Seaside musings

The storm has passed. It is all quiet and peaceful. After hearing mass at Saint Jude, I decided to hang out at Starbucks by the bay. Looking at Manila Yatch Club from afar as well as the Manila Bay skyline, I can’t help but fall in love with the City Of Man, as addressed by then Metro Manila Governor Imelda Marcos. A lot has changed, with only 3 skyscrapers jostling from the view in the ‘90s, the Manila Diamond Hotel, Silahis Hotel and Ramon Magsaysay Center, Roxas Boulevard is now peppered with a score of high-rise buildings.

I started my professional career in ’93 when I was employed by J. Walter Thompson’s sister company, Lexington/Hill & Knowlton PR. I took my summer practicum a year before that at J. Walter Thompson as well. Our office then was in Ramon Magsaysay Center and it was facing the sea. Cigarette breaks were consumed at the ground floor of the white granite building. I felt so powerful back then, with an office building that reminded me of Rockefeller in New York, and an above-average compensation. My starting salary back then was double as to what my classmates were receiving. I was handling blue chip accounts such as Boeing, Chase Manhattan, Pepsi Cola, AT & T, and HBO Asia, who was being introduced back then since cable was a growing market. After the fall of EDSA, the uppercrust was receiving feed from the US bases thru UHF or FEN, and cable was never heard of. Lexington was really a small office, we occupied barely 1/8 of an entire floor, maybe around 100 square meter. My boss then was an ex-seminarian and an old bachelor who took a liking of me and decided to make me his protégé. Everyday, we ate out of the office, and I did the rounds of popular places, Café Adriatico, Manila Hotel, Bistro Remedios, Tonette’s, the Lobby and Island Café of then newly-opened ShangriLa Makati, the Lobby of Manila Peninsula. Nights were spent drinking at Conway’s, SkyLounge of Diamond Hotel. Then my boss got a call from a headhunter and he eventually left me for another job, with a promise that I will join him in a month’s time.

After my short stint as a writer, media relations manager and account person with Lexington, my former boss brought me to Caltex Philippines. I was placed under the Office Of The President and was in charge of Corporate Communications. From Ramon Magsaysay, I was hoarded into the new and spanking building called 6750 Ayala Avenue. The future looked so bright, I received an offer that was unheard of for someone who was barely in his 20s. I was offered P10,000 when the going rate then was P3,500. I was 19 and on top of my game, working with a Fortune 500 company. I aced the necessary exams that lasted for 4 hours for the job, and the testing center even added a note that I was highly recommended for the position. Friends were joking, now I am “Miss Caltex”, in allusion to the popular beauty search in the 70s producing the likes of Maggie Dela Riva. I started my driving lessons earlier when I was still with Lexington since a car plan was in the offing. I did drive my boss around in his company car and I get to bring it home afterwards. It was a Sentra Saloon in pearlized blue, I wanted mine to be moss green.

Then I fell in love. I met someone, a bisexual flight steward from Philippine Airlines. On the night of our first chance encounter in Malate, I felt he was the one. He was 10 years my senior, a goodlooking man by the name of Jay, a deadringer for Bong Revilla with a gorgeous body to boot. The first date ended up in bed, and it was decided there after that we become an item. I moved in with him in Quezon City and basically, it was my first taste of a working relationship. He was out of the country most of the time, and when he was in town, I was his girl Friday. I cooked for him and his family, washed his clothes, ironed his uniform, and kept the house clean. I became domesticated. It made a toll on my professional life. My boss started noticing that I stopped joining him on his after office drinking session as well as his weekend malling, and stopped being his personal driver. I was usually with my new boyfriend, he usually picks me up after work and we usually spend our weekends in his house in Pampanga.

One day, I received my pink slip and when I asked Caltex HR about the real scenario, I was told that as a probationary employee, their hands were tied since my boss instructed them to terminate me. I felt furious and realized that my boss was a closet homosexual after all. He took everything personally, and on my part, I was guilty of getting the freebies without thinking about the consequences. How one can explain the free lunches and dinners, the high salary offer, the free shopping trips, the occasional cash dole outs. I started suspecting about the nature of the relationship when we shared hotel rooms on out-of-town business trips. At first, it was OK with me given the rationale that maybe, it was cost-efficiency he was after. We used to visit Cebu Plaza Hotel when we were working under Lexington since it was our account. Then Caltex came, one time, a trip to Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte for the Good Roots project, I insisted on a separate room in Fort Ilocandia for which he felt slighted. Given the fact that Caltex was wallowing in cash courtesy of the daily spike in gas prices, I felt I deserved my own room. That was the start of a strained relationship. We did not speak to each other for 12 hours on our way back to Manila.

My personal life also took a dive. My flight attendant boyfriend told me he loved me, and yet, he wanted to take a breather. He felt that I was really young for him, and the 10 year age gap was too much too handle. He realized this four months after we became an item, how’s that for good slap. He said he will be gone for 3 weeks and taking a break in California. When he was on his way back, he sent me a message thru my pager (mobile phones were still a thing of the past then, we communicated with the preferred mode of technology, the beeper or pager, I had a Beeper 150 then, top of the line, alpha numeric 4-liner Motorola model, and I still remember my number, Beeper 150-311822), he asked me to meet him up at the airport tarmac. Since my boyfriend’s brother worked also with Philippine Airlines, he was able to whisk me all the way to the tube connecting the plane at the arrival area. Lo and behold, my boyfriend emerged with a Filipino actor whose sexuality was also under question. It was more than enough to break my young heart. We decided to call it quits and I fell into a depression.

After the premature departure from Caltex and a lovelife gone kaput, I was lucky enough to be hired after 2 weeks by my first advertising agency, Adformatix. I swallowed the bitter pill of adjusting my paycheck from P10,000 to P6,500, still high by industry standards. Adformatix was thee first office I felt home. The organization was basically Filipino, there was the patriarch, Mr. Guillermo T. Garcia, whom we all addressed as GTG. The mother hen was the head of HR, whom we fondly call “Mother”. I was given the account of MY San, makers of Skyflakes and Fita, as well as a start up Filipino personal care company called Splash. My first acid test came when Ruffa Guttierez was involved in an envelope-switching scandal called Manila FilmFest Scam, the now infamous Viveka Vavaji “Take It! Take It” blopper. We had to replace Ruffa as a brand endorser for Splash Extract Ace, her “Kutis Na Pang-Miss World” tagline needed replacement ASAP. Luckily, Charlene Gonzales just emerged as a finalist from Miss Universe held in Manila and she was tapped as the impromptu replacement. After haggling with her mother for the correct talent fee which ended up in seven figure as well since they found out that Ruffa was paid the same, we did a storyboard in a day, got an approval the next day from client, and shoot was scheduled the day after. It was what you call “one week” campaign, from storyboarding to the actual TV commercial. The day before the shoot, guess who was on the phone one early morning? It was Ruffa’s mother, Tita Annabel Rama hurling some unprintables at me. I just sat then at my desk and it was 8 in the morning when I was served with Tita Annabel’s wrath. I first heard “Dong” even before everybody heard about it and which became Tita Annabel’s claim-to-fame. Now, “Dong” delivered by Tita Annabel, with her thick Visayan accent that you could actually serve it as dessert, has invaded our living rooms with her own endorsements as well ranging from pain relievers to some baking brands. Now, she can hold a candle vis-à-vis the number of endorsements Ruffa or Richard or even husband Eddie is doing.

Charlene and I hit it off during the shoot. I met her days before and I made numerous trips to her mother’s house in New Manila for the contract signing and outfit measurements. She was really nice, and we bonded in the shoot that laster for 24 hour straight. She was dating back then Dodot Jaworski and that was one thing we had in common, basketball players. I took a liking with Dodot’s friend, Vince Hizon, and I tried to fish out information as much as I can. Charlene was also studying then in UST, my alma mater, where she was taking her pre-med course.

After the commercial aired with a new tagline, “Kutis Na Pang-Beauty Queen” (we decided that using Miss Universe was out of the question since the Philippines produced only 2 so far, Gloria Diaz and Margie Moran, but has produced numerous beauty queens given the fact that the Philippines is dotted with a lot of beauty searches, thus the tagline is “campaignable” and could be used over and over again) and I had to personally deliver the tapes to ABS-CBN hours after it was dubbed for a Sunday airing in “Sa Linggo nAPO Sila”, the client from Splash decided to do a caravan in the Queen City Of The South, Cebu. Doc and Mrs. Hortaleza had one request, that I personally join Charlene in Cebu. Early on, my clients already noticed that I had my way with celebrities, that my gift of gab was working to their advantage. Off to Cebu then, we did everything in a day, took the first flight out and last flight back to Manila. Mommy Elvie joined us since she usually chaperoned Charlene anywhere. Charlene and I sat side by side in the plane as well as in the car in Cebu, taking the back seats of the Nissan Safari provided for us. She was really a darling to work with, and we did the usual caravan, standing at a back of a 10 wheeler truck and covering Metro Cebu, giving out samples and waving at the crowd. I felt like I was a beauty queen for a day as well, looking back at the photos, yes! Charlene and I had similarities, we could pass off as siblings, no kidding. I had a skin as flawless as hers, thanks to my early initiation of the 3 rules of skincare, “cleanse, tone and moisturize”, which I still adhere to until now. From using Eskinol when I was 9 years old ( thanks Ate Vi for endorsing the brand, the original Eskinol Girl who still look fabulous despite the age), I had no choice but to start using the challenger brand, Splash Extract Ace. On hindsight and as a piece of trivia, guess who endorsed Eskinol, no other than Mikee Cojuangco, who dated Aga Muhlach and is now Mrs. Dodot Jaworski and Charlene became Mrs. Aga Muhlach, as well know. That’s what we may call six degrees of separation, astringent-style.

Meeting Mikee Cojuangco was another story, and will tell you about it in another blog entry. Yes! I do write for a celebrity glossy called Star Studio Magazine for quite some time now and meeting stars have become a job. For my readers, I hope you let me indulge with my calling in life, to be a star, not a megastar, a star for all season, a superstar, a diamond star, but just as a star, maybe a Hollywood star. It is a pity I did not to get to meet Josh Hartnett when he was in Manila during the height of the storm, I dreamt about the day he will be town, and when he did come, I was penniless to buy a ticket to General Santos or Davao, and it was raining hard in Manila to do a stakeout at the international airport. The closest encounter for me with a Hollywood star was with Lea Salonga, Cesar Montano and Paolo Montelibano, who starred opposite Brandy in “Cinderella”. You may also include Iza Calzado, who will be doing the Hollywood remake of “Sigaw”, entitled “Echo”.

I hope Hollywood pays better than my previous jobs in the Philippines, if the time comes. For now, I will take in the view of the world-famous Manila Bay and inhale the seabreeze, it is good for one’s health.


Postscript: I was able to recover from the heartbreak from the first lovelife. I recently saw him in Greenbelt and I was aghast that he gained weight and looked older. Gone was the body I lusted for when he was 30, and in place was a protruding stomach and receding hairline. Yes! He has the most beautiful appendage I laid my eyes and lips upon and I let him be my first guest in the hallowed hallway of my behind, for which I really enjoyed on a daily basis. He told me after the breakup that just in case after 10 years and we bumped into each other, and if I still loved him, then that was a test of true love. Fat chance! I don’t do fat and old guys, and things have come full circle. Now that I am in my 30s, I date guys who are in their 20s and I still get the boot, not the other way. I cannot help but asked, where is justice? The only difference is that I now date straight guys for money (no, they don’t pay me, I pay them) and totally avoided bisexual or homosexual dates. I am just thankful that I still look mid-20s despite the fact that I am already mid-30s. If I could only bring back the hands of time, I should have never smoked, stayed late up to 6 am partying. Well, too late for regrets.