Piolo: I don't want to see Tita Lolit behind bars!

And finally, like a never-ending telenovela entangled in twists and turns, the real-life gender-centered “soap” starring bosom buddies Piolo Pascual and Sam Milby, with the “bitchy witch” Lolit Solis between them, ended happily ever after (sigh!) when Lolit signed an affidavit retracting her story that she saw Piolo and Sam in a compromising situation (the Tagalog word used in the banner story of Lolit’s column in Pilipino Star Ngayon was “naglalampungan” — as in “necking and petting”) at the poolside of the Sofitel Philippine Plaza one afternoon in October last year, insinuating that the two guys were locked in a gay relationship. With Lolit’s retraction (which was what the complainants had been asking for all along), the libel case Piolo and Sam filed against her was dropped.

As the cliché goes, all’s well that ends well.

“Yes, I feel relieved that it ended this way,” Piolo told Funfare Update. “I don’t want to see Tita Lolit behind bars.”

“And neither do I,” seconded Sam in a separate interview. “Piolo and I didn’t want to see Lolit in jail siempre. I’m just very happy that she finally decided to do a retraction. She could have done it earlier.”

Although he and Sam move in the same circles as Lolit does, their meeting at a Manila Regional Trial Court last Wednesday for the out-of-court settlement was the two guys’ face-to-face meeting with local showbiz’s irrepressible and unstoppable Big Mouth (with due courtesy to Martin Nievera who’s the original holder of that “title”).

No, there was no beso-beso and no chika-chika, but only tension-filled silence, although Lolit claimed that had either Piolo or Sam or both given her a motherly hug, she would have returned it with a tighter hug since, she confessed in jest, “Piolo Pascual at Sam Milby ‘yan, ano, at mukhang masarap silang yakapin!”

“When I saw her,” recalled Piolo, “she reminded me of my mother, so I told myself, ‘I wouldn’t want somebody who reminds me of my mom to be in handcuffs behind bars, clad in an orange dress with a big P printed at the back’.”

Lolit claimed she’s 61 which is about the same age as Piolo’s mother.

“At my age,” said Lolit, “hindi ko pinangarap na sa kulungan tumanda, ano!,” adding that she was grateful to Seiko Films boss Robbie Tan who acted as “bridge” between Lolit and Joji Alonso (Piolo and Sam’s lawyer who is a movie producer) toward the amicable settlement of the case. “Actually, I don’t know Piolo and Sam personally. Ang kilala ko si Mr. M (Johnny Manahan, head of the ABS-CBN Talent Center and manager of Piolo and Sam), from way, way back, and I would have felt bad kung hindi kami magkakabati for life.”

During her earlier interviews in TV talk shows, Lolit said that she was willing to be Piolo and Sam’s publicist for free, for life. Asked about it now that they have (not really kissed but) made up, Piolo said Lolit didn’t have to go that far. “I’m not asking for anything at all,” added Sam. “All we wanted was her retraction and we got it.”

For her part, Lolit said that if invited to a promo-presscon for either Piolo or Sam or both, or to the premiere of their movie, she would gladly go.

But even with the case closed, rumors about their sexuality continue to hound Piolo and Sam. But they are not bothered, thank you.

“Sam and I are still friends,” insisted Piolo. “We wouldn’t let nasty rumors affect our friendship.”

Said Sam, “The rumors don’t affect me at all. I don’t think I need to prove anything to anybody, you know. If people think that about me, I won’t hold it against them; I don’t need to prove to them what I am and what I am not. But it’s a different thing when somebody writes a story that, say, she saw ‘Piolo and Sam doing this or that,’ and make people think na totoo talaga. That’s going too far; that’s where I draw the line.”

In the next breath, Sam relayed a message to Piolo.

“Kuya Piolo...I call him kuya...thank you for standing by me in this case and for being the role model whom I look up to. You will forever be my best friend.”

Wishing Lolit “good luck,” Piolo said that it’s time to “move on” (we hear that phrase being dropped by showbiz folks these days, don’t we?) and start life anew on a clean slate.

“There are lessons to be learned from this incident,” said Piolo. “And I’m speaking not only about Sam and me, and Tita Lolit, but about everybody.”

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