Why Jolina put wedding ‘on hold’

At 28, Jolina Magdangal is ripe for marriage, especially now that she had found the "perfect lifetime partner" in the person of lawyer Albert "Bebong" Muñoz, 33, her boyfriend of six years (on Jan. 19 next year).

But how come Jolina is putting their much-talked-about wedding "on hold"?

In an exclusive interview with Funfare Monday afternoon at Annabel’s Restaurant after she signed a one-year contract as endorser of the Sundance Direct Sales Line (clothes, shoes and bags), Jolina explained why.

"Our focus at the moment is the elections in May next year," said Jolina who looks more petite and doll-like with her new short hairstyle. "It’s hard to get married while we will be busy with the campaign. It takes time to prepare for a wedding."

Which simply means that when Bebong starts campaigning for his congressional bid (for the second district of Caloocan City), Jolina will be beside him, all right, but she won’t yet be Mrs. Bebong Muñoz, contrary to what many people are expecting.

Bebong has come back for good from the US where he worked as a lawyer for a few years, purposely to devote his time to public service.

"Politics is not an alien territory to me," Bebong once told Funfare. "Even as a student, I helped campaign for some candidates."

This early, Jolina has been accompanying Bebong on "familiarization" visits to the various barangays in Caloocan City’s second district.

"We go to wakes," said Jolina, "we attend fiestas, we get invited to the coronation of local queens including gays."

Jolina has no objections to Bebong’s foray into politics.

"We have talked about it long before," said Jolina. "I am 100 percent behind him in whatever he does."

Asked if she herself would run for any public office, Jolina smiled.

"No. I leave it to Bebong. Hanggang suporta lang ako sa kanya."

Thus, with the election campaign just behind the corner, how can Jolina and Bebong attend to wedding preparations?

"We can always do it after the elections."

Win or lose?

Incidentally, did you know that since she was 18, Jolina has done more than 60 commercials and product endorsements (starting with Sunsilk and with the Rebisco commercial as the latest)?

Monday’s Sundance contract-signing was attended by Sundance managing directors Peter Yu and Joao Pajaro, national sales manager Joseph Aguilar and marketing/operations manager Vicky Rivera.

"Sundance will keep up with Jolina’s image as a fun fashionista and trend-setter," said Rivera.

An unplanned class reunion

Every now and then, I get an invitation to a class reunion in dear old Pei Ching School in Tabaco City, Albay. Unfortunately, the event, usually Oct. 31, often falls on a stormy day. The date is convenient for those who come from Tabaco and neighboring towns (Guinobatan, Ligao, etc.) and cities (Iriga, Legazpi, Naga, etc.) because they go home to pay respects to their dear departed but not for alumni like us from far-away provinces (from Samar, Masbate, etc.). We do go home, all right, but we don’t have enough time to make a stopover in Tabaco on the way to or back from Samar.

But last Dec. 9, we had an impromptu mini-reunion when about a dozen of us graduates "surprised" our Spanish and English teacher, Ma’am Fidela Fernandez (from Malilipot, Albay, one of the places hard hit by Typhoon Reming), who was turning 80 that day. Ma’am’s daughter Gigi (a toddler during our high school days) and her siblings prepared a "surprise" lunch at their Malate residence.

In reunions like this, it takes a little time for everyone to reconcile everyone else with the teenagers that we used to know in those carefree times when Sue Thompson was singing Have a Good Time before the screening time of (usually) a Susan Roces starrer (Susanang Daldal; Susanang Twist; Susan, Susie, Susay; etc.) at the Mans Theater just beside the municipal market (reduced to ashes by a conflagration several years ago).

Anyway, my schoolmates are now the business bigwigs in Tabaco, some owning malls, with additional businesses in Manila and other places – how time has flown! – among them Madonna Riosa, Conchita Gruba-Tiu, Gloria Lao-Tapia, Mila Dy-Gomez, Jose Sia, Tita Ng-Riosa, Ramon Locsin, Edith Balean, Beth Castelar-Chua and Temyong Quimpo.

I thanked Ma’am Fidela for instilling in me the love for writing. I even recited to her the same passages from the poems (by the likes of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Allan Poe, etc.) that she had made us memorize back then.

The alumni decided there and then to launch a project to help the Reming victims. (Other Pei Ching alumni, most of them now very rich, may contact Madonna at 0917-8055944 for their donations.)

Of course, we didn’t part without having the usual "family picture" taken.

Until the next, bigger class reunion.

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