The promise of Phoemela

It’s a tradition started by Angelique Lazo in TV Patrol 20 years ago: A pretty girl dishing out both pretty and unsavory items about show business in the segment called Star News that came out twice in the one-hour news program – at 6:20 p.m. and at quarter to 7.

In 1993, however, Angelique left for the US to marry former news/public affairs personality Manny Ayala (sorry guys, I had to recall this piece of showbiz history), except that the wedding never pushed through.

When Angelique returned in late November of that year, Christine Bersola had taken over the job. Today, Angelique is with NBN Channel 4 doing the news as main anchor.

Although Christine did very well as Angelique’s replacement, TV Patrol was clobbered in the ratings game by the Mexican telenovela Marimar on Channel 9. The news program was reduced to half an hour and only (now Vice President) Noli de Castro was left to do the newscast. Christine was transferred to Showbiz Lingo – until Panjee Gonzalez left Magandang Umaga Bayan to start a family with Gabby Lopez and Bersola was taken in again as replacement. In that show, Christine Bersola eventually found her niche – and a husband in the person of co-host Julius Babao.

Today, the tradition of putting a pretty girl in news programs is back and in TV Patrol, the torch had been passed on Phoemela Barranda.

A model who once did Extra Challenge for Channel 7, I remember meeting Phoemela when she was still with GMA. We were then on the set of K: The 1-Million Videoke Challenge as contestants and I found her to be so pretty and even more beautiful in person. I also thought that she was no-nonsense and smart and friendly.

Before the start of the program, the people in the audience gallery were instructed to vote for the Videoke King or Queen, which would give the celebrity contestant an additional P5,000 – and an assurance of staying in the game at least during Round 1.

I campaigned for myself among the people in the audience – threatened them, sweet-talked them into voting for me. In the end, they still voted for Phoemela and it was then that I realized how popular she was getting to be on television. No, she wasn’t even the best singer in the batch. She croaked – to be honest about it and was out by Round 2, while I managed to finish second (my croaking had more melody).

But this Phoemela girl had appeal and was adored by the masses. These days I still get to see her in showbiz functions, which she covers for TV Patrol. You see how concentrated she is with her work – memorizing her spiels before she goes on cam. Watching her from a distance, I knew she would go places. To begin with, her current job in TV Patrol was really bound to open doors for her – in the same manner it did for Angelique, who did a movie with Dolphy no less in 1991 and even recorded a single for Bell Records.

The other Tuesday, during the Cinema Evaluation Board screening, I was pleasantly surprised to see Phoemela Barranda acting in a movie called Pamana (The Inheritance). Directed by Romeo Candido, a filmmaker raised in Canada, the story of Pamana (shot on 35 mm) is set in contemporary times, but features stories about the Philippine underworld – like the aswang, the kapre and the manananggal.

It is very clever how Romeo Candido is able to weave the story to make it very interesting to moviegoers. As a horror flick, it can be very scary without resorting to cheap visuals. And yet you get goose bumps all over because the director succeeds in creating an atmosphere that will terrify the viewer in his seat.

Pamana also works because Romeo Candido is able to elicit excellent performances from his cast – among them, Ketchup Eusebio, Tirso Cruz III and a couple of Fil-Canadian actors named Darrel Gamotin and Nadine Villasin, who play the lead.

The one who stands out, however, is Phoemela Barranda. It’s an offbeat role because she plays a flirtatious and worldly woman who doesn’t have qualms about making it out with her first cousin. She also has this mean streak in her body and is basically cruel and self-centered. But Phoemela is so convincing and is so comfortable playing the character. More than television, I think she belongs to the film medium because of her beauty (she lights up the screen) and enormous acting talent – which I never thought she had until I watched her in Pamana.

Pamana will be exhibited commercially in November. It is one film that I highly recommend to everyone, especially to those who want to go back to our roots. Just don’t get intimidated by the fact that the dialogue is 80 percent English because the soul of this film is 100 percent Pinoy.

Definitely, it is one of the best film products this year and was, in fact, given a grade of A by the Cinema Evaluation Board. Phoemela Barranda surely couldn’t have chosen a better project as a vehicle for her first film.