I
can’t believe I am interviewing Melanie Marquez
at the Manila Polo Club, old school enclave of Manila’s
old rich. I see a number of these seniors slow-gaiting
it down the cool open hallway, others peering through
bifocals inside the glass-walled library lounge.
Melanie is on her way, we are told. We sit in the
breezy cabana overlooking the
sparkling pool – my boss, a stage director, the owner of Placenta soap
which Melanie endorses, and a balikbayan from Portland who is here to discuss
business with Melanie.
We chit chat.
The director is in the middle of regaling us with stories about rude press photographers
training their SLRs on the crotch area of the Bb. Pilipinas candidates, and how
Stella Marquez Araneta, who heads the Bb. Pilipinas Charities, is painfully hands
on when it comes to the details of running the pageant.
That’s when Melanie Marquez sweeps in.
Not walk, not saunter, but sweep. It’s an almost diva moment except that
she isn’t dressed her for close-up. Her all-white outfit is a mish-mash
she must’ve pulled hastily from the labada. She wears a loose shiny blouse
with a mandarin collar she pairs incongruously with a full skirt that stops short
of her ankles. She’s in fugly trainers. Plus, her face is scrubbed clean
and her lush beauty queen hair is pulled into a ponytail. She lugs along a
sports bag and a tennis racket.
But hell, she sweeps. At 6’1”, she retains
the bearing of what bagged her the Miss International crown
in
1979 and walks with the confident stride
of a true Supermodel, which in 1986, she joined and almost won (she was first
runner-up in the competition). Di bale, she was also named the Most Glamorous
Woman in Italy the same year and wore couture on the European runways.
And at 42, her complexion resembles that of a baby’s bottom. Little wonder
she is the image model of Placenta Soap, even if she admits, during our off-tape
chit-chat, that she is also a great believer in the efficacy of “Pond Cold
Cream.” Yes, “Pond Cold Cream.” Spat out three times before
she got to pronounce it correctly.
This latter quirk is, of course, classic Melanie Marquez. The gramatically-challenged
babaeng bakla we love dearly, our pop cultural treasure. But while she openly
and breezily speaks of this famed side of her a little later in our conversation,
she floors us in other ways.
Her calling
Because today, she matches her virginal, uncool persona with the point of this
interview: her work as the president of a Makati wing of the Relief Society organization
of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
Except that Melanie refuses to call it “work,” and describes it instead
as her “calling.”
The Relief Organization, she tells us, is the largest organization for women
all over the world. “We actually catered of giving charity work services
to all women, teaching them to be self-reliant and giving them a program for
livelihood projects and educating them regarding the fullness of the gospel because
it’s very importance to balance our temporal and spiritual in order to
actually know what you are and how important you are here in this world and
where you belong.”
She matches her long sentence with short examples: the importance of modest dress,
the value of sewing as a skill, cooking, and the 72-hour kit.
The 72-hour kit, she says, is “actually preparing food storage, preparing
yourself in three days emergency.” She explains: “You have to have
a 72-hour kit at home dahil minsan you don’t know, di ba? Calamity happens,
yung mga earthquakes, yung mga fire department. We teach those things to be
aware in calamities that are unexpected. We also teach them food storage.”
While it’s all altruistic, she was peeved that the Makati government waffled
on giving them a permit for the dental consultation mission they had planned.
While we intrigeras suggested it may have something to do with Makati Mayor Jejomar
Binay trying to block a possible campaign-sortie-in-disguise for her former husband
Lito Lapid who had said he would gun for Binay’s position, Melanie had
other ideas. (In fact, we were off-base because there is still a little friction
between Melanie and Lito arising from his previous and supposed lack of financial
support for their 25-year-old son Manuelito who now resides in Las Vegas.)
It may have been, she says, because of outdated notions
of their Church. “Kasi
nangyayari, they think we are always misunderstood,” she says. “Some
they said we belong to polygamous before of Joseph Smith. But that was before
and that was cut off already 1800. So that’s why we have this polygamous
noon – kaya nila tinawag ng polygamous kasi pinatay lahat ng Latter Day
Saints noon na pinaparami lang namin. Tsaka there are times na there is reason
behind that. But then it got stopped. 1800 was stopped and then they said they’re
accusing us, judging us as a cult naman.”
She believes, “It’s about time for us to come
out from the Church, from where we at, para ma-educate
yung tao at tsaka maging aware sila na we are
Christians. We only teach what God has taught us at tsaka yung example niya.”
Family time
While the printed word is unforgiving, Melanie’s sincere burn obliterates
every grammatical lapse she blithely commits. In fact, Melanie insists on being
an Inglisera. She conducts the interview mostly in English, confidently stating
her points, happily skewering grammar and syntax until they don’t matter
anymore. For Melanie and whoever else she trains her vaguely unnerving attention
on, it ain’t the words, it’s the meaning.
And she backs meaning with grunt work. Sundays, she says,
she reserves for Church work, three-hour meetings that
include sacrament meetings, Sunday school and
Relief Org work. After, they engage in “compassionate servicing,” which
means visiting inactive members in their homes where “we encourage them
to keep the commandments and be obedient to the law of God” or visit
the sick in hospitals.
She also makes it a point to have her family together on the dinner table, especially
as their schedules are often in conflict.
That means a full table in the Melanie Marquez household
including husband Adam Lawyer, 54, an American who like
his name is also a lawyer, a rancher in Utah
and a businessman; and their children, Adam, 5, and Abraham, 3. They are also
joined by Melanie’s children from her previous relationships: Mazemme,
17, her son from an Arab; and Maxine, who’s 14 and Michelle, 11, from
actor Derek Dee.
With a full house and the Church work she glowingly prioritizes,
showbiz has taken a back seat. She turned down four offers,
two of which were hosting jobs,
until her husband convinced her to accept work in a new sitcom called Dalawang
Tisoy with Eddie Gutierrez and Freddie Webb in the title roles. But, she said,
it was only because it didn’t conflict with the family’s planned
two-month vacation in Hawaii and their 50,000-acre ranch in Utah.
She also finally got her diploma in Business Administration last year, something
she always dreamed of, and which was made possible by a combination of home module
and classroom work.
In addition, she is a director of Mabuhay Foundation, which
offers free cleft palate operations, corrects crossed eyes,
and works on cataracts. Previously
affiliated with the facilities of St. Luke’s and Lourdes Hospital, the
foundation is now building its own clinic. She donates to UNICEF.
“This is my fulfillment, This is what I want. Showbiz is just part of working.
My life, I think, is serving, doing charity works. |
