She used her looks and the to-die-for body to get what she had always longed for: a way out of poverty and into a semblance of Easy Street. Like the typical probinsyana running away from her miserable life, Keanna left Danaw City and tried her luck in the big city.
The then luckless mother of two boys only wanted a way out of her loveless marriage. Her husband (they married when she got pregnant) had another woman and another family. It didn’t help any that he beat her up. The situation dragged on for 11 years until he made one threat too many.
"He said he’d rather see me dead than see me with another man," Keanna says in Filipino.
The words shocked her enough to make her pack her bags and head for Manila. She didn’t know where she was going; she had no money, no means of supporting herself since Keanna was only a first year college student when she married and stopped schooling.
Keanna was sure about only one thing: she had to run away, or regret it forever.
"I think it’s wrong for a battered wife to stick to her husband for the sake of the kids," she says in hindsight. "You have your life to live. You don’t need to die unhappy."
But what about the children?
"They’ll always be yours, no matter what. They’re your flesh and blood. They will look for you and you’ll look for them. One day, you’ll be reunited," she answers.
So she didn’t look back when she boarded the ship that took her to Manila. Her only weapon then was her looks, so she ended up in the flesh trade. In time, Keanna got used to seeing men look at her with lust. And we are talking not just of men you find in cheap beer joints or karaoke bars. These are men of prominence, those who make the laws of the land and have a hand in shaping our country’s future.
Keanna blew the lid off the controversial escort service she had been engaged in, and literally opened a Pandora’s Box. When Boy Abunda’s Kontro-bersyal guested the then unknown Keanna, she minced no words in saying that yes, sex trafficking is alive and well among the high and mighty. A Senate investigation followed, but this got nowhere when Keanna refused to name names.
But her name started to ring a bell. She was guesting in one TV show after another. She was also getting death threats from lawmakers who felt alluded to in her exposé.
Even her fellow ladies of the night taunted Keanna. Look where your true confession brought you, they told her. You think people will look at you as a hero?
Battered, but refusing to be beaten, Keanna sought protection from the women’s rights organization Gabriela. That’s why it was easy for her to decide on the women’s group as her beneficiary when she won the PBB celebrity edition. Gabriela shared Keanna’s victory with the P1 million counterpart cash prize.
Keanna’s story runs parallel to that of many Gabriela members. Like her, they once engaged in the world’s oldest trade but vowed to change. But unlike Keanna, they didn’t have the means to do it. Funds are scarce. So Keanna decided to act.
"Gabriela is connected to my life as a woman," reasons Keanna. Now, her hope is "for others who fell to have the chance to get up on their feet and start again."
Yes, just like her. No one thought that the girl her dad said was the most mentally-challenged among his five children would turn out a big winner someday.
"My father told me I was stupid," Keanna shrugs. "I accepted that. When I was asking money for the NCEE (National College Entrance Examination), he said no since he thought I’d flunk anyway."
No hard feelings. Keanna just changed into her house dress and forgot all about the test.
She now urges parents: "Give your children a chance. Intelligence is not only the means by which your children can give you happiness and honor. There are many other ways."
What she lacks in education, Keanna more than makes up for in experience. She learned how to hold her head high when her parents failed to show up at her high school graduation. She has loved well, but not wisely. Keanna loved her former boyfriend so much she allowed him into her life for five years even though he was jobless and didn’t lift a finger when he saw her entertaining other men just to survive.
She looked at her mother’s coffin and realized the woman who worked so hard for a good life couldn’t bring a single centavo with her to the grave. "They even cut her clothes into many pieces so she can wear it while she lay there in the coffin," recalls Keanna. Then it hit her like a lightning bolt: you can’t take it with you. Material things are only as good as supplies last. They’re not forever.
"That’s why I don’t worship money anymore. It’s important, yes. But as long as I have food on the table, and I’m comfortable, I’m okay," muses the new millionaire on the block.
She dedicates her success to her sons, IJ, 17 and Troy (named after Troy Montero, her crush), seven. The boys are proud of their mom, who treat them more as friends they can joke and play around with.
"When I noticed that my son didn’t want to be seen walking with me in public for fear that his friends would think I’m his girlfriend, I told him, ‘You should be proud. Imagine, malaki ang hinaharap ng girlfriend mo (referring to her ample bosom)!’" Keanna lets out a laugh.
That innate sense of humor prevented many tense situations inside the Pinoy Big Brother house from getting blown up into major crises. An angry Keanna once told housemate Mich Dulce, "Isa ka kasing KFC!" when what she really meant to say was "KSP" or kulang sa pansin" (craving for attention).
When she called Rustom Padilla, her best friend inside the house, "Rustrom," televiewers from Aparri to Jolo burst out laughing.
The humor is natural and therefore infectious. Keanna doesn’t realize she’s funny because she speaks from the heart. Only when people around her laugh does she realize she has again said something worth laughing about.
Keanna is being packaged as the new Melanie Marquez; manager Boy Abunda plans to present her as a sexy comedienne. For starters, Seiko Films has tapped Keanna to play the mistress in a comedy starring film icons Gloria Romero and Eddie Garcia, with Joey Javier Reyes as director.
As she said after winning the PBB Celebrity Edition, "This is too good to be true. I’m reborn!"
Now, the future is as bright as her past was dark. Keanna can look forward to a good life with her sons in the new condo unit in Boni–part of her prize–that she plans to transfer to as soon as she can.
And along the way, locked up in a house on view to the rest of the world, she has earned something money can’t buy: respect. This, Keanna will agree, is more important than the million pesos in cash, condo unit, computers and other things she now rightfully calls hers. As she says, they’re important, but more important is that she’s okay.
And this time around, Keanna Reeves is okay.