‘We missed you, Auntie Sam’

When sexy actress Assunta de Rossi told Negros Occidental Rep. Jules Ledesma last June that she would love his children like her own, the lawmaker "knelt down and cried" on her knee. He had just proposed marriage to her and she vowed to be "both mother and best friend" to his children.

Three months into their controversial relationship, Assunta’s vow was put to the extreme test after Ledesma’s children, Cristina, 10, and Julio Carlos, 5, were kidnapped on their way to school.

Assunta, 19, stood by the 42-year-old Ledesma’s side during his excruciating five-day ordeal. She is said to have been the one who negotiated with the kidnappers for the children’s safe release.

Her reward for her steadfastness?

Warm hugs and a loving "We missed you, Auntie Sam!" as the children – whom she fondly calls "my future stepchildren" – leaped into her waiting arms in a van where she waited for them on the driveway of the Makati Medical Center at dawn yesterday. "Sam" is Assunta’s nickname.

All Assunta would say about her role in the children’s safe release is: "I did something right. Otherwise, I would be suffering right now. I did not let it get to my nerves, my system." She did not elaborate if "it" meant the "negotiation" for the release.

Assunta, an award-winning actress and the current Tanduay Rhum girl, said she was extremely relieved, and "surprised" that the Ledesma children were in good condition and high spirits when she first saw them yesterday.

"We miss our home!" she quoted them as telling her. According to Assunta, her fiance’s children are very close to her.

"When we are together, they fight over me!" she said.

The children’s homecoming was made even sweeter by their high spirits, she recalled.

"I thought, I would not be able to talk to them. I was expecting them to be in shock. But they were laughing and jumping. Dedma lang sila (They did not seem very much affected by their ordeal)," she told The STAR after she taped her lines for a forthcoming Tanduay radio commercial. She did not miss the recording despite her being practically sleepless the past five days.

"I was teasing Carlos, ‘You don’t look like you were kidnapped! You look like you went on vacation’!" she said.

Cristina, however, seemed pensive to Assunta.

"She has been through so much already," Assunta said. The children’s mother Marivic Pek succumbed to cancer a few years ago.

The past five days cemented her three-month-old relationship with Ledesma, revealed Assunta.

"We almost did not stop crying in the first two days after the children were kidnapped. I couldn’t eat. Jules went on a fast. We could not sleep. But though he cried, he never wavered. He was sustained by his faith. We told ourselves, ‘We have to be strong, we have to pray.’ Little by little, gumaan ang loob namin (our burden was eased). We were confident that they would return the kids to us," she said.

Cristina and Carlos’ kidnapping was a mother’s worst nightmare and "Auntie Sam" is just so thankful "that it is all over."