Is this the Marlene that I know?

(Second of two parts)

I still remember that late night of Nov. 18, 2009. I had just finished working out at Gold’s Gym Galleria and on my way home, I took that side of Poveda to be able to get to EDSA and turn left on Ortigas (the Uni-Mart side). A whole SWAT team was there and was halting what must have been to them suspicious-looking vehicles.

It was only through this paper that I found out what that was all about: At the other end of Ortigas — on the Santolan side — the son of a Malacañang official had been killed during a traffic altercation and my heart sank when I discovered that the suspect’s mother was Marlene Aguilar-Pollard. That was the beginning of this telenovela that has kept everyone in rapt attention these days.

Our lives had been affected by this road rage incident because for close to two months, even before the Comelec gun ban checkpoints were set up in major thoroughfares, PNP officials were stopping vehicles in the middle of the night looking for Jason Ivler. My vehicle had been flagged down a couple of times and this is why I know that the police — in due fairness to them — had been doing their job looking for the suspect. Oh, but that was one bungle of a job they did to Jason Aguilar, the welder working in Qatar, who was arrested and sent home by mistake.

Meanwhile, media also has a job to do: Interview the characters involved in this real-life drama series. News programs had been criticized by the public for giving too much attention to Marlene. While everyone in media opts for balanced reporting, the Ebarles, unfortunately, are said to be shunning the camera and it is their option if they want to grieve privately — and we should respect that. It is only the Ebarle patriarch who has been talking and though he is a very sensible man who conducts himself with utmost dignity and speaks with conviction, he is no match to Marlene’s flair for theatrics.

Television is an audio-visual medium and we need talking heads and Marlene talks and talks well. We may not understand the context of everything she says, but she is very fluent and articulate. While NBI agents claim that it was her hysterics that gave Jason’s hiding room away, she is very calm and serene when she does those TV interviews.

On the day Startalk went to visit the Pollard home last week, I was expecting to see a household in shambles. The mess was concentrated only in the downstairs sleeping quarters where Jason had the shootout with the authorities. His room was a mess and the pieces of broken glass under the staircase had yet to be cleaned up. But the rest of the house was picture-perfect for an Architectural Digest shoot.

It was also a happy and tranquil Pollard family that met us — like there was nothing wrong with the world, especially the very space they inhabit. Stephen (Steve to us) was in a comfortable black undershirt, his usual attire at home. Seven-year-old Maya had just bathed and was clinging on to this visitor who first met her when she was still in her mother’s womb. Even Marlene was in plain house clothes and I had to coax her into changing into something more appropriate for television.

On camera she was so relaxed and we even managed to swap jokes during the interview. But she would turn serious and allowed her tears to flow freely every time she had to mention the name of Jason.

Asked if she really didn’t know that Jason was just downstairs all along, she said that they hardly ever check that part of the house anymore because it had been used mostly as storage for the paintings she sells. I tried to show no reaction and just kept pressing her for more details — never mind if the information she kept offering and had been saying in other interviews are met mostly with skepticism by the public. She was the subject of the interview and I was just there to listen.

What about on the day of the shootout with the NBI? “This is a huge house. On that day it happened, we were unaware Jason was there. Maybe he just happened to drop by,” she said with a straight face.

This was also the time I believe she revealed for the first time the supposed involvement of her British bodyguard Mark Hauser, except that Startalk doesn’t air till the weekend and we were pre-empted by news.

But what did she need a bodyguard for? “Because my life had been in danger for two years now,” she answered. Again, I assumed it was because of the espionage books she tells the public now she had been writing. She believes — and I say she — that people are out to get her loved ones because “they know I am not afraid to die.”

Now, if she was to live her life all over again and she had the chance to raise Jason in another manner (she never spanked her kids — having been beaten up by her father while growing up), would she change the way she brought up Jason? Her answer was a quick and firm no. She would never change her parenting style, which she admits isn’t normal. “We are not normal,” she said like she was wearing it as a badge of honor. I actually agree with her that they never follow conventional rules and I believe that it was only Steve who brought a sense of normalcy into their lives. (“I don’t regret having this family and I love Marlene more than ever,” professes the ADB consultant from Britain.)

If you ask me, normal is relative. What may be normal to you may not be normal to me. Even public opinion is divided: While the majority condemns the way Marlene is said to be protecting and shielding her son — when she should have surrendered him to the authorities a long time ago, there are also those who understand her plight as a mother. Of course, there are also those who merely dismiss her as a madwoman.

But going back to being normal, I believe that what is normal for society in general is having colorful personalities — like Marlene and Jason in this case — to gossip about, feast on and even mock and ridicule. It is also election season and there is a lot of mudslinging, endless speculation and political positioning.

Yes, we are now living in normal times.