Beautiful couples

MANILA, Philippines - Two of the beautiful couples at the Philippine STAR & Swatch Ball Thursday night, March 15, at the Salon de Ning of Manila Pen were Marina Benipayo and Ricardo Cepeda (above, left), and Christian Bautista and Carla Dunareanu (center), a Singaporean actress.

Both fancy-free, Marina has long been separated from her husband while Ricardo’s marriage to Snooky Serna was annulled. They come from the same background — the fashion ramp, that is — and they met again when they did the ABS-CBN soap My Binondo Girl as the parents of Xian Lim (see story on Xian on Page E-4).

‘We’ve been going steady since November last year,’ Marina confirmed to Funfare. (Marina was once Bb. Pilipinas-World.)

Christian and Carla has been ‘on’ since last Valentine’s Day when she said ‘yes’ to him. They met and matched during the shoot of The Kitchen Musical (in which they star with Karylle) in Singapore.

During the STAR-Swatch event, spearheaded by Swatch boss Virgie Ramos, Christian (inset) sang Beautiful To Me (a single from his new album) while looking with beady eyes at Carla who sang along with him. That’s playing beautiful music together to the hilt.

Another performer was Zia Quizon (above, right), daughter of Dolphy and Zsa Zsa Padilla, who sang Time After Time.

(Watch for more on the STAR-Swatch event in this paper’s Life section.)