Abunda, Boy

Boy Abunda (Eugenio Romerica Abunda Jr) is a TV host and talent manager. He was born in Borongan, Samar on 29 October 1955. He is one of the two children of Eugenio Arago Abunda Sr, a politician, and Licerna Romerica Abunda, a retired public school teacher. He has been in a 30-year relationship with partner Elmer “Bong” Boydon Quintana. He finished his elementary education at Borongan Pilot Elementary School, now Eugenio Daza Elementary School, in 1971 and high school at Seminario de Jesus Nazareno High School in 1975. He started studying business management at Ateneo de Manila in 1976, but the untimely death of his father in 1977, plus his distaste for math and the government-required Reserved Officers’ Training Corps or ROTC, forced Abunda to leave school in 1978.

He worked at a variety of odd jobs to support himself, such as selling shampoos and encyclopedias, until he settled down in theater as assistant stage manager, eventually acting on stage. Later in his career, Abunda went back to school, finished a bachelor’s degree in communication arts under the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program of the Commission on Higher Education in 2009, and earned a master of arts in communication arts in 2011, both at the Philippine Women’s University, where he later taught radio and television production. He has since then started working on his doctorate in social development at the same university. The National Commission for Culture and the Arts invited him to serve as its ambassador for the Philippine International Arts Festival in 2011.

In 1982, he became an assistant to Conchita “Tita Conching” Sunico, the executive director of the Manila Metropolitan Theater where he learned the rudiments of public relations. In 1987, two years after he left the Metropolitan Theater, he established Backroom Inc, a public relations company. While Abunda was doing public relations consultancy, GMA executive Bobby Barreiro met him in 1993 and suggested that he host a television show. The first variety talk programs he hosted were Show and Tell, 1994-95, and Startalk, 1995-99. In 1998, he anchored The Boy Abunda Radio Show on 1026 Angel Radio, which lasted until 2004. In 1999, Abunda moved to ABS-CBN where he hosted entertainment talk programs, such as The Buzz, started 1999; Kontrobersyal (Controversial), 2003-6; Homeboy, 2005-7; Boy and Kris, 2007-9; SNN: Showbiz News Ngayon (SNN: Showbiz News Now), 2009-11; Aquino and Abunda Tonight, 2014; and the entertainment and lifestyle segment of the daily news program Bandila (Flag), 2011-14. His current affairs talk program The Bottomline with Boy Abunda, which premiered in 2009 on ABS-CBN, discusses sensitive social issues. He has been hosting Private Conversations, a talk program whose guests range from presidents and politicians, to the religious, educators, and socialites, on ANC since 2001 and Inside the Cinema, a once-a-month interview program with the pillars of the Philippine film industry, on Cinema One since 2008.

The Bottomline with Boy Abunda won Best Talk Show at the Asian TV Awards in 2011. Abunda received the Hall of Fame Award from the Philippine Movie Press Club Star Awards for TV in 2011 for having won Best TV Showbiz-Oriented Show Host for Startalk from 1995 to 1999, The Buzz from 1999 to 2008 and 2010, and SNN: Showbiz News Ngayon in 2009; Best Magazine Talk Show Host for Kontrobersyal in 2004, Homeboy from 2005 to 2007, and Boy and Kris in 2008; and Best Public Affairs Program Host for Private Conversations in 2004 and The Bottomline with Boy Abunda in 2010 and 2011. Abunda won Outstanding Male Program Host for The Bottomline with Boy Abunda at the Asia Radio TV Awards in 2014.