Jenine, Juan Miguel break up

It’s a marriage that ended the way it started – quietly, that is, not in the limelight like most showbiz marriages are.

So when you hear that Jenine Desiderio (the Miss Saigon girl gone bold in Mamasan, one of the six entries in the ongoing Manila Filmfest) and her musician husband Juan Miguel Salvador have broken up, you wonder, "Why, have they been married?" That’s how low-key and how "uncontroversial" Jenine and Juan Miguel’s private lives are.

I bet you didn’t even know that they were married and had a daughter named Janelle during their four years of marriage.

"They broke up several months ago," said the Funfare DPA, "but only very few people knew about it. Janelle is with Jenine. For four years, being both passionate with their profession, Jenine and Juan Miguel played beautiful music together, until a ‘third party’ entered the picture. She’s a model, who has to remain unidentified for the time being."

The DPA didn’t say if the break-up was "amicable" or if it had anything to do with Jenine’s decision to go bold in her latest movie. Could it be possible that Jenine is, uh, suffering in silence?

Sen. Loren still your ‘Kabalikat’

When Sen. Loren Legarda met the movie press two weeks ago to announce the comeback of her rudely-interrupted TV show, now titled LOREN: Kabalikat Natin (weekly on ABS-CBN News Channel, ANC, 7 p.m. on Saturdays starting June 29), she apologized for the not-so-funny antics of the Senators (herself included, blush!) saying, "I feel so sorry about it."

Described by its producer, David Celdran, as "civic journalism" (subject of his thesis during his scholarship in Japan), Kabalikat is a 45-minute magazine show that features real people making real progress in their communities. Every week, the show will visit communities around the country to put a human face on social issues such as homelessness, child labor and illiteracy by showing stories of human triumph.

Is the show paving the way for Sen. Loren’s plans for 2004? Or, to put it bluntly, is Sen. Loren running for a higher office (perhaps for Vice President) in the next elections?

Since that presscon, Sen. Loren has been on the front pages, being pitted with presidential aspirants from both parties (is it Angara or GMA?) as probable running-mate, but her answer to that question was, observed the movie writers, "very revealing."

Said Sen. Loren, "If I say I’m not running for a higher office, you might accuse me of denying it later. But I’m not turning away from any opportunity. I’m doing it as a Filipino and not as a politician."

Is Sen. Loren starting to sound like, ehem, a "tradpol"?

Anyway, besides her "green project" (with more than 1,000,000 trees planted in more than 100,000 hectares all over the country in four years), Sen. Loren hopes to help less fortuante but talented people through Kabalikat, like what she did to Melinda de Vera, the "kariton girl", whom she has sent to a computer school, let stay at her home, hiring her as employee. Melinda and her family used to live in a kariton along Roxas Boulevard. Sen. Loren learned about her miserable existence when Melinda and her brood were featured in a broadsheet.

Among Sen. Loren’s scholars is 14-year-old Joseph Bosito who, as a miner diving into mudholes for a few bucks, was featured in Loren’s old show LOREN (predecessor of the short-lived Kabalikat on ABS-CBN which featured true crime stories). Bosito has stopped diving into mudholes and is now in high school in his hometown of Paracale, Camarines Norte.

Gerald does a ‘Bembol’

Gerald Madrid offers no apologies for having bared himself in his past movies, saying that as an actor, he’d do anything his role requires him to do. But it was for a non-bold role that Gerald got an Urian Best Supporting Actor nomination in 1999, for Jeffrey Jeturian’s quiet family drama Sana Pagibig Na where Gerald played the disillusioned son of a philandering husband (Chinggoy Alonso) and a martyr wife (the late Nida Blanca).

In his latest movie, Biglang Liko, Gerald plays a probinsyano who goes to the big city in search of his missing girlfriend. It’s a role reminiscent of the one Bembol Roco played in Lino Brocka’s Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag. "Parang Bembol ang role ko," said Gerald, "kaya lang, mas daring ng kaunti."

Gerald is also in the cast of Star Cinema’s Ginatang Apoy, topbilled by Aga Muhlach and Claudine Barretto.

"I play only a small role but I’m proud of it," he said. "Working with Star Cinema makes me feel na nasa ‘mainstream’ na ako."