Remembering the Mega Yaya

Decades before the bratty Angelina made life miserable for her hapless yaya, there was already Yaya Loring, the luckiest nanny in the whole wide world.

Everyone liked Yaya Loring. People from showbiz adored her. In our case it was love at first sight for the both of us.

Yaya Loring or Loretta Banaga Benitez initially began as a laundrywoman at the home of the late Pasay City Mayor Pablo Cuneta and the former Elaine Gamboa. When the Cunetas realized that she could be trusted with their daughter, they assigned her to watch over the young Sharon.

When Sharon began making movies, Yaya Loring also became familiar to fans because she was eternally by her ward’s side — even doing bit parts in some Viva Films projects (in time, she did two TV commercials with Sharon).

I don’t recall the exact date of our first meeting, but I was sure it was in the very latter part of 1992 — when I was very new in ABS-CBN where I began my TV career.

ABS-CBN was still a relatively small company then. Since there were very few of us, fewer still were the friendly faces in our place of work, And for some strange reason, the network always hired the rudest security people — to this day.

One very early morning — around 3 a.m. at the studio corridor — I bumped into a lady wearing a white uniform and a headband to keep her all-grey hair in place. Of course, I knew her to be Yaya Loring, but I wasn’t sure if she was familiar with my face since I was just three weeks into television then.

I was the first one to say hello. She was obviously already very sleepy then, but she still managed to give me her sweetest smile even at that ungodly hour. It was her way of assuring me that everything was okay with the world and that I should feel at home because the ABS-CBN studio was, well, our home and that I belonged there. We would bump into each other often after that since Sharon’s recording was on Friday nights that lasted till around dawn of Saturday. That was also the schedule of my voice-over sessions for Showbiz Lingo.

On Sundays, our showbiz-oriented program was the pre-programmer of The Sharon Cuneta Show and the Megastar’s dressing room was just across mine. Yaya Loring and I saw a lot of each other. We never really sat down to chat, but as years went by, I would stop to kiss her and give her a hug whenever I’d see her. The fondness was there.

Halfway through 1997, Showbiz Lingo gave Sharon a farewell segment because she and daughter KC Concepcion and Yaya Loring were joining Francis Pangilinan in Boston where he was given a grant by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Little did I know that half a year later, we would all find ourselves in Boston — with me and Francis in the same school even. We knew we were all there, but didn’t have time to meet up because we lived on opposite sides of Metro Boston. Even on campus, I was in the old Harvard Yard, while Francis’ building was way at the other end.

One Sunday afternoon, while I was touring my visiting sister in Boston Common, I bumped into Francis, Sharon and KC who all came from church. Since they attended a Christian worship, Yaya Loring wasn’t with them.

But in time, I saw a lot of Yaya Loring because we ended up going to the same Catholic Church. After Mass, we would go down to the rectory for some refreshments: Puto, dinuguan, pospas — all Filipino food that we all hankered for since we were a continent away from home.

It was there that I saw a different Yaya Loring, Probably tired of her white nanny uniform here in the Philippines she had taken to wearing more fashionable black outfits. And then one day, she had her hair chopped really short and Sharon and I started calling her Demi Moore.

In Boston, Yaya Loring became a celebrity among Pinoys there. In church, we’d see Filipinos pointing to her as “Sharon’s nanny.” She‘d smile back and wave — more out of politeness and courtesy. No, she didn’t develop any star complex — never mind if she became the most sought-after celebrity among Filipinos in all of Massachusetts in lieu of Sharon, whose schedule was full even during that phase of her supposedly quiet Boston life: Studying, attending to her husband and daughter and doing concerts in Canada. It was also around this time when she had a miscarriage. As the official Sharon Cuneta representative in Pinoy functions there, Yaya Loring’s social calendar was full.

Yaya Loring managed to have a life in Boston because at home, chores were shared. Francis would sometimes do the laundry, but never did the ironing because he never learned how to do it. But he did get by in the kitchen and to this day, Sen. Pangilinan still credits Yaya Loring for teaching him how to cook sinigang. Sharon, of course, had her duties, while KC was their little helper. They were truly a family — a happy one.

They left ahead of me, but eventually we all met up here again. Whenever I’d see Yaya Loring, our hugs were tighter. But she was really getting older and Sharon felt it was best for Yaya Loring to just stay home, relax and take it easy. No more late-night tapings or shoots for her. But she missed those and sometimes, before Sharon could get into her vehicle on the way to work, Yaya Loring would sneak in and hide at the backseat and make her presence known only when the car couldn’t turn back anymore. Sharon would just laugh that off — trying to understand that Yaya Loring really misses the showbiz world.

And the world of showbiz misses her now that she is gone. At her wake at Santuario de San Antonio in Forbes Park, the biggest names in showbiz and politics showed up. Sharon originally wanted her Yaya Loring interred at the Heritage, the final resting place for millionaires. She wanted nothing but the best for her beloved yaya who was practically a mother to her. But Sharon, of course, had to give in and respect the decision of Yaya Loring’s son and daughter who eventually took their mother with them to their hometown of Mangatram in Pangasinan.

Tomorrow is Sharon’s birthday and it is going to be a sad one for her. Oh, she will surely miss Yaya Loring — she with the sweet, assuring and affectionate smile.

I may not have spent 40 years with Yaya Loring — the way she and Sharon did — but her constant sweet, assuring and affectionate smile somehow helped me when I had to make my first baby steps during my infancy years on TV.

She may not have been conscious of it, but through her innate kindness, she was also being a nanny to me — even if only in her heart.