Mother Lily Monteverde. Image: Instagram/@motherlilymonteverde Way before she became known as “ Mother Lily ,” Lily Monteverde had already held a deep adoration for the silver screen that she decided that becoming part of the Philippine film industry was the trajectory she wanted to take. Mother Lily died on Aug.
4 , days after her husband Leonardo “Father Remy” Monteverde was laid to rest. She would have turned 85 on the 19th of the same month. Born August 19, 1938 to her Filipino-Chinese parents, Domingo Yu Chu and Profetiza Buban Yu, Mother Lily knew at an early age she was destined to do greater things.
As a young grade schooler, Mother Lily developed a passion for films that she would skip classes and spend time in movie houses. “How was she able to afford this?” you may ask. Well, young Lily would take a portion from the money she was supposed to use to pay for her school bus, and would just gladly face her father’s scolding afterwards.
“I look at the mirror and say, ‘Gusto ko maging artista.’ That’s why I said, ‘Okay, pag hindi ako naging artista, I want to be a producer,” she said in an interview with Chinoy TV in 2020. Fast forward to her college years, the Filipino-Chinese film producer’s fondness for movies still remained, although she didn’t take a film-related course.
She pursued a degree in education as she thought of becoming a teacher at a school their family owns. However, fate had something else in mind for her. At the time, Mot.