Sen. Grace Poe & Neil Llamanzares An oft-told love story

It’s an oft-told love story that grows more beautiful in the retelling.

So when Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares retold it during her husband Neil Llamanzares’ 50th birthday dinner at the Manila Polo Club last March 6, the guests were all ears just the same even if for sure they have heard it maybe not just once but twice before.

The guest list included mostly the Birthday Boy’s classmates from Xavier’s Batch ’87 whom Neil acknowledged in Mandarin in his thank-you speech at the end of the two-hour dinner.

If memory serves, the Grace-Neil romance has been dramatized in Charo Santos-Concio’s long-running/multi-awarded drama anthology Maalaala Mo Kaya (MMK) and the retelling took on a new significance owing to Neil’s turning Golden Boy.

As Grace recalled, she and a friend saw Neil going down a hill to the tennis court.

“I think he’s cute,” Grace told her friend, “but my type is mestizo and I told her, ‘Sa’yo na lang siya’.” Spoken too soon.

Anyway, when Neil first visited Grace at home, he noted a huge portrait on one wall of the sala. He wondered, “Isn’t that Susan Roces?” Said Grace, “He didn’t even know who my parents were and I loved him even more for that.”

The high-school sweethearts got married early. When they decided to leave for the States, Grace’s dad, Fernando Poe Jr., was very sad and Neil assured him, “I promise you that I will always put food on the table and roof over her head.”

Noted Grace, “Neil has been true to that promise, proving himself to be a good provider, a good husband and a good father to our three children (Brian, Hannah and Nika). Life in the States was difficult at first; we were homesick. Neil lost his job and when he found a new one, he had to commute two hours back and forth. He wanted to prove that he could support a family.”

When FPJ died, the Llamanzares family decided to come home for good, initially so that Grace could keep her mom company.

“The song Home from Wizard of Oz (the musical) perfectly describes the feeling of being home,” said Grace. The first stanza of the song sung by Diana Ross goes: When I think of home/I think of a place where there’s love overflowing/I wish I was home/I wish I was back there with things I’ve been knowing…

Addressing Neil, Grace continued, “Thank you for taking a backseat to me; you didn’t ask for the career that I have now, not minding the loss of privacy. Thank you for not leaving me.” That moved the guests into giving the couple a warm applause.

In his own quiet way, Neil worked to the level that, as Grace put it, “he deserved to be.” Neil studied Masters in Management Information at George Washington University and served in the US Air Force.

In his speech, Neil acknowledged his parents, Drs. Teddy and Carol Llamanzares, and Grace’s parents whom he described as “The King and Queen of Philippine Movies,” and, addressing Susan, said, “Thank you for giving me 28 years ago the greatest gift, the greatest treasure of my life.” They have raised beautiful children, well-mannered and, in Neil’s word, “decent.”

It was Brian who hosted the program with Alex Gonzaga. Hanna and Nika dedicated the song Buwan to their father.

Toward the end of his speech, Neil noted that “the future is so bright,” and proceeded to put on dark glasses, (to avoid being “blinded” by that brightness), prompting the guests to break into another warm applause.

Earlier, Grace and their children dedicated the song The Wonder of You to Neil who capped his speech with a heartfelt rendition of the Spandau Ballet song Round and Round — you know: Round and round it goes/And oh don’t you know/This is the game that we came here for/Round and round it goes/And oh don’t you know/You’re just my fantasy and I will fantasize/I wanna be your magical mystery/I wanna be your final history/This is the news of my life…

Grace should have the final say.

“There are two halves in a couple. Neil is the better half.”

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