TOPAZ HORIZON

Got an email today. One look at it and I knew it was a demolition job. The email said it was presidential candidate Manny Villar's house but I've been to one of Villar's houses (we shot it for a magazine feature) and his decorating taste certainly does not look like this:


There are many more photos but I'm lazy to post them all. I'm sure you'll get it in your inbox soon anyway, if you haven't already.

Like I said, I've seen how Villar lives. Villar's home decor is actually more shabby chic—floral, wood, comfy seating. I personally am not a fan of his taste in decor but hey, it's not my house! Besides, Villar is one of the richest men in the country so I always thought he'd have a fabulous house and it turns out he actually doesn't. Well, it's not ugly, not like it was constructed out of stainless steel drums, but he sure doesn't live as well as certain people I know! And one more dead giveaway that this ain't his: Villar loves photos. His house is literally covered with picture frames of him and his family. The house above has no photos.

Now, I'm not voting for Villar in May (I like another candidate. My only clue for you is he has a pretty wife) but I think this email is just disturbing.

This house isn't Villar's. I can tell because I'm a magazine editor. Those photos were obviously taken by a professional photographer—the flooded-with-light look gives it away. If Villar wanted to keep this house hush-hush, why would he have it photographed by a team of professionals? It's just stupid. As a journalist, I quickly investigated whose house this is and found this blog entry: Is This Really Mugabe's Mansion?. Mugabe is the president of Zimbabwe and he's been holding power since 1980, so he's like our Marcos.

Anyway, so now the house is supposedly Mugabe's but after further investigation, it turns out it also isn't! It supposedly belongs to the biggest movie star in the world. Who's that? Tom Cruise? Brad Pitt? Angelina Jolie? Puh-leeze. They don't even hold a candle to this guy! The biggest movie star in the world is Shah Rukh Khan, with a fan base of a billion. Yes, you read that right—a billion! He's Bollywood, baby, and everyone in the film industry knows that Hollywood is so much smaller than Bollywood.

My V-Day post was popular with the ladies but I didn't post all the comments because some girls said they'll break up with their boyfriends because they're not as great at gift-giving as Vince is. Oh my! I don't want anyone getting heartbroken, okay? Then there was this one comment that said she now has hope because it's her dream to marry a rich man one day and she loves how Vince "rescued" me from "poverty" and that I am "a true Cinderella."

Let me tell you about Cinderella. Yes, she was always portrayed as this poor girl whose lot in life improved when the prince fell in love with her. But though gold-diggers everywhere worship her as their heroine, let me point out the facts in the story that everyone conveniently looks over:

1. Cinderella was the daughter of a nobleman so she wasn't poor. Her stepmother and stepsisters made her their slave but no matter how many times she washed clothes or scrubbed floors, that doesn't change the fact that she had very aristocratic blood running in her veins.

2. Being of noble birth, Cinderella had been educated to become the wife of an important man. Her grace, her charm, and her dancing skills didn't just appear out of nowhere. That's why when the prince met her, she knew exactly what to do because she's been trained all her life for that moment!

3. The prince is still a man and being a man, he gets attracted to pretty girls. Being a prince, he also knew that he had to get a suitable wife. Imagine if Cinderella showed up at the ball in her rags. Will the prince even spare her a glance? Perhaps. And then he'd have her thrown out of the palace!

I'm not being a pessimist here, just stating the facts. Even Diana, Princess of Wales, was adored because she was the modern-day Cinderella, the girl-next-door who caught the eye and heart of the Prince of Wales. Now, who lives next door to a prince anyway? Someone just as wealthy and aristocratic! And Lady Diana, daughter of the Earl of Spencer and a member of an old noble line, has more British noble blood in her than all of the Windsors (they're Germanic).

So while those telenovelas and movies love that storyline, it just doesn't ring true. In real life, you usually fall in love with someone who's just like you--same school, same neighborhood, same church--which means you're usually from the same economic background. Of course this changes when you start working. Your circle widens, and the more money you make, the more people you meet. But somehow people still end up with people who are still the same. Devout men marry pious women, intelligent men marry smart women, crude men marry women with no manners, vain men marry shallow women and so on and so forth.

With Vince and me, it wasn't any different. Sure, my family was poor when we met but we weren't always poor. Things just got bad economically in our teens. But my parents had already planted the seeds--sent us to exclusive private schools, made us read the Shakespeares and the classics, taught us good manners and right conduct, the works! I knew how to use all those forks and knives in an elegant dinner setting, I knew how to dress for every occasion, I knew how to make small talk.

So when Vince met me, it wasn't like he had to cross huge distances for us to understand each other. For one thing, Vince preferred speaking English because he spent his childhood in London and Hong Kong. Imagine if I didn't know how to speak English! That'll be the end of it! Next, Vince is a writer and I am, too, so we hit it off immediately because we shared a passion and a love. Next, we both love books and we love to read, and that definitely increased the attraction because we can't stand people who don't read books! Plus, there are an infinite number of things people who love books can talk about. And it's been 11 years and Vince and I are still having long conversations!


Nope, I'm no Cinderella but I do love my love story because it may sound like a fairy tale but it's real, it's love. I didn't marry Vince for his money or his looks or his brain or his whatever. I really did marry for love! So, to you gold-diggers out there, yes, a well-off lifestyle can be achieved by marrying a rich man--it's been done before!--but it's so much better to become rich first yourself. Then you value your own worth, you know you belong in the same world and, most important of all, you didn't need a man to make your dreams come true. Cinderella will tell you the same thing!

I'm in St. Luke's Global City. I only came here to interview an OBG for an article on prenatal massage for Smart Parenting magazine. But I found myself roaming about, too!

I like it here. It's so big and new and shiny and bright! The hallways are wide, there's real piano music playing in the lobby which has paintings, sculptures and nice modern furniture. I have other reasons (they're all in my mommy blog) but I forgot to add that I also like that I look so pretty in the mirror of this clinic. And when you're pregnant, you like mirrors that make you look real purty! 
Oh, I'm wearing an oversized tank layered over an oversized t-shirt from Gingersnaps. These are suuuper soft! Shoes are triple-bow gold flats from Schu. Bag is a Longchamp. Necklace is Liz Claiborne (see necklace in the mommy blog post).