A Date with an Angel

Angel Aquino will never strike you as an athletic person. If ever, she'll oft be associated as one of the country's prettiest faces and a showbiz personality. The fact that she endorses the three stripes is a wonder to her because when she was in school, she was asked to try out for both the women's basketball and volleyball teams. "But I don't have an athletic bone in my body," she cheerfully admits. "Once upon a time I rooted for the Ginebra San Miguel team of Sonny Jaworski. I followed and watched that team. Who didn't?"

Incredibly, she's a former Tulong Dunong scholar from Barangka, Marikina. Angel says that TD and meeting and learning under Fr. James O'Brien and Onofre Pagsanghan changed her life. "Education steered me clear the direction of my family's life. It gave me a sense of purpose. And learning from Jesuit-trained students fascinated me. Even hearing the students speak in English fascinated me. It was like 'English could be spoken well enough by Filipinos.'"

We chatted for an hour and a half and towards the end of it, one of the buntings in Kopi Roti -- a heart since it was Valentine's Day -- fell beside us. We both looked at it and laughed hard. Then I said, "I'm sorry. I'm taken." And we laughed even harder.

The moment we stepped out of Kopi Roti, a cab --without us flagging it down -- immediately pulled over. Iba na, I guess, ang magandang babae. Without any pretensions, she went back to Barangka (she resides in Cainta) where she and her sister operate a business. I went to Ateneo to watch football.

I'll work on the story when I get back from Thailand.