Shalani Soledad: First Lady-in-waiting?

Getting to the compound in Valenzuela City where Councilor Shalani Soledad lives isn’t easy if you don’t live in the area. After traversing EDSA and MacArthur Highway, you have to pass several small side streets that look alike. But from here, the going gets easy. Just ask where the “Konsehala” lives and everyone, from seven to 70, will give you directions as concise as a map.

“Konsehala,” after all, is the beauteous Shalani Soledad, who has just been proclaimed Valenzuela councilor. She also happens to be the girlfriend of the country’s next President.

We enter an esquinita that leads to a fork in the road. At the end of the road is a cluster of houses. (One has to be a very determined visitor to motor all the way here, just like a certain senator did in 2008 to come a-courting.)

One of the houses in the family compound, a bungalow, has several figures and figurines of Santa Claus, even in the midst of summer.

That unpretentious bungalow serves as the office of Shalani, a third-term councilor of the city. Her Tita Baby Soledad, who is like Shalani’s second mother, says the family likes to keep Santa Claus figures on display the whole year through to keep up the Christmas cheer, no matter the season.

Today, with Shalani having won the elections anew and her boyfriend — President-apparent Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III — having had the same good fortune, it certainly looks and feels like Christmas in the tree-shaded compound.

* * *

Shalani Soledad, her long brown tresses in a ponytail, is stunning even sans makeup, and even if she is simply garbed in a white and red T-shirt, denims and rubber shoes. She had just come from a meeting with political leaders, and her face is flushed with the summer heat.

Fluent in both English and Tagalog, she is softspoken and seems to be both smart and street smart.

We talk about this new season in her life. The vote is not yet in while we talk, but the trend is obvious.

“Noynoy is happy but he is not complacent about it. He understands there is work to be done still,” Shalani says of her boyfriend of 20 months.

She agrees with Noynoy’s ate Ballsy Cruz that the presidential frontrunner “has come out of his shell.”

“I would not say he is less reserved; it’s just he has more of the people’s attention.

“Dati when you say ‘Noynoy,’ anak ni Ninoy, anak ni Cory, kapatid ni Kris. Now people are taking notice of Noynoy as Noynoy.”

She may be biased, but why does she think Noynoy will make a good President? “He is sincere, very sincere. Walang front, walang facade. And regardless of any given situation, gagawin niya kung ano ang tama. He will not bend over to accommodate something na mali para lang pagbigyan ka. Kahit kaibigan ka niya, kahit kamag-anak ka niya.”

* * *

Tita Baby remembers Noynoy and Shalani’s first date because the entire family and some friends tagged along. It was to a Tagalog movie in SM Valenzuela. As the romance progressed, Tita Baby says Shalani must have won points from Noynoy’s family because she was able to get him to go to Baclaran Church with her for Wednesday novena. She thinks Shalani will really be a godsend to Noynoy if she is able to help him stop smoking.

Shalani laughs when I tell her what her Tita Baby, who kept me company when I first arrived in the compound, said. “Oh, but Noy has lessened his smoking already.”

Shalani finds herself privileged to have been able to share some Sunday lunches with Noynoy’s late mom, former President Cory Aquino. They first met in 2008, when Mrs. Aquino was already diagnosed with cancer. They talked mostly about local politics, how it was during the time of Ninoy, and how it is now.

How did she find Mrs. Aquino? “Tita Cory was very simple. Given the fact that she was a former president, you would think she would have certain airs. Wala eh! Very natural, makikita mo sa kanya ang pagka-mommy niya. Ang pagka-lola niya.”

Her boyfriend being the unico hijo, how does she feel in the company of the strong women in his family?

“I don’t feel pressured because Noy comes from a family of strong women. Let’s just say I am more conscious of how I am because of my connection to Noy. But it doesn’t mean I have to match his sisters,” she says calmly.

Noynoy’s family, “from his sisters to his brothers-in-law, to his pamangkins, have been very nice naman.”

* * *

Shalani decided to run for councilor in 2004 when her Tita Baby’s husband Mon decided he was getting too old for the job. Shalani, who majored in Human Resource Management at the College of St. Benilde, readily agreed to run in his place. She had always been a people person and was not keen on accepting offers from talent agents to appear in TV commercials. She was not interested in going to auditions and VTRs. “Not my cup of tea,” she says.

Politics was — is — her cup of tea. After her election as councilor in 2004, she was all the more convinced of it. “It was then that I realized this was what I wanted. It’s the sense of being able to help the people. When they say, ‘Thank you, nakatulong ka sa amin,’ that’s what makes my day!”

She first met Noynoy in 2005 when she interviewed him for UNTV before the State of the Nation Address (SONA). He remembered her because her question was not related to the SONA. After a second chance encounter at the Alfredo’s Steakhouse in 2008, their romance blossomed.

Wasn’t the 20-year age gap ever a problem?

“No!” she giggles, “because Noy is very bagets!”

During the campaign, she barnstormed for him all over the country, visiting Marinduque, Cagayan de Oro, Marawi, Iligan, Zamboanga and Davao.

So what role does she dream for herself in the near future?

“If you had asked me that a couple of years ago, I would have told you that I would want to see myself pursuing higher office. But each and everyone of us has her own destiny. Even if you plan, or even if you don’t plan, if God really wants you to be there, if that’s your purpose, you would be surprised, you are already in that situation.”

So is she, at 30, ready to settle down?

With at least three Santa Clauses staring down at us, as if waiting to hear her fondest wish, Shalani thinks long and hard. And then she smiles, “Next question, please...”

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