Extra! Extra! Lumang Balita!!!

It is highly unusual for someone to write an article about himself/herself being an “extra” in a magazine nine years ago but I wouldn’t let this opportunity pass by without sharing it some readers.  I also thought that this topic about showbiz would somehow fare in today’s trending topics since most of the Filipino Youth nowadays are entering show business.  Well, I have to give all the credit to my classmate in college who yearned to enter showbiz in order to help his family, Mr. Hero Angeles, otherwise, my being “extra”, in Starstudio Magazine (July 2004 edition) wouldn’t be possible. I clearly remember another classmate of mine, the hot Ms. Paloma Esmeria (go ahead, google her!!), telling me, “Uy, Aaron, si Hero nanalo sa Star Circle Quest ah, 2 million yung grand prize, instant millionaire!”.  After Hero won the Star Circle Quest on summer of 2004, the whole Filipino nation had a “Hero-mania” (not related to Hulkamania”, by the way) that also had every magazine coming after him for pictorials and posing for their front covers.  Digging deep into this Vic Zhou look-alike background (oh yeah, there’s also a Meteor Garden “Fever” too, plaguing the country during that time), his educational background wasn’t spared, which meant, his college, UP Diliman College of Fine Arts was also featured in that magazine.  It was our afternoon photography class with Mr. Tats Enrique, and upon entering the room he first announced that Mr. Angeles will pay us a short visit to take class pictures for his article section in an upcoming magazine.  And so Hero arrived a few minutes after the announcement along with the ABS-CBN Magazine crew and the taking of pictures inside the classroom followed immediately.  I was seating on the tiered near the end of the door when this photographer took a picture of me as the foreground subject and Hero and Sir. Tats in the background (as seen in the inset picture below with a circle).  A few weeks after that classroom pictorial, one of my batchmates, Bebok informed me that he saw my picture in Star Studio Magazine, he alluded to the Hero article ofcourse, I was surprised, then when I came home my grandmother also told me she saw my inset picture in the July 2004 edition of Star Studio Magazine. Well, I truly benefited for a few weeks of stardom, thanks to that Magazine.  However, since his contract feud with ABS-CBN began, the “Hero-Mania” gradually died and nowadays only a few showbiz diehards recognize Hero Angeles, especially with the rise of today’s child and teen stars.  He is still active though, and can be seen every Sunday on GMA-7’s Walang Tulugan With The Master Showman, aired after midnight so probably most of the young showbiz viewers are already asleep, with dreams of entering the business.  I would like to end this blog with a message to aspiring and current showbiz stars, taken from the powerful mouth of Mr. Joey De Leon, “Out of sight, out of mind”.