“MBP: The Tapings of the Final Week Episodes”

May Bukas Pa finally ended last friday, 5 February 2010. It made history as the teleserye that got the most number of discussions on twitter on the day of its final episode! The final episode of the show ended with reportedly the highest viewership rating worldwide but this blog would like to document my experience during its final taping week, for the record, so to speak.

During our January 31 taping, the cast were told to reserve February 3, a wednesday aside from the regular tuesday (02 February) and thursday (04 February) taping days. What happened was that there were no “pondo” scenes on our last week. What we taped on 31 January were for airing on 01 February. Then, what we taped on monday were for airing on tuesday, and so on until friday!

My friends and office mates were asking me what will be the ending when I went to office on monday, 01 February. They thought that I was lying when I told them that what we taped on sunday was for the monday episode. But, that was the truth. The script that was available on sunday was for day 1 and day 2 yet.

Such that on tuesday (02 February), when Ginger Conejero of the ABS-CBN morning show “Umagang Kay Ganda” interviewed us live on location and asked me what would happen to Santino in the ending, I answered her in all honesty that we do not know yet what would be the ending because what we had then was the script for day 2 (tuesday) only.

It was fun to be in the show “Umagang Kay Ganda” as part of the promotional campaign for the final week of “May Bukas Pa”. Since it was a remote broadcast, ABS-CBN had set up a remote satellite on location inside the San Guillermo Church compound and had sent Ginger Conejero to interview us on the set at 7:00 a.m. Ginger was a good host, she even tried to memorize our names as she introduced us.

After the last interview at about 8:00 a.m., we learned from the staff that our next activity will still be at 3:00 p.m. We had almost 7 hours of stand by period! David Chua invited me to join him, he decided to go back Trinoma. I joined him. David and Robin Tolentino went to gym practice at the Fitness First in Trinoma. I went window shopping!

We went back to the set at 3:00 p.m. Tapings lasted till early morning of wednesday. Most of the cast decided to stay in Pampanga since after only a few hours of sleep, our call time on wednesday was at 9:00 a.m. Tapings lasted till the early morning of thursday.

Calltime on thursday was at 7:00 p.m.! It gave me the chance to report to my office! Although I hardly had any sleep yet, I went to office on thursday. After office at 5:00 p.m. I rushed back to Bacolor, Pampanga to be there before the calltime.

Father Jess Manabat invited us to have dinner with him at the convent for the last time. You see for the past year, Father Jess was so accommodating, he always invited us for dinner. Dinner was prepared by Dada, the reliable cook of the convent. This blogger would like to take this opportunity to thank Father Jess to the sumptuous dinners, and his staff – Maam Vicky, Dada and Lucky.

Jaime Fabregas had to leave at 4:00 a.m.to catch his flight for Dubai at 8:00 a.m. I was lucky, Director Jerome blocked me to be with Jaime Fabregas in that scene where Santino came out from Bro's room and walked into the Church alive! When Jaime had his last scene at 2:00 a.m., it was also my last scene. The other priests (except me and David Chua) had to stay till pack up time at 5:00 a.m!