lit a candle 2h agoMy neighbor growing up was from Iloilo and kept Erlinda's old radio dramas on cassette, Sunday dinners always had that voice in the background even if none of us understood the Ilonggo. Found out years later it was the same woman I'd see turn up as somebody's lola in these small Filipino films. 84 and still working. Rest well, Erlinda.
Their story
Erlinda Villalobos was a Filipino character actress and former radio talent whose career ran for more than six decades across radio, television and film. Often cast as the grandmother, the maid, the neighbour or the face in the crowd, she became one of the familiar supporting players of Philippine independent…
Erlinda Villalobos was a Filipino character actress and former radio talent whose career ran for more than six decades across radio, television and film. Often cast as the grandmother, the maid, the neighbour or the face in the crowd, she became one of the familiar supporting players of Philippine independent cinema. She died on 11 October 2026, aged 84.
Villalobos was an Ilongga from Iloilo City. She began in 1960 as a radio talent at the ABS-CBN station in Iloilo, and was also a writer. When the network was shut down under martial law in 1972, she moved to Bacolod, where she worked for Radio Mindanao Network from 1974 to 1983. There she met the voice talent and character actress Vangie Labalan, who persuaded her to move to Manila. Newly widowed, she did voice-overs for radio commercials using her Cebuano, Ilonggo and Tagalog, and in the 1980s and 1990s worked as a dubbing supervisor for Labalan's company, Synch Masters, which dubbed Mexican telenovelas and anime into Filipino.
Labalan also recommended her for acting work. After a run of episodes on the GMA afternoon drama "Pira-Pirasong Pangarap" under director Joel Lamangan, she appeared in television series including "Bakekang" and "Momay", and in radio dramas for Radyo Inquirer. She made her independent film debut in Loy Arcenas's "Nino" at Cinemalaya 2011, followed by "REquieme!" and Lawrence Fajardo's "The Strangers". In Jeffrey Jeturian's "Ekstra" (2013) she acted alongside Vilma Santos in a film about bit players, a role she said felt like winning a best actress trophy. She played the title role in Kevin Ang's award-winning Cinemalaya short "Lola" (2014) and played the lead in Carl Joseph Papa's animated "Manang Biring" (2015).
Her later credits included "Baconaua", "Smaller and Smaller Circles", "Firefly", "Mallari" and the long-running series "Ang Probinsyano" and "Batang Quiapo". In Brillante Ma. Mendoza's "Bahay na Pula" for Vivamax she played Aling Ising, the caretaker of an old house, and was treated by the press as one of the film's leads. She kept working into her eighties, with projects such as "Until She Remembers" and "The Happy Homes of Diane Hilario".
Villalobos spoke up for bit players, saying they had no guild or union to protect them and hoping her work would earn them more respect. She lived for more than thirty years in San Pedro, Laguna. Her family announced her death on her Facebook page, describing her as their beloved grandmother and saying they took comfort that she no longer had to suffer or feel pain. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Biography adapted from News reports: Inquirer.net (2013 profile and October 2026 death report), OpinYon News (2022), Film Police Reviews (2014).
In their own words
“I got to act with Vilma Santos, in her tribute to bit players like me.”
On Ekstra, Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 2013
Photos
1Erlinda Villalobos in the Cinemalaya 2014 short film Lola
by People Forever
From social media
1Posts by Erlinda, and posts about them, kept here so they are not lost.