In a rather untimely manner, television and film director Wenn Deramas succumbed to cardiac arrest on Monday Feb. 29, after seeing the doctors failed to revive his sister who suffered from multiple complications of diabetes.
According to his close friend and manager, June Rufino, Deramas rushed to Capitol Medical Center in Quezon City where his sister was confined. He witnessed the doctors reviving her sister. As a reaction to the her sister’s terrible condition and eventual passing, at 2 a.m., he suffered a heart attack and, at 6:15 a.m., pronounced dead by doctors. He was 49.
Born Edwin Villanes Deramas, he completed a bachelor’s degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management at University of Sto. Tomas. He started working in television as a production assistant for the TV show Tatak Pilipino. Then, he worked as a writer for the morning talk show Teysi ng Tahanan and was promoted as the executive producer of Calvento Files.
After entering the entertainment industry as production assistant in 1990, Deramas got his first chance as TV director in 1996 with Mula Sa Puso, a top-rating drama starring Claudine Barretto and the late Rico Yan. The series was revived in 2011, and Deramas once again took the helm as director and screenwriter.
A leading figure on the local comedy filmmaking scene, Deramas had established himself as a box office director having helmed 32 movies throughout his career. He directed commercially successful movies like the highest grossing local film of all time, Beauty and the Bestie and the top-grossing Praybeyt Benjmin series, which all starred Vice Ganda.
Television and movie stars like Vice Ganda, Kris Aquino, Heart Evangelsita, Anne Curtis, Marvin Agustin, and Gary Valenciano took to social media to pay tribute to the film and TV director following news of his death. A few other celebrities also took to Twitter to express their shock upon knowing the untimely demise of the director whom they consider as a dear friend and mentor, too.
Deramas was supposed to receive two awards (Most Popular Screenwriter and Most Popular Film Director) from the annual Guillermo Mendoza Memorial Scholarship Foundation Box-Office Entertainment Awards (GMMSF-BOEA) to be held next month. He had been named Most Popular Film Director of GMMSF-BOEA every year since 2011.
His remains lie in state at Arlington Funeral Homes in Quezon City. Interment details, according to close friends, will be announced later.