My cousin Valeen Vicente is better known on Philippine television as Valeen Montenegro, a nod to being the grand-daughter of the late Filipino actor Mario Montenegro. But she gets to use this name online when referring to her other profession – a fashion designer. This article would focus though on the time spent mostly on TV5 as one of its on-cam comic talents. Yes, she’s very beautiful and funny at the same time.

It was only lately that her talent at comedy skits is being discovered since one of her first projects with TV5 was a weekly drama series entitled “Hush Hush”. Her role was that of an actress paired with an actor (played by Joem Bascon) in a primetime soap. She then got cluelessly lured into falling for her co-star in an effort for the talent agency handling the actress in the story to produce some PR content. So it’s basically a TV series that dared share the not-so-seedy side of Pinoy showbiz. Because sometimes that is more interesting than the soaps currently airing on actual primetime TV.

But Valeen Montenegro became more memorable on TV the moment the network discovered her natural funny bone upon getting cast in TV5’s first foray into gag shows – “Lokomoko High”, a comedy program consisting of scripted gag sketches and street pranks. In skits showing her blurring the line of being serious and being funny, she displayed the campy approach of comedy without losing the humor in her performance. Think of soap operas so serious in their performance that it transcends into comedy. Main difference though in her performance at “Lokomoko High” was that the campy drama delivered is deliberate. That’s the kind of intelligent performance she can infuse into a simple comedy skit.

Despite the several times that TV5 revamped their programming, Valeen Montenegro remained as one of the cast members of “Lokomoko High”. It was reformatted into “Lokomoko U” when the original practical show presenting street pranks “Wow Mali” returned to TV5 (when it was still ABC5). It was reformatted again when one of the original comedians of TV5 (again, when it was still ABC5), Ogie Alcasid, returned to the network. The show was retitled as “Tropa Mo Ko Unli”. In both revisions, Valeen Montenegro remained in the cast as her talent never wavered.

Besides her talent is not limited to comedy. Valeen Montenegro proved her mettle even in live shows like the 2 times she competed as a celebrity contender in TV5’s “Talentadong Pinoy”. The first time that she competed, her talent was doing a Tahitian dance. Then she had to think of an act that would outdo that knowing the positive feedback it generated. So she came up with adding heat to her act. She went literal about the heat and performed a fire dance accompanied with the fire dancers.

With all the talents that she had from comedy to dancing, finding her place among talented comedians in “Tropa Mo Ko Unli” became evident. Apart from letting herself have fun in the program’s segment “Battle of the Brainless”, she gets to be beautifully hot and funny at the same time in “Gandumb and Gandumber”. She and the rest of the girls get to parody girls who are as pretty as they are dumb. Again, another set of memorable performances, it makes you look forward for more of Valeen Montenegro at “Tropa Mo Ko Unli” Surely you would have fun witnessing her share her gift of joie de vivre on national TV.

I look forward to getting into a project with her someday. Could it be within reach in months? You get to know it first the moment you decide to like my official Facebook page, Kuya Manzano Fan Club, and follow me on Twitter @kuyamanzano. I keep everyone updated through those pages. Gracias!