Korina: Coming out and coming home

Feisty and yet so feminine, Korina Sanchez tells us why her home and her heart are in the right place.

How does one rate a K who has facets from A to Z?

On an ordinary working day, Korina Sanchez interviews presidents and prime ministers. On an extraordinary day, she probes into the psyche of ordinary people, like laundrywomen and hired killers. She is interested in all their stories.

Not too long ago, she was giggly and girlish in the late mornings as she co-hosted a showbiz talk show, then authoritative in the evening when she presided over a no-nonsense news program. How she crosses the gap ("You learn their language," she answers when asked how she adjusts to her subjects) is perhaps the secret to her staying power – she’s been in the business for 20 years, with a cache of awards to show for it.

Her pursuit of the newsworthy has brought her to the shanty of a disgraced, now cross-eyed former prizefighter in General Santos City; to the White House in DC and to the grand St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

So when does Korina put on her Manolos, and when does she slip into rubber slippers? When does she switch from her fancy Rajos to her tailored Armani suits? When does she say datapwat and when does she blurt "Omigosh!"

And does the feisty, hard-hitting former Hoy Gising anchor ever turn into putty or engage in baby talk?

"I’d like to believe I’m multi-faceted. That’s what separates one communicator from another. I can talk to a colegiala and speak her language. I can talk to a four-year old and have a conversation for a whole hour. I can talk with somebody in his seventies and still have an interesting exchange. I can talk to a sorbetero and I can talk to the president of a multinational. And in every conversation, you speak a certain language. Can you imagine the other day, I spoke to two hired killers? I was interviewing guns for hire for Rated K who kill people for P100,000!"

* * *

  One attempts to learn more about Korina by observing how she is like at home. One steps into Korina’s split-level Bel-Air home and thinks, "This girl’s got a living as well as a life."

It is a marvelous life. 

The white-themed home abounds with Orientalia and Chinoiserie ("Perhaps because I was born in Hong Kong," she explains her liking for Oriental furniture). One is met by the sound of water gently cascading (it’s from a glass water feature that she designed herself) and the soothing aroma from scented candles.

The calm in Korina’s world is further defined by a painting of white doves in the foyer and the flickering light from several candles in various coffee and console tables all over the spacious living and dining areas. Several Buddha figures, a symbol of luck and serenity, are perched majestically around her home.

Korina greets you warmly, with the same smile that made her the perfect weather girl when she was starting her TV career. Her face unmade up, she is wearing a dainty Laura-Ashley-type floral cotton blouse. Today, she is more Martha Stewart than Barbara Walters, more Oprah than Katie Couric. (She later slips into a melon orange Pepito Albert blouse for the photo shoot, puts on some lipstick but no jewelry.)

Over rose wine, cheese and pate that she bought in Rome, and prosciutto ham that she wraps around pickled garlic, Korina unravels herself.

Unlike other broadcast journalists, Korina does not only report and comment on the news – she is part of the news. Intramurals in her home studio ABS-CBN have given her more than an everyman’s fair share of column inches in the papers. And how can one ignore her two-year-old romance with the bright and good-looking Sen. Mar Roxas, which some thought would not last beyond the May 2004 elections?

It is a glowing Korina that televiewers see in her Tonight at ANC show. Is it the glow of a newlywed? Did she and Mar tie the knot during their recent US trip?

No, Korina smiles. There is one picture of Mar in the first floor of her house – on a shelf in the den. It was taken when both were given the "PEOPLE of the Year" award given by PEOPLE Asia magazine, which Korina joined this month as columnist.

"Is marriage in the horizon?" I press.

"Well, maybe," Korina smiles. "Maybe not. Maybe people want to stop on maybe."

Her four-year-old niece Tyra runs into the living room. Time stands still for Korina and she excuses herself to play a DVD for her niece in her second floor bedroom. I smell popcorn cooking in the kitchen for her little VIP guest.

When she returns, I ask Korina, who obviously dotes on her niece, if having kids is part of the blueprint of what seems to me as her very well-planned and organized life.

"Well, you know, when I left TV Patrol, it wasn’t so long after that I figured that maybe God also wants me to refocus my attention on things that have had to take the backseat for the longest time. I’ve been wanting to have a kid but never really got to settle down with any of my boyfriends and I never really wanted to just get pregnant, period. After all, my career was going great guns. But yes, I’ve refocused. And yes, I’m trying to keep myself healthy. I’m on a regimen right now to get myself ready for having a child. Because I’d like to try that," she admits. Korina won’t say when, but she drops a hint when she admits that she’s "pushing towards the brink of the ability to have healthy children, without complications."

"We’re on borrowed time," she adds, "My plans for my future are simple – same plans with or without a man beside me." (To be concluded on Thursday)

* * *

You may e-mail me at [email protected]