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Representation has become our favorite success story: Filipinas in film festivals, on billboards, in Hollywood credits. But between all the applause and algorithm lies a deeper question: what do we mean by representation? Is it simply about seeing someone who looks like us on a TV show? Visibility, we say, is the bare minimum. What matters is what it’s being used for: to challenge, to complicate, to build something lasting.
In a conversation with MEGA, Filipino actress Chai Fonacier reminds us that her kind of visibility doesn’t end when the credits roll. Whether she’s on a foreign set for Nocebo or a local screen in Beauty Empire, her work shifts the lens—on how we see the Filipina, how we listen to her, and how she insists on being seen, both onscreen and beyond.
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The Chai-Kriselda Mirror
In the revenge drama Beauty Empire, Chai plays Kriselda, a woman who begins quietly in the background before revealing herself as the story’s quiet fulcrum. It’s a twist that catches fans off guard. Asked what she learned from the role, she instead focused on what she could relate to: “It’s less of what it taught me and more of what I can relate to, because I have always believed this anyway,” she began. “That women have their own agency in choosing to deal with a world that constantly reminds us of incapabilities that a patriarchal society wrongly deems as true about us.”
And you don’t need to binge the drama to get it. Women like Kriselda have been quietly underestimated for years, their power disguised as background noise. But make no mistake—they’re the ones moving the pieces, pulling strings while everyone else thinks they’re just watching.
Look even closer to see that the Chai-Kriselda mirror cracks in the best of ways. Both are quietly confident, loyal, witty, though neither telegraphs it on the first hello. First impressions? Not always correct. “I’ve been very conscious of how people see me… Then I would tend to separate myself, or fail to greet new people, either because I’m stuck in my head or I become aloof, not out of a lack of care, but more of anxiety. I’ve been seen as a snob or an uncaring person sometimes because of it,” Chai shares.
Like Kriselda, she’s not handing out the full story on day one. The charm is in the reveal. Her subtle, deliberate moves (on screen or off) have a quiet authority, and catching them is half the fun.
Beauty Beyond the Frame
Chai may mirror Kriselda in wit and loyalty, but her subtext is louder: morena, distinct, and unignorable. Case in point: her role in the international film Nocebo. It didn’t just show her face to the world. It gave it authority.
“I once did a quick experiment in private conversations involving beauty,” she shared. “I would describe myself quite simply and straightforwardly: I am brown-skinned, I am short, I have wavy hair, I have a flat nose. People were often quick to comfort me: But you’re beautiful. And I would reply: Thank you, but I didn’t say I was ugly.”
What a nugget of rebellion wrapped in humor. In a country obsessed with whitening creams and “export-quality” beauty, her being tells another story.
Her visibility, then, is so far from decorative. “To simply be visible within spaces where we can share the best of our capacities shows our own people that these standards are nothing but social constructs that can be reshaped,” Chai says. “Because while culture does influence people, who creates and shapes culture in the first place? People do. We do.”
What’s next for actress-singer-songwriter Chai Fonacier? Another international role, another song, another nomination? She’s never short on ambition anyway. At 39, her trajectory only hints at more firsts, more moments that ripple beyond the screen.
But one thing is clear: her craft continues to rewrite the undertones of representation, Filipina beauty, and even agency. She’s a map and a compass—a reminder that visibility, whether in film, song, or whatever creative industry, should only be the beginning.
Catch all episodes of Beauty Empire on Viu Philippines.
Photos: CREAZION STUDIOS ARTISTS
