Zorayda A life of laughter & tears

Zorayda Sanchez had a face only her mother could love, but she used her looks (or the lack of it) to shine in Philippine showbiz that loves “rare” finds as much as precious gems.

In our Journalism Class at the University of Santo Tomas, the very first batch of journalism graduates from the pontifical university, she was one of those voted least likely to succeed. But of course, the criteria were based purely on physical attributes and social graces. And the jury consisted of those mean girls in class who spent more time powdering their noses than burying them in books.

Zorayda couldn’t care less. She was simply the girl from the remote boondocks of Angono, Rizal (yes, back then, it took an eternity to get to that erstwhile hinterland). She dressed, walked, and talked the part.

But in class, you’d hardly hear Zorayda’s voice except perhaps when she would scold and go after some of the boys, who loved making fun of her. Before the class would begin, we’d see her chasing a boy classmate across the room, with the latter running for dear life and flashing the sign of a cross with his index fingers while screaming, “Aswang, aswang!” That nightly scene sure kept us entertained and awake during sleep-inducing lectures on ethics of the press and the libel law in our classes that started at 5 p.m. and ended at 9 p.m.

A lot of us did not attend the commencement exercises — the diploma was just a piece of sheepskin for us and nothing more; besides, we reckoned our lives had already commenced since most of us already had jobs. After graduation, we simply lost track of each other. But one day, we saw a familiar face in our Journ Class on TV. “Is that really you, Zorayda?” we asked with raised eyebrows.

Yes, it was Zorayda, making a splash in a detergent commercial in living color! If those mean girls in class could see her now! They would surely be swallowing their words plus a whole bar of soap. From then on, we would be referred to as the classmates of Zorayda Sanchez.

“Sikat na talaga ang classmate natin,” Alma Macrohon told me on the phone one day. “She wants to meet up with us.”

So, we agreed to meet at a supermarket. Zorayda arrived in a jeepney. I learned that Zorayda, even at the height of her popularity, remained simple. She never bought a car; she hardly took a cab, she simply commuted by bus or jeepney.

Even when she became a household name, like the detergent she was endorsing, she was still the Zorayda we knew in school. “She remained very simple, even in the way she dressed,” says Alma. “The only time I remember her having a dress made by a designer (Edward Teng) was when she attended an awards night.”

Alma adds, “Sometimes, I would just wake up one morning and see her lying in the sofa in my living room. Instead of going home to Angono when she had a shooting, she would pass the night in my house in Mandaluyong.”

Zorayda never left the family house in Angono. It burned down 15 years ago. “The fire started with the aircon and it just spread. She lost everything in that fire,” Alma recalls. “Her sister had a new house built — much bigger now. It’s a Mediterranean-style house with wooden furniture and a little garden. It’s got a big bathroom the size of a small bedroom, complete with a shower, bathtub, and cabinet. Now, I wonder if Zorayda had been able to enjoy all that.”

I must admit that it came as a shock to most of us when Zorayda became a single mom. Funny but we knew her to be the conservative, manang type who wore her dress long even when the miniskirt was all the rage. We could only guess it must have been true love. We don’t really know because Zorayda was a very private person; she never talked about her personal or professional life. All we know is Zorayda met this actor Dax Rivera, and they had a daughter named Alexis Joyce, whom she simply called Joy because she was the joy of her life. Whatever her daughter’s father did not give their daughter, Zorayda made up for a hundredfold. And it wasn’t just material things. Zorayda showered her daughter with all the love in the world. How proud she must now be of her Joy, soon to graduate from BS Biology at UP Diliman. Joy dreams of becoming a doctor.

“I’m happy for my mom because now, there’s no more pain, no more suffering,” says Joy in a TV interview. “Sobrang nahirapan siya and she wanted to go home.”

Zorayda died of breast cancer a few weeks ago. Nobody even suspected that the comedienne/writer was sick. Whenever some of our classmates would text her to ask how she was, she would either say she was okay or simply evade the question.

During her wake at home, her classmates sighed with a hint of frustration, “Nakakainis sya. If only she told us about her condition, we could have done something to help her.”

She kept her condition from everyone. She kept her pain and suffering even from her own family, always putting up a brave front and keeping herself busy at work as if there was no tomorrow. Her sister only found out when the family labandera told the former that she would always see bloodstains on Zorayda’s bra. Zorayda was immediately brought to a surgeon, who happens to be a neighbor. She had a breast removed and underwent chemotherapy. She also went to a herbalist, to whom she entrusted her life.

Alexis Joyce is an orphan now. Her father died early this year. Again, we her classmates could only guess that his death must have left Zorayda brokenhearted. Now, she had one less reason to be happy, one less reason to laugh.

If there was another thing that made Zorayda happy, it was her loyal friends (who included Evelyn Vargas, Beverly Salviejo, Tia Pusit, and Lou Veloso) and fans.

“She really didn’t want to be an actress, but she was happy when her fans would come to her for an autograph,” Alma relates. “She would answer their letters. Her fans became her friends.”

At her burial in her beloved Angono, her fans lined the streets to wave their goodbyes. But then again, old comediennes never die; their laughter just fades away.