PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 2009

BRIAN SHANE GORRELL TAKES IT ALL OFF FOR HIV AWARENESS
“I’m a deeply devoted vehicle for change. Being such a passionate communicator is easy and my objectives are lofty but achievable nonetheless. Assisting faithfully the HIV/AIDS advocacy community to help eliminate HIV/AIDS related stigma is a primary goal that is closest to my heart." Brian Shane Gorrell

Gucci Gang.

That, sans any argument, was what started it all.

The fame, that is, of Brian Shane Gorrell.
In 2007 (March 4, to be exact), the Australian landscape designer started a blog, The Talented Mr. DJ Montano (delfindjmontano.blogspot.com from blogger.com), which spilled the beans – so to speak – on everything about the socialites and social climbers of Metro Manila, from Celine Lopez to Tim Yap to, yes, Delfin DJ Montano, whose relationship with Gorrell served as the impetus to the whole story.

“I started my incredible blogging journey under the most dire of circumstances, when my Filipino ex-lover Delfin DJ Montano fraudulently obtained my life savings (of $70,000), leaving me with nothing (as he) eventually fled the Philippines for San Francisco in disgrace,” Gorrell states in his site, adding, nonetheless, that while Montano allegedly stole everything from him, he didn’t take from Gorrell “my ability to write and warn others through my blogging campaign for the truth.”

And so an advocate was born.

MAKING OF AN ADVOCATE

Allegedly, Montano swindled Gorrell of his life savings totaling $70,000 – supposedly sent to Montano as a silent investor for two investments, a failed restaurant (to be called Bonza) in Makati City, as well as a tour booking company in Boracay Island in Malay, Aklan.  After discovering that his contributions were used to pay up Montano’s personal debt, the ensuing confrontation of Gorrell of Montano led to the now infamous Gucci Gang controversy.

There was, to begin with, the initial charging of Gorrell of assault, said to be “through the help of Montano’s (well-connected) friends,” as now states Wikipedia.org (which, interestingly, has an entry of the controversy).  Seemingly as if to show Gorrell their power over everything in the Philippines (And, seemingly, how everything in this country can be bought – Ed), the then ruffled socialites/social climbers were allegedly able to have the Australian kept in custody for a while, even if, in the end, the case was just dismissed.

Then there was the storytelling of everything about the, yes, socialites and social climbers of Metro Manila – from infidelity to pervasive drug use to… everything; among the juiciest, of course, was the alleged pervasive drug use (and see how they remain untouched by the law enforcers of the Philippines) in home parties, in clubs, in… everywhere.

Then there were the eventual media coverage – gossip blog ChikaTime.com, of course, first carried the story (in February 2007); ABS-CBN News Channel, through Korina Today (of broadcaster Korina Sanchez), interviewed Montano and his family; and ABS-CBN’s Media in Focus tackled Gorrell’s blog, among others.

And then there were the, well, repercussions – e.g. in March 2008, Gorrell stated in his site that officials from the Philippine Consulate in Sydney, Australia, as well as the Australian Federal Police took him in for questioning; and the correspondences between the parties involved [Lopez’s lawyer supposedly wrote Gorrell that “she is no longer in communication with Montano, and, in as much as she wants to help (him) with (his) problem with the latter, (she) does not have the capacity to assist (him) as she was not privy to the transaction which only (him) and Montano can properly resolve”].

No matter the stance taken regarding the issue, though (i.e. for or against Gorrell), what cannot be denied about the hullabaloo is its popularity.  When Technograph (technogra.ph), reviewed the site in 2007, it begrudgingly admitted (the site is not for Gorrell, who was seen to use technology to blackmail or at least arm-twist people) that the blog has attracted a total of 200,000 (then, for the first two months of the blog’s existence in 2007), “making it one of the most popular Filipino-related Web sites.”

Wikipedia.org is more generous, pegging the visits of the blog to have reached 270,000, amounting to 36,600 visits a day, with each lasting an average of 52 minutes – at least for the first 10 days of the blog’s online existence.  The site adds how the blog has been visited over two million times as of end-June 2007.
To date, it counts approximately 30 million hits.

As for Gorrell: “Well over 30 million people have read my blog now, and it has broken every blogging record in the Philippines, including unique hits and page reads.  No other blog has even come close to these incredible numbers, which I'm very proud of.”

It is this number that is now Gorrell’s intended market as the blog diversified.
While “I've (slain) my enemies and destroyed their theories” through the blog that “is my healer, and ultimately brought me to this wonderful place where I find myself today,” Gorrell’s “fight for justice” continues as he now recognizes “the responsibilities of being a blogger-advocate. I know myself to be the voice for many people. People who may never be heard, or have their passions acknowledged without a conduit like a blog,” he says.

POSITIVE LIFE

Gorrell is, by the way, HIV positive – a fact he never hid in his blog, and, for that matter, in his life (even Montano, while they were lovers, knew of Gorrell’s seropositive status, Gorrell stresses).

Thus, while “mindful of others (particularly when traveling abroad), taking into consideration that they may have a lack of knowledge and understanding of the HIV virus, I had no problems whatsoever when I lived in the Philippines. I have never had a problem with my HIV while travelling anywhere in the world.”

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