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Daphne Osena-Paez on taking a break from hosting: ‘My family is what I'm all about’

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Rhea Manila Santos

<div><img src="" alt="120314-dapne_main.jpg" width="400" height="290" align="left" border="0"/>After being part of F, the longest running and most-awarded lifestyle magazine program on <i>ABS-CBN</i>, Daphne Osena-Paez said she has been busy with her family and building up her own line of jewelry, linen, and furniture. The pretty host was last seen hosting the magazine show Urban Zone on The Filipino Channel until 2012. “This is the first year for my blog Daphne.ph. It&#x27;s also the first year that I&#x27;m not on TV. I have my products for my brand Daphne that&#x27;s in retail. I&#x27;ve been collaborating with different brands on bringing Daphne products to the market. I&#x27;m about to launch a big product line in January,” she shared during the Lotus Biscoff event held last month at the Society Lounge in Makati city.</div><div><br/></div><div>The multi-awarded host and producer also shared that she is still very much in touch with her former F co-hosts. “Yes of course. I&#x27;m very good friends with Cher Calvin. She&#x27;s in LA as an anchor for a network there. Cher and Angel Aquino are the<i> ninangs</i> of my daughter Sophia. Amanda Griffin is also a very good friend of mine. She is now a mom of two but pregnant with the third. With each F girl, because there are four of us, but you just know three at a time but when Cher left Amanda replaced her so I&#x27;m so proud that we are all working women, pursuing what we love to do and we have maintained our friendship and it&#x27;s really good for women to be good friends rather than competing,” she said. </div><div><br/></div><div>Daphne said she always has her hands full with her daughters Sophia, Lily and Stella. “There are times like when I&#x27;m about to go on for hosting and then the school called, my daughter had a fever and I wanted to be there but I have very good help, my husband and I work as a team. I&#x27;m not a solo parent. He&#x27;s very good at parenting and I&#x27;m surrounded by very good helpers willing to assist me,” she admitted.</div><div><br/></div><div>Her 12-year marriage to former <i>ABS-CBN</i> reporter Patrick Paez is also strong and steady. “We&#x27;re not a celebrity couple so we don&#x27;t come out and talk about our marriage. But my family is what I&#x27;m all about. Everything that I have, the brand, the products, the hosting, it&#x27;s just a bonus. My core is me and Patrick first and then the children. Because we believe that when a couple is good, the children feel secure and they know that they are loved. A lot of times when mothers focus too much on their kids and they neglect their husbands, funny things happen. It&#x27;s good. We are both in media. We are both very excited about new media but we&#x27;re very different in the way we work so there&#x27;s creative tension all the time. People get stressed with us but it always works out <i>naman</i> (laughs),” she added.</div><div><br/></div><div></div><div><br/></div><div><img src="" alt="120314-dapne_main.jpg" width="400" height="290" align="left" border="0"/>During the Louts Biscoff launch event which she hosted, Daphne said she only goes for brands she has tried. It&#x27;s the same approach she also applies when accepting projects for TV. “I was just like everyone, wondering why is my Facebook feed full of this Speculoos and cookie butter which I&#x27;ve never tasted in my whole life. So I had to taste it. I&#x27;m not a fan of sweets. But definitely now with the coffee and Biscoff going together I think that&#x27;s a great new tradition that people would love. Right now I have a few projects. I don&#x27;t miss the production part actually because as a mom you have other business you have to do. What I do miss is the reach of the audience especially with <i>TFC</i>. But I have new projects coming up but I cannot announce it. It&#x27;s under the <i>ABS-CBN</i> umbrella,” she admitted.</div><div><br/></div><div>When asked how she feels about being sometimes labeled as too “<i>conyo</i>” for local taste, the talented Filipina takes it all in stride. “I was not educated here I was educated in Canada and I&#x27;m a producer and a writer so I write my own thing, I can adlib. So maybe that&#x27;s all there is. Maybe I&#x27;m just not popular enough to do pang-masa brands (laughs),” she said.</div><div><br/></div><div>The doting mother of three says those who know her blog will say she is not out to just present a high-end image. “It&#x27;s not a conscious effort. I wouldn&#x27;t say high-end because I&#x27;m not about luxury. I did not create a blog or a brand and did not just purposely choose products that are luxurious. In fact, [it’s] the story of my life. People who have seen my home will say it&#x27;s not luxurious. It&#x27;s good living but we have an old house. I use <i>segunda mano</i> furniture but I fix it. So I think it&#x27;s more about good choices rather than high-end products,” she said.</div><div><br/></div><div>Daphne said the only advice she can give for aspiring young hosts is what worked for her as well when she started in the industry, “Oh my goodness I was never formally trained as a host nor was I educated in broadcasting but I learned it from the ground up. I was not just given a show, I was involved in creating my own show, writing my own script. I also learned how to shoot a camera and edit. So my advice to anyone aspiring to be anything is I guess to know the process of how to get there, not just the finished product.<br/><br/> Because when you are just the finished product then they can replace you when there&#x27;s a shinier new thing that comes. But when you own your process and you know it, like if you’re a blogger and you know how to do coding and html and things like that and you have longevity. I think despite not being on TV now and I&#x27;m just with my blog, I&#x27;d like to think what I have is never hype, it has always been about credibility and choosing the products that I work with and choosing the stories that I do and that&#x27;s it,” she shared.</div>