Piolo gets as much as he gives

Rare is the star who focuses on others instead of himself on his birthday. But that’s just what Piolo Pascual is doing today, his 32nd birthday.

Instead of holding a lavish birthday party and getting lots of gifts, the star of Love Me Again (Land Down Under) would like to do the reverse. He is going to Malabon to cheer up depressed communities there.

The gesture has become a birthday tradition for Piolo for some time now. Last year, Piolo brought along his nephews, nieces and director Joyce Bernal’s daughter Liam, during the gift-giving session at a hospice center. Even Piolo’s US-based mom happily helped her generous son give gifts away to an orphan when she came around for a visit.

“I’m just a channel of God’s blessings,” Piolo explains. When I bless others, God blesses me in return. I am blessed with work, endorsements, etc.”

So serious is Piolo in his wish of “doing what’s important in God’s eyes and fulfilling my promise on Earth,” he plans to be a missionary after three years, when his contract with ABS-CBN is up.

And he won’t be an armchair missionary at all. Piolo plans to go out in the field, where the action is. He won’t mind going to Laos, for instance.

“Who knows, I might meet my future wife in one of my missions?” Piolo wonders aloud.

“I wanna walk the talk and reset my priorities,” he reveals.

But his fans need not worry. This doesn’t mean Piolo will say goodbye to showbiz. He loves his work too much. And he swears he will always look for acting assignments.

It’s just that Piolo is the type who can enjoy the simple things in life, like being with his 11-year-old son Iñigo and admiring the beauty of nature.

Last Christmas, Piolo had the time of his life just being a normal father. He brought his grade five son to his school in Burbank (Los Angeles) every day during the two weeks he was in the US. Aside from spending a White Christmas together, father and son also spent hours snowboarding and laughing their heads off.

The boy insists — to Piolo’s chagrin — that he wants to be an actor like his father. In fact, Piolo reports that one of Iñigo’s motivations for getting high grades in school is the hope that dear dad will allow him to enter showbiz.

“That’s why one of my birthday wishes is for Iñigo to change his mind about joining showbiz. He must finish his studies first. As for commercials, it all depends on the nature of the project,” explains Piolo.

The protective dad is just as solicitous when it comes to his co-stars. He ordered catered food for everyone to share on the set.

Piolo needed no prodding when he covered leading lady Angel Locsin’s body with his robe while they were doing the love scene of Love Me Again.

As lovers who can’t control their excitement after seeing each other again, that scene, shot in a stable, is so full of passion and raw intensity. Its director Rory Quintos couldn’t help but be disappointed when some sequences had to be edited out upon orders from powers-that-be.

The roughness of the stable was equaled only by the raw passion Piolo and Angel brought into the scene.

As Migo the cowboy whose beautiful romance with Ara (Angel) encounters rough sailing when financial problems arise, Piolo is at turns tender, angry and ecstatic.

The beauty of the Australian outback and the Bukidnon mountains, where the movie was shot, serves as a fitting backdrop to the tender story.

And with animals — horses, birds and cattle — completing the picture, the natural setting of the movie is complete.

Up next for Piolo is the Koreanovela Lovers in Paris and another movie.

It’s true. The blessings are pouring. And all because Piolo knows how to give back, and is thus getting as much as he is giving away.