More Troubles at RX

Photo of Gino Quillamor's tweet to Chico Garcia that led to Gino leaving RX.

ANOTHER major blow has struck Monster RX 93.1 with the departure of Gino Quillamor from the morning show The Morning Rush.

Quillamor left the show last week after being with Chico Garcia and Delamar Arias for close to a decade. Since then, he has not intimated of any plans to join another FM radio station.

Earlier, Arias retired from RX in January this year to focus on marriage and motherhood. She resurfaced on Magic 89.9 to host the weekly show The Mother Show on Friday Madness mornings with Andi Manzano and Riki Flores.

Quillamor and Arias's departures from RX have further weakened the station's lineup of DJs. In a previous post, other RX jocks have also left due to various reasons, such as recently married couple Andre Co and Cerah Hernandez, Jay Abastillas, Jinri Park, Sel Guevara, Carla Lizardo, Chris Schneider and Karen Bordador, who still remains in jail due to drug charges.

As a result, RX has tapped its student DJs from its Radio 1 program to replace the departed veterans. In Quillamor's case, Hazel Aguilon from the night time show Wild and Wicked was moved to Morning Rush to join Chico and Rica Garcia. Aguilon was a former courtside reporter in the UAAP for ABS-CBN Sports representing her alma mater De La Salle University before joining RX.

According to a post I read from the internet forum Pinoy Exchange, Quillamor and Arias left RX because they were reportedly not allowed by the station's management to talk about marriage. It is no secret that both of them have started their own families and that may not have sat it well with RX management because the station has a target audience that consists mainly of college students and young professionals who have no plans of settling down yet.

It's sad to see a station like RX lose DJs one after the other. As I posted before in this blog, I used to visit RX a lot when I was still living in Pasig and I got the chance to meet a lot of their DJs. I also had Karen and Jinri sign my FHM magazines when I visited them at the RX booth during their time as DJs.

In another development, Magic 89.9 lost one of its DJs in Sam Oh, who reportedly has gone back to her native Korea. She used to be with Mo Twister and Nikko Ramos in the morning show Good Times. Since her departure, Magic has not found a permanent replacement although Delamar was a guest co-host once.

These developments have overshadowed the strong showing of the government-run FM1 which, despite having no ads, is getting a lot of interested listeners. No doubt, Philippine FM radio is undergoing a huge upheaval.