'KC After Hours' Shows Karmina Constantino in A New Light

(SPOT.ph) “I’m so scared.”

This was one of the first things Karmina Constantino told her husband, Noel Torres, when the latter broached the idea of having her own YouTube program early this year. Yes, this is the same intrepid Karmina, journalist and news anchor, who has taken to task quite a number of politicians via her take-no-BS interview style, asking the questions they didn’t quite see coming.

The anxiety didn’t come out of nowhere. TV and radio have always been Constantino’s turf for the last 28 years. She started out in the 90s as production assistant at the now defunct Sky News channel and worked her way to becoming news anchor. When Sky News eventually merged with Sarimanok News Network to become ANC, she stayed on. Decades of experience has honed her current fearless way of approaching her job—not only asking the tough questions but pressing on if the answers left her unsatisfied, no matter who the subject is.  

We all remember that viral and unforgettable response she gave 2022 presidential candidate Jose Montemayor for insinuating ANC was getting payoffs. A few months ago in the same show, the long-running Dateline Philippines, she asked Alyansa Para Sa Bagong Pilipinas campaign manager, Rep. Toby Tiangco, about the current administration’s slate of senatoriables for 2025: “Ano po ang bago dun when it's the same faces at lumang pulitika pa rin?” Shortly after, she was again the toast of TikTok.

Her husband's idea

While peers like Karen Davila and Bernadette Sembrano have established their presence on YouTube since the pandemic, the platform is a completely new terrain for Constantino. “To be honest this is all my husband’s idea,” she says. “He just knows that the democratic spaces in the newsroom all over the world are getting smaller and smaller.”

To those who follow Constantino, and those aware of her experience, credibility, and skill, the timing of her entry into another platform seems perfect, if not long overdue. Still, it took a lot of coaxing to finally get her to say yes.

“Try lang. Get your team together, think of a concept and then I'll support you,” Constantino recalls her husband saying. But even as he was telling her this, Mr. Torres already had an air date in mind. Around March, the KC After Hours concept was born and by September they dropped the first episode on YouTube. “I focus on conversations and not interviews,” Constantino says, describing the program. “I think we've come to a point where there's just so much going around na parang I feel like if it were my children watching, I‘d want to have that sort of contribution, to have another kind of conversation.”

KC as raw as can be

KC After Hours will be a detour from the Karmina the public is used to seeing. If it’s any indication, she is not using her professional name for the program. “KC” is the name by which most of her colleagues and friends call her. “The only thing people know about me is that I’m a Constantino and it's by design. I really don't want to put myself out there so in a way this is kind of nerve-wracking not so much because it’s a new terrain but it’s more like I'm going to share more about my family,” adds the mother of four.  “Twenty-eight years [in the industry] and I haven't shared a lot. So ngayon ishe-share ko na.”

She says she's thankful KC After Hours is bringing out her creative side. “It’s been a while since I created something other than my babies,” she says, referring to her four children: twins Cristiano and Santiago, 15; Matteo, 12; and, Letizia, 4. For the channel, Constantino is in charge of the content side and who to feature, while her husband serves as financier and executive producer.

Judging by the soft, flowing green dress she wore on her second episode, where she had former ANC colleagues Pinky Webb, Ces Drilon, and Ticketworld big boss Yvette White Nepomuceno as guests, KC After Hours promises a more laidback Karmina. Here, casual conversations can be the norm and hearty laughs in between are not out of place. “It's definitely not hard news, because it’s shot in my home. So in that sense, the veneer, the veil of the studio lights and everything--that's all gone and you just get me as raw as I can be.”

In the Ces and friends episode, her questions revolved around their early days as broadcast journalists but also tackled more personal topics like dealing with a break up. In this show, she says she’s free to talk about things like love, singlehood, loss and grief. “Mas malawak [ang pwedeng pag-usapan]. Parang wala nang masyadong shackles.”

Not ‘KC light’

But this doesn’t mean she’s putting the hot issues at the backseat. The program is “not going to be KC light”—she wants that clear. “It’s definitely more authentic and genuine and, in that regard, you can even say it’s heavier in weight because it’s having that leeway to probe deeper,” she explains. “[It will tackle] things that people don't really want to talk about but want to hear. This is going to be the channel for that.”

Indeed, for her third episode where she had lawyer Raymond Fortun as guest, she threw in a mix of hard and light questions. She wanted to find out why the high profile lawyer seems to like taking on controversial clients. Recently, she had fellow broadcast journalist Atom Araullo and they talked about being both children of activists, and of course his very private love life—the clip of which spread like wildfire online.

Constantino, who was named McLuhan Fellow for Excellence in Journalism in 2022, says her YouTube channel will be featuring very diverse personalities, not necessarily controversial but “people who move the country forward” one way or the other. “[They can be] mothers or parents who make sure they're raising good citizens and maybe we would hear from someone who's overcome such huge obstacles to inspire other people.”

‘Dapat may makinabang’

If you’ve always wondered where Constantino has gotten her fierceness, much of it has to do with the family she grew up in. She is the granddaughter of historian and nationalist Renato Reyes Constantino and daughter of activist Renato “RC” Constantino, Jr.. Throughout her life and career, love for country has always been a guiding force. “Always for country. So, when I’m throwing questions [at my subjects] it's not for their ego, it's not for my ego because it's not supposed to be about me or them. It's for the country and the people. Kasi sa sagot nila dapat may makinabang at hindi dapat ako or yung politiko or yung kausap ko. Dapat yung taong bayan,” she stresses.

Growing up, play sometimes mixed with politics for Constantino. “Grade 1 pa lang ako alam ko na yung foreign debt natin. Alam ko na ang IMF at World Bank. Alam ko na dapat our lives are not to be lived for our sake alone. There's got to be a higher purpose,” she says, adding that it is not uncommon for her family to be at rallies during Labor Day or on occasions when they needed to be one with the country on issues like the dismantling of the US bases.

Constantino reveals she is particularly close to her father who passed away April of this year. “When I’m a mess, he would just say one thing and I would snap out of it,” she says. “He would just know exactly what to tell me to make me realize things.”

Months after his passing, Karmina continues to grieve and copes by writing to him everyday. “I write him before I start my day. I talk to him also. It may make me sound like cuckoo but I do.” Constantino has three other siblings, each of whom she says have a special bond with their dad. Of course there’s her mother, too—Lourdes Constantino—who the siblings spend time with as often as they can.

Renato Constantino, Jr. passed away at a time when Karmina and her team were in the thick of planning KC After Hours. While dealing with grief and the uncertainty of launching a new program, Constantino found comfort in what her dad used to tell her each time she had doubts or met challenges in the newsroom. “Continue to do what you’re doing no matter what form it may take.”

And continue she did. One memorable KC After Hours episode is her fifth which featured Congresswoman of the hour, Batangas 2nd District Rep. Jinky Bitrics Luistro. Within the 30-minute running time of the program, Constantino expertly tackled the representative’s interrogation style during the hearings on POGO, the controversial case her husband faced in the past, and how Luistro and her husband’s love story started. There was a hint of tension during the sensitive topics but Constantino’s ease is palpable throughout.

“Parang I can’t explain the feeling…Parang ang gaan lang niya and I think it also shows eh. I don't know,” she tells Spot, struggling with the right words to define the impact of her new program on her. And then she finally lands on something that just explains everything: “I just told the team I don't want to do something that's not me. I don't want to do something that's not authentic. So whatever you see [on screen] yun na yun.”