Chez moi: non-extra – wanna read all about it?

i worked as the entertainment editor of pinoy times, entered in 2000 when the then-editor left to pursue “higher goals,” whatever those may be. pete lacaba’s son kris, a good friend, just emailed me one day about it, asked me if i was interested. that was a jam-packed month. i was just picking up the vibe again of re-entering abscbn foundation’s epol apol show which i left to try out this fulltime mega-high-paying gig at a semi-dotcom company which i eventually left because the boss there was a complete idiot (he wanted us to COPY other websites’ designs, fotah. COO shit – child of owner). Never quite re-sparked the epol thing, in spite of headwriter sarah’s mucho encouragement, so i tried this pinoy times thing. kasi it’s in filipino, first time i’ll be working using that language, which is kinda cool. sir pete also vouched for me since he was the editorial consultant there, and a columnist. i think the editors actually took me in without reading my folio in its entirety. i guess sir pete’s word was enough for them. that’s cool. or they were just desperate to have somebody do the entertainment pages because they themselves hated doing that -- which was also cool, and worked to my advantage later on.

it was a fun gig while it lasted. met new and interesting people and characters. got to watch most of the movie premieres in town and i got lots of merch freebies, most enjoyable of which are the lara croft black shirt and the harry potter cap. my contacts also gave me lots of freebies, like tickets to concerts, merch, books, trinkets, the works. somehow, i got kinda sad when ma’am eggie apostol decided to close shop because i missed these things (konsensya: materialistic ka!). but at the same time, i’m glad she closed at the time she did.

i thought the work was rather weird at first, when most of the stories there approached a gossipy type of reporting, not entertainment news reporting. i tried to change that, and i got good feedback for it. i was glad. most notable feedback was from our columnist bobbie malay. ms. bobbie liked the change very much, said it wasn’t too showbizy chismisy anymore, you know, hindi na parang chipipay ang dating like other tabloids lang. and, i can tell, ma’am eggie liked it, too. so did her pre-pubescent grandson. that was cute. :) and even the catholic bishops’ conference of the phil (cbcp)-office of women ek liked how i jazzed up their weekly film reviews (and eliminated all anti-lgbt/feminist stuff heheh). but ma’am eggie advised i had to tone down on some sexy pictures, even if they were appropriate, because of the running priest – he was apparently distributing it to his parish daw, and que horror syempre ang dating sa kanila ng pakyut sexy poses ni, say, rufa mae, 'lam mo yun? he was a columnist there din pala. well, whatever. run away from religion and you run back right smack into it somehow. nyeh. onli in da pilipins.

i also tried to play with the layout more since my pages were the only ones in color (at first, before the pagtitipid phase started), and i had the nice pictures. plus the best part of all is that i got to create columns that i really liked, like “sine-suri” where i reviewed films and featured different types of entertainment analyses. i also created a woman-centered column where i put in features that have positive female portrayals or stories and criticized those that degrade women. i also had a column like that that featured the lgbt community naman. so it was totally fun. all bases covered. lifestyle+entertainment+advocacy. i was totally creative, and i thank ma’am eggie for letting me have that leeway. after all, it was all her call, right? not the publisher’s and certainly not the eic’s. but again, that’s another entry, and a mighty disappointing one at that. :|