Robin now with GMA; Sharon to follow?

It’s final: Robin Padilla is now a Kapuso after he recently signed a contract with GMA to star in a teleserye with Angel Locsin and a two-picture contract with GMA Films.

This was confirmed yesterday by both Wilma Galvante, senior vice president for GMA entertainment TV, and Annette Gozon-Abrogar, president of GMA Worldwide, Inc./GMA Films, over lunch with entertainment editors, together with Felipe Gozon (GMA chairman, president and CEO), Gilberto Duavit Jr. (GMA executive vice president and COO) and Marissa Flores (SVP of GMA news and public affairs).

The yet untitled teleserye is Robin’s first after the ABS-CBN teleseries Basta’t Kasama Kita in which he co-starred wth Judy Ann Santos.

"The teleserye will be an action-romance," said Galvante. "If it’s a Robin Padilla starrer, people expect to watch him in action scenes."

First on Robin’s two-picture contract with GMA Films is also an action-romance that will pair him for the second time with Regine Velasquez with whom he did Kailangan Ko’y Ikaw for Viva Films several years ago. Shooting starts soon.

"Regine is celebrating her 20th anniversary in showbiz this year," said Gozon-Abrogar, "and an action love story is the perfect offering for her fans. Robin’s action-romance starrers with Regine and other actresses (Sharon Cuneta, Jolina Magdangal, Claudine Barretto, etc.) have been well-received. He has a good track record in that genre."

With Robin tied down to an exclusive contract, guess who’s following suit – yes, Sharon Cuneta!

If ongoing negotiations run right, Sharon will do not a TV show for GMA (because she has an existing contract with ABS-CBN where she hosts a self-titled Sunday-evening show) but a movie for GMA Films.

"Nothing is final yet," said Gozon-Abrogar (who’s keeping her fingers crossed). "She will star in the movie."

Asked if it’s possible for Sharon to also co-produce a movie with GMA Films (as she did with Tony Gloria’s Unitel Pictures’ La Visa Loca, with Robin as star), Gozon-Abrogar said that she just might, although they haven’t really discussed nor finalized that aspect of the deal.

But then, who knows?

The truth about April Boy Regino

No, Johnny Depp didn’t say "Hi!" to me from across the room or address me by my first name and neither did Orlando Bloom. I know them but they don’t know me. Their names ring a thousand bells but mine doesn’t. Out of courtesy, though, they shook my hands when we were introduced to each other during the press junket for Disney Pictures’ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest in L.A. last week. Did Depp or Bloom send me any greeting card? How I wish! As I’ve said, they don’t know me from Adam.

But April Boy Regino didn’t just say "Hi!" to me and call me Tito Ricky (nope, we’re not related in any way), he and his wife Madel invited me to their brand-new home in Downey City which was, fortunately, located a few miles away from where I moved into (from, ehem, Regent Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills where, my nephew, The STAR’s L.A. correspondent Raymond de Asis Lo, reminded me, "Pretty Woman was shot") after the three-day official Pirates junket.

Actually, it was lawyer Jemela Nettles (an immigration expert who facilitated the issuance of an "extra-ordinary ability visa" to the Reginos and who’s now busy working on the papers of a few other stars; you may contact Jemela at +1213-675-1281...she charges "affordable" fees) who acted as the bridge between the Reginos and me. When Jemela learned that I was in L.A., she called me up, asking me to help the Reginos. "You see," Jemela sounded worried, "there’s a tsismis in the Philippines that the Reginos are ‘hard up,’ naghihirap na daw sila sa Amerika at pinalayas pa ng kanilang landlady."

It turned out that Ogie Diaz read an item in a tabloid column on his showbiz segment in the ABS-CBN early-morning show Magandang Umaga Pilipinas (MUP). Ogie would later tell me that it was kuryente.

But that seemingly harmless little item "electrified" the Reginos especially since MUP is telecast all over the US and other parts of the world via The Filipino Channel (TFC). In fact, almost every Pinoy I met in L.A. was asking if it was true that "naghihirap na ang pamilya ni April Boy Regino."

I found out for myself soon enough.

Thursday (June 29) afternoon on my way to L.A.’s Tom Bradley International Airport for the PAL flight back home, I asked my nephew Jerome Godfrey Lluz to make a stopover at Telegraph Street in Downey City where, I discovered, the Reginos just bought a brand-new $661,000 house two weeks ago, with no down payment and payable on installment basis for 30 years. And what a beautiful house it is (as you can see in the photos on this page)!

"Since we cannot buy a house under our name yet because we don’t have enough credit history," April Boy explained in Tagalog (he’s the first to admit, without a tinge of embarrassment, that he doesn’t speak good English), "we asked the help of our friends, Evelyn and Omer Ramos. If you don’t have a credit history, you can’t even buy a car or even a cellphone."

The Ramoses had been the hosts of the Reginos since they migrated to L.A. late last year. Did the Ramoses, according to the tsismis, "drive" the Reginos away?

"No," said April Boy, "they did not. Nahihiya nga kami sa kanila because they’ve been so nice to us and made us stay in their place without asking us to pay even a single cent. We were not renting an apartment, so paano kami palalayasin ng landlady, e, wala naman kaming landlady?"

The two-storey, four-bedroom house is one of more than two dozen units in a quiet compound. It smelled new, not yet fully furnished, with a 60-inch flat TV ("Given to us as a gift," said April Boy) dominating one wall at the sala. It has a small garden, a veranda overlooking the length of Telegraph Street and a large ref stuffed with good, glorious food! April Boy and Madel’s bedroom has a bed bigger and taller (oops! an exaggeration) than April Boy, and their children Christian (now employed by Bank of America) and Charm (still in school) have their separate rooms.

Out there, April Boy is kept busy with concerts. Only a few days after they arrived in L.A. in October last year, April Boy flew to Hawaii for a week-long concert tour, went back to L.A. and then flew to Guam for another concert. In Guam (from where he flew to the Philippines for a brief vacation), April Boy had an unpleasant experience with airport immigration officials who mistook him for a girl (he has long hair, remember, and a flawless complexion nourished by papaya soap).

"They frisked me (kinapkapan), including my private part, to make sure that I was really a man," recalled the humiliated Philippine Idol (as he is billed in shows abroad).

April Boy is never idle in the US.

Last February, he did a show in Carson City and San Diego; a birthday concert last April at the Holiday Inn in L.A.; and has just came back from a show in Zurich. On July 14, he’s doing another show in L.A. and another one slated for July 29 at the Sheraton Hotel-L.A. More shows are lined up both in the US and Europe.

He’s not busy, is he?

April Boy’s parting shot?

"We are doing well in the US, thank God! I also want to thank our kababayan in the US who are very nice and helpful to us."

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