E.A.T.’s Tito, Vic & Joey!
It was past 9 in the evening of Oct. 24, 1982 when a white van inched its way through a throng of people on the narrow road of Gulod. The sleepy barrio in Cabuyao was in a frenzy for the coming of Tito Sotto, Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon. It was the fiesta in the barrio and what a treat it was for the residents of Gulod and the neighboring barangays to see TVJ in person.
Hours before their guesting in the barrio, the triumvirate of Eat Bulaga fame was in the house of Tata Papoy Pulido, a resident of Gulod who was tasked by the comite de festejos to host the dinner for the stars of the night and their friends. There was pandemonium in their house, recalls Ate Sonia Villareal, daughter of Tata Popoy.
“We had to close our door because people would just pile up inside the house. But we left our jalousie windows open. TVJ were so popular that our windows almost broke because so many people wanted to get a glimpse of them. When the window curtains would block their view as Tito, Vic and Joey were feasting on balut, menudo, morcon, hamonado, fried biya and kinulob na itik, the throng of people pulled the curtains. Gutay-gutay ang kurtina,” laughs Ate Sonia.
When the trio arrived at the glorieta, the term used for the small stage/event hall beside the chapel of Gulod, the thunderous applause and mirth of the audience rivaled the sound of the amplifier. The late resident toastmaster/emcee of Gulod, Tata Flaviano Lapidario, had to hush the spectators.
“My father had been in the hospital for days because of a mild stroke but made sure he would get out of it on the day he would emcee the event. He did not want to miss the opportunity to introduce and interview Tito, Vic and Joey,” recalls my friend Eva Lapidrio, daughter of Tata Flaviano. (When TVJ and their “Dabarkads” finally returned on July 1 to live TV on TV5, their new home network after their separation from the Jalosjos-owned blocktimer TAPE Inc. after 28 years last May 31, Eva made sure to look for the photos of her father interviewing onstage the stars of E.A.T., the new name of the troika’s TV show. The photos, Eva says, were found not in photo albums but inserted in a Bible.)
Tito, Vic and Joey sang and danced on the glorieta. I saw them perform as my 10-year-old self stepped on the elevated edge of the fence, craning my neck, finding a balance with the help of a rope that served as a dividing line between the throng of people and the stage. It was my first time to see artistas in person. I went home an avid fan.
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Former Senate president Tito Sotto, Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon are part and parcel of Philippine pop culture. Their names are attached to the longest-running TV show in Philippine entertainment — 44 years. The three talented and innovative variety show hosts have never lost their grip on the audience — even if they have changed home stations four times since 1979. RPN-9 from 1979 to 1989, ABS-CBN from 1989 to 1996, GMA 7 from 1996 to May 2023. Now, they are on TV5. It’s like they only changed houses but they have kept the home in them. And wherever they go, the audience feels at home with Tito, Vic and Joey.
To stay this long in the entertainment industry is both a power and a secret. And both are revealed to their audience by their effortless humor. Humor is the shadow of intelligence.
“Our secret is we know how to respect each other. Even if we don’t discuss it, we know exactly who will shine in this and that segment,” shared Vic when I interviewed the trio for PeopleAsia magazine in 2007. He added that part of effective hosting is knowing fully how to make your co-host shine. And that skill, obviously, comes naturally and effortlessly for the three of them.
“Ahh… our secret is lahat kami chismoso,” Joey said in the same interview.
Joey said he coined the phrase Eat Bulaga. “Bulaga” is the Tagalog slang for “surprise.” The word “Eat” was coined for the simple reason that the show would be on the noontime spot, the time when most people are eating their lunch.
“You see, it doesn’t have that deep meaning to it,” Joey said. Sounding like a feng shui expert, Joey explained that the name Eat Bulaga contains nine letters in all. “Nine is a lucky number that’s why there’s ‘Lucky 9,’” he said.
“And if you look closely at every letter of Eat Bulaga,” he said in the interview, “you will notice that, save for the letters ‘t’ and ‘l,’ all the other letters somehow resemble the number 9. Notice also that the letter ‘l’ is written like number 1.” As for the “t,” Joey did not say. He leaves it to the imagination of the people.
Vic started his career as a folk singer and guitarist. He was responsible for classic hits like Ipagpatawad Mo, Rock Baby Rock and Awitin Mo, Isasayaw Ko.
“In the early ‘70s, I joined my two brothers, Tito and Val, in a gag show called OK Lang on IBC 13,” Vic said. Also included in the show was the APO Hiking Society. It was at this juncture that the OK Lang hosts were joined by Joey.
“In the mid-‘70s,” Joey said, “I became part of GMA’s Discorama hosted by Bobby Ledesma. “When Bobby went on a vacation, I invited the Sotto brothers to join me in the show.” Only Tito and Vic joined him. That moment galvanized the brotherhood among the three.
“And let it be said that we started doing hilarious interpretations of different songs from the made-up lyrics written by Joey de Leon,” said Tito Sen, himself famous for composing Magkaisa, one of the anthems of the 1986 People Power Revolution.
The trio also became part of Bobby Ledesma’s noontime show Student Canteen. It can be said that Discorama and Student Canteen were responsible for catapulting the hilarious antics of TVJ. What also paved the way for the troika’s star to shine its brightest was when they banded together to do the sitcom Iskul Bukol in the late ‘70s. One good thing led to another. In 1979, Eat Bulaga was born.
The trio, however, were not able to bring the name Eat Bulaga to TV5. The E.A.T. hosts need to overcome legal hurdles to use the name of the show that Joey said he coined “in 1979 in the kitchen of Tito Sotto.”
Whatever happens, E.A.T’s TVJ for the avid fan in me. That had been sealed the first time they made me laugh in 1982 while I held on for dear life as I kept my balance on the elevated edge of the fence just to get a glimpse of them.
E.A.T! Bulaga!
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