Maria Cristina Labalan was born on January 20, 1943 in Bago, Negros Occidental.
[1] Labalan owns a company called "Synch Masters", which specialized in dubbing Mexican telenovelas and anime shows in Filipino.
[3] She began her career in radio in 1962 in Bacolod before going on to television and film, and she has been in the entertainment industry for half a century.
[4] She was discovered by the filmmaker, stage and television director, actor, and screenwriter, Ishmael Bernal when he noticed the natural actress in her while supervising the dubbing of the film Aliw starred by Lorna Tolentino in 1979.
Labalan rose to prominence for her breakout performance as Aling Saling, Nora Aunor's mother in Himala (1982), in which she co-starred alongside Nora Aunor, Veronica Palileo, and Spanky Manikan, among others.