Ricardo makes the right choice

They can rant and rave about SARS all they want. But not Ricardo Cepeda. He’d rather keep his cool, and even literally and figuratively cash in on the disease to reap profits for his brand-new business.

Ricardo is spokesperson for sports and nutrition company New Image International, which, in his own words, makes anti-viral, anti-bacterial products.

So while others are losing sleep over the killer virus spreading a culture of fear worldwide, Ricardo is not. The star of Wild World Entertainment’s Bayaran says sales even soared lately because of SARS.

A credible fitness rah-rah guy (just look at that broad chest and rippling muscles), Ricardo swears by his products which he says are preventive and constructive.

"They boost immunity. Sales has never been this good since the SARS outbreak," he reports.

Ricardo practices what he preaches. Since he took the health products a few months ago, he has never been downed by any form of illness, not even the common cold.

Credit it to lots of exercise within and outside the gym, where he spent many years as an instructor. Ricardo is an inveterate motorcyclist. His love affair with the gleaming machine started when he was 19, and studying Hotel and Restaurant Administration at UP.

"It was very convenient. I didn’t have to waste time waiting for a jeepney at the designated stops. And the UP campus was so big," recalls Ricardo.

His trusty old motorcycle also brought Ricardo to location shoots for foreign films where he played an extra – by turns a Japanese and a Vietnamese. These "sidelines" meant big money for the working student, who earned as much as P2,000 a day then.

Not only that. Thanks to his motorcycle, Richard is able to do his bit for the environment. Motorcycles are not such big smoke-belchers as cars are. Then, there’s the convenience of not having to waste 30 agonizing minutes looking for parking space (grrr!) and, worse, figuring in a heated argument over precious parking area.

And oh yes, the savings in gas gets him going, too. Ricardo says that he can cover only 11 kilometers per liter of gas in his motorcylce, versus 19 to 20 kilometers per liter in a car. How’s that for economy?

Okay, okay. But what about the all-important safety factor? Don’t many people die yearly while astride these rolling coffins?

"Not if you take safety precautions," Ricardo shoots back. By that, he means breezing through a course on riding motorcycles, which takes only two weeks, and only on weekends at that, Ricardo explains.

It’s easy and convenient, he goes on.

"Some people say riding motorcycles is just like boarding a bike. But it’s not. The consequences can be dangerous if you misjudge the power of the motorcycle. One must first grasp the concept of aerophysics," he warns.

The voice of experience solidly behind him, Ricardo goes on, "Helmets are okay, but it depends on what they’re made of. Plastic ones may be cheap, but they’re unsafe. The durable ones are made of fiberglass and Kevlar, which is used in bullet-proof vests. Kevlar helmets are expensive, but durable."

Love for the movies that drove Ricardo to learn the basics of motorcycle driving. One day, he learned of a casting call for an extra who knew how to drive the motorcycle for a Janice de Belen movie.

Excited at the prospect of doing a local movie, Ricardo went to the set and proclaimed, "Yes, I can ride a motorcycle!"

But he didn’t. So he wasted no time taking a crash course in motorcylce driving, and returned to the set in full ‘battle gear’: leather jacket, gloves, helmet. Was our then aspiring upstart taken aback when, come call time, the director asked him to lean against the motorcycle as a tricycle driver making small talk with a group of people!

Since then, Ricardo has made 40 to 50 movies, after being introduced as one of Regal Glamour Boys (composed of models recruited for movies) in 1989. At the peak of his showbiz career in 1987, Ricardo even appeared in as much as 16 pictures a year. One of the movies he made was Baby Tsina with Vilma Santos and Phillip Salvador.

Finding his real name, Ricardo Go, not, uh, suitable for screen purposes, Douglas Quijano convinced him to use his mother’s maiden name, Cepeda, for the movies, instead.

"Go is Chinese-sounding, and I lost many commercials just because people thought I was actually Chinese," Ricardo says, revealing his practical side.

He cites the case of Richard Gere, who can be as chinky-eyed as any Chinese, but whose American surname has kept him from being labeled as such.

Why Ricardo, and not the shorter, more casual-sounding Richard? "Richard Gomez is already there, so why add another one?" he replies.

So, even if some write-ups identify him as Richard, it’s still Ricardo for the perennial bad guy who has led many a crime syndicate in countless action-dramas.

Judging by the way he has endured this long in showbiz, after his fellow Glamour Boys have faded from the scene, Ricardo Cepeda has made the right choice.