Lalaine's delayed coming: is she or isn't she?

Curtain-raisers:

* An MTRCB member probably doesn't know that he's being referred to as "Mrs. Tingle" by co-members and other people in the office -- that is, when he's not within earshot. Why? Well, when he previewed the movie Teaching Mrs. Tingle, he was so scandalized by the word "tingle" (sounds naughty in the vernacular, doesn't it?) that he wanted to change it with another, less "sexually suggestive(?)" word. It's all in his mind, of course! Now, doesn't he deserve to be called "Mrs. Tingle"? Such a "tingling" title, isn't' it?

* Trade Secretary (and soon-to-be Senator?) Mar Roxas has a known penchant for, uh, older women -- perhaps because he wants to be cuddled and made to feel like a baby (with thumb inside his mouth)? His past romances have been with older women and his latest conquest is also an older lady ("Miss C" a former beauty queen). There's a certain "tingle" with experienced women, isn't there? Shall we start calling Secretary Mar "Mr. Tingle"?

* A TV-movie character actress (still very pretty and very desirable) asked her actress-friend to arrange a dinner-date with an elderly moneyed man who prefers married women out for some fun -- you know, some "tingling" nocturnal experience. During the dinner, the DOM was turned off posthaste when the character actress, even before he could hold her hand, started hinting at owning a condo and a nice car at the garage. The DOM said forget it. The deal was unconsummated.

Yes, she was arriving from London Sunday evening (Feb. 20). No, she didn't arrive Sunday evening. Yes, she was arriving Monday evening (Feb. 21) from London. No, she didn't arrive Monday evening and, I bet you, neither did she arrive last night, or will she arrive tonight.

Now, what sort of hide-and-seek game is Lalaine Edson playing? Why is she (or her relatives here) giving the media (and even the Bb. Pilipinas Charities, Inc.) this big run-around? Why is she making her coming (and going) such a big mystery, a catch-and-catch-can clandestine affair?

I guess the relatives of the "beleaguered" 1999 Bb. Pilipinas-World are trying very hard to hide something, that's why they're trying very hard to mislead the media (and even the Bb. Pilipinas Charities, Inc.) which is trying very hard to track her whereabouts -- in vain.

I have a tip for everybody interested in Lalaine's calculated(?) movements: She just might sneak back into the country via Cebu and, on the day of the 2000 Bb. Pilipinas Pageant night on Saturday, Feb. 26 (at the newly-renovated Big Dome), she might spring the ultimate surprise on all of us by dropping from the ceiling in a giant a ballon that will burst into a thousand disco lights onstage. How's that for an explosive comeback after her mysterious disappearance in London in December last year after her defeat in the Miss World contest?

Had Lalaine won the Miss World title (or bagged even just a runner-up honor), things would have turned out differently. She would have come home, trophy in her hand and a little crown on her head, smiling and waving to an adoring and approving nation (which doesn't really bother with losers and has-beens) and dissolving in joyful tears in the arms of her euphoric relatives (she's an only child of an ailing father at a London hospital and a mother who died of cancer in 1997).

But, alas and alack, losers suffer the fate of cursed gods and they come home not just to a lukewarm welcome but to jeers and sneers (you know, umuwi-uwi pa, talunan naman!).

But the events that followed Lalaine's try-hard effort in the Miss World contest totally changed the color of her defeat. She has become a "controversial star" because of her (calculated?) disappearance.

Was she kidnapped by an obsessive boyfriend? Or did she elope? Is she happy where she is in London? Or is she being held "captive?" Is she desperately caught in the middle of a family feud and is vainly trying to run out of it?

Lalaine has a lot of questions to answer if ever she opts to face the media when she comes home.

If Mrs. Stella Marquez-Araneta, Bb. Pilipinas Charities, Inc. president, would ask Funfare to write Lalaine's farewell speech (to be delivered on pageant night as Lalaine makes her final walk before an SRO crowd), it would run this way:

"I want to thank Mrs. Stella Marquez-Araneta and the staff of the Bb. Pilipinas Charities, Inc. for giving me the chance to experience a wonderful year first as Bb. Pilipinas-International and then as Bb. Pilipinas-World. It would have been 'wonderful' all the way until I lost at the Miss World contest in London. But I did win in a manner of speaking because of my post-Miss World experience which is so harrowing that I can't tell you about it because it's so harrowing that I erase even just the memory of it from my mind. You learn from your experiences, including the sad and the bad, don't you?

"But I apologize to the Filipino people for making a fool of themselves guessing whatever happened to me, all because I refrained from making a simple statement of what my true situation has been in London. Now I'm convinced that a celebrity can make big news even without doing anything. I have had all of you on the palm of my hand and I can't help but laugh at having taken all of you for a joy ride. And for that, I again apologize.

"As I relinquish my crown, I am alerting you to more headline-making 'mysteries' in my life -- with the help of my relatives. I'll give you three guesses: 1). I'm flying back to London to join the Chinese-British guy who was rumored to have 'kidnapped me,' 2). I'm marrying the other Chinese-British guy here rumored to be my boyfriend, and 3). I will star in a movie about my life story."

Thank you, Lalaine, for distracting us, even only for a while, from the bigger problems gripping the country today. Thank you so very much!

On the line the other day was Isabel Rivas airing her side on her encounter with the feisty Annabelle Rama during San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada's birthday bash at Club Filipino (Greenhills) last Thursday, Feb. 17.

"I apologized to Annabelle for the joke I played on Rudy (Fernandez) and Bong (Revilla). I did call them back to our table from the table of Annabelle and company (pretty starlets Miya Nolasco and Veronica Veron, among them, who are Annabelle's proteges)," Isabel explained. "I was teasing Rudy and Bong but I went back at once to Annabelle's table to say 'sorry' to her when I realized that my joke might have offended her.

"But I never asked them to leave already because the 'buyers' had gone. I never mentioned the word 'buyers,' so I won't apologize for a mistake that I didn't commit. It happened at around 5 o'clock the following morning when practically everybody had left Club Filipino and I remember that I even invited Annabelle and her companions over to our table. At one point while we were talking, Annabelle's cellphone rang; the call came from Ruffa (Gutierrez who's in L.A.) and Annabelle even asked me to talk to Ruffa.

"I thought everything was all right. Miya and the other girl were so sweet that I could never have done what I'm being accused of doing. Hindi naman ako ganoon ka-bastos. I admit that I might have had one drink (of wine) too many, but I was just having fun. It was a party and the mood was supposed to be fun."

(Moral of the story? You can have fun but not at the expense of somebody.)