Not so private lives

THEN: July 20, 1989 — 22 years ago

How can public personalities keep their affairs private? What started the contention was the recent wedding of Maricel Soriano and Edu Manzano. The wedding was kept so private that the uninvited press wrote mostly editorialized versions of the wedding, which raised such questions as “Why were the parents of Maricel not in the wedding?” and “Why the cloak and dagger runaround when not many were that interested?” Then there was the comparison with Jinggoy Estrada’s wedding.

At the Bulong-Pulungan at the Philippine Plaza, the subject of discussion was the privacy of stars. Guests were Janice de Belen, Richard Gomez, Inday Badiday, German Moreno and Joey Marquez. As expected, it was a spirited topic.

Janice said that if she were the one to get married she would respect the wishes of her groom. “If I marry a private person and he is not used to showbiz, siguro I will just have a simple and private wedding. But if I marry a showbiz personality, I think it is but right to share it with others. It will be hard to avoid it.”

Richard was just as candid. On German’s comment that marriage is only once in a lifetime, “Only once! But Edu married twice. Boyet will have two and there are those who married more than once.”

Lucy Torres-Gomez

Moderator Ernie Evora clarified that Edu’s marriage is considered only once because the other one “out there” did not really count. The one that took place here was the one that counted.

The most refreshing candor came from Joey who has six children with different women.

“I was married when I was 17. It was more out of curiosity on my part. I wanted to know how it felt to be married, to sign those papers and to go home to a woman. But it did not work out and she is now in the US.”

We asked if he would get married again. “I feel that being married once is a good way to stay single. I always bare myself to a girl when I start courting. I tell them that I have been married. That way, they don’t expect me to marry them.”

We also asked if he supported his children. “I work my ... off to support. I would like to get all of them to be with me. The problem is that it’s always a package deal. You cannot get the kids without the mothers. If I get them all it’s going to be a big free-for-all fight.”

The questions then kept going back to the Edu-Maricel wedding. They have their right to privacy, the moderator stressed.

Richard Gomez

“If they want to be private, why have a stag party on his TV show?” Richard enthused. Point well taken.

When Inday Badiday, the Queen of Intrigues, was asked about the right of Edu and Maricel to privacy, she clammed up with a one-liner: “I’m a friend of Vilma so ‘No comment’.”

Janice, who was looking lovely even without make-up, stressed that if you are a public personality, it is difficult to keep the pain that you feel in private. “I wanted to keep things to myself but people close to me kept writing about it. Soon the other camp did their share and finally I had to say something. It’s hard to just say nothing. But I could have kept quiet if it did not come out in the papers.”

But sometimes it’s the stars themselves who bring their private lives to media’s attention. If there is nothing to write about, they bare their private lives to the press. Some even get into liaisons to get written about. Where do we draw the line?

This is left to the artists themselves. Their private lives have had been mostly used to promote their movies. Consider Vilma, Edu’s ex, doing a TV and movie with Ronnie Ricketts, Maricel’s ex. Or Janice having a film with Gabby Concepcion again. Consider that a casting coup. And finally the film that Sharon and Gabby would finally be doing.

Maricel Soriano

How can they keep their private lives private when these stuff are the very core of their next films?

Now: August 14, 2011 — 22 years after

The marriage of Edu and Maricel did not last. Nor Gabby and Sharon’s. Joey has moved on from his marriage to Alma and his romantic episode with Kris Aquino. Richard is the one who is happily married to the beautiful Lucy Torres-Gomez, now congresswoman of her hometown in Ormoc. Richard was supposedly the candidate, but due to some technicality of residence, Lucy took his place.

Vilma is now happily married to Sen. Ralph Recto. Edu was romancing broadcaster Pinky Webb but had to go easy on the romance department when he ran for Vice President of the Philippines. Now, according to insiders, Edu is back with the beautiful Pinky.

Deeply missed by friends and colleagues are Inday Badiday and Ernie who died a few years back.