Carlo & Enid: Home is where...

Fourteen years after he quit showbiz and migrated to the States with his actor-brothers Leandro and Angelo, Carlo Muñoz is back for a month-long vacation (until end of July) with his wife, short-lived actress Meg Reyes (real name: Enid Bianca Pearl Reyes), and their three children (Joshua, 12; Isaiah, 10; and Caleb, 7).

It’s been a long time and everything has changed, but not Carlo who still looks as trim and as young (doesn’t look 39) and as good-looking as he did when he starred in nine movies, including Regal Films’ Yamashita: The Tiger’s Treasure, directed by Chito Roño, for which Carlo won a FAMAS Best Supporting Actor award, Got To Believe (the biggest hit of Rico Yan and Claudine Barretto) and Sanib with Aubrey Miles, his last movie.

Of course, Carlo is fondly remembered as Billy in the hit PLDT commercial in which he was pursued by a gay (not the swishy type) friend, the ground-breaking TVC featuring an LGBT character.

Heads turned toward Carlo as soon as he and his family walked into Via Mare (Timog, Quezon City) for lunch with The STAR. The whole family was sunburned after a weekend in Coron, Palawan.

“It took awhile before we got familiarized with Metro Manila,” shared Carlo. “The skyline has changed and so did the landscape. There are so many skyscrapers now. Even the places around ABS-CBN have changed. The old structures have been replaced by tall buildings.”

ABS-CBN was home studio to Carlo and Enid who were launched as members of the network’s Star Circle, Carlo in Batch 6 with Justin Cuyugan, Denise Joaquin and Bearwin Meiley; and Enid in Batch 9 with Heart Evangelista, Alwyn Uytingco and Janus del Prado. (Leandro was in Batch 7.)

“We were told that even the system has changed considerably,” added Carlo, referring to how stars are discovered and built up. “When Leandro and I were in New York City a few years ago to shoot The Story of Us with Xian (Lim) and Kim (Chiu), Xian told us that there were auditions every other week and new batches of hopefuls were launched every month.”

It’s true, I confirmed. Local showbiz is so over-crowded with an avalanche of new faces that fishing out the truly talented ones is as challenging as, to exaggerate a comparison, finding needles in a haystack. You blink and when you look again, you see dozens of so-called “discoveries” falling like bowling pins and drifting back to oblivion even before you even get to know their names.

No regrets having quit showbiz while the quitting was good, according to Carlo who has found a “second home” in California with his family, but only after surviving the difficult adjustment all immigrants experience during their first few years in what is still looked up to as the Land of Milk and Honey.

Together with Leandro (now 41, working in a multi-level marketing company, married with a daughter from a previous relationship) and Angelo (30, married with two children), Carlo left in 2003 a few months after they buried their father, Louie (younger brother of the late actress Tita Muñoz). With them were their mom, Patricia Garcia-Muñoz, and, yes, Enid (who did a few TV shows in her two years in the business, her last movie being Star Cinema’s Kung Ako Na Lang Sana starring Aga Muhlach and Sharon Cuneta in which Enid plays Aga’s one-night-stand date).

Carlo and Enid met on the set of the Kapamilya series Recuerdo. He has had a few girlfriends and she, several suitors, but proved to be a perfect match and they never let go of each other. More than a year after they arrived in California, they got married on Valentine’s Day in 2004 and, a year later, had their first child.

“Life in the US is not easy in the beginning,” confessed Enid. “We had to start from zero.”

“The hardest part was looking for a job,” said Carlo, a Business Administration graduate from San Beda before he joined showbiz. “At first, I worked at the warehouse of a store owned by a Filipino, piling boxes and boxes of imported goods. Then, I moved to a company that marketed ambulances, along with Michael (de Mesa), Leandro and the Introvoys.”

For her part, Enid made use of her CommArts degree (from UST) by working briefly with an advertising company and then at a law office. When the children started coming, Enid became a stay-home wife looking after the brood, doing most of the household chores (laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc.) because, as we know by now, it’s expensive to hire a maid out there.

Carlo has found his niche in two nursing facilities (in Bellflower and Long Beach) where he’s a CEO in-charge of supply, staffing, hiring and firing of employees who are screened in surveys done “within the legal regulatory compliance limits.” A good percentage of manpower is made up of Filipino, mostly licensed nurses.

Every now and then, he and Leandro get showbiz “sidelines” such as the Xian-Kim movie shot in NYC. Carlo also did shows with US-based artists Fe delos Reyes, Odette Quesada and Lee Robin Salazar; while Leandro starred in an episode of Maalaala Mo Kaya (MMK) with Sam Milby and Miguel Vera, shot in L.A. A few years ago, Leandro came home to do two soaps for TV5.

“I do miss showbiz,” admitted Carlo, “but not so much.” Once, he even enrolled in an acting class hoping, just like thousands from around the world, to penetrate Hollywood. “Casting agents run the classes. Competition is stiff. It wasn’t easy. I quit the classes while several others were patient enough to wait for the ‘big break’ even if they had to live out of their cars.”

Rejoinder to Gulong Ng Palad story

During a weekend in Coron, Palawan. The couple is here for a month-long vacation from California where they have been living since 2003.

Here’s a letter from Noel Trinidad, reacting to a recent Funfare item:

Hi, Ricky

This is in reference to your Funfare article of July 6 on the revival of Gulong Ng Palad.

In the article, you casually mentioned that Loida Virina was the sister of Lina Flor, my mother. I would like to point out that this is not the only connection my mom has with Tita Loy or Gulong. Aside from being her older sister, my mom was also the creator of the original Gulong Ng Palad, one of the most popular radio soap operas of the 1950s. Then iconic characters Carding, Luisa, Peping and others were all from the fertile mind of Lina Flor. (Incidentally, Tita Loy played the original Luisa on radio.)

I’m writing this because I believe in giving credit where credit is due and to protect the legacy of Lina Flor. I hope you can find this trivia worthy of your column.

Thanks and more power. — NOEL (TRINIDAD)

P.S. In case you don’t remember me, I was the partner of Subas Herrero in Champoy.

(Yes, of course, Noel, how can I or anybody not remember the legendary Noel Trinidad! — Ricky)

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos, visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on Instagram @therealrickylo.)