Drama is ABS-CBN’s strength

MANILA, Philippines - ABS-CBN has signed up over 40 directors and nurturing them is ABS-CBN’s business just as much as it is dedicated to creating new concepts for media content. By working with the industry’s best, ABS-CBN has continued creating every TV program and film as memorable as the last.

ABS-CBN is the go-to network for actors and creators who want quality projects, according to director Jerome Pobocan, who has worked for 20 years for ABS-CBN and has mostly toiled in drama with successful projects under his helm including Hiram, the remakes of Mara Clara and Gulong ng Palad, Nasaan Ka Elisa? Lorenzo’s Time, Ikaw ay Pag-ibig, Sana Maulit Muli, Sana’y Wala Nang Wakas, the Philippine adaptation of Recuerdo de Amor, the International Emmy-nominated Impostor and Born to Love You.

“ABS-CBN has dramaturgy. Drama is ABS-CBN’s strength and we know what we’re conveying — actors in the industry know that,” says Jerome.

The audience taste, he says, is also basically easy to predict. ABS-CBN has taught him how to do it. He declares this with unflinching pride of the TV network’s vision of creating stories people can draw strength and inspiration from.

You just have to give them good, uplifting and inspiring stories. You just have to catch their attention in a way that empowers them by making them a part of your storytelling. As a creator, you impart small nuggets of wisdom which the audience may or may not take, depending on their mood, on how they see it,” he says.

He identifies Filipinos’ appetite for empowering  narratives and characters in the phenomenal success of his 2009 teleserye May Bukas Pa, one of the country’s most top-rating  teleseryes in recent memory, which he said had the capacity to move old and young audiences because of faith.

Direk Jerome describes May Bukas Pa as his ideal take “on what a soap opera should be” — reachable, inspiring but not preachy, and most of all, enriching.

While Jerome’s dream is making a movie as big as Oro Plata Mata, which was directed by one of his mentors, Peque Gallaga, he looks forward to taking on a new challenge in the upcoming soap Bukas Na Lang Kita Mamahalin. To be launched this year, the teleserye marks the debut of Gerald Anderson and Cristine Reyes’ tandem.

Direk Rory Quintos, meanwhile, measures her success as a creator and storyteller from capturing audiences by “hitting their hearts.” She attributes such mindset to ABS-CBN being a ‘heart network,’ whose target is to give people hope.

“If I can touch the hearts more than anything else and give them something to think about, then I’m very fulfilled as a director. The material I’m most attracted to are the ones with the most heart,” she declares.

Dedication to her craft also means never having to take one’s self, too, seriously, and in the past two decades, direk Rory has done exactly that.

“There’s never a dull moment. It’s like playing. I never say I’m off to work, I say I’m off to play. It’s like I never left my playground; every single day of my life I’m playing,” she says.

Direk Rory is most popular for her films Anak, Kailangan Kita and Dubai, and teleseryes Pangako Sa’ Yo, Esperanza, Maging Sino Ka Man: Ang Pagbabalik and Only You. Before being launched by ABS-CBN as a director, direk Rory had been a freelancer for seven years and had worked with other networks. Besides getting good breaks and having the network invest in her, she says what she really loves in ABS-CBN is the Kapamilya atmosphere.

“I have to say that it is in this station where I found the Kapamilya feeling and love. It keeps us together. You see everybody grow,” she declares.

ABS-CBN has signed up the most celebrated directors including Wenn Deramas, Ruel Bayani, Jerry Lopez Sineneng, Joyce Bernal, Bobet Vidanes, Edgar Mortiz, Rory, Jeffrey Jeturian, Cathy Garcia-Molina, Mae Cruz, Jerome, Malu Sevilla, FM Reyes, Lino Cayetano, Nuel Naval, Don Cuaresma, Erick Salud, Trina Dayrit, Arnel Natividad, Francis Pasion, Jojo Saguin, Nick Olanka, Dado Lumibao, Katski Flores, Frasco Mortiz, Ricky Rivero, Rechie del Carmen, Toto Natividad, Manny Palo, Richard Arellano, Tots Sanchez-Mariscal, Ted Boborol, Connie Macatuno, Jon Moll, Darnel Villaflor, Avel Sungpongco, Raz dela Torre, Neal del Rosario, Mervyn Brondial, Jon Villarin, Nico Hernandez, Alco Guerrero and Johnny Manahan.