Raymond Bagatsing’s kaleidoscopic world

Raymond Bagatsing has always been an old soul. Way back when boys his age played rough and tumble games, the shy Raymond would sit by himself in one corner. No, he didn’t sulk. Brood is the word.

After all, his was no normal family. Others had a Dad and Mom who lived in harmony under one roof. His was dysfunctional. When his dad took in a new wife, the six-year-old Raymond boiled inside.

Whenever his then Nueva Ecija-based mom visited him in his dad’s compound in Manila, Raymond would cry his lungs out running after her.

"It got to a point where they had to use all sorts of tricks in the bag to pacify me, like leading me away to take a shower," he recalls.

Raymond recalls a time when he actually ran away from home, by leaving the apartment he shared with his dad and moving to his paternal grandmother’s unit 11 doors away (it was in the family compound) to get away from it all. And he was only seven then!

Then, what about the time when he wanted to leave for the US with a friend of his Dad’s, because of trouble in the family? Raymond could go on and on.

Wonder no more where Raymond got all that angst as an actor and depth as a performer. His awards – a Best Actor grand slam for Ang Kriminal sa Barrio Concepcion, and another in the same category from Urian and from the Asian TV Awards – prove this.

"My life is so full of color, I can direct a film about it," Raymond admits. He even wants to go a step further by writing his autobiography.

The story will revolve around a sensitive soul who "feels everything, absorbs everything. A real softie inside."

Raymond is not ashamed to admit something all artists know from the start. They are more emotional, more like sponges who absorb everything. Squeeze them and the creative juices just flow.

It’s never easy, being different from the rest. But that’s just how Raymond, he of the political family name, was made.

Even in his marriage, Raymond was the hopeless romantic, the eternal artist. He rushed pellmell into marriage with Lara Fabregas, believing his gut feel more than rational things like say, compatibility. For him and for Lara, it was all instant magic, the dictates of the here and now. The spontaneity of the moment.

Delay would have been stemming the joy and bliss welling in their hearts.

"Now, I want to take my time in getting married again, if ever," says the separated Raymond.

Meanwhile, Raymond is not wasting time pining over what-might-have-beens. In-between Ananda Marga and yoga, he has embarked on what might be one of the biggest challenges of his career.

He wants to get closer to the masses by doing telenovelas and penetrating mainstream cinema. Raymond wants to erase that "aloof, elitist" image attached to people from theater like him.

His role as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Tony Javier in Portrait of the Artist as Filipino pleased the actor in him, but it did not endear him one bit to the man on the street.

It did not give Raymond a coterie of fawning fans who scream themselves hoarse at the mere sight of him. Instead, it earned Raymond tacit respect.

Now, he wants to narrow the gap between those who watch his plays and the star-struck fan whose motto is the more dramatic, the better.

Thus, Raymond welcomes his role as one of the principal actors in the new TV series Narito Ako on GMA 7. Kung Mawawala Ka brought him close to the masses, but even that needs a follow-up.

As for the movies, Raymond is working on Sanib, a Celso Ad Castillo horror film where he plays a priest who does an exorcism job on Aubrey Miles. He is also in Jose Mari Avellana’s Alab ng Lahi, where Raymond plays a soldier.

The roles are as varied as Raymond wants them to be, as intense as his love for his craft is.

But, however deep his love for acting is, Raymond sees another career beckoning his way. It’s politics, in the tradition of his grandfather, former Manila Mayor Ramon Bagatsing, who was injured in the Plaza Miranda bombing.

"It’s in my blood," he shrugs. It gives him a sense of destiny, which fascinates him no end in as an advocate of eastern philosophies like Ananda Marga, past lives, karma and the like.

"Everything has a purpose," Raymond intones. "A person comes along and hurts you so you will learn something from the experience."

At the same breath, this believer in reincarnation advises others to whisper the name of God at the brink of death so they will seek Him in their next life.

Raymond can go on and on: about fasting to cleanse one’s body of impurities, yoga, etc. He can’t help it. Raymond is an old soul wrapped in ancient philosophies.

It could be his way of easing the confusion inside, dealing with his turbulent past, explaining the present. Whatever it is, it gives order to the bundle of emotions that is Raymond Bagatsing.