The Next Chapter

Four personalities reveal how their lives, businesses and careers have been transformed by the pandemic

- Maritess Garcia Reyes

CES OREÑADRILON

From broadcaster to farmer, soapmaker and content creator

From the glitz and glamour of broadcasting, seasoned news anchor Ces Oreña-Drilon is now on a different plane, doing new things and being very happy with her transformation. And it’s not simply being forced to jump into the digital space; she was already there way before Covid-19. “If you would remember, I decided to leave Bandila [ABS-CBN’s primetime news programme] in 2017,” she says. “Being a newscaster was no longer challenging and I wanted to do other things.”

After leaving the newsroom, she began learning the ropes of the dynamic online world when she became the executive editor of ANCx, the lifestyle site of ANC. This was on top of her other duties in the same network, helming shows such as Rated K, Sports U and Matanglawin. She also had Ces and the City, then a digital show on ANCx’s Facebook and Youtube channels. “I was still doing weekly shoots for Ces and the City but other than that and the [non-virtual] meetings at ABS-CBN, I could write and check articles anywhere,” she shares.

This made adjusting to the movement restrictions of the new normal not really hard. Oreña-Drilon and her team were relatively fine. “In fact, we really had our highest pageviews on ANCx in the first two months of the lockdown.”

Early during the lockdown, Oreña-Drilon volunteered to help TOWNS (The Outstanding Women in Nation’s Service)—an association that she belongs to—to deliver PPEs to the hospitals. “I felt that I had to do something. I felt that the situation was so dire.”