What's between Maui & Ariel?

If not to basketball players, actresses are usually linked to politicians. Name some?

Now-Sen. Migz Zubiri and Vina Morales. Migz is happily married to Audrey Tan (with whom he has a months-old child) and Vina to a businessman (father of the baby she’s heavy with).

Beth Tamayo is married to a town mayor while Alicia Meyer is giving birth anytime now to her and a politician’s love child.

Of course, there’s Sharon Cuneta whose marriage to Sen. Kiko Pangilinan is currently a fodder for the gossip mill, and Cristina “Kring-Kring” Gonzalez who’s married to Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez.

Pauleen Luna and Valenzuela City Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian have already broken up; while Quezon City Councilor Aiko Melendez and Bulacan (Bulacan) Vice Mayor Patrick Meneses are, according to Aiko, “happy” in each other’s company.

And now, Maui Taylor and Quezon City Councilor Ariel Inton whose constant togetherness is being (mis?)taken by many people to mean something else. Since last month when Ariel invited Maui to grace a charity event as part of his birthday celebration, she has been helping him distribute books in Q.C. schools and rice among the city’s poor residents.

“Nothing personal,” Maui told the Funfare DPA. “I simply enjoy helping him in his charity projects.”

“No problem, though,” added the DPA. “Maui is free and so is Ariel.”

Proud to be Pinoy

• Congratulations to Joe Datuin for winning the grand prize for sculpture in the International Sport & ARt Contest in connection with the recent 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“He should make us Filipinos proud,” Ed Sazon told Funfare.

In a resolution (No. 79) dated May 28, 2008, the Senate cited Datuin’s stainless steel work titled Dancing Rings, “an art piece which recasts the conventionally horizontal Olympic logo into a vertical leap of faith, like a gymnast or a classical dancer in motion, to signify both human grace and human solidarity.”

A graduate of UST College of Fine Arts, Datuin is known for his modernist idiom and for being an awardee in the 1978 Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition and in the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games International Poster Design Competition.

Last Sept. 25, Datuin received his Olympic Diploma and $30,000 cash award during the opening rites of the VI World Forum on Sport, Education and Culture held in Busan, Korea.

•  Philippine-born actor Miguelito Macario Anadaluz, 20, is making considerable waves in Canadian television. According to a Funfare contributor from Canada, Miguelito is a veteran of film, TV and stage, and has worked with artists like Johnny Depp and Robin Williams.

He was cast as one of the climbers of Mount Everest in the just-concluded series Everest (on CBC National Network, a four-hour mini-series which chronicles the tragedy, drama and triumph of the 1982 expedition), together with Jason Priestly, Leslie Hope and William Shatner.

Miguelito is also appearing in the half-hour comedy series Less Than Kind as a former migrant worker and widower father.

Briefly noted

• Ongoing until Nov. 7 is the Brad Pitt’s Armpit is not the Pits exhibit (photo at right, at BlueWings ArtSpace, second level of Rafa’s deli+cafe, Unit-C 10 Xavierville Ave., Loyola Heights, Quezon City), consisting of collected magazines and films featuring — who else? — Brad Pitt. On view are some publications not easily available in the Philippines, like a 2004 L’uomo Vogue and a circa-1990s biopic titled Brad, Su Vida en Fotos. What else? Check out the exhibit, open Monday thru Saturday, 1 to 8 p.m. (For more information, call 426-2970.)

•  I just got a copy of the book O, Catbalogan! (photo above), courtesy of Tessie Tomas (who hails from Catbalogan, Western Samar), which traces the history and culture of the city, illustrated with vintage photos. Available in National Bookstores, the book is a fund-raising project of Katbaloganon Foundation of which Tessie is the president, for the benefit of its scholarship program and other projects.

• The pride of Muntinlupa City, the Muntinlupa Dance Company, presents It’s Retro! in Concert at the Park on Sunday, Oct. 12, starting at 5 p.m., under the artistic direction of Del Micor-Camins. Open to the public.

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