Oh Boy! : A not-so-private conversation with Boy Abunda

In 1991, Rolling Stone Magazine interviewed Slash, the semi-coherent lead guitarist of Guns & Roses. Towards the end of the rambling, profanity-laced Q & A, the rocker let slip a more sensitive side, disclosing that his nine-year-old pet snake Clyde had died the night before. "I tried so hard to keep him alive, and he f---ing died," Slash sighed.

"Had he been sick for a long time?" was the wonderful follow-up question by the Rolling Stone correspondent.

That rejoinder has since become enshrined as a classic of journalistic empathy. Empathy–massive doses of it–can also be found in Boy Abunda’s weekly ANC-21 show, "Private Conversations with Boy Abunda".

Abunda is breezily dismissed by some as a lightweight because he comes from showbiz, a field treated with derision by those who feel they are above such frivolity (even as they stealthily peruse the entertainment page when no one is looking). His theatrical interviewing technique–hands slicing the air like an angry Italian, torso twisting around a red sofa, questions delivered with disproportionate, American-style earnest-ness–occasionally raises the cringe factor to Oprah Winfrey levels. But the results are undeniable; often, the show makes for truly compelling television. (Admit it, you would not have read this far had you never watched his show.) There is a shrewdness to his over-the-top method that allows Abunda to unearth surprising details from his guests, whereas other talk show hosts still fantasize about escaping from the prison of political correctness. Every guest has a story to tell, he likes to say, but perhaps none are as remarkable as his own.

Abunda was born in Boronggan, Eastern Samar. Ask him how many years ago and he’ll coquettishly say it’s a woman’s privilege not to have to tell. "It’s because a lot of people think I’m not as old as I am and I want to keep the illusion," he smiles. "My father was a small town politician and businessman. He passed away when I was in college. My mother was a public school teacher for 42 years, 11 months, and 2 days. After she retired, she also went into politics. She’s now on her third term as councilor. I have a sister so we were just two girls in the family!" How is his relationship with his sister? "A lot of things have healed," he answers cryptically.

Implausibly, Abunda studied at the Seminario de Jesu Nazareno High School. Boy Abunda in a seminary–raucous, racy, and already cognizant of his budding gayness–conjures up many images, none of them related to chastity or obedience. Actually, his parents’ decision to enroll him there had little to do with their son’s yearning for the priesthood, although one would think they harbored some hope divine inspiration would intervene in the matter. The Seminario de Jesu Nazareno was simply the best school around–and it happened to be just down the street.

"I never really struggled because I was never in the closet," he says about his sexual preference. "Neither was I flaunting it. In the seminary, I was not actively gay although I liked nice-looking boys. But I was not at that stage yet where I would look at men with desire. But now looking back, maybe they were worried about me. It was not an issue for me and I never discussed it, but I knew I was gay when I was in high school."

After high school, Abunda embarked on a journey all promising provincial students are expected to make. He studied Business Management at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City but a distaste for Math, ROTC and PE ended any chance of completing his degree; he instead began to work. He peddled shampoo and went door-to-door selling encyclopedias. He then moved on to waiting in restaurants. "The only thing I didn’t sell was my body! Maybe because there was no taker. I even trained to cook Japanese food but I wasn’t good at it. But I was good at talking to and entertaining people; I was a chikaboy. This was the time that Tatay had already passed away and it became important to have a job because my mom was only earning P3,000 a month and supporting the entire family," he says.

Returning to his hometown was out of the question. "I didn’t want to go back to Boronggan a failure because in our small town, there was so much expectation about the bright kid on the block," he says. "That was the pressure, I have to admit."

Hopping from one job to another, Abunda finally settled down in the theater, initially as an assistant stage manager. He was in his element and was a dervish of activity, creating props, painting bamboo sets, counting hats, checking scripts, fussing over costumes and eagerly doing whatever else was asked of him. While others went home at 8, Abunda stayed till midnight or at least until his obsession-compulsions subsided.

"In the theater, I related to people very well because I was gregarious by nature. Walang masamang tinapay sa akin. Not to say that I didn’t fight my way through sometimes; after all, I’m Waray by birth. Eventually, I became stage manager. A stage manager is supposed to take the place of any actor who is absent. I would read the lines with gusto. I loved it! I didn’t know where I was going; I was living by the day," he says. It wasn’t long before his life’s direction began to take shape.

One day, Abunda was summoned to the office of Conching Sunico, the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Theater; he still remembers the room number–1107 at the Manila Hilton Hotel. Still in his early 20s, Abunda was filled with trepidation at the prospect of meeting the redoubtable doyenne. In those days, an appointment with Sunico meant you were either going to be promoted or fired.

"I heard you get along well with a lot of people. Would you like to work for my PR Department?" she asked him.

"Yes, ma’am, but what is PR?" replied the ingénue.

"I’ll teach you," said Sunico.

Abunda became PR Manager of the theater and the rest, as they say, is history. "Tita Conching was kind to me when she didn’t have to be. She was the terror everyone said she was and I loved it. During a rage, she really performed and I loved watching her. In the middle of it, I would go, ‘Tita, can you sign this check?’ She would sign it then continue terrorizing everybody. That’s why I adored this woman. Looking back, she probably liked my derring-do–this boy from Samar who was not afraid of her. She was fabulous!" says Abunda.

He parlayed his PR clout into acting roles in spite of his thick Waray accent. The productions had little choice since Abunda handled their press releases–he cheerfully concedes it was blackmail. Hardly the retiring wallflower type, Abunda befriended numerous pop stars, actors and actresses. He took the next logical leap and, with boundless chutzpah, declared himself a publicist.

"I was in a small apartment and I had one old typewriter which I borrowed from a friend. In that small apartment, I started to do publicity work for the people who I met in the theater–Zsa Zsa Padilla and Martin Nievera were my first clients. The phone I would use was this pay phone in the sari-sari store at the corner of Kamias. That went on for over a year. That’s how I really started," he says.

From there, an avalanche of opportunities rolled his way and he was quick to ride them. Bolstered by an impeccable network of media connections, Abunda became a dominant talent manager. Next, he co-hosted "Show and Tell" at the behest of GMA 7’s Bobby Barreiro. He wrote thrice-a-week newspaper columns, managed bands and hosted daily radio shows. His gift of gab did not escape Channel 7‘s cross-town rivals and Abunda was soon pirated by ABS-CBN.

"I’d been doing mainstream showbusiness shows. I had no complaints–it was fun. I’m treated well and I’m paid well. I’m very happy with "The Buzz", a Sunday showbiz talk show but nangangati ako. I wanted to move forward but I didn’t know where. It was number one but I could do it with my eyes closed," he says.

A year and a half ago, Abunda gambled everything for a shot at respectability. He told now ABS-CBN President and CEO Freddie Garcia, who was then in the middle of a meeting, that he wanted to host another show where he could have conversations with important personalities, not necessarily movie stars. A mere two weeks later, the first "Private Conversations with Boy Abunda" was aired on ANC 21, a testament to his emerging influence. Needless to say, there were lots of raised eyebrows in the cable channel from doubters.

Abunda worked furiously for the next three months and, slowly, the same eyebrows returned to their natural position. "You can give me a bold star, you can give me a student, you can give me the President, and I will put in the same amount of research. This is not America where you have 35 people doing research for Barbara Walters. There are five people doing our show. On Wednesdays, I read everything I can about my guest. Nobody does my questions. But you’re only as good as your last show," he says.

All in all, there have been 73 guests on the show, the first being higher state of consciousness guru Deepak Chopra, the latest (as of this writing) being Ani Disierto, who would surely benefit from any form of meditation. In between, Abunda has interviewed saints and sleazeballs, the classy and the crass. "We do ‘postmortems’ after each show," he says. "I watch myself and I laugh at myself. Ano ba ang pinagsasabi ko dito? I didn’t listen here; I cut in there. All the wrong syntax, the grammatical flaws and the mispronounced words–a show is never completely right. There is also always a question I missed."

On the surface, it appears he coddles his guests, but Abunda admits he is not afraid to wear his bias on his black sleeve. "Some people say I’m not afraid to ask the hard questions. To be very honest, I haven’t even started asking the tough questions. But I think what I’m doing now, a lot of people are afraid to do. For example, with my interview with President Arroyo, her first studio interview, I thought she was hedging; she was neither here nor there. I noticed she was not reacting cordially to some of my questions so I asked her, ‘What makes you pikon?’ She answered, ‘When I’m asked questions repeatedly.’ I asked, ‘Are you pikon now?’ Our cranky president, gritting her teeth, mumbled a no.

"I love Mrs. Ming Ramos. What a wonderfully honest lady! She never told me what not to ask. She knew I would deliver the punches during the interview but she was a fabulous boxer! I asked her what was the first thing that entered her mind when I said: Baby Arenas. She said, ‘Hijo, next question.’"

Abunda is a serious student of American anchors–he possibly owns the most extensive library of interviews by Barbara Walters, Bryant Gumbel, Larry King, Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite in the country. His favorite anecdote concerns Barbara Walters’s Monica Lewinsky interview.

He relates, "The last question she asked Monica Lewinsky was: ‘One day you’re going to have children, they’re going to ask you, Mommy, what was that all about?’ There was one minute of silence, which was so poignant, so dramatic. She finally said, ‘I’m really sorry but Mommy committed a big, big mistake.’ Then Barbara Walters concludes the interview with one line, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, that was the biggest understatement of the century. This is Barbara Walters saying, thank you.’"

Unsurprisingly, Walters is Abunda’s dream guest. He says, "She’s immortal as far as I’m concerned. It would be the one time in my life when I would probably be speechless."

Boy Abunda speechless? Now, that would be truly must-see TV.