GMA expecting new grandchild

There’ll be another baby girl in the Palace next year when Maria Victoria "Kakai" Manotok-Arroyo, wife of President Arroyo’s youngest son Diosdado "Dato" Arroyo, gives birth in late February or March next year.

The proud expectant parents told friends the other night that the baby will be christened "Eva Victoria," after the baby’s paternal great-grandmother former First Lady Eva Macaraeg-Macapagal, and her mother Maria Victoria.

Dato and Kakai were married last May 16 in a low-key wedding ceremony at the Santuario de San Antonio at Forbes Park in Makati City. Dato and Kakai flew to Europe after their wedding, and this honeymoon baby was probably conceived there.

Dato and Kakai also accompanied the President when the latter called on Pope John Paul II at the Vatican last September. During their special audience with him, the Pope blessed Kakai’s tummy, just as Pope Paul VI blessed Mrs. Arroyo’s tummy when she was pregnant with Dato. Mrs. Arroyo and her parents, former President Diosdao Macapagal and his wife Eva were then on a trip to Rome and were given a special audience with the pontiff.

President Arroyo is reportedly very excited about the arrival of her second granddaughter, as she is already a doting lola to Mikaela Gloria, her first grandchild, daughter of her eldest son Juan Miguel and his wife Angela. One of Mikaela’s cribs is in the President’s room.

Before her wedding, Kakai told The STAR in an interview that she would like to have three to four children.

"If we are blessed with a child right away, we would gladly welcome it," she said. "Where child rearing is concerned, if Dato could have his way, he wants to be the spoiler while relegating the task of imparting discipline to me."

Kakai is a senior associate for Debt Capital Markets with HSBC. She and Dato knew each other for 11 years and went steady for seven years before they decided to tie the knot last May.

The couple live in the Palace, where Dato continues to hear daily Mass with his mother.