But since many of their Playboy issues have been lost the ravages of time, pilferage and repossession by the courts, allow me to help them re-live their memories of Ms. Tetchie without fear of parental (or spouse) approval (whatever the case may be), court intervention or chemical castration in the second part of our interview. In this concluding portion of Ms. Tetchie’s interview, she details her encounter with anti-pornography crusader Polly Cayetano, where you find your inner sexy, and how to react when you see naked pictures of yourself in a men’s magazine.

TO NUDE OR NOT TO NUDE

Ma’am Tetchie, how did you physically prepare for the shoot? Did you have to do sit ups? Did you have to depilate in strategic areas? Did you practice holding your breath?
(Laughs) Siyempre (Of course)! Holding your breath, that’s part of it. But I have an aversion to repetitious exercise.
And to think that repetitive exercise is a favorite exercise among many male adolescents. How did you emotionally prepare for the pictorial? I’m sure it was an abrupt transition from posing in a dress to posing in a state of undress.
I must admit, I didn’t prepare much emotionally and psychologically. After the end of the first day’s shoot, my muscles were in pain and that’s when it hit me ‘Hang on, what am I doing!?’ What if this photographer isn’t really from Playboy? What if he uses my pictures for a more dubious enterprise? I wanted to back out. So I talked to Papang (her manager) about my concern and he spoke to the photographers. Later, Herbert (the photographer) came up to me and said, ‘I heard you have some apprehensions. Listen, here is our passport, if we don’t fulfill our part of the bargain, we won’t be leave our country.’ That was a sign of good faith for me. So, of course, I took their passports.
The Bureau of Immigration would be proud. Weren’t you the least bit conscious at all when you posed nude? Not even embarrassed? I’ve embarrassed to even look at myself nude (Liar – RJ’s wife).
(Laughs) Why!? Why would you be conscious naman?
I don’t really want people staring at my mutant power.
Like any other job, you perform your work because its part of your job description. At that time, I was a model. Will I refuse work just because I have to pose in the nude? Parang hindi ko kaya (Like I could not do it)!?
Hay naku, Kayang-kayang niyo po yan (Of course you can do it, ma’am)!
Parang bawas ganda points sa akin na ang trabaho kong ito ay hindi magampanan bilang modelo (It would lessen lessen my beauty points if I couldn’t fulfill my role as a mdoel). Just because I’m nude? It is a blow in my capacity to perform as a model if I turned it down.
You are right, we should not blow our capacities. Future generations of models should take your advice as gospel.
Did I have any inhibitions? I’m very comfortable in my skin. I have no problems (Laughs).
We are comfortable with your skin as well.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not an exhibitionist ok?
I wouldn’t have even known, ma’am Tetchie.

HARE-RAISING EXPERIENCE

Ma’am Tetchie, you helped many a PX store in the eighties meet their profit margins when they imported copies of your German Playboy cover. Did you ever think that your issue would find its way to Philippine shores?
Not at all! I thought that when I did this job, it would come and go and no one would even notice it. I was just as shocked as everyone else when it came out because I wasn’t anticipating that all these pilots and stewardesses would be bringing that issue in the country and then kumalat (scattered). I didn’t expect it at all! When the Playboy issue was shown to me, my jaw dropped.
A lot of things dropped with your Playboy appearance, ma’am Tetchie.
And I said, ‘Ang ganda (How beautiful)!’ (Laughs boisterously). I was totally taken aback. I didn’t imagine it would come out like that because it wasn’t my style to ask the photographer if I could see how every shot came out. I do my work and I move on. I’m not so obsessed with myself. To me, it’s a job..
That’s right, not when there are many others who will obsess over your work for you. Ma’am Tetchie, is that issue of Playboy framed in your home? I know some men who have devotional altars to that issue bronzed in their rooms.
My personal copy was borrowed and I never get it back so I don’t really own a copy of it.
I know many men who would like to offer you their personal copy, but I’d advise you against accepting it. You don’t know where that issue has been. I read that there appearing in your birthday suit led to a lawsuit that was at that time led by a Polly Cayetano? How did that make you feel and what did you do about it? That must have been bewildering for a twenty-one year old.
Exactly! I thought, ‘God I’m only twenty one and I already have a lawsuit!’ I was baffled by everybody’s reactions. There was a big uproar and I didn’t understand why a personal decision I made is now a social commentary for the whole country! All of a sudden, there were issues of morality and ‘was it right?’ and the Maria Clara image. So many people said many things, but I didn’t really milk it for all that it was worth. You wouldn’t see me in any of the talk shows even if I had standing invitations to guest in all of them. I was just quiet.
And there are some artistas nowadays who milk the issue until the cow keels over from dehydration. I understand you actually met Polly Cayetano a couple of years ago? How was that like? Was there mature language and situations involved? Were there brief but intense moments of violence? Or was it a PG-13 moment?
It was a very pleasant and cordial meeting. I had a show at that time with Channel 4, (Pandayan ni Mang Pandoy) and she was my guest on the show. I knew she was Polly Cayetano, but we never met before that. Basically, I felt that I genuinely liked her and I believe she liked me as well. In fact we laughed about the Playboy incident.
You mean “Hahaha, it was funny that you once traumatized a twenty-one year old model with a million peso lawsuit” type of laugh? You are an extremely good-natured person, ma’am Tetchie.
I had no animosity for the lady. Yes she made all this trouble for me, but nothing happened to lawsuit. It was dropped after a year. I was ok. Polly said. ‘Mabait ka pala (You’re a good person), I really like you.’
She might have been originally been working under the assumption that ‘if you take pose naked, then you are evil’. But I say let Filipino men be the judge of what evil truly is.

SEXY IS AS SEXY DOES

Ma’am Tetchie, just how do you project that ‘sexy’ look with your face. I have tried to emulate that ‘sexy’ look at home, but my wife tells me it makes me look constipated.
If you want to do some sexy poses, it has to start with the eyes then everything else follows. The whole secret to posing for a picture is for something to be happening in your head. You have to be thinking of something, and it has be congruent to what you want to project. The sexiest photographs are those that capture you thinking of something interesting and looking out into the open. Those nonchalant, pensive shots that aren’t staged. Those are sexier for me. If you are going to pose sexy, or in the nude, and you are thinking about men and sex, it’s not going to come out sexy. It’s going to come out vulgar.
Ill try not to think about men and sex the next time I pose sexy.
You know what? I never projected the ‘Hey, I’m sexy!’ look. I never try to be sexy. Nababaduyan ako diyan (I find that really cheesy). I’m just being who I am. In fact, I align myself with nature. I imagine that the wind is blowing in my face and I end up closing my eyes and then they take my photo. Natural na natural lang (Very natural). In fact, I’m still not used to it when people call me sexy.
Neither am I.
Even if I have bilbil (love handles), even if I am not in the most perfect shape like I was several years ago, I don’t really care. I still feel happy about myself. Sexy is a state of being.
That’s what I tell my wife she catches me staring at myself in the mirror.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE…

So Ma’am Tetchie, the million peso question: Would you ever pose au naturel again?
Depends (laughs)
On behalf of the millions of men from around the country reading this column right now who are crossing themselves, falling to their knees and with tears streaming from their eyes, we would like to thank you.

(RJ scribbles in this notebook: Ok, set pictorial for Tetchie Agbayani. Next stop: Marissa Delgado)

(For those who didn’t get the Marissa Delgado reference: She was arguably the first Filipina to appear in Playboy (USA Edition): “The Girls of the Orient” photoshoot in December 1968.)

July 1982 was a particularly memorable month for me. I still remember being a young lad, with nary a hair protruding from my erogenous areas, and sifting through stacks of dress shirts and boxer shorts in my dad’s closet to unearth the treasure that was his well-hidden Playboy stash slotted in-between the folded pairs of pants (Where do you think I learned to hide my own collection?). And for the month of July, it was not another melanin-challenged model with bleached blonde hair and a pair of artificial satellites gracing the cover. Rather, it was a sun-drenched morena posing snake-like on top of a bangka and dressed in an ill-fitting reptilian print bathing suit (they should have fired the stylist. The bathing suit just kept on falling off). But before I could leaf through the pages of the magazine, my dad found me hidden inside the closet, dragged me out by the ear, took out his belt and yelled, “Is this what they teach you in Batibot!?

Twenty-seven years later, I was finally able to slot in an interview with a woman whom I endured several hundred belt whippings for. Prior to the interview, I spent several sleepless nights sneaking out of my bedroom and doing intensive research on her Playboy appearance online. Unfortunately, I could no longer had access my dad’s Playboy collection since he has booby trapped his closet (And no, dad, you can’t come with me to the interview. Hmp). Thanks for granting me the interview ma’am Tetchie, the belt whippings were well worth it.

THANK YOU PAPANG

RJ: Ma’am Tetchie, it is truly an honor. I will not try to blush, grovel or have childhood flashbacks of belt-whipping in your presence. When you posed for Playboy back in the eighties, was that a logical career decision for you to make? Not that any of us are complaining over that career decision.
Tetchie: When I did Playboy, there weren’t too many career options available. And I was entering this very huge, fascinating, but also very bizarre business. After the beauty contests (1978 Ms. Thomasian, 1978 Binibining Pilipinas where she won she won best in swimsuit, Ms. Close Up Smile and Ms. Photogenic and 1979 Mutya ng Pilipinas (where she won Ms. Tourism for all you rabid beauty contest scholars out there – RJ) , I started ramp modeling then I decided to make the leap to acting. I did my first movie (That’s ‘Pepeng Shotgun’ in 1981 with Rudy Fernandez if you want to complete your Tetchie Agbayani movie library – RJ) where I was the leading lady. I was in the business, but I was just meandering along. I also felt that I was not getting the break that I needed much because I didn’t have any relatives who were in the business. It was getting really frustrating.
So I was talking to my manager at that time, Franklin Cabaluna (a.k.a. ‘Papang’), over the Holidays and shared with him my angst about how much I still wanted to do and to prove in the business, but that I was not getting the break that I needed. While we were in his family home in Ilocos, I was flipping through Papang’s Playboy magazine collection – he has all the issues from the very start – and noticed that they all had Caucasian women on the covers.
Maybe Papang can invite me over to his family place some time. At least leafing through his collection doesn’t lead to corporal punishment.
And I said, ‘Papang, why do they always put Caucasian women on the cover, there are a lot of beautiful Asian women as well.’ I told him, ‘If Playboy ever comes to the Philippines, I will pose for them. Tingnan natin, magugulantang sila (They’ll see. They are in for a rude awakening).’
And gulantang they would all soon be, ma’am Tetchie. Gulantang they would all soon be.
I was just speaking my mind at the time, but I must have declared it with so much emotion. A few months later, I was in Hong Kong en route back to Manila, and I called Papang to ask if I would have work when I get back home. Papang said, ‘Remember what you told me over the Holidays? About Playboy? Well, they’re in Manila and they want to meet with you.” I thought, Ooooh boy. ‘No way!’ I told him, ‘I was just joking Papang! It was just a spur of the moment thing. There’s no way I can pose nude.
(RJ’s thoughts: Don’t let us down Papang, especially since thousands of Filipino men are counting on you.)
‘Listen, you won’t lose anything.’ Papang said. ‘When you get back to Manila, let’s meet them in Philippine Plaza. You don’t have to commit, you just meet with them.’ So I hesitantly said yes. When I met up with them, I was determined to turn it down. But when I met the photographer, Herbert Hesselman, they (the representatives of Playboy German edition) were very business-like. They told me what they needed from me and I said ‘If I hypothetically accepted this project, I would have three conditions. Number one: Nothing is to be painted on my body. Because I heard from some menfolk say that some playmates say certain body parts are pinker that usual.
Hay naku, I told my dad to stop talking about his conspiracy theories.
Number two: I have freedom to pose whatever way I want. And number three: I will do my own hair and make up. They agreed with all the conditions. Maayos silang kausap (They were very straightforward to talk with).
Those Germans are just way too efficient. What made you finally decide to do the pictorial? Was it for experimentation? Was it for love of country? Were you trying to make a point? Because many of us appreciated the point you were making.
Since this Playboy as the German edition, I thought it would only come out in Germany and not in the Philippines. When I said yes, I thought of myself as a model and a model’s tool is her body. Here was work being offered to me from an international magazine that I am attracted to come out in and it just happened to be that it was Playboy. I felt that, as a model, if you have a good job offer, why shouldn’t you take it? It was work after all.
And, again, we do appreciate the body of work that you’ve done.
I also thought, this is Playboy but I won’t be offending the sensibilities of people in this country because it wouldn’t come out here. This was probably a safe offer to take. And it was a job like any other job. It just happens to be that instead of modeling clothes, you don’t model anything. That’s much harder. With clothes, you can use a lapel or a cape as props for posing. It’s harder to model without any props on your body.
I would argue that a rug-full of chest hair is a prop.
I was also at a point in my life – I was twenty-one then – where I wanted to establish my own individuality, that I make my own decisions.
And many of us appreciate your expression of your individuality.

BUNNY GOES TROPICAL

Why was Playboy in the country in the first place? Did Playboy have spies lurking around Papang’s house? Did Hugh Hefner pick up your telepathic cries for help? Did my dad write Playboy a letter?
Originally, Herbert flew to Asia to do a seven-page spread of the woman of Asia for the German edition of Playboy. They got in touch with Papang because they knew he was an avid collector of Playboy and was connected to the mass media.
Sigh. When will I be getting that phone call from Playboy?
They asked Papang for models from the Philippines whom they could use as model. He brought reams of pictures of his different talents to Herbert. When Herbert was done with all the pictures, Papang was laughing because all the pictures he had chosen were mine! They were just taken at different times of my life – when I had short hair, long straight hair and the seventies frizzy hairstyle. So Herbert decided to scrap the women of Asia feature and just focus on me.
It must have been the frizzy hairstyle must have sealed the deal. And did you decide on the concept for the shoot? You came across as a ‘tropical island’ siren (To the No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSB) and DOMs reading this column, do your own research online).
When I went to Sicogon Island for the shoot, I fell in love with the place (Factoid: Gloria Diaz’s launching movie Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa was shot in Sicogon Island.) The idea was to look for sites around the island for the shoot. But the concept for how it should look like was my prerogative. My motivation for my look was to show the beauty of the female form,- the curves, the way we bend our bodies – that to me is beautiful. You must see the whole of it, the gestalt, you don’t just focus on certain parts of the body. I wanted people to look at my photo and see the forms and the lines.
My barkada and I would have done better at geometry in high school if our textbooks had these lines and curves.
When my photos were being taken, I wanted to exude the image of ‘Eve’. If I were the only woman in this world living on this island with nobody else, how should I look? It should be wild look, not so polished.
Wow, I didn’t realize how much motivation you put into those pictures. Nowadays, some of the models just let the silicone do the job for them.
I also didn’t want my eyes to project that ‘come hither’ look. The look I wanted to project was that Eve was lost and all alone in the world and just enjoying the environment. There was no malice involved. And Eve also borrows traits from animals. If you look at the photos, some of the poses are very lizard-like, the others are leopard-like, and the others are snake-like. I borrowed my ideas from nature.
Yes, ma’am Tetchie, I have had the opportunity to study the pictures several hundred times. I see the call of nature for you was very strong.
When you look at my pictures, take a good look at my face, my hands and my toes. There was one pose where I was on top of a tree branch, kneeling on one knee and holding a python in my hands. But if you look at my toes and fingers, you don’t see a strain on them. It’s hard to keep your balance and your form and yet appear relaxed.
I will make sure to observe your extremities, ma’am Tetchie, among other things. And every time I posed, the photographer reminded me that I had to be on my tiptoes so that my leg muscles would look firm.
I will remember that the next time I pose nude.

DIVINE INTERVENTION

Was Hugh Hefner involved at all in choosing you as a Playboy model? Did you ever get to talk to him? If you have his cellphone, please let him know that I would like to thank him for my productive yet psychologically disturbed childhood.
No, no! Never, not at all! I’d be scared to meet him. I’d be scared to even step into the mansion.
Someday, ma’am Tetchie, you and I will have to confront your fear together.