Michel Ponti comes to terms with the past

So who’s Michel Ponti and why is he “coming to terms” with the past?

A refresher: Twenty years ago, Pilar Pilapil, then 37, married a handsome 21-year-old Spanish journalist who’s a deadringer for Robert DeNiro. The marriage was doomed from the start, with Pilar’s family and relatives absent from the Manila Cathedral where the wedding was solemnized in Oct. 1987 because they frowned on the match. Halfway through the ceremony, the bride, maybe due to exhaustion and anxiety, fell backward on her chair, her head creating an echo inside the cathedral as it hit the pavement, prompting three of the principal sponsors — FPJ, Charito Solis and Dr. Manuel Manahan, all dead — to rush to the altar to help Pilar back on her feet. Two days after the wedding, Elvira Manahan, also one of the sponsors, was killed right in her Forbes Park home.

Yes, the groom was Michel Ponti, a good friend of the Roceses (Don Chino and his son Eddie, et.al), who flew in from Tokyo (where he was based for a while) purposely to cover the newly-installed Cory Aquino administration but decided to stay. Then, he met and fell in love with Pilar.

The marriage lasted no longer than one year. During their honeymoon in Madrid, Michel’s hometown city, the couple had a spat and Pilar came home alone. Michel followed soon after. They tried to patch things up but they were clearly incompatible. Michel left with a broken heart.

Last January, I got a surprise e-mail from Michel (whom I interviewed with Pilar for a cover story of Weekend, the Sunday magazine of the Daily Express) who said he was making a sentimental journey to the country that captured his heart and then, sob and sigh, broke it.

The other day, Michel called to say that he was back and, together with his Brazilian model-wife of three years, Eloisa Rodriguez Carvalho, 35 (slightly younger than Pilar’s only daughter Pia by former Sen./Vice Pres. Doy Laurel), we had dinner at the famous Korean restaurant Kaya, a stone’s throw from the hotel where the couple were billeted. Time for recollection and Michel’s “coming to terms” with the past.

Michel said that he has quit journalism and now runs his own real-estate business based in Ibiza, the foremost European playground of the rich and famous, where he and Eloisa (who quit modeling after they got married three years ago; they first went steady for three years).

“I love the Philippines,” said Michel, still looking like Robert DeNiro with his bald pate, “and I wanted my wife to see the most beautiful place where I lived. Every year, Eloisa and I usually visit her family in Brazil but this year, it’s the Philippines for us.”

They arrived three weeks ago and they’ve been to Boracay, Palawan and Baguio. Michel also brought Eloisa to the Manila Cathedral (“To show her where I married Pilar”) and even the pension house in Malate, Manila, where he stayed when he came back from Madrid after that “ill-fated” honeymoon.

While here, Michel was also interviewed for a book on Don Chino slated for release later this year.

“Don Chino was like a father to me,” said Michel who brought with him more than 200 photos of the late freedom-fighter and publisher of the old Manila Times. “We’ll be back for the book-launching.”

They should. The truth is that Michel has placed a down payment for a condo unit at an uppity place in Pasig City which, he said, “Eloisa herself wants to interior decorate.”

Told that Pilar has found her own happiness with a man also younger than she is, and a preacher like her, Michel smiled. “I’m happy for her.”

Asked if he has read Pilar’s revealing autobiography released two years ago (with only a passing mention of their stormy, short-lived marriage), Michel said he was told by friends about it but hasn’t read it.

Asked further if he has gotten in touch with Pilar, Michel said no. “The last time I talked to her was when she telephoned me in 1990, asking if I have changed.”

Hasn’t he even caught a glimpse of Pilar in the several days he and Eloisa have been here? Michel smiled again. 

“We did. My friend told me that Pilar is in the TV soap Lobo, so Eloisa and I checked the TV schedule in The STAR and watched it, but only for a while.”

So, did he have any regrets having “committed” that marriage?

“No,” Michel said, with not a slight tone of bitterness in his voice. “I was 21 then, very young, and I didn’t know any better. I have learned a lot from that experience. I’m a changed man now; I’m mature now, married to a beautiful and wonderful woman to whom I keep no secret. Eloisa knows everything about my past, and vice-versa.”

As I dropped Michel and Eloisa off at their hotel and bade them goodbye, I couldn’t help looking back at that Manila Cathedral wedding where the bride keeled over backward in a dead faint. Was it a bad omen?

Whatever. Basta, I’m happy for Pilar, I’m happy for Michel. I’m happy that they have found happiness with other partners. I’m glad that, separately, they have come to terms with their respective pasts.

What’s up?

• Parañaque City Councilor (First District) Alma Moreno (photo) is running for vice president in the National Capital Region (NCR) during the ongoing convention (March 28 to 30) of the Philippine Councilors League (PCL) at the World Trade Center. The election will be held today, with 3,000 councilors from all over the country attending. Good luck, Alma!

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