A mother’s pride, a daughter’s love

If a tree is known by the fruit it bears, Gina Pareño has done one hell of a good job. Three years ago when the 57-year-old Gina had to go on rehab after a bout with drugs (she’s totally clean now), her daughter Jannica, now 19, took it upon herself to enter the movies to support her two brothers and grandmother.

Jannica didn’t feel bitter about it. It was just something she had to do for love of her family. In the process, she found her calling.

"I want to follow in my mom’s footsteps," she now says. And it’s drama Jannica wants to excel in.

Mother and daughter are together for the first time in Viva Films’ Masikip sa Dibdib. And it’s heartwarming to find out how one looks out for the other,.

Gina doesn’t mind acting like a P.A. (production assistant) to Jannica, carrying her things around from scene to scene.

Jannica, on the other hand, still looks to her mother for comfort. At the presscon for instance, Jannica whispered to Gina, "Please stay with me while reporters ask me questions."

Jannica has always drawn strength from Gina’s reassuring presence. As the only daughter in their fatherless family, Jannica marveled at how her mom did movies and taped TV shows, slept only two hours, and found time for them in between.

"She taught me how to be organized and neat. On top of that," Jannica looks across the table at Saki, Gina’s pet, "she even found time to bathe the dog."

Like her mom, who never married any of her three serious loves, Jannica shuns marriage. It’s not that she hates men. Her last boyfriend passed away three years ago. It’s just that Jannica figured that if Gina was able to raise all three of them siblings without the help of a man, why can’t she?

Gina, overhearing her daughter’s comments, said, "If that’s what will make her happy, who am I to get in the way?"

She is not that hands-off, however, when it comes to her daughter’s career. Gina would distribute group photos of her daughter to reporter-friends and assure them Jannica can act, based on what she saw on the video monitor while shooting Masikip sa Dibdib.

The daughter is not only getting tips from her mom in the acting department. More importantly, she’s drawing inspiration from a woman who’s been through hell and back.

"I’m strong, like my mother," declares Jannica. Unlike Gina though, whose life reads like a truncated chapters of a romantic novel – Jannica is careful to let her head rule over her heart.

"My priority," Jannica says as she tosses her straight, long tresses, "is career. Love can wait."

Besides, she’s getting a lot of love from Gina, who is only too happy to share romantic scenes with men younger than she is (read: Kier Legaspi, who plays her lover) these days.

"After my one-year rehab (thanks to Kapisanan ng mga Artistang Pilipino’s Rudy Fernandez and Rez Cortez and the late Inday Badiday), I realized how much I love my work. I appreciated the talent God gave me a lot more," says Gina.

Thanks to that momentous phase in her life, Gina admits she has mellowed and become stronger.

"I used to ram my ambitions about Jannica becoming an actress down her throat. I’m not that pushy anymore," Gina admits.

She doesn’t have to. Jannica, as her string of movies shows, takes to acting as easily as a duck takes to water.

Lazy days are now spent fishing in Batangas instead of painting the town red, adds Gina, who takes good care of her looks by consulting Cosmetiderm’s Dr. Manuel Calayan and his dermatologist-wife Pie.

"Dr. Calayan performed face contouring on me and removed my eyebags," Gina is not ashamed to admit. Dr. Pie, on the other hand, took care of Gina’s skin, using microcrystals and the latest in fotolaser technology.

There’s another reason behind Gina’s glowing skin: the inner peace that makes her exude an aura of calm and happiness.

"I want to be remembered in showbiz as someone who made people happy," she says with a smile.

At the rate she’s cheering people up by just being her bubbly self, Gina Pareño will definitely get what she wants all over again.