The trouble with Rico Yan - FUNFARE by Ricardo F. Lo

The trouble with Rico Yan is like the trouble with angels. They’re much too nice, too good and, yes, much too angelic.

Rico has no wings but he’s angelic, too. At least, that’s what his image is: Boy-next-door, good boy, nice boy, role model and, yes, "angelic." After all, he’s the Presidential Spokesman for the Youth, isn’t he?

Which means Rico is clean-living. He doesn’t do drugs (but he does smoke every now and then, like he did during a lunch meeting with half a dozen movie writers); he doesn’t gamble; he doesn’t womanize; and he doesn’t misbehave in public (not even in private), staying cool and composed even in times of undue provocation (like when Mark Anthony Fernandez, newly-released from rehab, confronted him when Mark bumped into Rico and girlfriend, Claudine Barretto, Mark’s "ex," by chance last year at a Greenhills restaurant).

Is it hard to live up to being a role model?

"I don’t have to live up to it," said Rico quite honestly, "it comes naturally with me."

His grandfather is Gen. Manuel Yan, a paradigm of integrity, (military) precision, honor, discipline and good behavior/manners (well, the Yans are to the manor – and manner – born).

As Presidential Spokesperson (for the Department of Education, Culture and Sports, DECS), Rico imposes on himself certain "don’t’s," such as no nudity nor torrid kissing/love scenes (French kissing is a big no-no, not in the movies or on TV anyway). He can do "off-beat" roles, such as the one he’s doing in the five-episode mini-series Detour on ABS-CBN’s Saturday evening feature Star Drama Presents, but, according to Rico, "The story must have a redeeming social value." Well, you know...

Directed by Chito Roño, Detour premiered last Saturday (Oct. 21) and will go on until Nov. 18. Like all the characters (Mylene Dizon, among them, Rico essays a weird role, as Carl, an eccentric guy with long hair which is the exact opposite of what Rico is in real life. In his journey through life, Carl bumps into all sorts of equally weird characters, emerging as a better person at the end of the road. "I’m not telling you what happens to Carl because there are many twists and turns in the story," said Rico (who’s also in the cast of the long-winding ABS-CBN daily soap Saan Ka Man Naroroon as one of Claudine’s leading men, along with Leandro Muñoz and Diether Ocampo, and now Carlos Agassi). "You watch it na lang."

But Rico, despite the dozen or so movies he has done, is still waiting for his dream role – as an obsessed gay who’s a serial killer (shades of Andrew Cuna-nan), again a character far different from the real Rico who, at 25 (and a business course graduate from La Salle), is still a boy at heart, an "eternal angelic nice guy," boxed in an image he’s finding hard to shake off.

"I can’t change my image drastically," he admitted. "I might alienate my fans."

You check out Rico away from the limelight and you’ll find a good boy, an ideal son (look, Ma, it’s not a put-on!). At home (yes, he still lives with his parents who have reconciled three years ago after years of separation), he shares in the household expenses with brother Bobby (once rumored to be a boyfriend of Carmina Villarroel who’s now on extended "vacation" in the US), shouldering the bills for electricity, water and groceries (P5,000 a week between him and Bobby).

Members of his family are planning to migrate to the US but Rico said no, thank you, he’d rather stay here despite the economic quagmire the country is in. "I still love this country," said Rico like a true patriot. "I’d prefer to stay here no matter what."

In fact, he so believes that there’ll be a turn-around for the better that he has invested in some business ventures (Tequila Joe’s and some restaurants) with friends, among them Bukidnon Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri whose friendship with Rico is being suspected for "something else" by the malicious movie press but which is an "old issue" Rico only laughed off.

Say, doesn’t Miguel try to influence him into throwing his hat into the political arena (after all, aren’t so many showbiz folk finalizing their political plans despite the renewed "distrust" on actor-politicians brought about by recent developments)?

"Some relatives did urge me to run in our hometown, Pagsanjan, Laguna," revealed Rico. "So one day, I visited Pagsanjan. After thinking it over, I realized that I wasn’t cut out for politics, so politics is definitely out of the question. Be a Senator? What for? I’m not good at passing laws. What will I do in the Senate? Interrogate Chavit Singson? Huwag na! But I’m not closing my doors to politics, although it’s a big ‘no’ in the next 10 or 20 years. Right now, I belong to showbiz."

There. That’s the trouble with "angels" like Rico. They don’t dare to tread dangerous roads trodden for ages by less-deserving people out only to enrich themselves and not the lives of the constituents they pledge to serve.

There are no angels in politics, are there?