Pinoy YouTube sensation's secret to the one-minute sixpack

MANILA, Philippines - Ellen Degeneres may have discovered Charice Pempengco but it’s the Filipino Facebook network that takes credit for Petra M, the cute Filipina girl who impassively reveals how to get “a six-pack in one minute” on a five-minute video. Doing her spiel in heavily-accented, wince-worthy English and pronouncing certain words with her own bit of, uh, flair (muscles are articulated as “mus-kels” while stomach is pronounced as if it were French cheese), she shrugs off the traditional crunching and grunting that comes with getting abs and, instead, discloses that all you need are brown eyeshadow and some “istomats tic tac toe.” Rather than killing yourself with abdomen exercises or taking diet pills, you just draw on your six-pack.

In true Filipino fashion, many of us watched the video, half-fascinated and half-horrified at how she can mix youthful confidence with pitiful elocution. As of press time, Petra M’s “How to Get Abs in One Minute” Youtube post has had more than 70,000 views, 600-plus comments and has been reposted and shared on Facebook countless of times, most probably by people who think she’s viral amusement that tries too hard.

If you laughed at her English and cringed at her diction, then the joke’s on you.

Never trust what you see on YouTube. If you go beyond this video and the four others she has posted on her channel and actually check out her profile, you’ll discover that Petra M is actually the Internet alter-ego of Ashley Rivera, a 19-year-old Filipina girl now living in Las Vegas, who actually has her “a’s” and “e’s” right and who doesn’t care if she “looks or act stupid” while dishing out beauty and fashion tips. “I love making people laugh. I laugh with them or (sometimes) at them.”

She’s probably the Internet version of Rex Navarete, a hotter one at that. A girl that combines a cute countenance with brazen cheek, comic timing, and a pokerfaced monologue liberally littered with Filipino references.

It’s not so much how she butchers the English language with an indecipherable Pinoy accent that has us laughingly cringing. After all, a series of Internet comedians have already done it, more notably Mikey Bustos, although Petra is decidedly more candid and effectively funnier. Rather, it’s the one-liners that crank up the online entertainment — and give a hint that this girl is probably a lot smarter than most of her viewers think.

“We have to be honest with ourselves. We weren’t born to have Victoria Secret anti-bodies,” Rivera says in her one-minute abs video. While applying the eyeshadow on her stomach, she advices, “Remember, spread it around. Spread the love, not your legs.”

In a makeup tutorial, she refers to blemishes that needed to be covered up with concealer as “malfunctions of the face” and, in a show of perceptiveness, says, “In the Philippines, they call these ‘blush-on.’ I don’t understand why they have to say ‘on.’ Is there such a thing as ‘blush-off?’ I don’t know.”

Taken objectively outside of the kooky presentation, Rivera’s tutorials actually make sense. Ashley describes putting on eyeliner as easy as “connecting the dots” while mascara application is called the “vibration,” a brush wiggle that starts from the inside of the eyes out to the tips of the lashes — actually the right way you should apply mascara on to yourself. And painted-on abs are X-factors in most swimsuit shoots, juicy secrets of Sports Illustrated glamazons.

While Rivera is not necessarily fashion icon material, her wardrobe choices are rather apt, as though she were trying to be endearingly tacky. A green sports bra and tiny blue shorts combo is finished off by a leopard print bandanna and white knee high socks in her abs tutorial. In her beauty queen vid, a tissue-paper sash adorns an ‘80s-style cocktail dress.

“This is for entertainment purposes only,” Rivera aka Petra tells her viewers in one other video. She advises, if you don’t get her sense of humor, to “inhale, exhale… walk your Chit-shu, eat some Junkin Jonat.” This is one girl who doesn’t take herself seriously. Either “you stick your head inside the prijider” or follow her lead.

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Check out Ashley Rivera aka Petra M’s beauty and life tutorials on the ashleyslips channel on YouTube.