Wowowin: Willie now a Certified Kapuso

It’s final: After months of guessing game, the answer was finally revealed yesterday when Willie Revillame signed the contract with GMA executives. He is now a Certified Kapuso.

Which simply means that happy days are here again for Willie’s legions of followers here and abroad, who have been waiting for his TV comeback since the expiration of his contract with TV5 in October 2013.

The show will be called Wowowin (suggested by your Funfarer, blush!) which sounds like Willie’s TV5 show Wil Time Bigtime (formerly Willing Willie and, when it was airing on ABS-CBN, Wowowee). According to the official GMA bulletin, Wowowin will premiere on April 26, Sunday.

“We are pleased to have Willie’s program in the Network,” said GMA Network chairman and CEO lawyer Felipe Gozon. “Willie has a very large following. Through our partnership with WBR Entertainment, GMA Network will be part of the long-awaited return of Willie on television.”

“We are very grateful and glad to have our program Wowowin shown on GMA Network,” said Willie, who owns and manages WBR Entertainment. “We will see to it that we deserve the trust on us by GMA Network.”

These past few months, while secretly negotiating with GMA Network, Willie himself has been getting in touch with the sponsors, including Wil Bench Cologne, Herbs & Nature (Liveraide, Plemex), Happy Mobile (Celfone), Foton, Pau Liniment, Puregold Supermarket, W.L. Foods (Cornicks) Sinski and Camella Homes.

“Walang iwanan,” added Willie about his relationship with the sponsors. “They have been supporting me all the way.”

Wowowin actually marks Willie’s return to the GMA Network where he used to work as the sidekick of Randy Santiago who was then a co-host of the Kapuso noontime show Lunchdate and Willie’s co-host with John Estrada on the ABS-CBN noontime show MTB (Magandang Tanghali Bayan). Randy will direct Wowowin.

No, Willie won’t be using the million-peso Wowowillie Studio that he put up at the old Delta Theater which has remained closed up to now. Instead, he’s renting a studio along Kalayaan Avenue in Quezon City near the City Hall.

“I’m so excited to be back,” said Willie. “I’m even happier for the show’s followers, especially the senior citizens, who are given a chance to show their talent in some segments and to enjoy the games with loads of prizes at stake.”

Among the segments is Bigyan Ng Jacket ‘Yan (named after Willie’s penchant for giving away jackets) in which contestants will be made to pick the lucky key to a Foton car as top prize (along with cash and other goodies). Happy Mobile Celfones will also be given away as prizes. Also up for grabs are P1M cash and house and lot as jackpot prizes in another game.

* * *

The dues have been paid and all other stumbling blocks (legal or otherwise) have been cleared, so the concert of One Direction will be pushed through as scheduled tonight and tomorrow night at the Mall Of Asia (MOA) Concert Grounds. Tickets for both shows have long been sold out.

The boys — Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson, minus Zayn Malik — will be flown in on a private plane anytime today (time of arrival is confidential to avoid “fandemonium” and for security reasons). The boys will rest in preparation for tonight’s show and relax a bit the next day for the Sunday show. According to Funfare sources, the boys will leave right after the second show, on the same private plane that is flying them in.

Since no presscon is scheduled, I am reprinting portions of my interview with 1D in London in 2012 (when they did a pictorial for Penshoppe) for the benefit of the boys’ fans. Back then, the 1D members were very playful, teasing each other during the interview just like what boys like them are. Some excerpts:

You guys have been together for two years already. How have things been with you as One Direction; what have you discovered about one another?

Zayn: Hmmm, I think we’ve been together like every day, so we get to know one another quite well. We just get on very well and, yeah, we now know one another pretty well.

Niall: I think, you know, we’ve learned how to deal with each other’s personality. We know each other’s boundaries and stuff like that. Like, if someone is tired, the others just leave him alone. We know the dynamics of the group.

Louis: Ah, we know each other far better than we did when we started together as a group. We’re just cool.

Harry: We’ve just kind of grown as a group, especially if you look back at a year or two ago.

Liam: We’re still similar as people and just as human as anybody else.

How do you cope with the big changes in your lives?

Zayn: Hmmm, I won’t say that, you know, it’s something that you really have to like. It’s just something that kind of happened to us and has become part of our everyday lives. You go to work, do some crazy stuff and it’s fun!

Niall: I think it came as a big shock to the system. We just kind of roll over it and look at it as normal. Every day, we get up and do whatever it is that we are scheduled to do. We just have to be ourselves.

Louis: Ah, we went right out of school and suddenly, we have this great responsibility and that, I think, is the biggest change in our lives. But so far, it’s great fun!

Harry: Things have been amazing so far. What’s important is for us to just focus on our work and have fun.

Liam: We’ve become busier than we were last year. Yes, we’ve been busier most of the time. Our lives have been kind of turned upside down and like what they said, we just have to enjoy it and, yes, have fun!

What’s the best thing about being a 1D (question and answers reprinted from the One Direction: The Official Annual 2013)?

Harry: Being with four mates all of the time, going to cool places, meeting lots of nice people and having a laugh constantly. Even if we’re really tired, we’re still having a good time.

Liam: I get to travel the world with my four best friends, do brilliant shows, see the most amazing places and meet incredible people. We’ve been having such a laugh together and I think we got even closer with all the traveling and the craziness. We met (US First Lady) Michelle Obama and you can’t quite believe it when things like that happen. We showed her a picture of the statue of (US Pres.) Barrack Obama that we bought Niall for his birthday and she loved it. We had to turn down an invite to the White House because we had shows booked in at the same time. How mad is that? It almost doesn’t seem real.

Zayn: The other four lads. I’ve got four very good mates out of being in the band and that’s cool. We all keep each other down to earth and there’s no way I could have done this as a solo artist. I would have cracked up and given it all up and gone home by now. The lads keep me grounded and it’s good to know you’re not the only person going through everything. We’re sharing every experience.

Louis: Pretty much everything. We never expected to release in America and get the kind of reaction we did, so that’s been amazing. And to then go on and do so well in Australia was incredible. It’s great to visit so many different places and I love performing on stage to thousands of people and seeing the audience waving banners and wearing One Direction T-shirts. And we’re still having such a good time as mates, which is the main thing.

Niall: Just being together with all the crew around us. It’s a good laugh and when you’re doing crazy hours and you’re tired sometimes, you know the other lads are there for you. We also get to travel the world and we’ve got so many dedicated fans out there and that makes me smile every day.

What have you heard about the Philippines?

Liam: We’ve got lots of fans in the Philippines. Sometimes, we connect to them through hashtag. It’s nice to be known in a country that you’ve never even been to. We would love to go there some time.

Harry: Oh, the Filipino fans are interesting! As Liam said, we’d love to visit the Philippines one of these days and personally say “Hi!” to our fans out there.

Louis: Yes, we do look forward to coming down to the Philippines. Our fan base is really, really strong down there. They are very good. I hope that we can get a chance to go to the Philippines in the next couple of years.

Niall: You see, we see so many people on Twitter and many of them are from the Philippines.

Zayn: Hmmmm, hi to everybody in the Philippines!

You’ve been so busy these past two years. Do you ever have time to relax and enjoy yourselves?

Liam: You know, we chill out and just do normal stuff like go shopping, play some PlayStation.

Harry: We do things that anybody would usually do — you know, stay home and spend time with your family. Or, see friends and watch films.

Louis: Go to the gym or chill out at home and talk to friends on the phone. You know, very normal.

Niall: I like to chill on the sofa while talking to my friend and play the guitar. Or just watch TV.

Zayn: Hmmmm, like Niall, I like to chill on the sofa, see my family and friends.

Anything you want to say to your fans in the Philippines?

Zayn: Hmmmm, hello!

Niall (being coached by somebody who’s obviously a Filipino): Mabuhay!

Louis (following Niall’s cue): Mabuhay, Philippines!

Harry (following Louis’ cue): Mabuhay, Philippines! We’ll come and see you!

Liam (following Harry’s cue): Mabuhay, Philippines! See yah!

Reader’s reaction

From Jenny Palis:

Hi Ricky,

I read Mr. Albert Martinez’s story about the recent death of his beloved wife Liezl.

I was in tears reading it even if this is a situation I should be somehow immune to (since I’ve been working for 10 years  as a senior nurse in a top oncology hospital in London). And yet, I’m not. There will always be someone who will touch your heart and make you cry.

Kindly relay my message to Mr. Martinez and his family. I’m so sorry for the loss of their loved one. Mr. Martinez, take time to grieve but also don’t forget to remember your happy times with Liezl and how she wanted to be remembered. Tell your children to take care of each other and be strong, and hopefully one day they can smile again.

One Direction back then

One Direction guys (from left: Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Harry Styles) wearing ‘Pilipinas’ T-shirts as promo for their concerts tonight and tomorrow night at the Mall Of Asia (MOA) Concert Grounds. Right: The boys with your Funfarer back in 2012 during an exclusive interview with The STAR in London.

Thank you for reading this e-mail and I hope my message will somehow reach them and let them know that I will be praying for them together with the rest of my patients’ loved ones who are also affected by the terrible cancer.

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. You may also send your questions to [email protected].)