The Ballad of Boy and Bong

Tuesday, 13 February 2007 00:00

THEY arrive from an afternoon excursion, shopping for orchids for their Quezon City home. They call each other “Baby,” and instinctively change into clothes in the same shade for the photo shoot. One is a celebrity a few years older; the other works behind the scenes, but it’s definitely a relationship of equals. They first met on November 3, 1983 — both remember the date in a heartbeat — and will mark their 24th year as a couple this year.

They don’t like stereotypes, but hey, we’ll say it anyway—heterosexuals should get so lucky. The couple in question is TV host and mega talent manager Boy Abunda and Bong Quintana, former Philippine Air Lines (PAL) steward turned talent manager. “We don’t really identify ourselves as a gay couple, and we don’t role-play,” Boy explains. “There’s no male or female, papa or mama, top or bottom. We go where the wind blows.”

The more outspoken Boy is quick to bash the idea of a “typical” gay relationship — fleeting, casual. “That I can accept, but not the idea of a gay relationship being based on promiscuity,” Boy says. “You can judge me as a TV host; you can have an opinion about my show and my work. But if you judge me on my being gay—as in, don’t come in here, bawal ang bakla dito (gays not allowed here)—well, lalabas ang pagka-Waray ko (My Waray fierceness emerges).”

Bong does get indignant, but more out of empathy for his mate. “I’d think, hey, why are you saying that about him?”

Having come from a conservative family—Bong’s father was a policeman—it’s the best testament to the relationship’s success that even Papa, as both Bong and Boy call Bong’s father, has given them his blessing.

But we’re getting ahead of the story. It wasn’t always that easy. In 1983, Boy Abunda was PR director of the Metropolitan Theater, a gay provinciano (bumpkin) from Borongan, Samar who had become a dynamic PR maverick reveling in his milieu. Bong was a 17-year-old apprentice with the Metropolitan Dance Theatre, and was practicing on the ballet barre before class when Boy first glimpsed him. “I saw somebody peek in, somebody in a coat and bitin (too-short) pants with long hair,” Bong recalls with a laugh.

Boy invited the young man, along with a couple of friends, for a snack, and Bong got so stuffed he couldn’t dance anymore. Boy offered to tour him around the Metropolitan Theater instead. “It was raining,” Boy recalls. “And since then, essentially, we’ve been together.”

They had different perceptions of the relationship. For the younger man, it was “exciting. I had come from a straight relationship, but I had no worries because I was sure I would not fall for him. I thought, this was something new, a passing fancy - I’ll give it a shot. But wow, were the tables turned!”

Indeed, by consensus, both remember how it was Bong who eventually did most of the chasing. It even reached a point when Bong began to bother him, Boy recalls. “Everywhere I went, he would show up, and I would tell my friends, ‘Naku, andyan na naman ang bagets’ (There’s the kid again). It was cute, but I never thought it was going to be serious. I had no expectations. I had come from a bad relationship, and I was pretty cynical.”

Bong realized he was “in trouble,” as he describes it, after about three or four months. “I was the one playing Sherlock Holmes. I’d go to places where I thought he’d hang out, and sometimes I’d be right.” Bong was smitten with Boy’s drive and intensity. “He was my idol,” he says. So smitten was he that he’d leave home to spend the night at Boy’s then go to school in the morning. This, after his father, the policeman, had ordered him not to leave the house, sometimes even handcuffing the son to his bed to make sure he complied.

For his part, it took Boy a couple of years to realize that this was no fleeting fancy. “He’s still here. He irritates me once in a while, but I look for him. I was starting to really fall. Had he left me after a year, it would have been just one of those things.”

Over the years, Boy would go on to found Backroom Inc., build a career as the hottest talent manager in the business, and become a celebrity in his own right. Bong would become a PAL steward for 11 years, leaving only to take over as vice president of Backroom and run the company while Boy stayed in the limelight. Yet today, when asked what makes their relationship work, neither has a definite answer.

“There’s nothing generic, because this is a personal story,” Boy says. “I think it’s also serendipity. If I got into a relationship with someone who, at that time, was grappling with his ego like me, matagal nang natapos ito (this would have ended a long time ago).”

When did they know that they had finally become equals? “Towards the end of his stint with PAL,” Boy says with a laugh, “When he was already yelling back at me! Lines had blurred. But seriously, I believe that a relationship is not possible if there is no equality on all levels—sexually, emotionally, financially. In spite of my celebrity, we come into this house without any extra baggage about who we are.”

That also means giving each other equal space, even when, as Boy puts it, “there are no rules written on the wall.” That’s why Bong backs off when Boy is quiet and lost in a book he’s reading. That’s why Boy stays home or works when Bong, the athlete, goes mountain climbing and scuba diving, or plays tennis with friends; Boy joins him for the occasional game of tennis or badminton.

Both admit they’re very different—Boy knows the books, but can’t operate a cell phone; Bong is the techie. Boy is more confrontational but melts when Bong cries, just as Bong is all thumbs when Boy whines about bodily aches and pains. “We have a number of commonalities,” Boy says. “We love to talk, and we love to laugh — really laugh.”

Maybe that’s the secret? “We live each day to the best or worst we can,” Boy says simply. Even commitments are nothing formal. “Just recently we told each other, Baby, if I tell you, lumayas ka (Get out!), don’t ever believe me “because I’d be lying,” Boy says.

A very Boy Abunda question: Describe this relationship in one word.

Boy: Ha? I’m calculating an answer, and that’s not good. Let’s see….

Bong: Ako meron na (I have one): Forever. After eight, 12, 20 years, only after 20, he said, ‘Baby, palagay ko, forever na ito.’ After 20 years, ha!

Boy: My God! That’s the first thing that comes to mind. “My God!"