Much of the noisy showbiz joy these days seems to be out there where global pop superstar Taylor Swift is. In the Philippines, there’s much showbiz sorrow to bear up to.
Some days ago, Swift threw Australia into a frenzy with her Eras concert tour. Since 2 March, it’s in Singapore that she has caused a roaring pandemonium and an upsurge in that little country’s tourism economics.
The government shelled out millions of US dollars to have her in the midst of Singaporeans and of Swifties (Swift’s fans) from other parts of the world, including, perhaps, a hundred or so from our archipelago of 7,100 islands, led by well-off showbiz idols and other celebrities. This list includes a software engineer, Charlyn Suizo, 30, who heads a group of Swifties in the Philippines, who flew in from Manila on Friday with 17 friends.
A Reuters international news agency report says Suizo spent at least $6,000 on her flights, concert tickets and accommodation. That is slightly above the average annual household income in the Philippines, the report stressed.
Swift will be in Singapore until 9 March, with the National Stadium as the concert venue that can accommodate more than 90,000 viewers. The country’s Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong proclaimed in Parliament on Monday, 4 March, that Swift’s Eras Tour has “significant” economic benefits that “outweigh the size of the grant” that given to the concert promoter. The revenue from such top-tier events is also ploughed back into “non-revenue generating, highly impactful social events,” the minister added.
By January 2024, hotel rates in Singapore have increased by more than 2,000 percent! Tickets to Swift’s Singapore concerts started selling in July 2023. What used to be US$150 a night in a hotel there has gone up to US$450. All hotels in the country are fully booked, so the reports go as of this writing.
There’s just one sore note about Swift’s concert. There were reports from the opening night concert on 2 March that concertgoers in some of the floor sections rushing to the VIP area on front of the stage, ruthlessly pushing away those who bought the S$1,800 tickets for the area. Additional security measures have been put in place in the National Stadium for the remaining concerts.
Reports have it, too, that Swift is not only an enchanting pop concert diva but a very clever businesswoman. There are already four versions of her The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), an album yet to be released. Website avclub.com revealed that she has been deploying what reporter Mary Cate Carr branded as “a classic Swiftie sales strategy for Tortured Poets, one that shot 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and Midnights to success.”
Carr reported that at Swift’s Sunday night Eras Tour performance in Singapore, the singer announced a third variant of TTPD, “The Black Dog,” which she described as the “final new edition” of the album on her Instagram.
Each edition of the album she has announced comes with different cover images, different lyrical teases and a different bonus track, for which each variant is named: “The Black Dog” (lyric: “Old habits die screaming”), “The Albatross” (lyric: “Am I allowed to cry?”) and “The Bolter” (lyric: “You don’t get to tell me about sad”). That’s on top of the standard edition of the album, which comes with the bonus track “The Manuscript” (lyric: “I love you, it’s ruining my life”). To make the bonus variants even more enticing, each was only made available on Swift’s website for a limited amount of time.
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Meantime in the metropolis of this archipelago: iconic actor Jaclyn Jose, 60, joltingly moved on due to heart attack; the seemingly rising noontime show Tahanang Pinakamasayang has been reduced to airing replays until GMA shuts it down due to an P800-million overdue from its blocktime producers; semi-retired actor Ricardo Cepeda is in jail and so is young and wimp-looking filmmaker Jade Castro for allegedly setting fire a jeep in a town in the remote Quezon province. Also: character actor Angelica Jones is desperate about a son whose father does not want to sign their boy’s hospital birth certificate so he can graduate from grade school even as the boy once attempted suicide because his father has never visited him and never turned up in his school so everyone will know he is not fatherless at all.
On the other hand, comedian-actor Dennis Padilla has been moaning about some of his children never bothering to answer his calls and to his pleadings in his social media accounts to get a word or two from them. They are his children with the only woman she ever married: the ex-actor, ex-politician and ex-wife Marjorie Barretto. The most famous of those three offsprings is actor Julia Barretto who recently brought cheer to her dad by greeting him via phone text on his 62nd birthday recently.
Pinoy showbiz’s litany of sorrows these early months of the Year of Wood Dragon include low box-office intake in the movie houses. But even foreign films unreeled in cinemaplexes since January hardly earned. In January though, the Pinoy populace filled up the country’s biggest indoor show venue, Philippine Arena, to show their adulation for the British band Coldplay. The Korean idols have also been raking in cash in the country with their so-called meet-ups in venues as huge as the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Happily, couples who have broken up survive the separation. Practically proclaimed “Patrona ng mga Waldas” (Patron of the Extravagant Spender) by her ex-mother-in-law, Sarah Lahbati laughs off the branding and process to announce to the world, ex-husband Richard Gutierrez and Richard’s mother Annabelle Rama that she is “good at handling my finances.” Though she finally admitted recently that she did walk out from her husband, carting off with her their two young sons, she also announced that no one between them has filed for annulment. Is she hoping they can get back together when Rama stops minding them?
Meanwhile, the moanings of Pinoy actors Padilla and Jones are, seemingly unwittingly, making a movie they appear together, When Magic Hurts, familiar to the public even as the film has yet to get theater booking playdates. It’s actually top-billed by former ABS-CBN child actor Mutya Orquia, 17, and newcomer Beaver Magtalas, 18, an artist of ABS-CBN’s Star Hunt.
The film is a romantic one shot entirely at Atok, Benguet. Its director, Gabby Ramos, claimed during the film’s grand media conference at Luxent Hotel, QC, that it is the first time ever that a Pinoy film was shot entirely in that tourist destination at the peak of the Cordillera mountains up north.
Padilla’s sister-in-law, Claudine Barretto is also in the film and they play close friends. Padilla portrays a sedate gay in the story and Barretto’s character entrusts her young daughter to Padilla when she couldn’t take care of her anymore. When the kid grows up, she is portrayed by Orquia.
“Ina-inahan n’ya ako, hindi ama-amahan!” quipped Padilla at the media huddle.
Jones portrays the wealthy mother of Magtalas. Incidentally, Claudine’s daughter in the film is portrayed by one of her real-life daughters who will be billed in the movie as Quia Aryanna Barretto. Claudine has been separated from actor husband Raymart Santiago for years now. The little girl must be Claudine’s adopted daughter, whom she must have taken after the separation.
Claudine had an adopted daughter before she married Santiago. That daughter is now past 18 years old.