Regine: You bet?

MANILA, Philippines - Singers find their careers challenging not just with regard to making music, achieving fame and lasting long in the business. There’s also that career-jeopardizing possibility of losing their voice — the so-called “cornerstone” of their craft, the very instrument that brought joy to many, and drew fans to them in the first place.  

To recall, during her milestone year in 2012, her 25th in the industry, Regine Velasquez-Alcasid had no choice but to cut short her grand anniversary concert and reschedule another one roughly a month later to recover her voice.

Asia’s Songbird isn’t alone on this one. Many well-loved divas, local and foreign, have had faced this challenge, from Adele to Julie Andrews to even last night’s Manila visitor Mariah Carey whose reported “vocal struggles” in the Japan and Korea stops of her Elusive Chanteuse concert tour created quite a stir online.

“It happened to me, and I’m still experiencing it now, because as you get older, you change, your body changes, you have hormones. I can relate very much, especially with the expectations of the people. It’s very, very hard to keep up with those expectations. But you know we’re human, we’re not good all the time. We try to be as perfect as possible whenever we perform. But unfortunately, we can’t. We’re humans, not robots,” Regine shared with reporters on the sidelines of Negros Oriental’s annual Buglasan Festival held at the provincial capital in Dumaguete, where her new show, the nationwide talent search Bet ng Bayan, held its Central and Eastern Visayas regional finals. (Ilustrado lead actor Alden Richards is Regine’s co-host.)

Asked if she has made any adjustments — maybe rearrangement of her signature songs? — to avoid such scenarios, she said, “Ako, so far, wala pa akong ina-adjust, but hirap ako if I have acid reflux. But I’ll still sing. If cracked ang voice, eh di cracked ang voice, although I try to take care of it because pwede masira yung boses ko. Even if I’ve practiced that day, but if I have acid reflux, may crack talaga na di na-a-avoid. Whatever placement I do, it’s still gonna be there.”

And whenever it happens, it can be “very frustrating.” “Especially now, your audience and the social media, grabe ang expectations nila, then they can be very harsh and insensitive sometimes,” she said.

“Sometimes, the people who tell you, o, malat ka na naman, are even your fans. You can’t do anything about it because that’s their expectation. But nahihirapan ka, of course, because when it’s there, it’s there. (When it comes to bashers) a lot of times, I don’t mind them… I’m not saying you’re not allowed to critique or whatever, but if you criticize, hopefully, you know what you’re talking about, or at least,” adding with a laugh, “you know how to sing.”

Regine’s career, nevertheless, remains to be what many budding singers dream of having. The contestants in Bet ng Bayan remind her of beginnings. The Dumaguete leg last week had the seasoned songstress Kuh Ledesma, composer Louie Ocampo and Jonalyn Viray, the first-ever winner of the Bet ng Bayan forerunner, Pinoy Pop Superstar (also hosted by Regine) as judges. Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Ragay Degamo graced the Kapuso show.

“I’m happy that a lot of them are fresh. They’ve never joined contests, at least on TV,” Regine said of the hopefuls in the contest that’s not only open to singers, but also dancers and other individuals with unique talents. “(And) we made the contest accessible to them. We go to them.”

As Bet ng Bayan scours the regions for new bets for stardom, Regine is somehow hard-pressed to define what makes one a star. “We don’t really know. The star-quality thing, the X factor, no one knows what it is.”

When she was starting out, she herself had no idea that she’d make it. She’d hear comments like “Ano naman ang gagawin nito sa stage?” as she was very reserved. “I didn’t have a personality before. I was painfully shy. I hardly talked. I was always hiding behind my father’s back. I was very skinny.

“But yeah, you could say, it’s (stardom) a gift and somehow, I think it’s your charm (rapport) with the audience... Like ako, di naman ako ma-English before, and at that time, a lot of the singers came from the States. I was from Bulacan. English wasn’t my first language. I even said at the time, I no longer want to speak English, di ko talaga kaya and the people just let me be. That’s how I was able to build my character.”

Regine further reflected, “I never really thought about it (becoming famous one day). Basta ang gusto ko lang nuon, makapag-concert sa Folk Arts, to have a major concert, and when I was able to do a major concert at the Araneta, I just kept going.

“Siguro you’re blessed with it (fame). Maybe, it’s fate. But you have to work hard for it. I mean, I didn’t just get there not doing anything. I had to work (really hard) because at that time, there was no network backing you.”

Regine said that she may have gotten her break by winning a singing contest, but after that, she was left to her own devices and to take charge of her career, with the help of her late father, Mang Gerry to showbiz folks, and first manager Ronnie Henares.

“In a way,” she said, “artists have it easier (now) because they have the backing of the network and they have social media, but you know, if you’ve noticed, madaming lumalabas na ‘whoa!’ tapos nawawala.”

Regine reckoned it has something to do with the training, recalling that she was put through the grind in smaller venues like hotel bars before she took on major concert venues. “Hindi kagaya namin nung araw na trained kami kumanta sa mga bars, at least kami lahat sa batch ko and yung mga nauna, we have that training na pag sinabak kami sa concert, agad-agad kaya namin. Ngayon kasi, it takes them a while, if you notice the singers, nananalo sa contest, sometimes, if you watch them in concert, it doesn’t seem the same, or there seems to be lacking maybe because they don’t have that training, they don’t have that background kasi siyempre sanay lang sila sa two to three songs yung kakantahin nila, hindi yung buong (repertoire)…Two hours of standing is difficult. It’s different. This is as far as concerts are concerned. But they have the talent; they just didn’t have the chance to train that way, wala na kasing chance kasi sinabak na sila agad. It takes experience, you don’t get it just like that.”