THE  PEOPLE'S  CHOICE:  SHARON CUNETA

MANILA, October 18, 2005 (STAR) People Asia Magazine - What she was born with she brought to the fore, and what eluded her, she worked hard to have. And hold.

That is perhaps why wife, mother and megastar Sharon Cuneta touches a chord in most Filipinos' hearts. They see in her not just her sparkling eyes and porcelain skin - they see a woman who has had to struggle despite her wealth, good looks and melodious voice. And they see in her a woman, who, not having had a perfect life to start with, worked hard to have it all.

You see, Filipinos, good-natured as they are, don't idolize the lucky ones. In fact, they envy the lucky ones for the perfect lives they probably don't deserve.

But in Sharon Cuneta, who makes every product she endorses fly off the shelves, the Filipino public sees a woman who mirrors their hopes and dreams, their yearnings and aspirations. This poor little rich girl belonged to the second family of the father she adored. Her first marriage foundered, and so did subsequent romantic relationships that she thought would last. When she finally found her Prince Charming, the babies did not come easily. She prayed patiently fox that, too.

So in Sharon, people see their broken hopes, and also their fulfilled dreams. They rejoiced when she married (now senator) Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan, they applauded the arrival of her eagerly awaited babies Frankie, (now five); and Miel, (now 14 months), and gave her a pat on the back for the way her eldest daughter KC, 20, had turned out.

People have been rooting for Sharon Cuneta from the moment she sang "Mr. DJ" and stole their hearts. They're still rooting for her now.

"There was a time," admits Sharon, "when I was resigned to living alone for the rest of my life. And I was okay with that. If KC was destined to be my only daughter, then I thought I would just adopt. I had a Plan A, B, C. Things have a way of balancing out, don't they? God had given me so much already and I was humble enough to accept I could not have everything."

Till she met Kiko, who came into her life when she was not really searching for love despite the fact that two other good-looking men were also after her. Sharon realized that the bespectacled Kiko was the answer to her prayers when he wooed her daughter's heart as he wooed her. And today, he is the type of father who would take the MRT from Manila, where he holds office at the Senate, to Mandaluyong, where the family residence is, because it saves him travel time. That means 30 more minutes to play with the kids before their bedtime.

Sharon has also allowed herself to enjoy the gift of just staying at home, where she is a wiz in the kitchen. If her showbiz career did not take off, she says she would have taken up Hotel and Restaurant Management in college. She had set her sights on becoming a professional chef. But things don't always turn out the way we want them to be. Sharon had to put domesticity and cooking (to her heart's content) on the back burner till she was in her thirties and when she did so, she made up for lost time.

"I love married life. It was my first dream," she shares. We are at the home of her friends, chefs Bernard and Nelia Dee, who have prepared a gourmet lunch for the megastar and her friends. A relaxed Sharon shows us the many ways she makes a dip for vegetable sticks and chips.

She whips up her famous bagoong dip with Lady's Choice mayonnaise (which she endorses in TV and print ads), shrimp paste and garlic chips. There is a cheesy mayonnaise dip and a tangy mayo dip for the salmon tempura bits.  Sharon savours what she cooks.

"A slim figure and a great career are not the be-all and the end-all of my existence!" she says as she nibbles on baked fish with caviar, chopped eggs and mayonnaise. A woman after our own heart. "I am so content with my life right now. I am not vain. I mean, I love my work, but work is not the be-all and the end-all of my life."

So what is the be-all and the end-all of her existence. "God, my kids! It's really my family. When I was a child," she turns to her mother Elaine, who is beside her in the dining room, "my dream was really to just get married and have a happy home. My singing career was just an accident. I didn't really expect to become famous after `Mr. DJ'. "

The years that followed her early marriage and its subsequent breakup were "workaholic years," she recalls. "I became a workaholic shortly after my marriage broke up…because, I don't know if it's typical of the way we are, but I thought, this area of my life is destroyed na, so don't let it naman spill over to the other areas, like my career. Take care of what you can take care of because you are not in control of everything. And the little control that God has given you, use it. Let's say He gave you a job. So what do you do? You do your best. I was just grateful for a job and I knew how to save. Even when I was little, I had always been a smart saver. I was never waldas. But now I spoil myself... I wanna enjoy my money. I'm not one of those... you know, scrimp and scrimp. And I like to spoil the people I love."

Her priority now is clearly her family and her home, a choice this lady is glad she made. "Parang the first 20 years out of my 27 years in show business helped me build relationships in the business. It helped me build a name and establish a reputation. Helped me save because I really worked when I could. Now, I can afford to just relax and do the things that I feel that I want to do. And then spend more time with the kids. And that's why in a way, KC was short-changed in that area.

"Nowadays, I will work but it wouldn't be like before…unlike with KC before, it was really hard. I really had to build our security. I had to build a nest egg. I had to make sure we had food on the table. I didn't want to depend on my parents."

Sharon breastfed her youngest daughter Miel for seven months, the first six months of which the baby was purely on breast milk. That was the main reason Sharon couldn't go on a diet.

She also used her break from the limelight (but she continued to do commercials even during her pregnancy, proof of her following regardless of how she tipped the scales to spend more time in the kitchen. On her eighth month of pregnancy, Sharon cooked two 20-lb. turkeys with all the trimmings, for a Gamboa family reunion that lasted from lunch to dinner. Sharon has been compiling recipes since she was a teenager and her recipe books are neatly stored in her attic, which is almost as huge as the entire first floor of her house. It is a "glamorized bodega," giggles Sharon, "because it has four air-conditioners." Neatly stacked on shelves with appropriate headings and labels are albums, magazines, recipe books and mementoes, which Sharon "filed" during her home leave.

"Basically, what I like to eat is what I want to cook. And I like talaga to bake. I want to have a bakeshop. I can bake mamon, banana bread, orange cake, chocolate cupcakes, all kinds of cookies. KC likes Peanut Butter cookies. Kiko likes White Chocolate Cookies."

Sharon has cut down her coffee intake from 15 cups a day to about two cups. "I was such a coffee addict! There was a time when the stress of work would get the better of me…it would be so easy to just sit in one corner and have coffee than jump up and down and scream my head off." She doesn't take alcohol either, not even an occasional glass of wine. "Now, its green tea, green tea, green tea," she laughs.

As wife to a respected senator, Sharon prefers to stay in the background. She hosts parties for his staff, but has not thrown a party for his colleague yet. During one visit she made to Malacanang with Kiko, it was Frankie, not the megastar, who stole the show. Frankie was toured around the Palace by no less than President Arroyo, but it was Sen. Juan Flavier who made an impression on the five-year-old. "Next time I come here, you come here, too, okay?" she asked Flavier.

Running for office herself - she was once rumored as a mayoralty bet for Pasay - is not part of Sharon's plans. But she intends to "resume her TV show in January next year, the month she turns 40. She also plans on having another child.

"If I had met Kiko earlier, I probably would have had six children!" she exclaims as she has her dessert. This is a girl who knows when to deprive herself of something, when to indulge. Life, they say, is giving up something for something you want more. Sharon's made her choice. And so have the people.

* * *

What you will see is a picture of daughter, "tita", mom and amiga all rolled into one - not the megastar that she is, but someone with whom any woman would identify.

One September day she organized an "eat-in" at home with mom Elaine, nieces Lala, Apples & Joy Sotto, together with bosom buddies Marni Ocampo of Sari-Sari and Fanny Serrano and a few ladies from the press. It was a very rare occasion to be in such a homey and intimate gathering such as this. No camera, no lights, no director. Instead, Shawie wanted to show off to her guests that her being a Lady's Choice endorser wasn't just a talent contract.

No sooner than the guests had settled down to getting the small talk going, Shawie was whipping up a mayo dip. "I experimented with mixing a Filipino staple like bagoong with Lady's Choice Mayonnaise - parang bagay kasi. Try it," she proudly asks her willing observers.

The guests were prompted to do their own mayo creations using different ingredients laid out on the table. Fanny Serrano put wasabi in his creation while Working Mom's An Mercado Alcantara and Gina Abuyuan blended different spices with the mayo base to create their individual dips.

There is something that instantly brings people together and that is the subject of food. All at once, Sharon shed off celebrity self and became the foodie while her guests found their creative juices flowing.

Sharon was handpicked by Lady's Choice to be its natural endorser. Everyone was amazed at her revelations that since she was young, she was already a budding "foodie." "When we traveled, I would be so interested in restaurants, I'd pick up cookbooks and dipped recipes which I kept in a clearbook. I have collected to so many things that I have a huge room where I store all of my finds. I'm a great boarder! I can't bear to let go of anything I think I'll use again," she confesses. She showed the guests her new "find" - a hook on how to he a kitchen entrepreneur. "You never know. I think it's fun to reinvent oneself. Someone told me long, long ago that whatever it is you dreamed of when you were a child is actually your calling. Maybe I am meant to be a cook!"

Sharon uses cooking as her way of expression (aside from singing). "I remember when my dad passed away, I spent hours in the kitchen baking cakes and cookies and I even roasted a turkey to make into sandwiches to send to the wake. This was my way of handling my grief."

Her romance with food stems from her family's roots. Mom Elaine is a Gamboa from Pampanga, where almost everyone is a foodie. "I remember when I was growing up, Mommy would always have so much food on the table. Eventually I learned to cook a variety of cuisines including Continental, but since I married Kiko, I have concentrated on Filipino, which he prefers," says Sharon the homemaker.

The gregarious hostess recalls that as far back as her grade school years, she was already a Lady's Choice Mayonnaise lover. "I love sawsawan. And with mayo, there are just so many things you can mix with it to have new appetizing dips."

True enough, the range of dips served that day included Lady's Choice with avocado, wasabi, cheese, guava - all blending well with oysters and salmon tempura, Mediterranean meat roll, skewered prawns and vegetable sticks.

"All of us can be creative. We just have to try. It makes life more interesting and exciting," is the hostess' advice to her mesmerized guests.