Pia Guanio: Woman in love

There is an undeniable gladness that registers on her face the minute she arrives for the early morning photo shoot. In fact, like a thousand-watt light bulb, she brightens up the room with her presence punctuated by her giggles. Pia Guanio, GMA 7’s primetime Chika Minute girl, is one happy person and she attributes it to her being a woman in love — her love life is in full bloom, her career forever soaring.

In the middle of the interview, her mobile keeps on ringing but she never picks it up until she excuses herself to answer one very important call. The caller’s ID registers as BOSSMAN. "Hi Hon! Good morning. How are you?" she greets the man she is talking to on the phone. In a jiffy, the telephone conversation is finished. She has just spoken with the love of her life — Vic Sotto. She reveals that their daily rituals include calling each other to greet "Good morning" and calling again each other to say "Good night" before they retire. After that particular call, Pia shines her brightest.

To say that her beautiful affair with the comedian actor shows in her disposition now is underlining the obvious. "Vic and I have been going on for 1 1/2 years now," she says while having everybody in the room privy to that sparkle in her eyes. They both have a good influence on each other that at one point, Vic gave up his smoking. "That’s his Valentine gift to me this year — to stop smoking. He really has not picked up a stick since then," Pia happily shares about the man whom, she adds, she never really expected to fall in love with. "I take care of him by giving him healthy alternatives for his diet," she says. Vic, for his part — aside from cautioning her from wearing short skirts and other revealing outfits — "helps me out in filtering the complexities of this industry. He explains to me further how show business goes. I learn a lot from him."

If her love life is a walk in the park, so is her career. Pia is forever on the boobtube every day because of her shows Eat Bulaga (the program that made her and Vic closer), S-Files, Chika Minute (the showbiz segment of the news program 24 Oras) and Pinaka on QTV-11.

As if her hands are not yet filled and full with her TV engagements, Pia, a two-time Aliw awardee for hosting and Entertainment Press’ choice for best host in 2005, still finds time to actively volunteer for Animal Welfare Society. "My heart bleeds at the sight of stray and abandoned dogs. So, I take up this advocacy."

Indeed, she has gone a long way from being a traffic reporter (delivering news while aboard a helicopter) of an early morning show in her former network, ABS-CBN. She may be an on-cam delight for quite sometime now but let it be said that Pia started — after she finished her degree of Broadcast Communication in UP Diliman — behind the camera from 1995 to 1999 as a producer for Inside Stories, a now defunct magazine program of Channel 2, where she conceptualized, wrote stories, interviewed subjects and edited materials for airing.

To better hone her craft, she’s now taking up "strip-tease classes" so she can dance gracefully in her TV shows when the need arises. ("I’m known for my tigas body," she laughs.)

Pia is also very much in with love her family. "I don’t know what to do without them," she shares. She makes it a point to go out with them from time to time. In a world where her every move is noticed, magnified and scrutinized, she constantly finds an ally in her family. "I’ve learned from my Mom and Dad that the only opinions that really matter are the ones from people who really matter."

After the interview, around 11 a.m., she picks up her phone and dials BOSSMAN’s number. "Honey, I’m finished na. I’m on my way to Eat Bulaga." That particular show for her is a place of happiness where she will share again a laugh or two with the love of her life. And this cycle of happiness, Pia is sure of, will continue. -Büm D.Tenorio, Jr.