Roxie: Just as good with any name

Many well-to-do parents send their children abroad for the proverbial greener pastures, even if it pains them to see their son or daughter far away from them.

But strange as it seems, this is not the case with Antonio and Rosebell Barcelo.

He holds a Ph.D. from Walden University, Indiana, while she was an accountant at the World Bank.

Even if Rosebell gave birth to Roxanne, now known as Roxie in the Fairfax, Virginia, where they stayed for years, she and her husband brought her and her brother back to the Philippines, presumably for good.

The couple knows their decision will raise eyebrows. But they don’t mind. In fact, they know better.

"My parents want to raise us in good old Filipino values. In the US, both my parents are always working. They have less time for us. Here, they are more relaxed. The family ties are a lot closer," explains Roxie with an American twang. So back to the Philippines she and her family went after spending four years in the US. And this time, the Roxanne Barcelo viewers of GMA’s defunct Click used to see would rather be called by the shorter, hippier name Roxie.

The change is more than just a mere difference in appellation. The sweet girl look is still there, to be sure. But it is now edged with more experience, more angst.

And they’re enough to make Roxie croon tunes about heartbreak more convincingly.

This she does in Roxie, her debut album from Universal Records. Kung Alam Mo Lang, one of the cuts, for instance, talks about "a love not fully expressed by both sides." Roxie says she sang this "from the heart."

She can also relate to Perfect Love, about feeling jealous even if your love has yet to be reciprocated. Answer the Phone may look saccharine and shallow at the outset, but take time out to listen, and you’ll discover there’s more to the song adapted from a Korean tune than that. It’s about moving on and looking beautiful even after someone lets you down.

The album is doubly meaningful for Roxie since it came on her 18th birthday.

Universal Records boss Bella Tan presented her a recording contract during her debut itself, and Roxie was beside herself with joy.

After all, she finished first runner-up at the Metropop Star Search when she was barely into high school.

Up to the time she was singing before members of the press during her album launch, Roxie hasn’t gotten over her gratitude to Tan and her manager, Manila Genesis Entertainment’s Angeli Valenciano-Pangilinan, for the big break. "I see a Donita Rose in her," Angeli explains why she got Roxie.

A quick look at Roxie’s bio shows why. Like Donita, Roxie is a commercial model, having done TV ads for the Smithsonian Museum’s 150th anniversary, 4th of July, GAP and JC Penny when she was in the US.

More importantly, Roxie has a big heart. The dean’s lister (Communication Arts, Miriam College) is a Red Cross volunteer. When she turned Click mainstay for two-and-a-half years, Roxie used the money she earned from the show to help send younger brother Timothy John to school.

Roxie’s parents are doing a great job so far. So who’s to question why they decided to reverse the tide and bring their children back home to their roots?

Roxie, and her younger brother, are proofs that exchanging the comforts of life in the US for more emotionally-stabilizing conditions in your own country is not that bad, after all.