Beauty Lessons

by Yvette Tan

Maggie Wilson dishes on growing up in Saudi Arabia, beauty pageant backstage drama, and that infamous video

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MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM UNO MAGAZINE AND ANGELICOPTER!

Yeah, It’s Over Now

As I write the closing year’s editor’s note, my right arm is wrapped in a fiberglass cast because I inadvertently injured my right wrist. In a skateboarding accident.

Yes, skateboarding.

Oh, don’t be so ageist. Just because I have come into an age group that can be generally rounded to forty. Just because the hair on my scalp does not regenerate as fast as I would like it too and just because I can watch pornographic material without seeking my parents’ approval, it doesn’t mean I’m old. It just means I’m regressing.

And for your information, I was skateboarding as part of a segment on my show (warning: shameless plug ahead), GMA News TV’s Best Men.  I have done more shameless things on the show–like witnessing a manunuli take his instrument to a grown man’s foreskin and ballroom dancing in a body hugging sequined shirt that exposed my cleavage all the way down to my bellybutton–but this was the only segment to have caused me long-term physical harm.

Due to my condition, I will not be able to generate brand new drivel for you this month. So I hope you don’t mind if I peddle some regurgitated drivel by talking about a certain body part–damaged, fractured, abused, or otherwise–from my new book It Only Hurts When I Pee: RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Bodily Gases, Hair Loss and Pink Parts.

Warning: A lot of pink parts will be flashed in this issue.

Jingle Balls

According to fertility specialist Dr. Robert Winston, the size of a primate’s testicles can tell us a lot about a species’ sexual practices.

In the seventies, British biologist Roger Short noticed something peculiar about ape anatomy. He found that chimpanzees had extremely large four-ounce testicles that produced prodigious amounts of sperm (although I am trying not to imagine how he found out that chimps produce prodigious amounts of sperm). Mating among chimps is a fairly unregulated and casual affair especially since they are not being monitored by the MTRCB. In fact, there seems to be no awareness as to the paternity of any of their offspring.

On the other hand, silverback gorillas–the largest of the living primates that sport large canine teeth and have a growl fierce enough to make human testicles retract to the pit of their stomachs–have miniscule testicles. More miniscule than even those of some congressmen.

Unlike chimpanzees, silverback alpha males take possession of a harem of female gorillas. And silverbacks are secure in the knowledge the female gorillas will rarely sneak off for an illicit romp in the wilds (unless they encounter a very brave and randy male chimpanzee). Gorillas rarely have intercourse, because for males with a harem, sexual access is guaranteed. Therefore, Mr. “I Am King of the Apes” only needed a small amount of sperm and, consequently, a small payload. So, gorillas evolved testicles that were small but terrible.

Now, let us put things into perspective: gorillas weigh four times as much as chimps, but a chimp’s testicles weigh four times as much as a gorilla’s. What can we infer from this? Well, the biologist Roger Short appears to have stumbled, not on testicles, bur rather on anatomical clues about a species’ mating system: the bigger the balls, the more polygamous the females.

Human testicles tread the middle ground when it comes to primate testicles. Measured as a proportion of body weight, our human teabags are four times the size of a gorilla’s but less than a third of the size of a chimpanzee’s.

According to The Red Queen: Sex And The Evolution of Human Nature, ancestral man probably lived in a pseudo-harem system, but he was also prepared for occasional female promiscuity. Ancestral females copulated with more than one male in a month fairly often.  Given this, human males evolved testicles potent enough to combat a moderate amount of sperm competition from other males, but they certainly didn’t need to stockpile enough artillery as required by chimpanzee gonads. If Goldilocks were a scientist, she would say that our testicles were just right.

And now that that’s out of the way, allow me to give you a lowdown on what to check out in this special year-end issue of UNO.

Radio DJ Angelika Schmeing-Cruz, more popularly known as Angelicopter to her avid listeners, graces our cover for the very first time and we couldn’t be happier. If you’ve been living under a rock, you might not have known that she’s also a castaway and now a dropout in this year’s Survivor Philippines (along with teammate Jackie Forster), proving to everybody that just because you’ve lost the battle, doesn’t mean you’ve lost dibs on a magazine cover. Who are we to complain anyway?

We have also listed down the highlights of our year in our exclusive BARRAGE section, while respected male personalities Paolo Bediones, Basti Artadi, Luke Landrigan, and Dylan Ababou rule our BLASTER pages as they reveal their own lists of favorites in 2011 pop culture. Other men we idolize–rockstar Bamboo Manalac, actor Baron Geisler, and world-renowned animator Ronnie del Carmen–share their thoughts about life and career in our POINTBLANK, INTERVIEW, and SHOCKWAVE sections, respectively. And finally, music legend Jose Mari Chan teaches us how to write the perfect Christmas song in this month’s AFTERBURNER.

RJ Ledesma,

Editor-in-Chief

In the Mood for Love: Heart Evangelista

We all love Heart Evangelista, but she’s all set to break our collective hearts

Words by Philbert Dy / Photography by Juan Caguicla

There will come a time when Heart Evangelista won’t be on the public radar. At least that’s what she thinks. She will gladly confess to how much fun she’s having as a celebrity, or how she’s enjoying the perks of her fame. At the same time, she will mention how this life has kept her from pursuing other things, how it’s kept her from living a normal life.
“I really wanted to be a vet,” she says. “Now it feels like it’s too late. Maybe if I retire next year, I’ll become a vet. Otherwise…”
She leaves the thought hanging. In truth, it’s already a foregone conclusion. She has two years left on her contract, one that pretty much keeps her on the soap opera grind. Her latest, Dwarfina, has her spending 18-hour days in front of a green screen, running and jumping across an imaginary landscape where everything is just a little too big for her.
Not that she doesn’t enjoy it. “It’s lot of playing with imagination, since there’s really nothing there. I have to imagine the people I’m talking to, and all the things I’m seeing. It’s like I’m just a kid playing.” She works these days largely by herself, not even having the benefit of interacting with a co-actor. On this show, she is strangely isolated, working towards things that she can’t even see.

It’s striking to hear how pragmatic she is about the entire business. While other actresses will talk for ages about dream roles or incessantly praise every single aspect of their lives, Heart seems to acknowledge that there’s a sort of falseness in this kind of life—that it might not be the most fulfilling path for a young person.

Part of it is simple cost-benefit analysis. Right now, as a major star, she enjoys plenty of perks. “It’s great to get all sorts of free stuff from people, and it’s easy money.” She pauses. “Well it’s not really easy, but it’s fun. It’s a fun way to make a living.” The only role she’s ever complained about is one that had her hidden under prosthetics. She gestures roughly around her nose and mouth area. “They had all of this covered, and I had to cry. It was all wet around that area all day—so uncomfortable.” It isn’t the discomfort that she’s actually unhappy with though. It’s the fact that the show wasn’t primetime, and that the audience wasn’t commensurate to the effort that she put in.
Though most would probably laugh at the idea of acting being hard work, it must be noted how much real effort goes into being a public figure. Being a major celebrity is really about limits. Endorsement deals and roles come with certain obligations. Heart is constantly on a strict diet. She carries around a carton of orange juice, which seems to serve as her primary source of everyday energy. She claims she’s still able to pig out, but judging from how much was left from the chicken fajitas she was sharing with her road manager, her definition of “pigging out” is very different from that of the average person. She always has to be mindful of how she looks in pictures; a stray bit of cleavage might cost her a lucrative endorsement deal. On screen, all manner of conditions crowd her acting process. It might be natural for one of her characters to swig beer straight from the bottle to deal with a painful breakup. But natural isn’t a priority for some of the companies that employ her as an image model. She might have put everything into a scene, come out with the most truthful performance ever, but if she drank from a bottle, she’d have to reshoot.

Heart just seems keenly aware of the business side of show business. As much as people like to talk about perfecting the craft or creating art that connects with people, success in the current show business environment is really about keeping an eye on the bottom line. Actuary-like calculations play a major role in production. Networks have an arcane set of mathematics that weighs the risk and reward of placing a star in a certain kind of project. Heart seems to know her role and the system, and she’s decided to play it as smartly as she can.
She is the only actress I’ve ever talked to that prefers doing soaps over movies. “Soaps have so much more power,” she says. She explains that soaps will expose you to more people; that it keeps you in the public eye for a much longer period of time. While she cops to the idea that a movie might be more satisfying on a craft level, in terms of pure business, soaps just makes more sense. She may end up doing a lot more work, but the prestige and the accompanying perks are simply greater.
She’s looking ahead to the day when these perks will fade, when she’ll be older in an industry that disproportionately values youth. She doesn’t want to still be putting in the hours that she does on set and not have the prestige that she enjoys now. The strangest thing about all this is how she says it without an ounce of cynicism. The same sentiments have been heard from faded stars, every word dripping with bitterness. But Heart talks business with the same brightness and positivity that she treats everything else. She might be a veteran of the business, and she might have one eye out the door, but there’s no sense that she hates any of it. She’s genuinely happy to be where she is. She’s just aiming for something more.
“Even if I could maintain a certain level of prestige, I’d probably only show up in two films a year.” She balks at any larger commitment. “I’ve been doing this for twelve, thirteen years now, and I feel like I’ve missed out on so much.”
“I really admire actresses like Bianca King or Iya Villania who study and work at the same time. I don’t know how they do it.” Heart looks genuinely puzzled. “I’m still an undergrad,” she says. “I’d like to go back to studying…probably something related to what I’ve been doing. Maybe fashion.” She also talks about someday playing a part in the family business. “I’d like to see a Barrio Fiesta in Greenbelt,” she says. She talks about modernizing the menu, tailoring it to fit the younger generation.
Heart talks about expanding her horizons. She wants to travel. “I think about all the girls my age. They’ve experienced so much more than me. They’ve been to more places.” Heart sees herself as sheltered, her life as a celebrity having kept her in a state of arrested development. “I don’t even know how to do bank stuff,” she says with just a hint of frustration. The life of a celebrity has its perks, but in the end, it’s just a bubble that’s waiting to be popped. Heart wants to be ready for life outside the bubble.
So while we still have a couple of years to enjoy Heart Evangelista’s effervescence on television, I suggest that fans savor what we have now. Right now, she is still happy to be everywhere, to be someone who has the privilege of entertaining the masses on a daily basis. But she is already looking at the life beyond that of celebrity. She is going to try to live a more normal life, using the same work ethic that she used to excel in show business in order to succeed in other, less absurd fields. And while nothing is ever a sure thing in this world, it feels like Heart will find success in whatever it is that she ends up doing. The keen business sense that she already exhibits will likely serve her well. Her odd mix of pragmatism and positivity ought to make her a pretty effective leader.
Yes, she might still show up in a movie or two, never forgetting how much the industry has done for her, but Heart is growing up. She seems to think that there’s more to life than being a celebrity. She’s all set on breaking our collective hearts, depriving audiences of her natural charm. Like the greatest love affairs, this just isn’t meant to last.

Andrea de Guzman

Ed: Oh how time flies.. here’s a feature on Andrea de Guzman — now Andrea Mago from earlier this year.

“My idea of fun is anything to do with travel, friends, my fiancé, and food!”

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Anne Curtis is back in UNO Magazine this November 2011

THIRD TIME’S A CHARM

You can never, never have enough of Anne Curtis.

And as we celebrate UNO’s 8th anniversary, we thought it would be perfect to have one of best-selling cover girls shot by lensman extraordinaire Xander Angeles (whose cover and pictorial prove that Anne can be smokin’ without having to light up a cigarette).

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STICKY FINGERS

Photographs and Art by Jenna Genio | Creative Direction by Juan Caguicla

In art  provocateur Jenna Genio’s kingdom, the female of the species is decidedly more ready than the male.

Originally published in UNO July 2010 issue

Between the Buttons

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LILEN UY | Creative Direction by Juan Caguicla | Art Direction by Norman Crisologo | Sittings Editor France Pinzon | Styling By Mara Reyes | Makeup by Diane de Castro | Hair by Borge Aloba, L’Oreal Professionnel

To Call Aubrey Miles a “rolling stone” isn’t implying she gathers no moss but only to declare this screen vamp and former  Amazing Race contestant is still going the distance

Originally published in UNO July 2010

You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory

Curated by The Editors

“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget,” wrote the art critic John Berger. “Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.” After spending the past twelve months looking at and admiring the most beautiful women in the country, the quote is especially resonant for us and for our readers. “We love women,” was something we declared from the get-go, as well as the belief that there’s more to them than their surfaces—although we admit we’re as weak for those surfaces as anybody. We also deplore the practice of using digital tools to turn them into wax models instead of emphasizing natural beauty or, more importantly, as a means to get underneath the skin of our subjects. If anything, we picture them with their characters draped around themselves: the only nudity we truly indulge in is the stripping off of the carapaces of convenient perception. Given that the broad consensus among psychologists is that memory isn’t so much reproductive as it is reconstructive—“a blurry mixture of accurate and inaccurate recollections”—the following pages offers a sidereal tour of the past year, revealing not merely skin-deep nostalgia but a new flesh.

Originally published in UNO June 2010 issue

That’s Really Super, Supergirl

by Luis Katigbak | Photographs by Juan Caguicla | Art Direction by Norman Crisologo

Her dad knew Hendrix and her mom went by the alias Electrika. No wonder, then, that Sarah Meier-Albano grew up to be the coolest superheroine.

Someone needs to explain the secret identity thing to Sarah Meier-Albano. The way it works is, your normal everyday self is pretty much the opposite of your superheroic persona. Batman is dark and brooding and scary, so Bruce Wayne is frivolous and flirty and flashy. Superman has all the powers ever and descends from the sky like some kind of Space Jesus, so Clark Kent is meek and mild-mannered and generally unobtrusive. That’s how it goes. But Sarah, even when she’s not fighting crime while decked out in costume, is already jaw-droppingly impressive, on a day-to-day basis. I should know; I’ve worked with her. The woman has super powers, no doubt.

Working with Sarah—who is one of our most recognizable and admired hosts and models, and also happens to be a talented writer—is, in one word, a dream. When I was writing event and TV scripts for MTV Philippines, I could count on her, first of all, to remember everything with frightening accuracy (a fond and somewhat surreal memory: Sarah going up the steps of the old MTV building in the Fort, while effortlessly reciting a convoluted philosophical passage by Heidegger that I had dropped into an MTV VJ Hunt script as a joke). Second, one could also count on her to ad-lib brilliantly, and actually improve the script in many ways. It was a welcome lesson in humility, to be lurking backstage and witness the weaknesses in your script corrected live.

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Bianca Manalo & Sam Pinto: Choose Your Own UNO Cover

GOING UNDERGROUND

My wife and I headed out to Puerto Princesa, Palawan to spawn.

But, admittedly, it is quite difficult to spawn if you are sharing a room with your two and a half year old daughter, your yaya and your in-laws (yes, that same father-in-law who custom-fitted you with a chastity belt when you and your then girlfriend, now wife were still dating).

To keep myself in a constantly amorous state during the whole weekend, I was on the lookout for the infamous (infamous in the same way that The Three Amigos were infamous) Palawan delicacy tamilok (wood worm), which is renowned for its, ehem, aphrodisiac qualities. However, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to break my vegetarian diet just for this worm (which I later found out was actually a slimy, fat and long mollusk that made most men feel inadequate because it was longer than a twelve-inch ruler.  More importantly, I have not read any scientific tests that herald the efficacy of eating tamilok versus watching really crude pornography).

During our visit, we took a 1.2 kilometer bakawan (mangrove) forest paddleboat ride to see hundred year old mangrove trees that jutted thirty meters into the sky.  Little did my wife know that I had an ulterior motive for taking her on the mangrove tour: Nesting inside rotting mangroves were the elusive tamiloks.  But I was warned to be careful scouring for these mollusks because – aside from trudging through muddy ground and evading discarded oyster shells and fallen tree branches – there could be some DOMs (read about DOMs in this issue’s BARRAGE, Page 18) lurking inside those rotting mangroves as well.

We had the privilege of being toured around the bakawan by Aida, the self proclaimed Lady Mangrove who pointed out to us the different varieties of plants and animals that occupied this protected area: There were yellow-striped snakes (makamandag), pythons, bayawaks (monitor lizards), porcupines, anteaters, parrots, myna, cockatoos, hornbills, wild pigs, and even some wild chickens (you knew they were wild by the way they foamed at the mouth). (Which brings us, we had Man vs Wild guy Bear Grylls teach us a thing or two about the wild on Page 96).

Later that afternoon, we had finally come to my declared purpose behind this trip (aside from spawning and eating tamilok) and that was a visit to the Puerto Princesa Underground River. Conveniently enough, Daluyon was a mere stone’s throw away from the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River national park (especially if you had a pitching arm like the Incredible Hulk’s).

One of the first structures we encountered was the aptly named bat cavern. There are seven different species of bats that lived inside these caves but, trust me, all their guano smelled the same. During our visit, the bats were taking their beauty while preparing for their night shift. So if we felt something cold and wet dripping on our clothes, that was fresh rainwater that had seeped in through the mountains. But if you felt something wet and sticky dripping on our clothes, then a bat must have used you for target practice.

Of course, we were kilometers deep inside a cave that was millions of years old. Who knows that kind of underground fumes this river was spewing? Joyce could have told me that he saw formations that resembled Paris Hilton (see Page 28 for more on the hotel heiress) and Chinese warships and the actual results of the 2004 Presidential elections and I probably still would have believed him.

But if we traveled further down the underground river, we would encounter a structure that was not subject to aesthetic interpretation: the fossilized remains of a twenty million year old dugong (sea cow) that has been embedded on the cave walls. Yes, that’s right. A fossil that’s even older than some of the DOMs out there.

As our paddleboat turned around and we headed back to the mouth of the river, it occurred to me that the underground river could be an exhilarating yet slightly terrifying experience at the same time. Especially when you realize that you are a more than a kilometer deep inside an underground cave that is underneath a mountain that is swarming with bats and swallows from above and eels in the brackish waters below and all that you can rely of for safety in a pitch black cave is the knowledge of your paddleboat operator and battery-powered searchlight. But probably the most terrifying part? Aside from the fact that your car battery might run out of juice or that bats go Signal Number Three all over your head? The fact that there was no cellphone signal inside the cave. The only Twitter that would be coming from the inside of the underground river would be from the swallows.

And so goes our desperate attempt to make our lives a little less boring that we present to you, our dear readers, a source of inspiration to go out there and look for some adventure (at a nifty price of P190, cha-ching!), For starters, we’ve got entertainer extraordinaires Hollywood’s Donald Glover and Fil-Canadian Mikey Bustos to share about their rising careers (See Page 22 and 46, respectively). Meanwhile, Jinno Rufino (Page 44) and the sexy Jacq Yu (Page 86) narrate about their own trips abroad to see some pretty mean cars in action.

Speaking of pretty, we’ve got two of the prettiest women on our covers this time around. Get to know hot and talented TV personalities Bianca Manalo (Page 56) and Sam Pinto (Page 64), who both talk about their rise to fame and the thrills of being up there.

So you see, adventure is just out there for you to stumble upon, whether in some underground river or within the confines of your own bakuran. Palawan was amazing, but it’s also nice to be back in the city, where bats are more known to produce films rather than guano. Whatever your fancy, may this UNO issue encourage you to stretch your legs, turn to the next page and let the fun begin.

-RJ Ledesma, Editor-in-Chief