Raelene Elaine Ebaler Villanía (born June 29, 1986 in Australia), better known as Iya Villania, is a television presenter, print model and VJ currently active in the Philippines. Although Villania is also an actress, she is mostly credited as one of contemporary Philippine television’s most visible and prominent personalities having shared the hosting spotlight in Philippine TV shows such as ASAP, U Can Dance and most notably Wowowee, which she co-hosted on ABS-CBN from February 2005 to June 2006. She is currently a VJ for the Philippine music video channel Myx.

Screen Name: Iya Villania
Full Name: Raelene Elaine Ebaler Villania
Nick Name: Bubba, Len, Rae
Birthdate: June 29, 1986
Place of Birth: Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
Height: 5′4
Hobbies: shopping, baking
Sports: Touch Footy - safe alternative to rugby Track and field

FAVORITES:
Actors: Keanu Reeves and Drew Barrymore
Singer: Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys
Cartoon Character: Cookie Monster and Tigger
Bands: No Doubt, Incubus
Movie: Van Wilder

Villania’s acting credits include supporting roles in the movies Aishite Imasu and A Beautiful Life, plus starring roles in Exodus: A Tale of Enchanted Kingdom and the horror flick Pamahiin (roughly translates to superstition alongside Dennis Trillo and Paolo Contis.

The youngest of three sisters, she used to be a tomboyish girl, she loved playing “touch footy,” a less physically violent variation of the rough sport. “You just tag players instead of tackling them,” she explains. “But when unsupervised, we tend to tackle each other really hard.”

Things weren’t as easy at first. She did a frightening amount of VTR tests, with not-so-encouraging results. She wasn’t getting hired, and it got to a point when she took the rejections personally, ‘What’s wrong with me?’But thanks to the now defunct, GameChannel. Iya got her break being a Game Jock interacting with the players of the show. Few commercials followed and she was hired to play the role of ‘Sydney’ in GMA 7’s youth oriented show, Click.Despite the attention and hellers, Iya doesn’t consider herself a star yet. “There’s so much competition, so many people better than me. I’m not the best. I’d like to think I’m still trying. Like, I’m still doing all those VTRs.”

Her accent isn’t something she’s conscious of. She said that, it’s the people around her who make her conscious. Iya speaks with an unapologetic Aussie accent and manages to make vowel endings sound like ‘er,’ or even ‘ewr.’ But she’s not about to drop any of that anytime soon. “My accent is part of me. Although I have been criticized for having a foreign accent, I’m not about to lose it. People just have to accept me for what I am.”

Due to numerous offerings and school loads, Villania’s singing career, her main reason for coming in the Philippines, had to take a backseat. In spite of this, she still was given the opportunity to demonstrate her talent on many occasions. In 2003, she front-acted for the American pop rock band Hanson. In 2005, she had a singing duet with Ogie Alcasid in his Valentine concert. Beside singing for most of her part in Footloose The Musical, she recorded “Almost Paradise” with Jay-R which became the carrier song for the musical’s album release. In 2006, in-line with her endorsement for Rose Online, she recorded the game’s carrier single “Good To Be Me” and performed it during the game’s official launching.