If There's a Wil, There's a Way

TAGAYTAY CITY ,Philippines  — Dusk is falling early. It’s not yet 6 o’clock Sunday afternoon and already, varied hues created by the setting sun are turning the Taal Lake below into a virtual painting that dissolves into different shades second by second as if an invisible hand is putting finishing touches to it. From the veranda of the big house perched on one side of the mountain hundreds of feet above sea level, the view is so breath-taking, so ephemeral that you want to capture it for posterity with your Canon PowerShot G-10. Click, click, click!!!

The one-hectare-plus property, bought for an undisclosed amount from the Madrigal family, is the latest acquisition of Willie Revillame who is letting The STAR take the first (exclusive) look at it just as he did with his other properties — his private plane and his mansion in Ayala Heights (bought from ABS-CBN big boss Gabby Lopez), among them.

The host of TV5’s top-rating game show Wil Time Bigtime is in an easy mood, dressed only in white short pants and a matching beige jacket, wearing sandals.

“It was the Madrigals who built this house but they never lived in it,” Willie volunteers, pointing to two adjacent vacant lots, one hectare each, which he plans to buy. He plans to convert the house into a hotel as a centerpiece of a resort which he plans to build on the whole lot. “I will call it Wil Sky.”

In fact, he has put “Wil” as trademark of all his properties. The private plane is called Wil Fly, the mall right across from the ABS-CBN (a partnership with Sen. Manny Villar) is called Wil Tower Mall (complete with a theater, office spaces, residential units, recreation area, etc.) being built on a lot he bought from former ABS-CBN head Freddie Garcia, and another acquisition (the latest, located a stone’s throw also from the ABS-CBN) is called Wil Events Place. His private yacht, M/Y Wow Cruiser, is named after his ill-fated ABS-CBN show Wowowee.

Well, if there’s a “Wil,” there must be a way.

“We expect to open Wil Tower Mall middle of this year,” he says. “We’re planning to build a hotel on the lot beside it.”

The new Tagaytay house is “un-lived in.” It has a wide sala dominated by a giant TV set, a guest room with two beds and the master bedroom wet creaseless sheets (comforter and pillows) because, according to Willie, he never sleeps there.

“On weekends,” he says, “I sleep in my rest house in Tagaytay Highlands.” Make that rest houses, plural, because he has just built a house on the lot beside the one on which stands the first rest house. “But my home is really the one in Ayala Heights.” He bought it for more than P86M and spent more than P60M renovating it, expanding the garage to accommodate his 13 high-end cars (with plates bearing the personalized initials “WIL”). “I’m fond of cars,” he reminds us. “Way back, I used to buy and sell cars.”

Aside from cars, his interest involves, very obviously, buildings. He seems to have an insatiable “Edifice Complex.”

Willie and his Wil Fly private plane

“It’s a good investment,” he stresses. “I put my earnings in real-estate investment. Wala naman akong bisyo. I don’t gamble.”

As the Taal Lake slowly disappears into the darkness and fog sets in, our free-wheeling chat veers toward the waning year, his own annus horribilis, when his show was suspended in the wake of the brouhaha generated by righteous people who saw a “crime” in the simple, harmless dance of a boy on Willie’s show, then called Willing-Willie, which was changed to Wil Time Bigtime when it returned after a few weeks, bristling from other blows that included TROs and court cases which he survived… unscathed.

“Ganyan naman ang buhay,” he shrugged. “Basta ako, I have a clear conscience. Wala akong tinatapakan, walang akong sinasaktan, kaya wala akong kinatatakutan at wala akong tinataguan. I don’t store up negative feelings or grudges. Hindi ako mapagtanim.”

Was there a point in that annus horribilis when he thought of quitting (and just enjoying his millions in quiet retirement)?

“Why will I quit, why should I quit? Ang gusto ko lang naman ay magpasaya ng tao. I will do it for as long as I live,” that is, never mind if he is suffering from a bad heart and a bad throat (from too much talking on air).

This is how Ayala Heights (Quezon City) mansion of Willie looks at night, bathed in varied lights

Then Willie invites us to take a quick look at his rest house(s) in Tagaytay Highlands, our car following his. Along the way, already cleared by Willie, we are given the go-signal by three guards, one at the gate to the complex, a second one at the gate to the subdivision and a third one right before we turn right toward Willie’s rest houses.

He shows us the swimming pool glittering with the shadows of the Christmas lights around the house, the bedrooms, the mini-theater at the basement (slightly smaller than the one at Willie’s Ayala Heights mansion, the master’s bedrooms, the guest rooms and the conference room where Willie meets with his staff on weekends.

He says that he is already talking to his lawyer to finalize his “last will” for his four children (by four different mothers) — one of them actress Meryl Soriano who is now in London taking up a course in Interior Design and Art Studies. (Meryl is separated from her husband Bernard Palanca by whom she has a child.)

“I’m also setting aside something for people who are close to me, who are serving me,” he adds.

Tomorrow, Willie will be back on Wil Time Big Time screaming his lungs out as he entertains his audience, mostly from depressed areas, over whom he showers cash and other prizes (including houses and lots, donated by Sen. Villar’s Camille Homes, during the show’s first anniversary episode).

Clockwise, from top left: Willie in front of his rest house in Tagaytay Highlands, inside his mini-theater, the conference room where he meets his staff and the entrance to the rest house.

He will take a break from his airtight schedule and personally entertain (and donate an undisclosed amount to) the victims of Sendong in Cagayan de Oro. He has also a foundation (with a seed money of P50M from his own pocket) for the underprivileged.

He shares. Late last year, he treated his staff and other friends to a holiday in Singapore, more than 90 of them, some riding with him in his private plane and others on commercial flights.

“I won’t carry it (my wealth) to my grave,” says Willie who is turning 51 on Jan. 27.

As we make our way back to Manila on the fog-covered dark road, I remember a line from a poem I studied in high school: How far that little candle throws its beam/So shines a good deed in this naughty world.

 (E-mail reactions at [email protected]. You may also send your questions to [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos visit http://www.philstar.com/funfareor follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.)

This is an artist’s sketch of Wil Tower Mall, located across ABS-CBN, with Sen. Manny Villar as Willie’s partner, opening middle of 2012