Visiting the Bubble Gang on Location

Me with Wendell Ramos.

ALTHOUGH I am now back in Jeddah after my 17-day trip to Manila and Bangkok, there are still several things I need to blog about from that trip.

My fellow blogger Jessica Zafra, and one-time columnist for Arab News, had told me that we could visit the set of the hit-TV show Bubble Gang when I visited Manila, and true to her word we did. We met on a recent Monday at the Ayala Museum coffee shop in Greenbelt and had a refreshing drink and chat before proceeding to the filming location. Steff, a good friend of Jessica’s, joined us.

I had assumed that since Bubble Gang airs on GMA-Channel 7 the filming would take place in Quezon City, but Jessica said that no it actually filmed in Makati at Cineflex studios on the other side of the South Superhighway. A short taxi-ride later and we arrived at the studio. A security guard showed us the way and Jessica uttering: “I’m a friend of direk Uro dela Cruz,” were the magic words that gained us entry into the inner sanctum.

The inside looked like a dark and huge, high-ceilinged warehouse. Props and fake walls filled the center of the room, while the cameras and floor director were busy in the right-hand corner filming a gag-sequence of various Bubble Gang cast members being possessed by various evil spirits while lying in a bed.

“Who is that guy with the leather jacket?” I asked Jessica.

“That’s Wendell Ramos! You probably didn’t recognize him because he’s not wearing a thong,” said Jessica in reference to Wendell’s buttocks-bearing performance at the Bench underwear show a few months ago.

We later met the entire cast in the dressing room when the director took us there and obligingly took several pictures of me with each of the cast members. Wendell, I can report, is as hunky, smooth skinned and accommodating as he looks in his pictures. Ogie Alcasid told me that he had sung in Jeddah nine years ago, and Erik Santos’ alleged girlfriend Rufa Mae Quinto amazed me with the whiteness of her skin and the curves of her babylicious body.

Moi with Ruffa Mae Quinto

Watching the process of filming, where actors are forced to sit around waiting for hours for their parts to come up, while being cooped up with other good-looking and desirable actors, explained a lot about why so many actors fall in love with their co-stars and divorce their non-showbiz spouses.

Ogie Alcasid and myself.