Mano Po... Mana Po?

Curtain-raisers:

•  A talent manager (one of the most popular around) doesn’t know it yet but one of his alaga is planning to pull the rug from under his feet by terminating his services. The alaga, a controversial starlet, is now negotiating with another talent manager (who is an “A-lister”) with the help of the equally controversial personality she’s being linked to.

•  A high-ranking executive of a big network denies rumors that she’s transferring to TV5 which is, now that the Manny V. Pangilinan is at the helm, recruiting not only talents but executives from the two “warring” channels offering bigger fees and better opportunities for career advancement. As everybody knows, MVP is a brilliant businessman who has never failed especially in his most ambitious projects. Funfare’s TV5 DPA said that MVP plans to put up 20 TV shows next year and to produce, in the DPA’s exact words, “more movies than do both GMA Films and Star Cinema (sister company of ABS-CBN).” 

•  Sources close to a singer-actress have confirmed that she has broken up with her businessman-boyfriend who has given her a child not so long ago. She was floating on Cloud 9, already talking about marriage (when she very well knows that the guy is still very much married to his wife) and blithely flaunted her love child, disregarding how the legal wife (and her children) would feel. The singer-actress must have been knocked back to her senses when she landed on hard ground with a painful thud.

•  A controversial personality checked into a five-star hotel in Pasay City with the special someone being linked to him. His planned five-day stay was rudely interrupted by his wife who paid him a surprise visit. O, huli ka!

* * *

When is a joke in good taste and when is it in bad taste?

Sharon Cuneta is said to have been “slighted” (to put it mildly) by a joke Wowowee host Willie Revillame cracked on her.

According to the grapevine, Sharon good-humoredly told Willie that he’s already very rich, adding, “Pasakay naman sa yacht mo.” The ever-tactless Willie is said to have replied, “Ayoko nga baka lumubog,” referring to Sharon’s weight (effects of the hypothyroidism she’s suffering from; the opposite, hyperthyroidism, causes the sufferer to lose weight) which she has learned to poke fun at as she did in BFF (Best Friends Forever), her recent starrer with Ai-Ai delas Alas (who has made her prominent chin an object of self-deprecating jokes). 

Funfare sources said that it wasn’t that joke that offended Sharon but Willie’s follow-up joke insinuating at Sharon’s husband Sen. Kiko Pangilinan’s being a “womanizer” (which has been sufficiently denied by both Sharon and Kiko).

“Sharon has a right to be hurt,” said somebody close to the Megastar, “because Willie became personal in his joke. It hurt even more because during Willie’s ‘tag-hirap’ days, Sharon was one of the few stars who helped him financially. Or does Willie have such short memory?”

When Sharon guests in other shows (purposely to promote her movie, Mano Po 6: A Mother’s Love, Regal Films’ 2009 Metro Filmfest entry), she would make side comments like, “Mabuti pa dito sa show na ‘to, hindi ako nababastos.”

That’s about the only little fly in the ointment of Sharon’s life which has been “fruitful” in 2009 (and will continue to be even more so in the coming years). Her eponymous ABS-CBN show continues to do well in the ratings game, she did a successful US concert tour and finally said “yes” to Regal Matriarch Mother Lily who has been wooing her to do a Regal movie for more than a decade.

“The right project has come along,” said Sharon.

The movie is directed by Joel Lamangan (the “right” director) from a screenplay by Roy Iglesias (the “right” scriptwriter) and features an all-star cast including Heart Evangelista playing Sharon’s pasaway daughter and Sharon’s real-life BFF Zsa Zsa Padilla as the villain (with Kris Aquino in a special “guest” role as Sharon’s best friend). “When I got back from Boston (Where Kiko studied as a Harvard scholar — RFL) after two miscarriages, Mother Lily was the first producer to offer me a film project even if I was overweight. Since then, they have been waiting for the right material to present to me.”

In Mano Po 6: A Mother’s Love, Sharon plays a Chinese matriarch who wants to get back her estranged daughter at all costs, never mind if she has to pay P100 million to the girl’s boyfriend (Dennis Trillo) to stay away from her.

In real life, Sharon might not have that much money to spare, not that she has any problem with the guys linked to her daughter, KC Concepcion with whom Sharon denied having professional jealousy.

“I’m happy for KC,” insisted Sharon.

People might wonder why Sharon continues to work “like a horse: when she could very well slow down and enjoy “her millions.”

That’s not really the case.

“The truth,” as Sharon has been telling the media, “is that we are currently ‘treasure-hunting.’ No, my family and I haven’t gotten a mana (inheritance) from our father (the late Pasay City Mayor Pablo Cuneta). We are looking for the titles (to the mayor’s properties) and other documents. It was unlikely for my father, who was an organized man, not to have made ayos what was due us,” adding that somebody (not a Cuneta relative) close to the mayor must now be enjoying what rightfully and legally belongs to Sharon and her siblings.

“It’s good that I continue to earn good money so I am able to make my mom (Elaine Gamboa-Cuneta) live the way she did when my dad was alive.”

The Pangilinans are spending Christmas like they have done in the past — noche buena on Christmas Eve in the house of her mom Elaine in Makati City, lunch with the Pangilinans on Christmas Day and the traditional exchanging of gifts usually opened in front of everyone.

But first, Sharon will have to bury today at the Heritage Park in Taguig City her Yaya Luring who died of cardiac arrest at 83 last Sunday, Dec. 20, the woman who served her for 40 years and whom Sharon considers her second mother.

Meanwhile, who knows, Sharon might just enjoy in true life the reversal of fortune that happens to her character in the Regal movie.

As in Mano po...mana po?

Hopefully.

(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph or at entphilstar@yahoo.com)