Vicky Morales: Here comes the bride

Call it perfect timing. Just when the political upheaval was getting curioser and curioser with each passing day leading to the local elections, Vicky Morales and boyfriend of two years, lawyer King Reyno found their hands full of things to discuss, debate, dissect, mull about.

He would expound on the meaning of state of rebellion (remember the mayhem that erupted May 1?). She would tell him about senatoriable Miriam Santiago and her feisty answer to her (Vicky’s) questions for GMA 7’s Saksi.

King would bring Vicky to Camp Crame for a coverage, escort her inside the military grounds, and wait patiently for her. He didn’t mind staying up very late at night to bring her, tired and spent, home to Forbes Park, where they live right across each other. Vicky, on other hand, would regale King about the hottest news, which his ever-curious mind would devour with unflagging eagerness.

Both discovered how right they are for each other. So King wasted no time. He took Vicky’s parents in confidence and asked for their daughter’s hand in marriage.

He conspired with them and his family to take a trip to Bangkok where he could corner his future bride and propose to her in romantic Oriental Hotel.

The plan worked. With her consenting parents solidly behind him, King escorted Vicky to the lobby, took out an engagement ring and presented it to her.

And so the evening wedding has been set on Saturday, June 2, at the Santuario de San Antonio, with the reception at the spacious NBC Tent at the Fort. The intimate affair (only 400 guests and five pairs of principal wedding sponsors) will be something lifted out of a fairytale book, complete with candles, violins, flowers, trees and liberal sprinklings of pink and celadon green - the color motif - everywhere.

Then, bride and groom will hie off to Paris, Milan and Barcelona for their honeymoon. They will live in a condominium unit once they come home to Manila, and wait for around a year before having their first baby, the better to enjoy each other’s company to the max.

Marriage, says Vicky, will not change her career. She will continue to be as hardworking as ever, somehow squeezing the juiciest answers from such personalities as Miriam Defensor Santiago and the most quotable quotes from FAP (Film Academy of the Philippines) Lifetime Achievement Awardee Aling Chuchi. If anything, the marriage, says Vicky, will enhance her career because this time, she will have a full-time partner in analyzing the news. King, who, like Vicky, is 31 years old, loved news even as a boy.

"Given different kinds of choices," Vicky describes how compatible they are, "we end up picking the same things."

He’d knock on their house in the morning in his pajamas to wish her a good day, and see her again before going to sleep to give her a good-night kiss.

"We’re practically married," says Vicky of the situation.

He’s the planner who "puts order in my life," the decision maker who helps her make up her mind, when she dilly dallies.

Despite the difference, Vicky and King seldom fight, broad-minded as they are about many issues.

"When you’re in this business, you can’t be intolerant of other people’s views. I admit being dogmatic before, but all this has changed," Vicky relates how 10 years of broadcast journalism made her change for the better.

She has talked to them all – the rich, poor, the simple man on the street, the traditional politician with everything to hide. And she has concluded that "the poor are more open with their feelings, their emotions are raw, while the politician is more concerned about how he will project himself before the public."

Reticent interviewees have taught Vicky to trust her killer instincts and make them talk by asking a shocking question, such as "Are you planning a coup?" to senatoriable Gringo Honasan.

"It’s a matter of timing - raising the right question at the right moment," Vicky reveals one of her trade secrets, learned through years of hard work.

Sometimes, she can’t help but get carried away. She’s only human, you know. But she checks herself by starting her question with the diplomatic, "People say that you are … What’s your comment?"

But always, it’s the people with passion, with angst, who impresses her most. They make good copy as any, leaving Vicky vivid memories to take home, not only for herself, but very soon, for her brand- new groom.