Katrina Halili Plays It Cool in Toronto

PHILIPPINE VILLAGE VOICE - Redefining Community News

Currents & Breaking News
Commentary
Volume 4, Issue No. 26
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /


. . . . . A community service of Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . . . .

The News UpFront: (TOP STORY) as of Sunday, July 25, 2010
~ Looking at entertainer Katrina Halili, one gets the impression that she's cool and collected after that sexual episode of several months ago. The tumult that visited her seems gone. And now she appears making headway to reestablish herself as a respectable actress/burlesque dancer/singer/model of empowerment (?) despite all the salacious stories and naughty pictures that flood cyberspace. Here in Toronto, she was like a machine, stamping her pictures with her signature and posing for souvenir photos. She merely smiled at any given turn, never saying a word, not even making a greeting to fans who braved the rain and patiently lined up for hours at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Her organizers could have done a better job loosening her among these people if only to make them feel how her shameful ordeal had fortified her.

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PREROGATIVE
By Romy Marquez

AN INTERVIEW AT THE MABUHAY FESTIVAL & TRADE SHOW
Katrina Halili, Entertainer, On the Cusp In Toronto

TORONTO - This Saturday (July 24, 2010) I had gone to the Mabuhay Festival & Trade Show at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on a singular mission: I wanted to have a fresh look at the entertainer Katrina Halili.

Weeks before, I had made known my interest in interviewing her. That seemed to have been accepted even as my request bounced from one person to another until it finally landed on the lap of a guy named Josh, her handler in Toronto.

I had the least interest in entertainment reporting. It's not one of my strong points. But when a potential big story happens to come my way -- as did the Katrina Halili sexual brouhaha -- I will manage.

I'm not used to being physically pushed; anyone's hands brushing with any part of my body is quickly repelled. It's a reflex acquired from early years of police reporting and has now become part of me.

My mention of this is necessitated by rough treatment I got from the festival security, a squad of yellow-shirted volunteers who thought brawn was mightier than brains, which they might not have possessed anyways.

Nobody, and I mean no one, has ever muscled me out of any event; one, because I don't gate-crashed; two, I make sure I have a legitimate reason to be where I am, and I did have one; three, I am not one to be intimidated by appearances and numbers.

Josh was rattling over his cellphone, looking helpless at the number of people trying to get close to Katrina as she sat and autographed pictures for her army of camera-wielding fans. They were subdued and quiet, if you ask me, and a lot less, compared to the boisterous throng that filled the cavernous Eaton Center when the teen singing sensation Charice Pempengco made her appearance in Toronto several weeks ago.

Fans and curious onlookers queue up for an autographed photo of Katrina Halili and a chance to be pictured with her at the Mabuhay Festival & Trade Show on Saturday (July 24, 2010) at Metro Toronto Convention Centre in downtown Toronto.

I had the thought that the people who queued up for Katrina's autograph were there out of curiosity, they're not her loyal followers -- precisely to see how she managed to pull herself up after that unpleasant sexual episode with her lover, the infamous beauty-doctor-turned-bit-actor Hayden Kho.

If Josh and the volunteer security had known this, they would have realized that the autograph-signing beside the huge GMA booth right across from the stage would be quite unwieldy. And that there would be delirious fans wanting to take Katrina's picture, and their own pictures with her.

Katrina sat between her two companions, the veteran actor German Moreno to her left, and another actor named Joh Nite on her right. That seating arrangement already guaranteed Moreno and Nite to be in the picture frame at any angle, meaning it'd be nearly impossible to take Katrina's picture alone.

The non-thinking security detail further complicated that situation by providing another layer of cover, that is, by positioning themselves directly in the line of sight of the cameras. As a result, people moved this and that way, raising their arms, and hoped to have the chance to shoot once those in front move any which way. And once they moved, either the face or the heads of the security detail occupied most if not the entire camera screen.

Thus the nudging, elbowing, shoving for positions. The security detail must have thought that by barricading Katrina, they secured her. That is quite flawed. But what can one expect? They're there for their brawn and for their ability to yell a command. Did they have functioning brains? Well, ask people who were there. For me, they've got no more than a tail between their legs, and that's being honest.

I stood at the corner where people exited after getting their autographed pictures, waiting until Katrina finish up and I will have my interview. Josh had guaranteed that I will have that opportunity. "Are you Romy?" he asked, which confirmed to me that my request for a one-on-one interview had finally reached him and her.

But the overzealous security had seen it differently. One was so diligent to keep me out by physically shoving me, the others were equally belligerent they threw dagger looks. I didn't give an inch of ground. There was no problem getting physical if they willed it. I told them I wasn't going to leave until I've taken my pictures at that moment when an interview with Katrina wasn't possible.

Was Katrina worth all the trouble that I had to face and bear, I asked myself. The reasoning mind said the issue has gone past her. The issue now was whether to allow a bunch of volunteers to intimidate journalists in the conduct of their work. That was what disturbed me.

The trek to the festival was only secondary. It happened to be the venue where the interview would take place. And so with an open mind and a hope that I would be allowed to view her in a different perspective, I went to the convention centre. The festival and trade show had very little appeal to me, specially after it momentarily turned into a political forum for some Toronto candidates.

Are the organizers so colonial-minded as to willingly allow these candidates time to pander to Filipinos in their own festival? One even had the gumption to say "Filipinos are the Italians of the Pacific" (conversely, does that statement make the Italians the Filipinos of the Mediterranean?).

I had spent a whole day at the festival waiting for the interview that never happened. You see, I'm trying to erase from my mind the images I had of Katrina galloping in bed with her lover, the sex maniac Hayden Kho.

Journalist-friends in Manila had provided me with a video collection as graphic in details as the one involving Katrina. So young, so indulgent, so immersed, so happy . . . I said then to myself.

But that was supposed to be a couple in love engaged in an animal act in the privacy of a motel room . . . until the lustful Kho had videotaped it and the whole world came to know Katrina by her sexual submission to Kho.

It's pointless to argue whether or not that video had been repeatedly watched. The first time I viewed it (which implies there was a second, and a third, etc.) the visuals stuck on my mind. I tried to look deeply and I found nothing to disprove it's pure and simple carnal. Kho performed for his hidden camera. Katrina naively gave in to his every wishes.

Whenever I tried to replay it in my memory, the face of Katrina comes out, not as the innocent victim that her handlers and the Philippine media had tried to portray, which is understandable, but as the willing, conscious, gratification-seeking sex partner of Kho.

I don't mean to be harsh. I don't mean to judge her by this incident with Kho. I don't mean to condemn her, either. The fact is her romp in bed with him is deeply embedded in memory.

I was trying to purge it completely, at least to give Katrina a chance to move away from that sexual template that has defined her and will continue to define her even as she tries mighty hard to look sweet and collected.

Well, this first step towards that has failed. I waited the whole day looking forward to the interview. And I wasn't going to wait several hours more until she has found the time for me.

Josh has failed her. The festival's security detail failed her. The organizers failed her. Her home studio GMA failed her. I only needed a few minutes for that glimpse that might have changed how people view her. That attempt also failed.

(PREROGATIVE is the title of my longest-running column in several newspapers in the United States, specifically in San Diego and Los Angeles, California. In Chicago, Illinois, that column carried a different name and is called PASSWORD. - Editor)

For other stories, please visit: http://travelsthemes.blogspot.com/  and: http://gotchajournalist.blogspot.com/ .

For other news videos, please visit:
Toronto Mayoral Candidate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9h4OrGl5A&feature=channel

For the G20 summit, click the following links:
1. The other side of protest at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buJvzJm-E5A&feature=channel
2. Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRYY6xhuOW8&feature=channel
3. Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEX5W6Xgfy8&feature=channel
4. Part III: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWm3_GAw4Kk&feature=channel
5. Part IV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q6OMZ53xzA&feature=channel
6. Part V: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4IIek0-_ZE&feature=channel
7.Part VI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQO7om6gPro&feature=channel
8. Part VII: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icDJYp_Fx-c

(This Currents & Breaking News may be posted online, broadcast or reprinted, on condition that the author and the publication be properly credited. By Romeo P. Marquez, Editor, Philippine Village Voice, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Volume 4, Issue no. 26, July 25, 2010).