Dulce has finally found her 'voice'

MANILA, Philippines - When she sings live on stage, you get mesmerized and grip the edge of your seat in order not to fall. When she belts out, you get stunned and ask, where in heaven’s name does all that vocal strength come from? When she performs songs of love, pain, hurt, frustration and despair, you are electrified and feel every emotion running through her veins. You know, you just know, that she has been through it all.

Dulce — a sweet name for a woman who sings with awesome grit and power. It is that same vocal power that so entranced the production team of Miss Saigon which gave her a standing ovation when she auditioned for the role of Gigi. You’d never think that once upon a time, she never really had a voice. You’d never imagine that this tough-looking lady, who has bagged top prizes and awards in local and international singing competitions (including the grand prize in both the Asia-Pacific Singing Competition and the Asian Singing Competition for the song Ako ang Nasawi, Ako ang Nagwagi), in private, had once felt small, weak, powerless and even hopeless.

Now she chooses to speak out. Today, the story can be told.

Dulce came from a very poor and dysfunctional family. She was physically abused by her mother, flooded her with verbal abuse, and scared her with a pair of sharp scissors into doing things. It was for this reason that even at a young age, in her hometown in Cebu, she was consumed by the desire to be a singer to earn for her family and to escape. She stopped schooling (finishing only elementary school) to work and was forced to sing in a nightclub at the age of 13. At 14, someone she trusted started abusing her. She knew it was very wrong but there was nobody to turn to. Although she went on to reach glorious heights in her singing career and earn money — enabling her to buy her parents a house and send her younger siblings to school, deep inside she was a child who felt used, was lost and confused.

And she had thought she had escaped and left behind a life of misery by rebelling and entering into marriage, but she could not have been any more mistaken. As a wife to a man whom she first thought cared for her deeply, she was physically, mentally and emotionally battered. She tried to keep everything to herself to protect her family. Again, she felt so alone, depressed, thinking she was a big loser in life. Finally deciding to leave her husband and in the process losing custody of her three children, she was a total wreck until she found hope in God.

At the press conference for Tinig, A True To Life Story, a weepy Dulce admitted that for so many years, producers would come to negotiate for the rights to her made-for-the-movies life story, but she has always refused, that is, until CBN Asia came along. “I am not doing this for fame, glory or fortune,” Dulce stressed. “Ginawa ko ito para makatulong ako sa mga taong, kagaya ko nuon, ay nag-iisip na wala nang pag-asa pang makaahon pa sa kanilang nakalulungkot na kinalalagyan. I want my story to encourage, inspire and empower those who are going through the same hardships in life, so that they may know that there is still much more in life after all the sufferings.”

Now, happily in love with another man, reunited with all her children and reconciled with her mother, Dulce bares her dark past in the must-see telemovie to be aired on Oct. 7, Sunday, on GMA 7 at 10:30 p.m. Francheska Farr and Isabella de Leon, both in awe of this Asia’s Diva, effectively play the role of the young Dulce.

Stop shedding those tears now Dulce. You are and have always been a winner in our eyes.

(E-mail author at [email protected] or text 0927-5000833.)