Bembol Roco
Filipino actor
Rafael Aranda Roco Jr. (born November 20, 1953), professionally known as Bembol Roco, is a Filipino actor whose work ranges from films to television. He is best known for his role as Julio Madiaga in the 1975 film Manila in the Claws of Light, which has since gained prominence as one of the greatest Philippine films of all time. He also had an important role in the 1982 Australian-U.S. film The Year of Living Dangerously. He also portrayed villain roles in Filipino action movies due to his signature bald head as well as various supporting roles.
He has twin sons who are also actors named Felix and Dominic.
He is well known for his collaborations with director Lino Brocka, where he is a part of a group of actors called "Brocka babies", and directors such as Ishmael Bernal, Chito S. Roño, Marilou Diaz-Abaya, and Joel Lamangan in the late twentieth century.
Career
Prior to beginning his acting career, Roco underwent an 18-month rehabilitation program at the Drug Abuse Rehabilitation Education (DARE) Foundation in Bicutan. After completing the program, he began working for the organization. In 1974, director Lino Brocka visited the DARE facility to secure a filming permit for his upcoming project.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bembol Roco” is filipino actor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bembol, Roco and Filipino, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4885074. VIAF identifies the subject as 43852769. The Library of Congress control number is no00102921. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1975, 1982 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bembol Roco” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.