Rubi (Philippine TV series)


Rubi is a 2010 Philippine romantic-drama television series and is an adaptation of Televisa's 2004 TV series of the same name created by Yolanda Vargas Dulché and directed by Erick C. Salud, Don M. Cuaresma, Manny Q. Palo and Darnel Joy R. Villaflor. The series stars Angelica Panganiban on her title role as Rubi Perez-Ferrer and Theresa Rodrigo-dela Fuente, and ABS-CBN's Kapamilya Gold Queen Shaina Magdayao as Maribel dela Fuente-Cardenas, together with leading men Jake Cuenca and Diether Ocampo, with an ensemble cast consisting of Cherry Pie Picache, Cherie Gil, Gardo Versoza, Allan Paule, Kaye Abad, Susan Africa, Wowie de Guzman, Coney Reyes, Juan Rodrigo, Dante Rivero, Bing Loyzaga, Rey "PJ" Abellana, Megan Young, and Mel Martinez. The series premiered on ABS-CBN's Primetime Bida evening block from February 15 to August 13, 2010.
The main difference of this teleserye to others is that the lead character, Rubi, is an anti-hero dubbed as "Ang Bidang-Kontrabida". She is vain, scheming and manipulative but still has heart, but chose not to listen to her conscience to reach her high ambitions.

Plot

Beginning

Vivian gives birth to her daughter while she's still in prison because of fraud charges, thus, leaving her no other choice but to put her newly born daughter for adoption. Immediately after her release, she goes in search for the child. And to her surprise, she learns that her daughter is actually under the care of the child's biological father, Arturo and his new wife Sylvanna. Insistent to get her daughter back, Vivian relentlessly kidnaps her. And in line with her plan of starting a new life, she brings her daughter far away to the city and she changes their names. Vivian is now Rosanna and her daughter is named Rubi. Vivian's possessive lover Danilo located them. She conned him while inside prison to help her with her parole. After getting her parole, she escapes from him, leaving him looking like an idiot. He now wants to take revenge on Rosanna and her family. Rubi escapes but became lost in the city. In order to survive, she knocks on car windows to ask for alms. For months, she spent time alone in the busy streets. But fortunately, her time alone is immediately cut short by her unexpected reunion with her mother who has been searching for her all those times. On the other hand, since Sylvanna is still longing for their lost daughter, which is now Rubi, she then decides to adopt a child named Maribel. But unfortunately for the poor child, she encounters a terrible car accident while driving with her foster father, thus, marking a permanent damage on her left leg.

Years pass

Though they lack the cash, Rubi all grown up continuously lives in luxury. Apparently, her mother insistently spoils her with extravagance to make up for their uncalled for separation before. Rubi grew up to become a beautiful young woman and she is not afraid to flaunt her looks. She has an ambition of marrying a wealthy man to get out of the slums that they live in and for her to finally afford all her luxuries. Even though she knows that she couldn't practically afford it, Rosanna strives hard to send Rubi in a prestigious private school. On their way to inquire about admissions, Rubi accidentally comes across Maribel. She learns that Maribel has an inferiority complex because of her disability and upon realizing that the young lady is filthy rich, Rubi instantly decides to befriend the disabled young lady. Maribel invites Rubi over to her house so that she could meet her parents. And immediately, the charming young lady gains the couple's favor. And since she had finally earned Maribel's trust, Rubi gets a peep in her new friend's life. Maribel gladly introduces Hector, her long-time chat-mate, to her. Aside from that, the young lady also discloses the fact that she is in fact an adopted daughter. Through Maribel and her family, Rubi gets a taste of the good life. Maribel showers her with nice clothes, shoes, gadgets in exchange for Rubi's "friendship". Little does Maribel know that deep within the warm smiles of Rubi, her best friend harbors deep envy of her social status. Her envy went deeper when she discovered that she is the real daughter of Arturo and not Maribel. She thinks that Maribel's life should have been hers.

Things become more complicated

Maribel tells Rubi that her long time chat mate, Hector will be coming for them to meet face to face. Since Maribel is shy about meeting Hector, Rubi sets Maribel up on a date with Hector and Hector and Maribel immediately fell in love despite her disability. Hector introduces his best friend Alejandro who soon falls in love with Rubi. After thinking Alejandro was rich, Rubi flirts with him and as time passes, she develops feelings for him but when she discovered that Alejandro is not rich and is only a scholar by Hector's family, she slowly became cold to Alejandro and goes after Hector. Alejandro does not know why Rubi is slowly drifting away from him. She seduced Hector behind her bestfriend's back. The night before Hector and Maribel's wedding, Rubi gave herself to Hector. Hector completely lost judgement and chose Rubi instead of his fiancé. He then abandons Maribel at their wedding and marries Rubi instead. Upon realizing the truth, Alejandro and Hector's friendship was completely broken because they realized they are in love with one woman. Alejandro and Maribel felt betrayed by the actions of their best friends. Chaos also ensued at the families of Hector and Maribel because of what they have done. Rubi also revealed her mother's and Arturo's relationship which destroyed Maribel's family. Sylvanna was furious at Rubi but Rubi now has wealth to use against her. She thought she would get her rights to Arturo's wealth when this secret is revealed but Arturo still sided with Maribel because he knew of Rubi's true intentions. In the midst of the chaos, Alejandro and Maribel were left with each other. As time passed by, they slowly became attracted with each other. Alejandro in love with Maribel still harbors feelings for Rubi. On the other hand, Rubi realizes that she is not completely happy with being rich. She hates the fact that Alejandro is dating Maribel and wants him for herself. Hector becomes insecure about his wife especially when she's with Alejandro during social and charity functions which she uses to flirt with him. Rubi continues her scheming to get more money from Hector's family since she knows her husband is blindly in love with her and knows nothing about her secret plans. Her in-laws try to expose her but she always one step ahead of them. Rubi blackmailed her father-in-law about his affair with another woman with whom he also has a family. She accidentally reveals it later and causes a rift between Hector's parents. One of her plans against Maribel's family backfired on her and it killed her mother. Instead of changing her ways because of the tragedy, Rubi is more determined than ever to get all that she wants. She framed Sylvanna for the tragedy and sent her to prison. She is also starting showing her true colors to her husband. She made a fashion business with her cohort, Loretto just to destroy Maribel's business even though she has no knowledge of how to run a business. She also caused some trouble to her sister's boyfriend Cayetano. She doesn't want him for her sister because he is just a family driver of Maribel's family. She openly criticizes and mocks him and even tried to put him in jail by framing him up with theft. Luckily, she did not succeed and Cayetano was sent free but it caused a rift between Rubi and her sister, Cristina. While Maribel is still dating Alejandro, she catches Rubi and Alejandro kissing. Maribel is devastated while Rubi is delighted by thinking Alejandro still loves her. Alejandro is torn between Maribel and Rubi. Alejandro and Rubi meet one night and they became intimate with each other. Maribel discovers this and decided to go away. Rubi soon becomes pregnant and questions the possibility that it could be Alejandro's baby instead of Hector's. Still unsure, Rubi tells Hector that the baby is his. Meanwhile, Alejandro goes to Maribel's house hoping that Maribel will forgive him, where he finds out that Maribel has left for Europe but still she came back because her love for Alejandro is stronger and she is willing to forgive him. Also, she doesn't want Rubi to see that she is affected of what happened. Hector finds the evidence of the one night Rubi and Alejandro made love and confronts Rubi upon her return home. They get into a heated argument and Hector punches her pregnant stomach and she had a miscarriage. After some tests, it was revealed that Hector killed his own baby. He also discovered Rubi was the cause of his parent's separation. Because of these incidents, Hector completely lost his mind.

Finale

After she recovered, Rubi tried to get back to Hector to talk to him and explain her version of the story. Little did she know that Hector was now deranged. Hector takes Rubi to their unfinished, would-be home still under construction and physically abuses her. Hector then calls Alejandro and pretends that he has become nice, but it was an act so he could kill him. Rubi tries to stop Hector but he accidentally pushes Rubi off the edge of the building. Rubi holds on for dear life while Alejandro arrives. Hector tries to save her but stumbles and falls to his death landing on the pavement below while Rubi falls down with him into the glass near the construction and is rushed to the hospital afterwards. She now realizes that she already had everything; her family, friends, the man that truly loved her, but she deemed it all worthless just for her blind ambitions. Rubi wakes up with a huge scar on her face and her right leg has been amputated. Because of a rare skin condition, the scar would not heal and it would remain permanent. The beauty she uses to deceive everyone is now gone. She finally learns her lesson and even with a heavy heart, she agrees to Maribel and Alejandro's marriage.

Cast and characters

Main cast

Adaptation

is a Mexican telenovela that aired on Televisa in 2004, starring actress Bárbara Mori in the title role, Eduardo Santamarina as Alejandro, Jacqueline Bracamontes as Maribel, and Sebastián Rulli as Hector. The series had a total of 115 episodes. The original telenovela was aired on ABS-CBN in January, the 1st quarter of 2005 before noontime replacing Gata Salvaje and dubbed in Tagalog. The original series returned in 2015, ten years since the airing of Rubí in the Philippines, this time through Telenovela Channel in English audio.

Casting

and Angelika dela Cruz were rumoured to be cast as the title character Rubí, but the role eventually went to Angelica Panganiban.

Launch

Rubi was launched as one of the ABS-CBN's offerings for the 60th Celebration of Filipino Soap Opera during the ABS-CBN Trade Launch for the first quarter of 2010, entitled "Bagong Simula".

Soundtrack

The theme song of the original Rubí series is used for the Philippine adaptation, "La Descarada", performed by Reyli. The song was not translated into a Tagalog version and was covered by Anton Alvarez.
In the series Rubi, Rubi and Alejandro's theme song is called "Di Lang Ikaw", performed by Juris Fernandez. It is not translated into an English version.