You’d better stop rubbing your eyes. Klaudia has decided not only to deglamorize herself a wee bit and appear well – surprisingly different in Kapitan Ambo, Outside the Kulambo, a riotous comedy with Eddie Garcia. She doesn’t have a single kissing or sexy scene in the movie. Why the drastic change?
"All these years, I’ve tried to please my family. I’ve done movies to put food on the table, to send my siblings (five in all, the eldest of whom is a third year marine engineering student) to school. It’s about time I please myself," says Klaudia.
Pleasing herself, she goes on, means continuing her interrupted Computer Science studies. She had to quit school after the offers to do sexy movies started piling up.
With her new circle of friends at New Era University where she is a freshman, Klaudia feels secure, fulfilled.
She didn’t shed a tear when her sitcom, Kiss Muna, folded up because Klaudia knew she had her non-showbiz friends to run to.
"That’s why when someone came up with the idea of holding a get-together among the cast, I was not keen on the idea. What’s the use, if it would mean seeing tearful faces?" Klaudia recalls.
Her new lifestyle, she adds, is more child-friendly. It draws kindergarten and elementary school children to her, and Klaudia gets invited to kiddie birthday parties.
It gives her the thrill of holding her head up high in malls and other public places where men used to openly ask her for a kiss, and in the presence of her family and her ex-boyfriend, at that!
Now, Klaudia can finally have an unedited video copy of her film at home, something she did not have the guts to do during her sexy movie days.
"I edit the sexy parts," she reveals.
The turning point came right after she did the controversial, critically-acclaimed Live Show, which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo banned from exhibition.
It pained Klaudia – already toughened by snide remarks about her previous movies, to be labeled a porn star.
"There was no nudity in Live Show. I wore plaster (on her private parts)," she recalls.
The last straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was the reaction of her hairdresser-mother’s customer to the film.
"My mom never denied I’m her daughter. In fact, she would tell her suddenly-silent customer how much I’ve helped the family through my work," reveals Klaudia.
It was she who financed the beauty parlor in Tandang Sora which Klaudia’s mother now owns and manages. It was also Klaudia who bought the Tandang Sora house for her family and will soon purchase another property in Mandaluyong (she lives alone in her own condo).
With her mom’s business standing on steady ground, Klaudia, 25, has decided it’s about time she does what she always wanted to do: be herself, among people who accept her for what she is.
"When I applied in New Era," recalls Klaudia, "they never asked me any questions." The wave of acceptance overwhelmed her so much, she settled for the school, other possible "bets" notwithstanding.
Her new life is not limited to Klaudia’s career. She is now fancy-free, romantically, after she broke off with her businessman-boyfriend of four years last May.
"It was only after one-and-a-half years that he admitted siring a child with his ex-girlfriend, the one who came before me," states Klaudia.
Feeling betrayed, Klaudia called it quits, and stood by it, never mind if the guy sent feelers about going on a "friendly date."
Never mind if everything was set for her wedding day next year. The guy’s relatives already offered to build a house for Klaudia and her then boyfriend in the family compound.
But there was something in the way his family ignored Klaudia during special occasions like a young nephew’s birthday party that made her think twice.
"I’ll be all alone in their compound, with his family all around me," Klaudia shudders at the thought.
A devout Iglesia ni Kristo follower, Klaudia asked for a sign about the permanency (or temporariness) of her relationship with her boyfriend. She’d pray without fail every 8 p.m., believing that her sign will one day come.
And it did, at least as far as Klaudia is concerned.
"We’d fight everyday," she recalls. He was busy with his business; she with her studies and showbiz projects (TV work, special appearances, etc.). Parting ways was inevitable.
Klaudia is never wanting in suitors, one of them her escort in the recently-concluded Star Awards for TV. Problem is, Klaudia decided to turn him down, since her eyes are on another suitor.
"He’s perfect for me. He’s pleasant, a nice guy," Klaudia says with a sparkle in her eyes.
But she’s not telling him about how she feels yet, choosing to wait until they’ve known each other much better.
Once she decides to fall in love, Klaudia has no ifs and buts. It’s all or nothing.
That’s what happens, says Klaudia, when one grows up in a broken home like she did. Instead of warm hugs and kind words, Klaudia got beatings and terrifying emotional outbursts from her father.
"When we can’t answer our homework right, he’d make us eat the pages of our notebook," recalls Klaudia.
"Look at my fingers," she points out. "They still bear scars of his bite marks."
Why such a show of fury from a man who is supposed to care of his brood?
"Probably, it’s because he felt frustrated at his inability to go to school, even if he had the brains for it. It was his sister who took up nursing. But she never got to practise her profession," states Klaudia.
Today, she visits her dad in Project 8, Quezon City, where he lives all by his lonesome.
Unsavory though their relationship has been, Klaudia senses how much her dad values her judgment. Because Klaudia told her dad in no uncertain terms that she won’t tolerate seeing another woman in the house, the old man has remained "single" to this day.
Three years from now, Klaudia hopes her dad – and mom – will escort her to the altar, for her date with the lucky man she’ll choose to be her husband.
By that time, she calculates, her eldest brother would have graduated and would be able to fend for the family.
Someday too, she hopes to write a book about her inspiring real-life story.
If the book is turned into a movie, Klaudia has the images all mapped out.
"The opening scene will see me, aged five (she’s the eldest child), standing between Nanay and Tatay, a broom in his hand. He demands that I choose between him and my mother. Of course, I want my mother, but what can I do? The broom he is holding above my head scares me to death," states Klaudia.
The lead role, Klaudia says, should go to Claudine Barretto. And how will her tell-all book end?
"It will have two parts," Klaudia answers dreamily. "The second will end when I march down the aisle and start my own family."
Klaudia, so self-sacrificing for her family, deserves nothing less.