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Friday, February 17, 2006
Serna: Raki Lovecelebrates
By Roger Serna
Sounds and images
Ultimate Born Diva grand champion Raki Vega was supposed to guest with Star In A Million third placer Jimmy Marquez in the program organized by ABS-CBN to pay tribute to the Ultra stampede victims that day but due to the scheduled press conference for her post Valentine show here in Cebu tonight, she opted to skip it.
Raki was very candid in admitting that she requested to be released from Star Records when she felt that she has been ‘neglected’, having waited for sometime for the album, exposure and other things that she ought to be doing as part of her winning the Born Diva championship.
In fairness, Raki felt that it could be in how to ‘package’ her as a performer and not because it would create a rivalry between her and fellow Cebuana Sheryn Regis who was also then handled by the same manager that caused the perceived ‘neglect.’
She, however, maintained a friendly relationship with the network which paved the way for her exposure to national limelight, and her scheduled guesting proved it.
Unlike other singing competition winners and finalists from Cebu, Raki concentrates on musical theater instead of the concert stage. She portrayed the female lead in the recently run of Once On This Island and, lately, had made it to the short list for the coming staging of Miss Saigon in Korea.
She is crossing her fingers that she will make it to the final cast of the long-running musical which also opened doors for other Filipino performers in the global stage, led by Lea Salonga and company.
She is also open to future Cebu productions. She has standing recording offers from Viva, GMA and Vicor but she’s still weighing the options. Her deep religious background surfaced when she said that she asks for divine intervention when coming up with decisions.
For Raki’s concert dubbed Raki Vega Celebrates Love, scheduled at the SM City Cinema 2 tonight, she will be accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra coming from the Phil. Peace Philharmonic and Cebu Symphony orchestras and from the Asian Academy of Music band.
She’ll have Dr. Randolph Libres, Grant Dosdos and Marion Busano as guest performers.
***
Foreign and domestic tourists were unanimous in saying that they so enjoyed the recent tour package Suroy Suroy Sugbu Southern Trail II initiated by Gov. Gwen Garcia, which toured them to 18 municipalities in the southern part of Cebu Province.
Personally, although yours truly had been to most of these places already, like most of the colleagues in the media who also joined the tour, the exposure to the residents’ hospitality, friendliness and warmth and the varied cultures in the different local government units was still something of an eye opener and definitely a heart warmer.
That early, many had already expressed their desire to join the planned northern tour sometime in March.
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TV talk show host and this paper’s section editor Jude Bacalso could have been sitting beside Lady Luck that night of the grand opening of Hai Phong restaurant in Crossroads last week for him to be the only one seated in the ground floor of the two-storey restaurant to win in the raffles.
Of the more than a dozen prizes, the other winners were those seated upstairs. That caused us who were with Jude that night to turn slightly green with envy. However, nobody went home empty handed as valuable gift packs including Thai silk scarves, Louis Vuitton wallets and key chains were given away right after the raffle.
Hai Phong specializes in Vietnamese cuisine. It is operated by the same group which handles the Krua Thai chain of restaurants led by former ramp-model-turned-restaurateur Anthony Ballreich and his parents.
Congratulations!
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Of the three Cebuano housemates in the reality TV show Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition, Junior Kilat vocalist Budoy Marabilles is the most popular choice of fellow Cebuanos to last in the ‘teleserye ng totoong buhay.’
TV host-singer Angela Calina ranks second and sexy starlet Keanna Reeves is third. Those that had been interviewed by ABS-CBN Cebu cited Budoy’s sense of humor and ability to create music, reggae music most especially, as among the housemate’s strongest factors.
Keanna’s frankness which sometimes becomes brutal for comfort has been counted against her favor. At the same time, that same characteristic has endeared her to other televiewers (yours truly among them).
Unfortunately, Keanna is one of the first nominees for eviction alongside differently-abled athlete Rudy Fernandez and disc jockey Rico. Will she be booted out from Bahay ni Kuya tomorrow? Let’s wait and see.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 17, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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