For this Texas-born Filipino-American and Miss Universe 2022, the Philippines satisfies her search for something meaningful.
By ALEX Y. VERGARA
After winning Miss Universe in early 2023and passing on the crown even before the year was over, what’s next for Filipino-American R’Bonney Gabriel? For sure, the prospects are bright for this young, intelligent woman, and she has lost no time making the most out of what’s in front of her, including her decision to fly to the Philippines and test the waters.
But there’s a deeper reason behind such a life-changing move. It involves her search for identity.
Born in a land of immigrants, her fervent desire to know more about her roots isn’t unique or uncommon. After all, understanding one’s origin and heritage is innate in almost everyone, especially now that the world — thanks largely to social media and the Internet — has been further reduced to one virtual global village.
But while countless second- and third-generation Americans rarely go beyond their comfort zones in their respective quests, there are also a growing number of intrepid souls who are willing to venture further afield and take risks in their search to find themselves.
Texas-born R’Bonney, 30, a trained fashion designer, part-time model and former beauty queen, belongs to the second group. Although the opportunities of a lifetime are endless for a Fil-Am beauty in a country whose people have an enduring love affair with Miss Universe, with or without a crown, she would have flown to the Philippines anyway.
Reason enough
“I’ve always had this fantasy while growing up of living someday in another country. Why not make it the Philippines? A desire to know more about my roots is reason enough to fly here,” she says.
And despite her cute attempts to speak a smattering of Filipino in her Instagram and TikTok posts, even finishing at one point a spoonful of bagoong as she went on a food trip in Boracay, and braving the summer heat on an e-trike to get to Divisoria to source for fabrics and buy a sewing machine, she confesses, “I’m so embarrassed that I can’t speak Tagalog. That has been a lifelong dream for me. I grew up so much on American culture. How can I be half-Filipino when there’s still so much that I don’t know?”
But she’s no Johnny-come-lately in her quest for answers. In fact, before packing her bags and leaving New York for Manila sometime in April, R’Bonney, the daughter of a Filipino father and an American mother, had already set her sights on moving to the Philippines to try her luck here as early as 2019. For some reason, her move got delayed. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened less than a year later.
And just as the global scourge was beginning to wane in late 2022, R’Bonney, after being nagged by a well-meaning hairstylist she met during one of those photoshoots in Houston to give pageantry a try, finally joined and won Miss USA as Miss Texas and, later, Miss Universe.
“Prior to becoming Miss USA, I knew nothing about pageants except for what I saw on TV,” she shares with PeopleAsia at the end of a day-long photo shoot. “For one, I didn’t have the money. I’ve always thought that pageants are a rich girl’s sport.”
Her energies and the little resources she had after finishing a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design (with a minor in Fibers) at the University of North Texas were devoted to putting up R’Bonney Nola, her fledgling fashion label. To make ends meet, she also modeled on the side, which explains why she kept bumping into the persistent hairstylist. It turns out that the woman, having worked for years in Texas’ beauty pageant scene, knows her stuff. “After almost a year of her nagging me, I suddenly had this realization,” R’Bonney continues. “I felt like God was telling me that this woman had this idea and that she was on to something. My intuition then was so strong that I finally decided to go for it.” Two crowns and a major move later, she’s mighty glad she did.
Childhood memories of Malate
The daughter of Remigio Bonzon “R. Bon” Gabriel, a Filipino immigrant who later finished Psychology at the University of Houston, and Texan Dana Walker, R’Bonney’s initial recollections of the Philippines date back to the summer vacations she had spent as a child with her parents in the Malate home of her dad’s family.
“We would stay for one to two weeks here, spending most of our days in the Malate neighborhood where my father grew up” she says. “We would drive through the traffic along Singalong and Quirino Avenue and go to the mall to eat and shop, shop, shop.”
Speaking of traffic, what stereotypes about the Philippines has she found out so far to be untrue or, at least, grossly exaggerated? Well, traffic- choked streets in Metro Manila during certain hours, she says with light- hearted humor, are real, but the cheap prices are sometimes not.
“I thought everything is cheap here in the Philippines until I decided to live in BGC,” she says with a laugh. “Then I realized that it’s much more expensive than I thought. Then a lot of people think that the Philippines is a poor country. Although poverty is still prevalent, there are pockets of wealth in the form of booming business centers and infrastructure development. I’ve seen all ends of the spectrum in this country. A lot of people think it’s so behind in so many ways, which isn’t true.”
Now that her dad, who gamely hammed it up with his daughter in her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” Instagram reel, is in his senior years, R’Bonney can’t help but notice how happy her old man is whenever he’s in Manila. And that happiness also stems from his little girl’s desire to immerse herself more in everything Filipino.
“My father has chosen to settle in America, but I know he wants to live here,” she says. “I could see how happy he is whenever he’s in the Philippines, especially now that he is retired and has lived a successful life. I also see the joy in him whenever he sees me learning more of the Philippines, its culture and its food.”
“You should!”
She also had a foretaste of how big Miss Universe is outside the US when she traveled to Latin America and Asia, including the Philippines and Thailand, during her reign. While she was given the royal treatment almost everywhere she went abroad, she had to carry her own bags and elbow her way out of the airport and hail a cab like everyone else whenever she landed in New York.
“And that humbles you, which is a good balance,” she says.
A few months before she was to pass on her Miss Universe crown, R’Bonney chanced upon Filipino pageant mentor Jonas Gaffud, CEO and creative director of Miss Universe Philippines (MUP) and founding president of talent management company Empire.ph. She told him of her plans to give the Philippines a try. Jonas simply told her, “You should!”
Before she could even fully explore her options as an ex-beauty queen, R’Bonney found herself flying to Manila in early April and into the waiting arms of her friends at Empire.ph. She only has good words for her management company, including the team assigned to work directly with her.
Apart from being spoiled by her team— which she doesn’t mind at all — R’Bonney is all praises for the Filipino work ethic and people’s readiness to help each other in such creative fields as entertainment, fashion and even pageantry.
“The fashion and entertainment industry here is more of a community,” she observes. “People here are more willing to help other people, and I’m so thankful for it. Perhaps because the scene is bigger and much more competitive in America, it doesn’t feel that way there.”
During a recent contract signing for her first-ever product endorsement, for instance, R’Bonney was soon whisked away like some superstar by her team to a photo shoot complementing the product. That rarely happens in the US, she observes.
“Everything, from photo shoots to recording video content for social media, is a big deal here. America is so laidback by comparison. We don’t make a big social media campaign about everything.”
To date, Empire.ph has secured for her several TV appearances, magazine features and two product endorsements, both of which will debut later this year. Her biggest hosting gig so far allowed her to share the MUP stage last May with Alden Richards and fellow American Jeannie Mai.
R’Bonney is also seeing a steady increase in the number of her social media followers as she vlogs about her experiences in her adopted country in funny and engaging fish-out-of-water-type videos and reels, including her adventures in Boracay, Bohol, Sultan Kudarat, Divisoria and the MUP backstage.
When it comes to matters of the heart, though, she politely declines to answer our query. It’s almost evening when we end our interview with R’Bonney, but she’s only halfway through her day. When we ask her if she still has another interview-slash-photo shoot lined up, she breaks into a smile, holds her index finger up in the air and answers us in the affirmative: “Isa pa!” (One more!) This queen is definitely on a roll!
Photography by DOOKIE DUCAY
Creative direction by DEXTER FRANCIS DE VERA
Styling by PERRY TABORA assisted by KRIS DE LEON
Hair by JERRY JAVIER • Makeup by MICKEY SEE
Special thanks to ROCHELLE TABINO
Shot on location at LANSON PLACE MALL OF ASIA, Seaside Blvd. Pasay City
