By: Isah V. Red From: Manila Standard Today [January 5, 2009] Movie director Quark Henares (son of Vicky Belo, yes the controversial owner of a chain of beauty clinics, and ex-husband Atom Henares of the famed FM radio NU 107) takes the directing chore for the series with singer-turned-director Randy Santiago (brother of Rowell Santiago and son of the late screenwriter/director Pablo Santiago and actress Cielito Legaspi). The telecast of Parekoy is a breakthrough on daytime TV, especially in the afternoon, the programming of which is basically centered on soap opera. While the show is structured like a continuing series (the daily episodes are not independent of each other but a part of a whole) that has a start, middle, and surely an ending after 13 weeks. �It�s like your ordinary soap,� says John Prats who stars as Joseph in the series, �the difference is we�re not in the melodrama mold. We find ourselves in some very funny situations.� The �we� John refers to are his co-stars Zanjoe Marudo who plays Mario, and Jayson Gainza as Jess. They are known in the neighborhood as the �susmaryosep� trio for the only reason that their names have been culled from Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Randy seems determined to change the landscape of daytime television as he is very optimistic about Parekoy. He said that apart from the three guys� funny experiences, each of their families are in some very weird situations. Will the macho and homophobic Mario be shocked to find out his father�s secret? How will Joseph be able to face and handle being a good brother to his siblings�all sisters? Will Jess be able to overcome being �under de saya� to his wife? These and more will be what the audiences have to watch out for starting this afternoon. John and Jayson So many talents, but few shows to appear on! That is actually what�s happening on television these days. It�s a dog-eat-dog world, and the process of natural selection is at work 24/7. So, it�s a miracle that John Prats is still in the list of working actors (even if in the past year he had nothing but a dancing sequence in the Sunday noontime variety show ASAP). �We have been taping for Parekoy in the last year and a half,� he said, �But the management wanted something more than what they had seen in the first-week package, so we had to do it all over again.� Now that the show is finally on the air, John is not only excited about the idea but looking forward to working full time for it. On Dec. 30, the crew was still taping sequences for the show�s advance episodes. Jayson Gainza, on the other hand, is even more excited, after all it�s not that easy to be cast in a show on ABS-CBN without help from a clever manager. The Pinoy Big Brother alumnus is solely managed by Star Magic which has close to a hundred talents under its care. He was previously in I Love Betty La Fea and continues to make appearances irregularly. It is in Parekoy, though, that his comic talent is being fully harnessed by both Randy Santiago and Quark Henares. He is a Batangas City native (he still goes home when time permits) with his wife and kids, but he has found an apartment near the ABS-CBN compound to make things easier for him. From among his Big Brother batch, Jayson is perhaps the most successful, not to mention Zanjoe Marudo and Sam Milby, both of whom are being co-managed with Star Magic by very astute talent scouts. |