The ‘devil’ in Angel

Angel Aquino is 33. Yet her checkered experience as single mom, host and actress makes her feel she’s fortysomething.

This early, she’s already thinking of mid-life crisis and its costs to her well-being. She’s thinking of longer periods in the beauty parlor as the price she has to pay for looking youthful every time she goes out and faces the world. Thoughts of growing fat (make no mistake, she can carry a pastel-colored tube shirt with eye-popping results) haunt her.

Angel, as she herself puts it, has reached a crossroad. She knows she has to fight her inner demons – thoughts that threaten to destroy her self-esteem and turn her into – yes, less of an angel.

So she looks beyond the here and now. And she discovers there are a lot of things to do.

Angel knows showbiz is not forever, so, she’s looking at life way beyond it.

"I want to put up a post-production business," she reveals.

The kids (Ianna, 12 and Thea, 10) are growing up fast. And Angel knows she can turn to them now and again for strength and solace.

"Girls are high on empathy," she counts her blessings. "My daughters share my feelings."

The failure of their parents’ marriage (the union has been annulled) has left no scar in them. It helps a lot that Angel and her nonshowbiz husband separated when the girls were but babies and have not yet formed an attachment to their father.

The separation between Angel and her ex-husband was amicable and they still talk to each other, especially about their daughter, regularly. Angel herself has moved on. She has been going steady with basist Norby David for the past six years now. She supports his passions as much as he does hers.

"His band, Overtone, plays in Makati and they’re coming up with an album," reveals Angel.

As for the rest about him, Angel is tight-lipped. It’s enough that she, Norby and her daughters are going great guns. Why rock the boat?

Angel (who is now under the management of Ricky Gallardo’s The Talent Factory) would rather buckle down to work as host of Studio 23’s new lifestyle magazine show Us Girls with Cheska Garcia and Iya Villania (pilot episode is on Sunday, March 19 at 9:30 p.m.). The title alone is a give away: target audience is women who want to retain that girly part of them. So segments focus on fashion and beauty, practical living, fitness, sports, leisure, the newest restaurants and gimmick spots and the all-time favorite topic of men.

It’s the now-defunct F (which Angel hosted with Amanda Griffin and Daphne Oseña) all over again.

No, Angel insists. Their show did not bid adieu for want of advertisers. Management just wanted changes, that’s all. And F, says Angel, ended on a high note.

So now, it’s off to a new challenge with Iya, who will serve as the voice for a new generation of girls (e.g. the techies) and Cheska, who will tackle beauty concerns.

Angel will assume the role of fashion adviser with her practical tips on looking poised and with-it the whole day long.

"I don’t know if Us Girls can match F someday. F is way up there. It’s hard to equal," says Angel.

She will also face the movie cameras again via a lead role in Donsol, shot entirely in picturesque Sorsogon.

Must Angel worry about what tomorrow will bring?