The plot is getting thicker and thicker. The subplots are getting murkier and murkier. The public is getting curioser and curioser. And the supporting characters are getting so much funnier and funnier that you don’t know anymore whether to laugh or to cry, or to laugh and cry over what was basically a non-issue that was blown out of proportion and shamelessly turned into a national dramedy. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!! Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu!!!
Lolit Solis recalled in her Pilipino Star Ngayon column that on Oct. 12, 2007, between 3 and 4 p.m., she was going to attend an event at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza but she lost her way and found herself in the poolside coffee shop where she said she saw Piolo Pascual and Sam Milby, presumably having snacks, and apparently “whispering” (the PSN headline said, “Sam at Piolo huling-huling naglalampungan,” although the word “lampungan” was not in the text, but only the word “nagbubulungan”) to each other. When the waiter blurted out her name — “Si Lolit Solis!!!” — Lolit said that Piolo and Sam “scampered” away, leaving the chairs around their table in disarray.
As simple as that. It would have been an incident that could have been brushed away with a shrug and a “So what?” Yes, so what? As I was saying, what’s wrong with having coffee and even whispering to each other’s ears, unless of course the two guys have “something” to hide, in which case I’m sure they are intelligent enough not to do it in such a public place within earshot of everybody.
Soon, everybody wants to have a piece of the tina-pie.
Timex guys said that Piolo couldn’t have been at the Plaza at that time because he was shooting a new commercial with Angel Locsin somewhere else. Sam’s defenders said that Sam, too, couldn’t have been at The Plaza at that time because he, too, was somewhere else.
Even The Plaza issued a statement saying that Piolo and Sam were not at The Plaza at that time and presumed that the guy whom Lolit said she saw with Sam could be somebody, a hotel guest, who looked like Piolo.
Not to be outdone, Angel’s manager also wanted to be heard — you know, ayaw din paawat! — and seconded the “defense” that Piolo and Angel were somewhere else shooting a Timex commercial. Last Sunday, a grim-faced Sam showed up in The Buzz, saying “I will sue!” if Lolit wouldn’t retract and apologize. Sam was accompanied by a woman lawyer who had to have her own eksena, too, and gave a “legal” angle to the dramedy.
Lolit stood pat on her story and shot back, “So sue me!”
The molehill has been turned into a mountain, and things are getting out of hand, with everybody seemingly going out of their minds! In a country like ours where everybody wants to put a finger into everything that attracts attention, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole mess would get our honorable congressmen and senators involved enough to make them initiate a probe. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Commission on Human Rights would join in the fray and, horrors, elevate the matter to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. If not contained, it could start a war of genders, with the militant gays rallying behind Piolo and Sam and the international press corps defending Lolit’s right to freedom of the press/expression.
Could you imagine that!
Said the Regal Matriarch Mother Lily in jest, “Ako, sinasabi ko tomboy ako. Bakit hindi sinusulat? Bakit walang naniniwala?”
Oh well. If you are, then you are, even if one million Lolit Solises and the whole world say you are not; if you are not, then you are not, even if one million Lolit Solises and the whole world say that you are.
Years ago when Phillip Salvador and Christopher de Leon were rumored to have been caught “kissing” at the pool of a five-star hotel, the two guys, secure with themselves and their sexuality, simply laughed it off and teased each other when they were in public, “Uy, lumayo ka sa akin baka matsismis na naman tayo!”
Neither Phillip nor Christopher said, “I will sue you!” to the writer who, like Lolit, would have confidently shot back, “So sue me!”
(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph)