Alfie Anido

Alfie Anido (December 30, 1959 – December 30, 1981) was a popular Filipino matinee idol best remembered for his death at the age of twenty two. He was the eldest of four children of Alberto Anido and Sarah Serrano, and was the brother of Albert Anido, another Filipino actor.

Biography

Born Alfonso Serrano Anido, he was also a fashion and commercial model before he became a contract star for Regal Films, a leading Filipino film production company. He was dubbed as one of the Regal Babies, along with then-young actors such as Gabby Concepcion, William Martinez, Albert Martinez, Maricel Soriano, Snooky Serna and Dina Bonnevie. He was famously linked with Bonnevie, his co-star in the 1980 camp classic Temptation Island. At the time of his entry into show business, he was in college at the Ateneo de Manila University taking up Management.

Death

Anido died on December 30, 1981, the night of his 22nd birthday at his home in Bel-Air Makati City. The official version, contemporaneously reported in the mainstream Manila media, was that Anido had shot himself in a suicide. This version has not been officially or authoritatively contradicted up to this day. However, immediately after his death, rumors quickly spread that Anido was actually murdered, and that such fact was covered up owing to the prominence of the personalities allegedly involved. Fingers started pointing to the direction of the family of an ex-girlfriend whose father was a high ranking government official, Minister of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile. The rumor gained traction in Manila, which was then under the throes of the authoritarian rule of Ferdinand Marcos, whose government controlled the mass media during that period. Other versions on the death of Anido were printed in the alternative press such as the Philippine Collegian, the official student organ of the University of the Philippines, a hotbed of anti-Marcos activism.