? That is never established.
To get a better idea, I checked to see if any of the male actors played gay characters before, or are gay in real life.
JC Santos (Morose RG): Straight, but he starred in the Filipino tv series Till I Met You (2015), about a boy (James Reid, left), a girl, and a "closeted homosexual" who fall in love with each other. Whoa, the "homosexual" slur, and the contention that they are not men. I'm disgusted.
The Philippine Entertainment Network is utterly shocked: "JC Santos doesn't mind playing GAY and kissing a GUY!!!!!!!!"
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Pepe Herrera (Bellicose Hilo): Straight, but he's been in several Filipino tv series that get complaints like "Why do they have to make every tv character gay? Nobody wants to see that!" I can't tell if he's one of the gay characters or not.
More after the break
Zaijian Jaranilla (Teenage Isaac) has played gay characters twice:
Boyette: Not a Girl Yet (2020): College student Boyette (Zaijian) pretends to be straight to get close to his homophobic crush (Iñigo Pascual). How could anyone think that someone with the feminine name Boyette was straight?
Iñigo stated in an interview that he isn't homophobic, but he gets angry with "overly friendly" gay guys. Hear that, boyettes? Hands off.
The tv series Senior High (2023) is about teens investigating the murder of their classmate. Zaijian plays Tim, who "struggles with his feelings" for Poch -- a kept boy with an extremely jealous sugar daddy.
Poch is played by straight boy Miggy Jiminez, who also shocks the Philipino Entertainment Network by being willing to play a GAY!!! character and kissing a GUY!!!!
Is Zaijian gay in real life? I'm not sure. His Instagram is overloaded with guy-hugging photos. But he got his start in May Bukas Pa (2008-13), playing Santino, a young boy who meets Jesus. It became the most popular show in the Philippines, and lasted for two decades. Santino's praying pose became the most recognizable images on tv.
He stated that he wanted to play gay characters to break away from his Santino image and prove that he had a range as an actor. Right, so gay is the opposite of Christian, I got it.
I have never become so angry so often while doing a movie review, or profile, or whatever the heck this post is. I'm outta here.
See also: Yani Xander: Headless ghost, Speechless body double, Telugu cop, hottest guy on the planet has a boyfriend and a tree-trunk sized c*ck.
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