Should we set Kim & Gerald free?

Inarguably, the Kim Chiu-Gerald Anderson tandem is one of the most formidable teams today on TV and in movielandia. Inside the PBB house, the two captured the hearts of people around the world. It was then that the Kimeralds were born. They came from everywhere TFC is shown. They worked in offices, studied in exclusive and public schools; they were mothers and teenagers, diverse people from different places with different orientations and preferences, but a common indomitable adulation for Kim and Gerald.

What was it that made the two tick? They looked good together. Both have interesting stories. Remember the young Kim singing the Chinese song inside Big Brother’s house? And Gerald, he looked like a movie star morning, noon and midnight. They went out of Kuya’s house as a team. A loveteam and we all wished the love was for real and not just for reel. We imposed this on the two. We imposed our love on them. We imposed that our love and devotion for them be reciprocated by them loving each other. And they went along, smiled like two obedient children making their wicked parents happy. They would deny sheepishly about a romantic relationship but they would make declarations of how each one was making the other happy.

We forced it on ourselves that they were crazy about each other but were just shy and timid to go public. All the more that we were enamored by the love team. And we were happy as there was peace and love in paradise. Oh, we also made it clear that we will be unhappy if they were unhappy as a pair and we pledged allegiance to the love team and that we will love it with all our might. And protect it with valor and ferocity.

We would hear wild talks about third parties and we dismissed them as part of the love team phenomenon. We were not going to allow anyone to “come in between” the two lovers. Did we care how the two felt or how the two were coping with their own issues about family, love, friends and being young? No, because we thought they should be different. They were Kim and Gerald. They were meant for each other. Period.

Then talks about Bea Alonzo started to spread like wildfire. We couldn’t trace where it began but it started to blaze.

And we are in denial? Kim and Gerald, Gerald and Kim. We put them together and they were fine. We created them in our hearts. We loved their movies and soap operas. What can possibly be wrong?

This too, shall pass, many of us thought. This was just a phase two people in love would go through. Or of two people we wanted to be in love. Or weren’t it us who were in love with the two and with love?

And then many of us are angry, feeling betrayed. By who? By the two people we forced to be in love with each other. What about our devotion to the tandem? And what about our unconditional love for pretty Kimmy and gorgeous Gerald? Was it all worthless?

By then, how much of them do we really own? How much of their hearts can we control? How much of who they are can they actually give us, their rabid fans? Have we deprived them of their humanity? Of their youth? Have we forgotten that they are not puppets who would smile, sing, and dance according to our whims? Have we forgotten that they are people? Not just housemates of Kuya or Kim-Gerald of Kung Tayo’y Magkakalayo (KTM). But they are real people who can fall in and out of love. People who feel pain, anguish, love, without being told to. And two young people who are growing up like everyone else and unlike everyone else because we decided early on that they have to be what we wanted them to be.

Kim and Gerald together made us happy. Isn’t it time to set them free? “If they come back, they were always ours, if they don’t, then, they never were.”

Then, perhaps we can begin to truly love them.