Power, we know, corrupts, so how did Rosanne Prieto escape unscathed? Consider her social standing, uncommon physical gifts, old wealth, and broad exposure to the world via nonstop travel—you would almost excuse condescension from her, but it’s just not there. Vanni de Sequera ponders how one so privileged ended up like one of the boys

Trust me, it’s never easy writing about gorgeous women. Hotness is especially insidious when you’re tasked with composing paeans to a knockout. When confronted with a chosen one, the writer’s default strategy is to engage in rhapsody—limpid eyes, fleshy lips, sultry décolletage; you get the picture. But savvy readers like you will spot the submissiveness and recoil, won’t you?

So the wordsmith must sidestep stylistic landmines. Hotness, see, acquits a woman of a blandly lived life. It’s an unfair but tolerated trump card. It also animates first impressions about such an apparition, whereas her terrestrial peers might never survive the initial scrutiny. Then, the gawk reflex transitions into resentment—how dare she have it so easy at my literary expense?

Good thing Rosanne Prieto provides me with a hook. It’s easy to reel in; I only have to listen to her lusty voice, which punctures the restaurant’s noise bubble, as she declares her sports zealotry. She’s more than just one of the guys in this respect: she’s a freak, a sports nut with epically clear epidermis, patrician bone structure, and hot legs. Look, I’m trying my best to avoid the limpid/fleshy/sultry pitfall, but what’s a guy gonna do?

Damn, this woman could talk basketball all day if you allowed her to, and what fool wouldn’t? Not me, though I now feel inadequate enough to make a mental note to brush up on my PBA.

Her present basketball rant commands attention, each argument spiked by a high-pitched entreaty. Porous defense? Stupid officiating? Coach-mandated roughhousing? Gimme (her) a break! Her voice and verve are forceful as hell, and it’s a wonderful thing to behold.

She’s probably oblivious to how diners are now craning their necks, seeking the source of the vibrato, locking their eyes on this beauty incongruously spouting invectives, forgiving the tantrum because, well, hotness is always forgiven much. They sort of recognize the face, but they can’t put a finger on it. Rosanne Prieto had always been a reluctant model, highly coveted but circumspect about the bestowal of her eye-appeal and pedigree for commercial gain (hers and the clients’). Moreover, she’s simply out of the country too often—then “totally hibernates” when she does return—to establish face recall, no matter how impressive that face actually is.

“Some people prefer to spend their money building a beautiful house, and they’re content to stay in one place. I would rather spend my money traveling and seeing the world.”

Despite her misgivings, there was a certain inevitability to seeing Rosanne on TV and in print. Her grandmother, etiquette guru Mary Prieto, was a former actress with an iconoclastic sense of style (in that sedate era, wearing your hair short and just plain wearing shorts were enough to earn you the rebel label). Rosanne’s mother, Nini Licaros, “produced shows for the networks like Eh Kasi Babae. She discovered Dawn Zulueta and Cesar Montano. That’s why I knew the directors like Fritz Ynfante and Johnny Manahan. I would occasionally come out just as an extra because Grandma was strict. But I did Children’s Hour with June Keithley when I was eleven. I also did Annie with Lea [Salonga] and Monique [Wilson]. It just so happened they lacked an orphan.”

Her parents split up (both eventually remarried) when Rosanne was a mere child, but she always seemed so indomitable, possessing traits even as a youngster that allowed her to cope with the ordeal. “I’m very lucky I didn’t get messed up. My mom asked me when I was nine years old if I wanted her to get back with Dad. I answered: ‘No, all you ever do is fight.’” When Rosanne was a teenager, she would dispense advice so sensible it made people exclaim here was no regular adolescent. Even now, her peculiar (for this country, at least) circumstance—essentially having four parents—does not disconcert her. “I’m very happy with my stepparents. Sometimes I get along with them better than my own ones,” she quips.

Clearly, she takes after her mother, for whom, Rosanne explains, “travel was the answer to everything.” Rosanne, then only 11, embarked on a trip that would eventually kick off a lifelong, incurable case of wanderlust; in due course, it would transport her to five continents. For one long European summer, Rosanne forwent her schoolbooks in the Philippines and absorbed instead life lessons in the Netherlands under the Children’s International Summer Village (CISV) program. First stop: Amsterdam, where she lived with a well-to-do Dutch family. “They were really so nice to me,” she says. “They even gave me clogs!”

Intrepid little Rosanne assimilated herself so effortlessly that, before long, she could speak a little Dutch. From Amsterdam, Rosanne proceeded to Egmond aan Zee, the “summer village” prescribed by CISV. For a couple of months, she mingled with kids from 30 other countries. “On some nights, I would dance the tinikling.” On other nights, she and three other Filipino children, with the help of an “adult leader,” would introduce recipes and films from the Philippines to children bursting with so much goodwill they might have oohed and aahed at dinuguan and Enchanted Island.

In Zambia, there was a near-encounter with an ill-tempered bull elephant. In Egypt, she swam in the Red Sea, purportedly in the vicinity of where Moses parted it. Yet she reserves her most ebullient praise for the wonders found within her own country.

“I had such a blast,” she says, “that I called my mom and told her I didn’t want to go home.” Rosanne’s mother was incredulous—you have to come home! “But, Mom,” her daughter pleaded, “I saw the house of Anne Frank!”
The experience was key to turning her into an inveterate globe-trotter. “Some people prefer to spend their money building a beautiful house, and they’re content to stay in one place. I would rather spend my money traveling and seeing the world. I know I’m lucky enough to have the luxury of traveling, and I’m very grateful for that,” she says.

There have been, of course, memorable experiences along the way. In Zambia, there was a near-encounter with an ill-tempered bull elephant (as an aside, an Al-Qaeda suspect in the London suicide bombings was arrested during her stay there). In Egypt, during a tour that took her from Alexandria to Aswan, she swam in the Red Sea, purportedly in the vicinity of where Moses parted it. (Was it here or over there, she asked, but no one could answer this fair question.) Yet she reserves her most ebullient praise for the wonders found within her own country: “I could be the Secretary of Tourism. I’m always pitching the Philippines. The best places I’ve been to are in the Philippines. We have it all.”

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