A new world for Cristy

In the five years and a half I co-hosted Showbiz Lingo with Cristy Fermin, I don’t remember us having snacks — just the two of us — in some restaurant or coffee shop. Whatever meals we may have shared in those ABS-CBN days were part of work — and it would never be just the two of us eating. Usually, we’d have the staff around and the conversation was always about work — peppered with bits and pieces of showbiz gossip here and there, of course, courtesy of Cristy.

It wasn’t that we disliked each other. We worked harmoniously together, in fact, and the public thought we had chemistry on TV — with the ratings of Showbiz Lingo hitting a high 32 to 33 percent per episode. That was impressive — considering the fact that we aired on the supposedly dead airtime of Sunday afternoon.

Outside of the studios, people would come up to me to look for Cristy. Being new in the business and not knowing any better, I would annoyingly shoot back: “I’m not her keeper!”

Although we were friends, I can’t exactly claim that we were close friends. But I loved her family — her late mother, particularly — because they treated me like their own when I went to her hometown in what must be the very end of Nueva Ecija to do a live feed from there for Cristy’s birthday.

Although the place was so far that I had to spend a night in some dingy hotel in Cabanatuan on the eve of the coverage, the trip was worth it because I enjoyed some precious bonding moments with her folks. Oh, I miss her mother’s adobo with plenty (as in a whole heap) of garlic.

Upon my return to Manila, Cristy was even apologetic when she found out that the adobo was paired with spaghetti. “Ang nanay ko talaga!” — she half-screamed while saying sorry. Well, she didn’t have to apologize for it. I swear that combination was perfect. What mattered was the company since they were good people who doted on me like I was their youngest son. To this day, I still remember the story about how Cristy’s mother could never begin her day without having a cup of coffee — Nescafé — otherwise she’d end up with a severe headache.

 But for all the fond memories I have of her family, Cristy and I never invested much on friendship in those five and a half years we were in one show. It took another five and a half years for us to make sure there was communication between us. We never contacted each other on a regular basis, but we were always just a call or text away.

There are a lot of things I have yet to know about her and the other year, I was floored — and so would you now — when I discovered that all these decades, she had been into the arts as a collector.

In the ‘80s, when she was the queen of publishing (she had a whole slew of fan magazines that she herself edited), she became interested in works of art and began snapping up paintings that she fancied in the district of Mabini (no, not the Peck Pinon types, no offense meant to the comedian-turned-painter). That early, she saw the promise of some young artists and began buying their paintings, not necessarily for investment, but for her to appreciate.

In time, she forged friendships with some of the young, struggling artists and began extending support by sending them transportation allowance to travel to Sagada where they can draw inspiration for their works. To show their gratitude, the artists would give her a painting or two voluntarily — until Cristy amassed a huge collection, large enough to open an art gallery.

Today, when not taping for Juicy and Paparazzi on TV5, she stays mostly in the art gallery that she decided to call Mga Obra ni Nanay (which is how we all call her) that is located along Scout Reyes — only a block or two away from Roces Avenue.

Although the place is filled with artworks, there is nothing pretentious to the place. Those who come visit either like art or would just like to be with our Nanay Cristy — or both. But you aren’t assured of having her attention a hundred percent all the time because she also has to attend to other guests: More struggling artists who come to her for help (for their works to be pushed and sold in the gallery) and even the wives and children of artists who are in dire need of aid in various form. Mercifully, Nanay Cristy is there for them. Sometimes, art collectors who want to dispose of their paintings leave precious works at the gallery for her to sell and I doubt if she really makes profit from those as a middleman because the prices are still reasonable even for rare pieces.

I don’t know if I’m the only one privileged to this kind of a sweet deal, but she’s willing to sell me 1981 Cesar Buenaventura pieces on rather easy terms (three gives — as per money-lenders lingo), except that I’m not liquid these days and still owe, sigh, Metrobank money.

But even if I cannot afford to buy paintings, especially at this point of my finances, I still enjoy hanging around in the art gallery because you also get to enjoy talking to the young artists who have made Mga Obra ni Nanay their second home.

The ambience there is so different, so relaxing and so unlike the showbiz atmosphere. In the beginning I almost had to bang my head against the gallery wall to convince myself that this is Cristy’s new world today.

In Mga Obra ni Nanay, Cristy Fermin doesn’t reign as the current queen of intrigues (with due respect to the original title-holder, the late beloved Inday Badiday, whose daughter Dolly Ann Carvajal and grandson IC Mendoza now co-host talk shows with her). Here, she is an art patroness. But oh, I can already see her wincing at the pretentiousness of the title.