Earl Ignacio endures an epically bad hair day just to read up on a celebrity ex-flame in the kind of magazine generally carried only by barbershops.  As part of his plot to reconnect with sexy comedienne Rufa Mae Quinto, Earl dons-don’t blink-a monkey suit.  He’s single-minded, she’s unsuspecting; he’s devious, she’s beautiful…This is all just plain weird.

One lazy afternoon a few months ago, I was indulging in one of my all-time favorite hobbies—watching showbiz chismis shows—when one particular bit of news caught my attention. From what I could see on screen (the volume was down because the way the hosts speak and do their voiceovers gives me panic attacks), there was an ongoing feud between Rufa Mae Quinto and Jessa Zaragoza. Apparently, Rufa Mae had given an interview to a local magazine wherein she talked about the men who had been a part of her life, including, among others, Dingdong Avanzado—who also happened to be Jessa Zaragoza’s husband. I wasn’t particularly interested in the feud. What I was interested in was reading that interview.

I rushed to the nearest barbershop where they carried these magazines for their customers.

“Haircut, sir?” the receptionist asked. I nodded. She offered me some magazines to read while waiting. “FHM, sir? Maxim?”
“OK!” I said. No! Wait! Don’t get distracted. So I asked her, “Miss, meron ba kayong Yes! Magazine? Yung February issue?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Yes, yung showbiz magazine?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes!”
“Yes nga, sir! Kaya lang, sir, binabasa pa nung isang customer.”

I waited impatiently for about an hour. Finally, the guy’s pedicure was done. It was my turn. It was time to have my haircut and, yes! There it was! Yes! Magazine, February 2008. On the cover, it said:

RUFA MAE TALKS ABOUT HER FAILED RELATIONSHIPS WITH JAY, DINGDONG, JASON, RUDY, JV, BONG, DENNIS, ERIK . . . AND HER ONGOING SEARCH FOR MR. RIGHT

“Anong gupit, sir?” the barber asked me. “Basta igsian mo,” I say. I was now oblivious to everything else but the article.

In it she talked about her struggles. Mom and Dad separated early. She grew up at her grandma’s and, at 17, was tasked to take care of her siblings. (She’s the second in a family of nine. She and her brother from the original, three other siblings from dad’s other family, and another four are from mom’s.)

Reading this, a conversation I had with Bb. Joyce Bernal, the director of Rufa Mae’s breakthrough hit, Booba, came to mind. I had once asked Joyce what made Rufa Mae funny. At first I was getting the usual answers . . . she’s naturally funny; she’s willing to make fun of herself. Then, after a thoughtful pause, she had said, “Madami nang pinagdaanan si Peachy [that’s how friends call her], alam mo na. Yung mga problema sa buhay . . . sa tingin ko defense mechanism na din yun. . . .” She then tells me how she first met Rufa Mae.

Joyce, then working as a film editor at Magnatech, was editing a movie in her suite. Rufa Mae suddenly entered the room and asked her if she could stay there for just a bit. “Minamanyak yata siya ng isang producer dun sa labas, magtatago lang daw muna siya. Tapos, ayun, nagka kwentuhan na kami kaya ko naisip yung character na Booba para sa kanya.” (The movie turned out to be quite a success. As a matter of fact, another comedienne eventually adopted the name Ethel Booba, an obvious reference to Rufa Mae’s character in the movie.) But what struck Joyce the most about that first encounter was how Rufa Mae was able to make fun of the whole thing. “Hindi naman siya yung nagtatagong takot . . . alam mo?”

“Sir, OK na po?” the barber asks.

“Igsian mo pa,” I tell him, without even looking at the mirror. I continued reading.

I had known Peachy back when she was just starting out. A former member of Kuya Germs’s That’s Entertainment, Viva Films signed her up, and she became a part of the studio’s stable of sexy stars. She was a constant guest on our gag show Tropang Trumpo at that time because, well, she was a sexy star—and she really was funny. (She grew up admiring Maricel Soriano.)

Peachy knew that sexy stars mostly had a short career lifespan and, because she was tired of getting asked to disrobe in front of the cameras, realized it was only a matter of time before she tried her hand at comedy. “Ang daming problema ng mga tao, siyempre masarap yung feeling na napapatawa mo sila. Tsaka mahirap din magpatawa,” she says.

Mark Nicdao asks the trainer to instruct the gorilla to hold the hose.  Would that be a problem? The trainer says he’ll try.  He motions to me, giving me gorilla instructions.  Everyone’s amazed at how obedient this gorilla is.

Comedy was a way for her to break out of the sexy star path, somehow similar to hiding out in Joyce Bernal’s editing suite in order to evade a stalker. A defense mechanism. “Tsaka chubby din ako noon,” she says. “Eh, launching movie ko, Gloria Labandera. Sexy drama dapat yun. Eh, hindi ko naman makita ang sarili ko na sexy, kasi nga feeling ko, chubby ako. Kaya hindi ko magawa na drama . . . ayun, naging comedy! Hahaha!”
Jay Manalo, Dingdong Avanzado, Rudy Hatfield, Erik Santos, Bong Revilla, Jason Webb, Duncan Ramos, Erin Pascual, JV Ejercito, Dennis Trillo. These were the names mentioned in the Yes! article.
I read and re-read the article, looking for a specific name—

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