Jojo Alejar's dream interviews

Jojo Alejar broke into show business in 1983 — when he was a high school student in Claret. Along with two other friends, they formed the dance trio called The Tigers that was launched in Martin Nievera and Pops Fernandez’s musical/variety show Penthouse Live on Channel 7.

In time, he joined German Moreno’s That’s Entertainment. As early as that period, he already proved to be skilled at hosting and that was how he stood out in a sea of good-looking young stars of that generation.

The early ‘90s saw him getting eclipsed by older brother, Toby, who did several movies for Seiko Films. But Jojo is more than making up for that lull in his showbiz career by showing to the world that he is now among one of local entertainment’s finest talk show hosts.

For almost half a decade now, he had been hosting the late night show Jojo A. All the Way — initially aired in some cable channel, then had a home on Q-11 and is now telecast every midnight from Monday to Friday on TV5.

Although it is clearly patterned after the American talk shows of David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, Jojo A. All the Way has its own charm — thanks to the host’s innate wit and humor.

I had the chance to appear as guest in the program way back in September 2007. Back then, they taped the show at the Teatrino in Greenhills on a late Sunday afternoon. It took a while for us to fix our schedule — with Jojo acting as casting director himself. When we finally found a free day in my calendar that fell on one of their taping schedules, I got excited and looked forward to the interview where I can relax and not worry about how to run the program. (It’s easier to be just the guest than the host of a show because you only have to think about projecting well on TV.)

The day before the Jojo A. interview, however, Startalk’s casting director, Josie Manago, assigned me to cover the baptismal party for the first born of Mark Lapid and Tanya Garcia (they recently got wed in civil rites). Instead of being relaxed, I got so fidgety because Josie kept calling me in the middle of the interview (the phone in my pocket kept vibrating) to remind me that there was an entire TV crew waiting for me at that very moment. Now, I cannot come out in Jojo’s show anymore because he had moved to another network.

Teddy Pereña, who markets Jojo’s show, however, hooked me up recently with the talk show host and I was able to ask him to enumerate for me his 10 dream interviews — local personalities only to make it easier for him. Below is his list that he specifies is not arranged in any order:

1. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo — “I want to ask her how she can sleep with all those accusations being thrown at her,” explains Jojo. “I also want to know the reason why she ran for Congress and why she didn’t make those resources available to the province of Pampanga when she was still President and had more power.”

2. BB Gandanghari — “We are more or less the same age and belong to the same generation,” quips Jojo. “But I grew up to be a man and he chose to turn into a woman.”

3. Dr. Vicki Belo — “The questions I’ll ask her may be ‘belo’ the belt.”

4. Willie Revillame — “I want to ask him how he became that popular and how he got to be so rich.”

5. Fr. Suarez — “I want to use my show for the healing priest to heal the hearts of Filipinos — and so that they’ll have a more positive outlook in life,” says Jojo. “As an aside, I want him to heal my aching side. Masakit talaga ang tagiliran ko,” he swears.

6. Rep. Bongbong Marcos — “I want to ask him how he plans to redeem the Marcos name.”

7. Atty. Koko Pimentel — “I’ve always been interested in his life because he is being likened to Ferdinand Marcos — his intelligence, in particular. Like Marcos, he, too, has a beauty queen for a wife.”

8. Vice President Jejomar Binay — “I want to know how it felt like winning as Vice President during the last two minutes. Talk about dark horses.”

9. President Noynoy Aquino — “I won’t be asking him a lot of questions, but I will be giving him a lot of suggestions.”

10. Manny V. Pangilinan — “I want to find out the secret to his success, wealth, power, good looks and sex appeal. He reminds me so much of myself — but only the good looks and sex appeal part.”