I am not a fan of Filipino telenovelas. Well, not a fan of any telenovelas although my family watches some korean telenovelas, I never partake the kind of enjoyment they experienced. Honestly, there's not much to watch on local tv (please this is just my opinion, and i do not mean to offend anyone). The stories are the same, the characters are the same and the actors are the same. Of course, they have to go on a circle and change partners once in awhile. Almost always, the telenovelas start with so many characters but then "death" has to play a major part, and when the story gets too complicated, the director or the scripwriter will have to "kill" one character almost every week, until you're left with the major characters both good and bad. The kind of stories are like these:
1.Poor and rich will sooner or later fall in love with each other and of course the rich's family will contradict and so is the other party. Their love will prevail, of course. Happy ending.
2. Poor and rich, same as above, only the poor will rise to fame and glory and sooner will become richer than the rich. Once the poor is in the position, s/he will use the same as s/he has experienced. But then during the latter part, s/he will realize that love is stronger than hatred and so s/he will learn how to forgive.
3. Rich and poor, same as number one but sooner they will realize that they have the same parents and so this poor person will become rich. Later on, the rich person will realize that s/he is not the real son/daughter of the rich dad or rich mom but an adopted child. S/he will forget all the love that his adoptive parents have given him all through out. S/he will feel betrayed and will then look for his real parents who are poor and for some reason, connected to the girl/boy s/he's fallen in love with (the former poor person).
4. What complicates the story is the following: third party who's usually an elitist or an English-speaking guy or girl, whose role is to always ruin a good relationship; a nurse or doctor who would conspire to do a switch, a false medical result or anything to that effect so that in the end the revelation will give justice or something; and of course, somebody always has to go to the US when trouble comes. (US as the paradise).

*note: the poor girl or guy has to be the servant of the rich girl or guy's family.

However, I found out that in Africa, Filipino telenovelas are a big hit. As in, they watch it like crazy. They watch it like the first time Mexican telenovelas came in the picture or crazy like most Filipinos for Korean telenovelas. They were chatting with me and naming all the characters in different telenovelas. They were so into it!!! And then a Zambian friend asked me what's wrong with me because I'm not watching Filipino telenovelas. Of course, I just said that it's not my thing. She's so in love with Jericho Rosales and John Lloyd. She wants to be as beautiful as Kristine Hermosa. Funny, when I took the plane from Amsterdam (I came from Spain to attend the Global Education Seminar and just got back last night), Jericho Rosales and the rest of the telenovela actors were on the same plane as mine. I would not even notice until some Filipinos took photos with them. While I still don't intend to watch telenovelas (I'm not really a tv person), I am glad that in other parts of the world, they appreciate the Filipinos. In the same seminar, a Portuguese friend said that of all the places she visited, she finds the Philippines "to be the home of the most beautiful women". That's really nice to hear considering that some groups of media always portray my contrary as the home of "bad people".