Tuesday with Pilar and Manay Ichu

Tuesday night was originally a free time for me – until a friend sought me out to work on the layout of the condominium unit he and his wife had just acquired. (I’ve always been a frustrated architect and I now do free consultations regarding structural designs that are eventually approved by licensed professionals). Tuesday night was the time I gave him.

Then, Marichu Maceda called me up to ask if we can go over the old photos (mostly movie stills and layouts) that they are using for the yet to be finished Sampaguita Pictures book of the Vera-Perezes. We were selecting the pictures along with her sister, Lilibeth Nakpil, and Tuesday was the only free day of Betchay.

Two appointments in one night are still pretty manageable, except that one of my buddies in college flew in from the US and Tuesday was his only free day. Somehow I was able to fit in all three in my calendar.

Last Saturday, however, and this was right in the middle of the live edition of Startalk, StarStruck avenger Kirby de Jesus, who was manning the Talakathon phone lines, called me because somebody wanted to speak to me. It turned out to be one of the people of Pilar Pilapil and I was being invited to the actress’ book launch last Tuesday. They had sent the invitation by fax to GMA 7, but I’m never there except to do Startalk on Saturday. (And neither do I ever show up in Philippine STAR because I am among those who have the luxury of doing my work at home.)

I’ve read about Pilar Pilapil’s book, The Woman Without a Face, in Funfare a couple of weeks ago and what Ricky Lo wrote was enough to encourage me to get a copy for myself. But the launch was Tuesday.

I braced myself for a full day when I woke up around noon last Tuesday. First on the list was to visit my friend’s condo unit in the Ortigas area and that was one easy job because the unit was only 85 square meters and it was no sweat doing its layout (it was turned over to them without partitions, except for the bathroom). We actually spent more time having snacks. To burn the calories, I even managed to spend 20 minutes in the gym before proceeding to the next appointment: Pilar’s book launch at the Teatrino in Promenade. The plan was to be there at 6 p.m. before proceeding to Manay Ichu at 6:30.

When I got to the book launch, I thought I was early. But Gretchen Barretto (looking so lovely as ever) was already there and at another table were my journalist friends Ronald Constantino and Remy Umerez. Of course, the star of the night, the author herself, Pilar Pilapil, was the most radiant that evening.

But much as I wanted to stay, I already got text messages from Manay Ichu asking me to proceed to Vera Perez Gardens pronto. I took a French leave, but my escape had to be recorded by the GMA 7 camera and I saw that aired Wednesday night on Saksi.

At the terraza of the Vera Perez Gardens, I heard running and shrieking and it turned out that the adorable Muhlach twins, Atasha and Andres, were there playing. (Lola Lilibeth borrows them from time to time – especially when the parents, Aga and Charlene Muhlach, are away). Less than an hour later, the atmosphere became even more rambunctious (but fun) when Maceda daughter-in-law, Rica, came in with her son, Max.

We could have gone on just watching the kids at play (especially Andres with his cute antics), but there was work to be done. And so we began going over the pictures and the exercise was so much easier now – unlike three years ago (yes, the book is taking this long to finish) when we had to go over a huge pile of dusty photo albums.

With the three of us – Manay Ichu, Lilibeth and myself – we were like the American Idol judges deciding if a particular picture should go into the book. Each Sampaguita star had to be represented and we went over endless photos of leading men and movie queens. Going over pictures of the late Tita Duran, I thought I was looking at photos of granddaughter Maxene Magalona.

Among the Sampaguita stars, we had the most difficulty choosing pictures of Gloria Romero because there were so many to choose from (she was the biggest among them, after all) and she looked divine in each one of them.

After almost two hours, we thought we needed a break and nourishment and had dinner with Vera-Perez grand matriarch, Mama Nene. Since we were in a hurry to finish work, we swooped down on dinner (prepared by the ever-reliable Vera-Perez cook Tessie Duay) and in no time at all were poring over pictures again. It was no easy task because we had to deliberate carefully among ourselves and we didn’t agree all the time on which photos to use for the book.

By 9:30 p.m., we called it a night because Manay Ichu had an early meeting in Tagaytay the next day and off I went to see my college buddy, who felt bad that he came in last in my priority list. (What are best friends for but to understand each other’s predicament, right?)

I finally got home at way past midnight and decided to get myself settled in bed to enjoy the book written by Pilar and I will write about it and its exciting moments in my column on Tuesday.