Jericho and KC Talk Travel

Here’s a riddle: How do you make a fish and a cloud cross paths? Why, with a whiteboard. “One time, during rehearsals for Katy The Musical, nag-drawing ako ng fish sa whiteboard. Tapos dahil wala siyang magawa, binura niya ‘yung drawing ko and she drew clouds. Sinira niya lang ‘yung kaligayahan ko,” Jericho Rosales recounts of his first tiff with KC Concepcion back in December ’08, bringing about their nicknames for each other. Jericho fondly calls her Cloud, and she refers to him as Fish.  

Thus began their friendship—a step higher from being mere acquaintances (Jericho’s manager, Angeli Valenciano, is the sister of Kiko Pangilinan, KC’s stepdad). Playing the love interest of Katy, the title character, was Jericho’s first foray into theat; KC, who played the lead in the musical, had already done a few productions, including the stage versions of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. 

“Fish, did we hit it off when we first worked together?” KC asks Jericho.

“Parang hindi,” he jokes.

“Parang hindi nga, ‘no?” she concurs. “I hated you!”

Then she laughs and, taking it back, reveals that Jericho is “really playful, makulit, and spontaneous. In all of our scenes, we were like cat and dog. Laging nag-aasaran. I loved doing scenes with him. It was a lot of fun!”

“Parang feeling ko bata pa lang, magkakilala na tayo,” Jericho tells her. Although he was a bit apprehensive at first about working with the daughter of showbiz sovereigns Sharon Cuneta and Gabby Concepcion, the feeling took a turn when KC proved herself to be a friend through thick and thin early on.

Backstage, still during a run of Katy, Jericho waited on tenterhooks for the winners of the ’08 Manila Film Festival in which he was nominated as Best Actor for his movie with Anne Curtis, Baler. In the end, the film took home 10 awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress—but Jericho didn’t receive any. Naturally, he felt very, very sad. 

“I was like, ‘How? Why?’ But KC told me, ‘Come on, Fish. We don’t work for the awards. We work for the craft.’ She was trying to make me feel better,” he recalls. “Cloud’s a really good person. It’s easy to get along with her kahit ang layo ng pinanggalingan namin sa isa’t isa.”

Different beginnings

Fish isn’t just a nickname—it was what Jericho used to sell before becoming famous. While eight-year-old KC was coming to terms with the pains of being in a broken family, Jericho, at 14, was hauling fish into a rented jeepney at Farmer’s Market in Cubao. While a young KC, mimicking her megastar mom, sang with a hairbrush in hand to her lola, Jericho, together with his lola and pamangkin, would set up shop at the Concepcion Market in Marikina every morning. And just as KC was adept at lacrosse and dancing, Jericho was skilled at cleaning fish in record time, hollering for suki, and of course, charming housewives and dalagas alike to buy from their stall. Did his good looks have anything to do with it? Maybe. But it was mostly hard work, which paid off as he soon amassed a large collection of G.I. Joe action figures with his daily earnings of P50.

“But when I first started the job, talagang binabangungot ako ng mga isda!” he remembers. “It was funny sometimes because when my pamangkin and I would ride on the jeep, the passengers would start covering their noses kasi ang lansa-lansa namin. Tapos may banyera pa kami, so sasabit na lang kami sa dyip.” 

But the tides soon changed when he convinced himself enough that maybe he did look good after all and tried his luck at a pageant for males in a noontime TV show. So while an adolescent KC Concepcion adjusted to middle school culture in Boston, Massachusetts, 17-year-old Jericho Rosales flailed about to a Castilian beat in Eat Bulaga to showcase his talent: dancing.

“Watching it now makes me really laugh. Nakakahiya talaga. But it was part of my life, so it’s okay. Besides, it gives joy to my friends,” he says. Despite the embarrassment, Jericho was eventually named Mr. Pogi ’97. He then went on to become part of ABS-CBN’s Star Circle Batch 4, together with future and present undying ka-love team, Kristine Hermosa. His first role on TV was a fraternity master who beat up the late matinee idol, Rico Yan.

“When I got into showbiz, I knew what I wanted to do,” Jericho says. “I wanted to be a director and a producer. I’ve actually taken cinematography classes already.”

Crossing paths

College may not be in Jericho’s agenda anymore, but it was in KC’s, who earned an International Corporate Communications degree with a minor in Theater Arts at the American University of Paris—because her parents mandated that she finish school first before getting into anything else. But now that that’s over and done with, her acting career is in full swing. Having already starred in two movies, For the First Time and When I Met U, she’s got another one coming up called I’ll Be There with none other than her friend, Fish, and her dad, Gabby Concepcion.

“When they first told me the plans of doing a movie with Papa, I really didn’t think it could happen. But when it was actually going to happen, I had to go through telling my mom about it and dealing with all the sensitivity issues that come with it. I got worried for a while, but now I’m just really, really happy about the whole thing,” she says. “It really means a lot to me because it’s almost exactly what happened to me in real life. You know, my dad and I didn’t see each other for 13 years. Then when circumstances bring you back together, you realize you can still make up for time lost. It’s all about second chances at relationships.”

And ultimately, it’s a love story, too—starring the newly-minted Jericho-KC love team.

“Love team ba ‘to?” KC says, feigning dispute.

“I don’t think so!” replies Jericho.

“Well, we’re very comfortable with each other, and we’re both magulo. When we throw lines with each other, it feels very natural. It’s so spontaneous, like playing around,” she says.

“But KC’s very professional,” Jericho adds. “She’s the type na sa gabi pa lang nag-aaral na ng lines. She knows her cues. Ako, mahilig ako mag-adlib. So when I miss cues, she’d go, ‘You’re supposed to say this.’ Alam niya pati mga linya ko.”

Such rapport could be a prelude to romance, but that’s yet to be seen as KC declares that Po is the love of her life. And Po is not a guy, mind you, but a fuzzy chow-chow. This kind of affection is something that Jericho understands because dogs are one of the many likes that he and KC share—another of which is travelling.

Globetrotting

With a popular celebrity for a mom, KC lived a life in transit most of the time. But her first international trip was with her father, Gabby. She was only two years old at that time, and all she could remember was going to a lot of candy stores in Tokyo, Japan. Then at 13, she traveled alone for the first time, flying back to Boston from the Philippines to visit a former schoolmate one summer.  

“What’s great about traveling alone is that you can be anyone you want to be,” she says. “You can do things you don’t usually do and you get to meet new people you’d never talk to if you had company. You can go at your own pace, and you don’t need to worry about other people’s schedules.”

When she entered college, she fed her wanderlust by living a continent away from home—in Paris, France. Despite the homesickness, she stuck it out for four years, and after and in between, she roughed it out and backpacked her way through Europe with friends. Once, en route to Rome from Paris, she and her French friend were stuck in a small train car with three other female foreigners and this crazy-looking man for 17 hours.

“He was staring at the walls and staring at the girls. So I stayed up the whole night because I felt like he was going to rape us,” she recalls. “But nothing happened naman. It was still a fun trip.”

Despite all the places she’s been to, this Cloud, however, hates flying. But flying is in her blood: She has several cousins who are flight attendants, an uncle who is a pilot, and her papa who would have been a pilot if not for his color-blindness. 

“So I should have all the reason in the world to love flying. But the more I fly, the more scared I get of planes. I guess I’m not a sky person,” she admits. “I’m more of a sea person.”

Just like Jericho the Surfer. He’s been ‘stoked’ for 11 years now and counting. Because of an injury that prevented him from pursuing basketball, a friend introduced him to surfing. The moment he finally stood up on his board and rushed over the water, Jericho fell in love with the sport. He began working his schedule around surfing. Never mind if sometimes his driver is unable to bring him all the way to the beaches of La Union—Jericho will take the bus. Never mind if paddling himself back and forth is such a painful routine. And never mind if the breakers that he so loves nearly drowned him several times.

“It’s like being inside a washing machine. Or sometimes, it’s like being pounded and suffocated at the same time,” he explains. “But I always go back for more. Surfers are the most relaxed people I know. There’s some sort of freedom when you’re out there. You’re at the mercy of this wide expanse of water and wala kang magagawa except to just go with the flow.”

Being a true-blue surfer dude, Jericho would love to stay in Hawaii “where it’s just like the Philippines and where you can walk around in shorts!” Once, he treated a former girlfriend to a trip to Maui for her birthday. “Because she said she wanted to go there,” he recalls. “But when we got to Maui, she realized she wanted to go to Miami pala!” Of course, they didn’t pack up and leave for Florida. They just packed up, hopped to Honolulu, and spent the rest of their holiday there.

Common Ground

Despite his fondness for the water and unlike KC, who once thought she was going to die during a turbulent flight to Hong Kong, Jericho wants to be a pilot. It’s the most feasible thing he could do to be like his childhood hero, Superman. He loves the Man of Steel’s ability to just whiz in and out of the Earth’s orbit anytime he wants.

“If I had billions and billions of dollars, I would pay whatever amount to go to the moon just so I can look at the Earth from there,” he says. That, to him, is the essence of travel—getting out of your comfort zone.

“When you go out there, you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. There are so many things that are happening, and the world will always move on, even without you. So it’s good to get away from the things that you’re used to once in a while,” KC agrees.  

So it’s okay for a fish to want to fly and a cloud to want to get away from the sky. Both so obviously different from each other, they still get along due to their insatiable desire to break borders. And with that, KC and Jericho are really not worlds apart after all:

KC’s destination picks

Palawan is always number one. It’s so much more beautiful than any other beach I’ve been to. Chiang mai in Thailand. I love Thai food, and I really like the Thai culture—ang ganda-gandang tingnan. And the people are so exotic, yet they’re so much like us.

New York is so busy, but people there know how to relax somehow. You can do whatever you want. It’s kind of like Paris. But I wouldn’t go to New York in the summer. It would be way too hot. Eze. It’s in the south of France. It’s this medieval town by the Mediterranean Sea. It has this church, and there are these gardens. It’s one my favorite places, and I’d love to go back there. It’s near Italy, so mas warm ‘yung mga tao.

Hokkaido in Japan. They have lavender fields, plus they have sake and really fresh sushi. Santorini in Greece because it’s so romantic.

Italy. The Italians are so warm and happy. They just like to eat, talk, and laugh. And when they make kwento, they’re so expressive.

Travel tips

KC says... Keep your phone charger in your carry-on. You never know when you’ll need it.

If it’s a long flight, get sleep on the plane, so you can make the most out of the day when you arrive. Don’t eat too much food on the plane—it will make you sick.

Don’t forget your passport. Bring cash at all times—not just pocket money. Have enough for an emergency, like enough for you to eat at least twice a day. 

Know as much as you can about the place where you’re going to.

Jericho’s surf sites

La Union. It’s accessible to the city, so I usually surf there. Samar’s Kalikuan Surf Resort where there’s white sand and walang masyadong tao.  

Catanduanes where the “Majestics” are—waves that the province is known for. But only boats can get to the surf spot. Malayo ka sa shore. Itatapon ka sa gitna ng dagat, aalis ‘yung boat, tapos babalikan ka na lang. Pagudpud in Ilocos Norte. The waves are great here! Walang tao at nasa dulo ka ng Pilipinas.

Siargao, if you really want adventure. You have to fly, take a boat, tapos may land trip pa.

Travel tips

Jericho says... Have a plan. But— Be open to changes. Be flexible. Bring cash.

Don’t buy so much stuff, but take lots of pictures. It’s the memories that count. Make friends—so you can always go back since you already know someone there.

Be careful.

Related Articles: JobsDB.com Celebrity Profile, Jericho Rosales: “Be Strong in Your Faith”, What You Should Know About Your Passport, Global Education