•A birthday reminder for Pops •Regine moving from GMA to ABS-CBN?

Oh, yes, Pops Fernandez turned a year older – and, let’s hope, wiser – yesterday, her 35th birthday. Three-five, no more and no less.

My birthday wish and/or "gift" to Pops? Just this: All the happiness in the world.

As she has been saying on national television, con todo tears, she has been working to the bone so she deserves a break, she deserves all the personal happiness she can get. After all, all work and no play makes Jane a dull girl, remember?

Go ahead, Pops, paint the town red, let go of yourself, don’t mind nosey movie columnists who chronicle your every move for the whole world to know. Fall in love if you must. Don’t be shy. Stop acting like the "sweet sixteen" that you’re not anymore and come to terms with the reality that you’re an "un-married" woman, legally free to find and choose your own partner (as your ex-husband, Martin Nievera, has done long ago, even when you were together).

You’re 35 and not getting any younger. A few more years and, horrors, you might be over the hill. Loving and enjoying and savoring every minute of it is different when you’re 35 from loving, and maybe not quite savoring every minute of it, when you’re 40. By then, you run the risk of being, shudder, tagged as a "sugar mommy" if you make the "mistake" of falling for a guy (perhaps five years) younger than you are.

It doesn’t look nice for you to be "flaunting" (oops? That’s in quotation marks, Martin, see?) your so-called French suitor/admirer/boyfriend(?) in social events (such as the recent concert of Franco Laurel at the Music Museum) and, when asked about it in interviews, recoiling like a makahiya, complaining (as usual and as expected), "Do you have to ask me about it?" Either you make a clean breast of it or keep it a secret. Why be so "defensive"? What’s wrong with having a boyfriend? You’re single (again!), anyway.

The Frenchman, Jacques Dupasquier (a businessman, according to a Funfare DPA), is good-looking enough to stand beside Martin or any (local) actor for that matter, Piolo Pascual included. And if it’s true, indeed, that something beautiful is developing between the two of you, well and good. Make a go for it.

If Martin can, why can’t you? (Your kids, Ram and Robin, are old enough, I suppose, to understand that their mom deserves to be happy, too, as you yourself been saying.)

Happy 35th, Pops, and may you spend 35 years times 5 of blissful togetherness with whoever is the lucky guy who wins your heart – French or whatever.

*****

Could it be true that Regine Velasquez is quitting GMA (where she co-hosts the Sunday show S.O.P.) and jumping ober da bakod to rival channel ABS-CBN?

Funfare’s "roving DPA" reports that Regine "has made up her mind" and, if plans don’t miscarry, will be having her own show on ABS-CBN by January, 2002, on the Saturday evening timeslot, replacing F which is now being handled by the two remaining hosts (Angel Aquino and Daphne Oseña) following the recent resignation of Cher Calvin who’s relocating to her native USA early next year.

Regine has been a loyal "GMA-er" from way back, all right. But lately, she is being seen more and more often in ABS-CBN shows, including last weekend’s Bantay-Bata (an ABS-CBN pet project) concert at the Meralco Theater where Regine did the finale.

The Funfare DPA added that Regine "doesn’t feel good" about GMA’s decision to take out Regine’s younger sister Cacai (wife of theater actor Raul Mitra, who’s also Regine’s musical director in her concerts and recordings) from S.O.P. You know, drop Cacai and Regine will drop out not only from S.O.P. but from GMA. The Velasquez sisters aren’t really into any "package deal" but when Regine agreed to co-host S.O.P., one of her conditions was that Cacai also be taken in.

Now, if ever Regine joins ABS-CBN, will she include Cacai as part of the "deal"?

Regine is playing her song. Stay tuned.