Praying for Dolphy

Practically the entire country is praying for the recovery of Dolphy. No less than Malacañang has called on everyone to offer prayers for the Comedy King, who is struggling to fight off pneumonia at the Makati Medical Center.

The social media is bursting with messages for the 83-year-old actor to hang in there. TV and radio programs have joined in the outpouring of support of encouragement for his family.

One individual who is very concerned about Dolphy’s condition is Alice Smith, the mother of the actor’s four children, Ronnie, Eric, Madonna and Epi. In a statement, Ms. Smith, who lives in California, thanked Zsa Zsa Padilla for taking care of Dolphy.

She said that she cannot be by Dolphy’s side because “in America, you cannot just leave your work.”

Ms. Smith, who was an actress with the screen name Pamela Ponti, has been able to fade into the background all these years, quietly living in Vallejo, running a Filipino restaurant there.

The other women in Dolphy’s life, including Alma Moreno, have visited him at Makati Med. So have his many friends in the showbiz community – the stars, directors and people he worked with.

The curious thing is that there is a frenzied effort in Congress to rush Dolphy’s proclamation as a National Artist. Curious because there seemed to be no haste to make him a National Artist when he was still healthy. No one will deny that he deserves the recognition, but politics somehow always manages to cloud the issue.

Politics or no politics, Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim decided that now is the time to honor Dolphy. Last week, Manila’s city government conferred the Diwa ng Lahi Award on the actor in recognition of his contributions to Philippine arts and culture.

Did you know that Dolphy is a Manileno? He was born in Tondo in 1928.

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Gabby Lopez, the chairman and chief executive of the broadcasting giant ABS-CBN, says he is not at all perturbed by reports of the merger of GMA-7 and TV5.

"It doesn't change what we have to do. We're very focused on our own strategy. The number of channels that we have to compete against remains the same. As far as we're concerned, we just have to execute and we'll be okay," Lopez is quoted to have said during the press conference after the ABS-CBN stockholders' meeting last week.

TV5 Chairman Manny V. Pangilinan earlier announced such a merger may happen “within the year,” and that “there’s desire on both parties to come to terms.”

But Lopez said “it makes no difference to me if there's one owner or a hundred owners, we're still competing against all of them.”

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Local fans of Jessica Sanchez will finally get a chance to see her perform live in September.

The American Idol runner-up will be coming over for a Sept. 21 concert along with the show’s top finishers. That would include of course the titleholder Philip Philips.

While in the Philippines, Jessica might get the chance to visit her mother’s relatives in Bataan.

She is also reportedly in the middle of negotiations for joining the popular American TV musical, Glee.