“Victor Basa: Up Close and Personal with Brother John”

    Perhaps,  the best way to describe Victor Basa is to simply say Victor Basa – the Penshoppe model. Billboards with Penshoppe advertisements are all over Metro Manila. It shows Victor Basa with a female model being made to appear with tanned skin, wearing white hair and donning penshoppe wears that are intended for summer! But, this description puts limit to the person who is definitely beyond being simply a product endorser.

    Victor Basa was a former housemate of our fellow May Bukas Pa actor and Pinoy Big Brother winner Ruben Gonzaga. Inside the bahay ni kuya, Ruben confided that Victor was teased as “hindi nag huhugas ng paa”. Which is of course, simply not true. Having worked with Victor since January, I observed how prim and proper Victor is. Aside from that, he manifests an aura of good breeding. He should, having been raised by a well to do family, Victor is an alumnus of Brent School, an exclusive school where most of their students are children of diplomats and foreign technocrats assigned in the Philippines.

    This young man who is also a sports enthusiast, is regularly lifting weights and is also into practical shooting, a hobby we share in common. We plan to target shoot someday when our schedules will permit. We agreed that I will help him get Permit to Carry for his gun.

    After the May Bukas Pa episode with Gabby Concepcion as our guest, Victor Basa had his moment. An episode which dealt on the life of Brother John with Dante Rivero as the episode guest acted as his father.

    Although I was not present during the tapings for this episode, we learned that it showed one of the handicapped of Victor Basa: his difficulty in delivering dialogues in tagalog. But to his credit, as Dominic Ochoa puts it, “Victor exerted all efforts to overcome his weakness in speaking tagalog. He tried his best by studying his lines by heart. Although our director had asked for retakes, at least Victor showed that he gave his best.”

    There was an interesting scene in that episode featuring Victor Basa. It was the ordination of Father John to become a full pledge Reverend Father from being a Brother. I  am sure that after watching that scene, you would agree with me that it has high production which is a rarity  in local teleserye. That ordination scene of Victor Basa with the rest of the actors playing the roles of priests would become a classic work which would be remembered by the viewers for a long time.