The PeopleAsia awardee is an ‘accidental’ actress

The name Rosalind Wee may not be familiar to movie fans but it is big in the business world. She appeared in two Regal movies, Mano Po (as Auntie Rosa, the business partner of Richard Yap’s character) and This Time I’ll Be Sweeter (as the owner of an airline, with Barbie Forteza and Ken Chan as lead stars), and they were all, well, “accidental.”

“Maybe they got me only because some scenes of the two movies were shot in one of the six buildings that we own at Bonifacio Global City (BGC),” Rosalind told friends over dinner at a Chinese restaurant in the spanking new Rizal Park Hotel Manila several weeks ago.

Rosalind’s business is far removed from show business. She is the vice chairperson of the W Group and the founder of a company that manufactures food stabilizers and binders using carrageenan (a thickening agent) as base material. Her Marine Resources Development Corp. exports more than 6,000 tons of carrageenan every year. 

Ambassador Lee with officers during the flag ceremony at the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta to kickstart its #Kalayaan2018 festivities last June 12…

One of PeopleAsia’s 2018 People of the Year awardees, Rosalind graduated with an AB Math degree from FEU, the same subject she taught (in Mandarin) in Jolo, Sulu (her birthplace) and then at Xavier School in Greenhills, San Juan City, where her students included French Baker’s Johnlu Koa. Last year, FEU granted her an Honoris Causa in Humanities, the same year Pres. DU30 presented her a GoNegosyo Women Entrepreneur Legacy Award in Malacañang. (For her humanitarian work, Rosalind is also a 2009 Pearl S. Buck Woman of the Year awardee, one of only 33 women to have received the honor, including the late Pres. Cory Aquino and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Rosalind has served as treasurer of the Quezon City Red Cross and president of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Philippines, Inc.)

“I am a food formulator,” Rosalind described herself. “Doctor ng pagkain,” she put it matter-of-factly. “We use a seaweed specie called Eucheuma cottonii in processing carrageenan which is used to preserve food like hams, sausages and ice cream.”

How did Rosalind and her husband, Ambassador to Indonesia Lee Hiong Wee, get into the carrageenan business?

Aside from teaching, Rosalind told Joanne Ramirez, PeopleAsia editor-in-chief, in an interview for the magazine’s special issue on the People of the Year Awards, she and her husband started a handicrafts business at home, produced tie-dyed T-shirts and sold seashells fashioned into decorative items for the home.

“One day,” she narrated to Joanne, “an American from Hawaii asked us if we could look for a seaweed called Eucheuma cottonii. I said yes and I told him that we are from Sulu. We found the seaweed which can be cultured and manipulated. Before, it took three months to harvest and now, only 45 days,” adding, “the seaweed is gold from the ocean” that, wrote Joanne, “brought a tidal wave of blessings for the Wees and, including seaweed farmers, a total of three million people also derive their incomes from the Wees’ carrageenan business.”

Now, did you know that Rosalind is legally blind?

Rosalind Wee is the wife of Ambassador to Indonesia Lee Hiong Wee

Twenty-six years ago, Rosalind was diagnosed with a tumor (“As big as a golf ball,” noted Joanne) in her brain that affected her optic nerve. After a 14-hour surgery at a New York hospital, the surgeons found out that the tumor had wrapped itself around Rosalind’s carotid artery. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see clearly.

“She’s an amazing woman,” Joanne told Funfare, “despite being legally blind. But she has mastered the technique of focusing,” and that must be why she never misses hitting the ball when she plays golf.

Rosalind’s is one success story perfect to be dramatized on Charo Santos-Concio’s longest-running and multi-awarded drama show Maalaala Mo Kaya (MMK).     

“Last February,” Rosalind related to friends over that Chinese dinner, “I was at a beauty parlor seated beside a lady who was busy with her iPod. I told her, ‘You should use an earphone like mine.’ She asked, ‘Am I too noisy?’ Politely, I said, ‘Not really.’ Then, we introduced ourselves to each other.”

That’s when Rosalind realized that the woman was Malou Santos, then of ABS-CBN, the sister of Charo.

“I know the name but I didn’t recognize the face,” said Rosalind. “It turned out that we were together in Cebu as awardees for Filipino women in network.”

Luckily, there was a copy of PeopleAsia magazine (carrying the stories of the People of the Year awardees) at the parlor and Rosalind gave it to Malou, promising to give the parlor owner a new copy. Malou thought Rosalind’s story is a good material for MMK.

…and with Pres. DU30 in Malacañang when she was given the 2017 GoNegosyo Women Entrepreneur Legacy Award.

Would she portray herself if and when?

Rosalind, the Ambassador’s Lady, laughed.

“I am not really an actress.”

Just an “accidental” one, that is.

But then, if Regal or another company again uses one of the Wees’ six buildings in BGC as set, Rosalind may be persuaded upon as guest performer, why not?

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos, visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on Instagram @therealrickylo.)