Joshua saved by his Guardian Angel

Curtain-raisers:

• So Janna Victoria and Dominic Ochoa are now an item, as they themselves revealed in yesterday’s birthday tribute to Dominic on MTB. There was just something "tasteless" committed by Janna. Asked by Dominic’s MTB co-hosts how Dominic won her, Janna, probably trying to be funny, smiled, "Inutu--n niya ako!" Foul joke cracked when most everybody (this one included) were having lunch.

• Could it be true that Aga Muhlach and Sharon Cuneta are being eyed by the Viva people to topbill Pagdating ng Panahon, inspired by Aiza Seguerra’s triple-platinum hit song, with Joey Javier Reyes as director? The movie was originally intended to be Aga and wife Charlene Gonzalez’s post-wedding starrer but Charlene has been advised by her obstetrician to slow down now that she’s into her sixth month of pregnancy. Aga and Sharon together? No doubt it’s going to be a megahit!

• Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan gave birth to a 10-pound boy at 9:45 p.m. the other day (Aug. 2) 10 minutes after she was rushed to the St. Luke’s Medical Center. It’s her and husband Anthony Pangilinan’s fourth child. The baby will be named Benjamin Ryan.

* * *

As usual and as expected, Kris Aquino texted to me her immediate reaction to yesterday’s item about her having given ex-homemate Phillip Salvador the cold-shoulder treatment when Phillip showed up at St. Luke’s Medical Center where their six-year-old son Joshua was confined after he was injured in a freak accident when Kris’ Expedition ran over him.

Here’s Dear Kris:

"Correction lang. Josh was asleep the whole time his dad visited him the first night of his confinement. He was under heavy sedation. They didn’t hug ’til last night (Aug. 2) when he was awake. Ipe and I haven’t been in good terms since October (last year) kaya mahirap naman yata kaming maging friendly agad. About the extent of Josh’s injury... The bruising is very deep. His thigh is very swollen and almost black. Because of the pain, he can’t walk. We will stay with my Mom (Tita Cory Aquino, that is. – RFL) for the next two weeks because our place has stairs and Josh can’t manage to go up the stairs yet.

"I haven’t stopped praying my thanks because I know his Guardian Angel really saved his life. The wheel of the Expedition literally went over his thigh. Kung knee ’yon, it would have been crushed. Kung sa pelvic area, his implants sa ureters would have burst. Sana lang you could be sympathetic sa amin since we all went through the trauma of almost losing Josh. Ginawa mo pang parang telenovela."

Yes, of course, Dear Kris, I sincerely sympathize with you. As I told you during our chat after you sent me that text message, I prayed for Joshua’s safety the same night (Aug. 1, birthday of Ethel Ramos) he met that accident and I continue praying for him.

How can I not sympathize with you when I went through a similar trauma when my knee was crushed (seriously injured, with a six-inch "S"-shaped wound) when I walked through a sliding glass door in our house in November last year? I’m not as insensitive as you suspected me to be, Dear Kris. Until now, almost nine months after that freak accident, I’m still wearing a knee cap over my left knee which sometimes "crumbles" (as if "loosening up") under extreme pressure such as the impact of stationary jogging or brisk walking.

For a week, in fact, I walked around on crutches which I had to give later on to a cripple (left leg cut off) I saw begging at the corner of Quezon Avenue and Examiner St. in Quezon City. It was my way of thanking God for making me walk normally again. That cripple beggar was using crutches made of tree branches and when I saw him that fateful Palm Sunday, I thought there was some divine message for me somewhere.

Now that you and Joshua are staying with your Mom on Examiner Street, check out that street corner and you can see the cripple beggar’s old crutch still hanging behind that street sign that says "To Makati."

Yes, Dear Kris, I believe, like you and your Mom do, that Joshua was saved by his Guardian Angel. Your Mom was right when she told you that Joshua’s Guardian Angel lifted the Expedition so it would be lighter when it ran over Joshua’s thigh. Like the late STAR founder, your Ninang Betty Go-Belmonte (who’s your Mom’s dear, dear friend), I believe in Guardian Angels, that’s why I’ve been publishing the roster of Guardian Angels (on a monthly basis) of everybody.

You said, Dear Kris, that you didn’t know the name of Joshua’s Guardian Angel. Well, according to Veronique Jarry’s book Who Is Your Guardian Angel? (given to me as an Easter Sunday gift by Tempo’s Ronald Constantino), the Guardian Angel of Joshua (born on June 4, and those born between June 1 and 5) is Hariel, the Seventh Angel of the Cherubim, who "leads his proteges to spirituality. He wants them to have high moral standards. He helps them to purify their souls and to live according to good values rather than lower instincts...."

Joshua has the same Guardian Angel as Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Hardy, Federico Garcia Lorca, Socrates and Johnny Weismuller (the original Tarzan). Remember the name, Dear Kris. It’s Hariel.

And what about your Guardian Angel, Dear Kris? Well, since you were born in February (14th), you will have to wait for a few months before Funfare comes out with the roster of Guardian Angels for those born in February. Meanwhile, be the same nice angel you have always been to Joshua – even if you don’t have wings.

(Postscript: If you appear with Boy Abunda on The Buzz tomorrow, hold yourself and please don’t cry. If you haven’t noticed, angels don’t cry but men sometimes do. I promised you I’d give Joshua "something" and I’m giving "it" to you in a few days time. Promise, promise!)

Aiza’s time has come

Everybody is singing her song – yes, Pagdating ng Panahon – and isn’t it the most universally-resounding proof that Aiza Seguerra’s time has come, is here?

The song, released by Vicor Corporation, is now triple-platinum (meaning, more than 120,000 copies sold; a "gold" consists of 25,000 copies sold and a "platinum," 40,000 copies) – and it’s still selling, turning Aiza into the hottest singer of the hour, beating Regine Velasquez’s Pangako (at No. 2) in the hit charts. Naughty movie writers have proclaimed the glad tidings: "The Song-bird has been dislodged by the T-Bird!"

Oh, yes, that nagging "issue" about Aiza’s gender, er, sexual preference, the same one hounding the likes of Ricky Martin, Tom Cruise (who has sued a tabloid writer and won) and some local celebrities. No, it doesn’t bother Aiza at all nor her parents, Dick and Nanay Caring Seguerra, and it’s the right attitude. An artist should be "judged" not by what his/her preferences, sexual or otherwise, are but by how well and how good she is in her craft. Aiza is proving herself to be a good singer, so who cares where her "preference" lies?

About Pagdating ng Panahon which is tumbling out of the lips of everybody, from Manila to Mindanao, and beyond local shores...

"I never expected it to be a hit," admitted Aiza, "so when it became a ‘gold,’ I had to pinch myself. And then, hayun, triple-platinum na nga and I still couldn’t believe it."

The song, with music and lyrics by Edith Gallardo and Moy Ortiz (of The CompanY), has assumed all sorts of meanings all because it’s Aiza singing it, doing so with so much feeling that you won’t doubt that it’s coming straight from her heart.

"Sabi nila," smiled Aiza, "ginawa daw ’yung song para sa third sex. It’s not true! I sing it from the heart because that’s what my Mom has always been telling me, ‘When you do something, whether singing a song or playing a role, do it straight from your heart.’ They can say what they want to say but I’m glad and thankful that many people can relate to the song and that, to me, is what is important."

So, she doesn’t have any "special someone" when she’s singing what’s turning out to be "the song of her life?"

"None at all. I’ve never been in a situation na naghihintay ako ng kung ano pa man, ng pagdating ng panahon. What I did was internalize when I recorded that song; I imagined myself in that kind of situation."

What Aiza is waiting for is her "debut" on Sept. 17 but it’s not your traditional debut with the cotillion, the offering of 18 roses and the lighting of 18 candles. No such rituals, thank you! No such "trimmings." In fact, Aiza won’t even be wearing a gown.

"Wala pong gown-gown," she laughed a bit. "I won’t be comfortable in a gown. It will be an informal affair, to be held at the Villa Escudero in Quezon. I want my guests just to relax and enjoy the day, parang picnic, maybe with a band playing beautiful music. Ganoon lang."

How time flies!

It seems only yesterday when three-year-old Aiza finished a runner-up in Eat, Bulaga’s Little Miss Philippines contest where eight-year-old Jessa Zaragoza was also a candidate. You blinked and Aiza was fast growing up, quitting as segment host of Bulaga to concentrate on her studies at UST (at the Conservatory of Music before she shifted to Fine Arts), on the side doing gigs in the provinces and, without our knowing it, honing her singing skills with often-interrupted formal music lessons and by self-study.

And then came Pagdating ng Panahon which made us stop and take a second serious look at a grown-up Aiza. We hardly noticed her growing big, did we?

Now she’s turning 18 and setting her sights on a course in Forensic Science (maybe in the States), gobbling up detective books (she’s finishing What the Corpse Revealed) faster than her peers would wipe out a bagful of junk food. Aiza is intelligent, a good conversationalist and a precocious/perceptive teener, qualities she showed early on.

What does the "debutante" want for her birthday?

"A CRV (Honda)," she said, "and sana, makita ko ang best friend kong si Mai Mai Jamora who’s in the States. I haven’t seen her for three years."

Throughout her journey on the starry, starry road, Aiza has been level-headed, not at all dazzled by stardom and the public adulation, thanks to her parents (especially Nanay Caring) who never falsely made her believe that she’s the best and the mostest.

"People tell me I’m okay even if I’m not, thinking perhaps na matutuwa o mapla-flatter ako," said Aiza. "I wasn’t brought up that way. My Mom tells me frankly if my performance is not okay and praises me if everything’s okay. Even if many people tell me I’m okay, I don’t believe them until my Mom tells me so."

(Note: Aiza stars with Barbie’s Cradle in a sold-out concert entitled Aiza Rocks Barbie’s Cradle tonight at the Music Museum, produced by eight designs and marketing which also produced Pops Fernandez and Side A’s post-Valentine show last February. The show will have a repeat on Aug. 18, also in the same venue.)