SEN. FRANCIS “KIKO” PANGILINAN’s ego lugs a sort of baggage: that he won his Senate seat largely because of his wife “megastar” Sharon Cuneta.
Not entirely true because Kiko, now president of the Liberal Party and constructive critic of President Duterte, has enough educational background, experience and reputation of his own to earn and keep his Senate seat.
Of course, Sharon’s endorsement--which has pushed sales of everything from fast food and ice cream to femininine wash and ferry line--helped. More strongly when Kiko first ran in 2001, then six years later, for his second term until 2013. After a one-term respite, he ran again in 2016 for the third term he’s now serving.
A lawyer (from U.P. Diliman with B.A. in English at La Salle), Kiko had master’s in public administration from Harvard University in Boston. He taught law at Ateneo de Manila.
He earned media fame as co-host of “Hoy Gising” and legal programs on ABS-CBN and wrote opinion columns in the “Times Journal” in the ‘80s and “Manila Times” in the ‘90s.
Sharon recently wrote on Instagram that she and Kiko “almost broke up too many times but in the end, I am his home and he is mine.” (“We almost lost each other last year,” she said last January.) Last week, they celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary. Looks like, we gonna hear again Sharon’s endorsement in future elections Senator Kiko will get into.
Not over another woman
Here’s one thing: Sharon says she and Senator Kiko “fought many times over two decades--but never over another woman.” Which, a lawyer even (though not schooled in Diliman and Harvard) looking carefully would say, doesn’t mean there was no other woman, just that it wasn’t the cause of the fight.
Atty. Ellie Espinoza must have heard this story about a lawyer-councilor who spent the night with a girlfriend, overslept and woke up past 4 a.m. in the house of the woman. He got another pair of shoes from his car, dirtied them in the muddy part of her garden and replaced the shoes he was wearing.
Reaching home, as the politico expected, he found his wife waiting for him in the sala. He began confessing, “I had drinks with a woman at this bar and we ended up in her house. I’m so sorry, forgive me...”
The wife cut him short, pointing at his dirty shoes, “You lying bastard. You were playing golf again.”
See? They had a fight over something else, not over another woman.
Anniversary promise
P.S. to the Sharon-Kiko 24th marriage anniversary rite in Thailand. Not true that Sharon asked, “Kiko, will you love me when I’ll be old and overweight?” and Kiko, an English major in pre-law, answered, “I do, Sharon.”
Church for drinkers
The Gabola Church in Orange Farm, South Africa was organized only eight months ago “to redeem people” who drink but are rejected as sinners by other churches. A photo circulated this week with the news story shows a church official garbed like a Catholic bishop giving liquor in a large cup to a new minister, which the latter gulps down as finale to the ritual.
The Gabola Church operates on the premise that other churches shun drinkers. Maybe in Africa, not in the Philippines where the dominant Catholic churches don’t include drinking among the vices priests flog in their homily.
Fr. Mark Barneso, Commission on Youth chairman of the Cebu Archdiocese, tells the story about his fellow priest who was stopped along M.J. Cuenco Ave. in Cebu City because his car was zigzagging on the road.
Asked by the traffic officer if he had been drinking, the priest said, “Just water, from that,” pointing to the bottle on the seat beside him. “That’s a bottle of wine.” the officer said.
The priest exclaimed, “Praise Jesus! He’s done it again! That was bottled water an hour ago.”