Cover Story
The Next Level
By Jasmine W. Payo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:54:00 11/16/2008
Filed Under: People, Television, Sport
MANILA, Philippines – It seemed like a suspicious job offer. So evidently, the message got a quick brush-off.
In the world of cyberspace, after all, young and pretty women like her are tempting targets of mischief. Yet months later, curiosity and just plain instinct got the better of her.
Turns out, the dubious proposal did intend to turn Alexandrine Ann “Drinie” Alcid Aguilar into the first Filipina host of Asia’s top sports television network.
“I woke up one day to a message on MySpace asking if I’d like to work for the company,” Aguilar shares. “It said something like ‘I’ve seen your work before… you might be interested in working for our company. If you are, then send your show reel to this address...’ Well, knowing there’s a fair share of deceiving people on the site, I decided to ignore it.”
Little did Aguilar know that it was actually ESPN Star Sports that she had left hanging then.
“About two months later, I was clearing up my inbox when I came across the message again. This time, I gave it the benefit of the doubt,” Aguilar recalls. “It turns out the guy who made the offer was legit. I went to Singapore for an extended audition on camera and about a week into it, he called me into his office and told me he wanted to sign me up.”
Thrilled seemed like an understatement for how she felt. Having had her own share of disappointments in Manila’s audition circuit, Aguilar couldn’t believe that a broadcast giant with an Asia-wide audience would take her in a snap.
“It was beautiful news. I was so ecstatic, I was crying. It was huge for me,” she says.
Now based in Singapore, Aguilar juggles the virtual sports show “Game,” the motorsports program “Engine Block” and the news bulletin “Score Tonight” for ESPN Star Sports.
But Aguilar is certainly no mere mouthpiece. The 27-year-old looker is a real athlete (“I’m still into the sports I’ve been passionate about, and that includes capoeira, surfing and wakeboarding”), a motorsport aficionado (“My dream car is a white targa top, twin turbo Toyota Supra circa 1996”) and a tech junkie (“Oh, I go online everyday. Come to think of it, I’m online most of the day. I recently got a Blackberry, which I’ve become addicted to. Let’s just say I now know how the term ‘crackberry’ was coined”).
Now a two-year Asian boob tube celebrity, Aguilar claims she’s no longer a bundle of nerves.
“Not like before, that’s for sure. I can say that I’ve settled into doing big assignments little by little. I still do get a little nervous, but I’d call them ‘healthy nerves’—the kind that fuel you to do good, not the kind that make you screw up so you can’t function properly,” she shares.
“I always want to do a good job and bring back a good story for the show, so in order to eliminate nervousness I just make sure I’m well prepared. If I’ve done my homework then I go in confidently—and that makes all the difference.”
Her big assignments have included interviews with world football star Ronaldinho, NBA greats Paul Pierce and Amare Stoudemire and coverage of worldwide game conventions from the Tokyo Game Show in Japan to E3 in Los Angeles.
“I’ve had the privilege of being invited to the motion capturing facilities of [the video games] FIFA ’09 and NBA ’09. Motion capturing is the process where they put athletes in a special suit to track their movements and translate them into the game. Those events are at the top of my list in terms of my experience hosting ‘Game,’” shares Aguilar.
“For FIFA ’09, I was in Barcelona, Spain where I got to meet five world class football players, including one of my all time favorites, Ronaldinho, who’s now in AC Milan,” she says. “Aside from seeing him in action, I also got to interview him—which I prepared for by learning Portuguese in advance.”
Aguilar continues: “For NBA ’09, I went to Vancouver and met a bunch of NBA players. Oh, and while I was at Vancouver, we did an episode where I was motion captured in the same way as those big athletes, to understand how the whole process works. I wore what looked like a full wetsuit with little motion detectors attached to my body. I danced the salsa and did some capoeira moves, to later see an animated digitized version of myself in the game. That was fun!”
A former team captain of La Salle Zobel’s high school soccer team, Aguilar admits turning into a football fan girl in front of Ronaldinho. “I was blushing the whole time I sat beside him, and my producer said that he wished he were a football player so that he could make girls react that way,” Aguilar confesses. “The thing is, I’m really a sports fan to begin with. I’ve been watching him since the 2002 World Cup when Brazil won, and subsequently in Barcelona. I’ve been following his career for about five years now, so it was pretty crazy finding out I was going to interview him. Actually, I fell off my chair—literally—when I found out.”
Aguilar also recalls her NBA encounters. “I got a little starstruck with Amare Stoudemire too,” she adds. “He plays for the Phoenix Suns, the team that I don’t like since they have been knocking my team, the Los Angeles Lakers, out of the playoffs for the past two years. But he was a cool guy. He made me laugh. Admittedly I would have been more starstruck with Paul Pierce if I had met him after his stellar performance leading to last season’s championship. It was still interesting to meet him before he won his NBA Finals ring. I was asking him about his dream team and he confidently said ‘the 2007-2008 Celtics team.’ At that time they had just acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to play alongside him, and he was pretty hyped up over the chances of taking it all the way—and what do you know, they did.”
Early on, though, Aguilar really seemed destined for the international route. After studying Speech Communication at the University of the Philippines on a football scholarship, she moved to Australia to pursue further studies at the University of Technology Sydney’s Insearch program. While there, Aguilar earned a Diploma of Communication with the highest honors, before finishing a degree in Bachelor of Arts in Media and Cultural Studies at the Macquarie University in Sydney.
Her current international gigs also allow Aguilar to carve out her own name, apart from her older brother and Universal Reality Combat Championship local standout Alvin Aguilar, whom she briefly teamed up with to co-host “The Real Pinoy Fighter” show on ABS-CBN.
But working away from home has its own setbacks, of course. “Well, no doubt long-distance relationships are difficult. But thank goodness for online communication. Skype, Yahoo Messenger and Facebook have allowed me to keep in touch with everyone I miss dearly,” says Aguilar. “I only use it though when it’s absolutely necessary. I find it very impersonal. There really is nothing like being in front of the person you are talking to.”
Aguilar stresses that pouring out personal stories and maintaining relationships on cyberspace should have its limits. “I do agree that it has turned some youths into narcissists. They use it sometimes to show off. Or, it has also become a popularity contest for some people. It’s like ‘Look I have 1,500 friends and three Friendster accounts,’ even if 75 percent of them are total strangers,” Aguilar points out.
“I actually find it quite amusing. Well let them, if that’s what floats their boat. I don’t think there’s anything gravely wrong with it. There are a whole lot more pros to these sites. It has made it easier to get in touch with your loved ones, friends, and even long-lost classmates. And, it’s a fantastic medium for networking. I’m not one to complain about them. I got my dream job through MySpace. I’m grateful and entirely blessed that it’s taken me to where I am now.”
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