Would ABS-CBN delay Daniel Padilla’s contract renewal until such time the public has more or less forgotten his ex-girlfriend Kathryn Bernardo’s veiled denunciations of him in the authorized interview she gave to ABS-CBN’s MJ Felipe right after she signed her new contract on 1 February?

Bernardo hinted that the difficulties she went through in 2023 were caused by her discovery of Padilla’s unfaithfulness.

Bernardo practically sounded like Liza Soberano a few years back when the Fil-Am actor decided not to renew her contract with ABS-CBN and eventually signed up to be managed by fellow actor James Reid, who himself quit Viva Artists Agency and proceeded to manage his own career. 

Like Soberano, Bernardo recently rued about her not having any say about her career, which for a long time was gloriously stuck with Padilla. After all, a reel love team that becomes real is what typically produces superstars in Philippine movies and television.

This time around, Bernardo will have a say on who she will be teamed up with. Her new contract allegedly allows her never to be teamed up again with her ex-boyfriend. That’s according to radio talk show host Cristy Fermin, quoting an unnamed source.

The ex-boyfriend is now a pariah, a plague?

According to an ABS-CBN announcement last month, Padilla was slated to renew his contract with Star Magic in February. He was supposed to renew it ahead of ex-girlfriend Bernardo. What seems to have prompted ABS-CBN to hold Bernardo’s contract renewal ahead of Padilla was Bernardo’s being espied hanging out with the couple Maja Salvador and Rambo Nuñez, who are also into star management. 

Only ABS-CBN’s MJ Felipe was allowed to interview Bernardo after her contract-signing. Felipe may have been briefed not to ask Bernardo anything that had to do with her ex. The station and content supplier may have to do the same when they hold Padilla’s contract-inking. 

It had been previously revealed that the exes are still slated to do projects together. But that may no longer be mentioned now; ABS-CBN would surely know better by flooding the media with the films and series they have lined up for Padilla so he could reveal details about those future engagements and not about his feelings for his ex.

We surely want Bernardo and Padilla to be triumphant in 2024, both professionally and personally. The triumph will also do ABS-CBN a lot of good. The network has just lost one pillar: Deo Endrinal, the head of its production division Dreamscape, which brought forth the network’s most successful series, such as the ongoing Batang Quiapo, FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano, Dirty Linen and Pira-pirasong Paraiso.

Bea-Dominic also kaput?

Looks like the Kapuso network may also have to do some work to keep Bea Alonzo’s image positively afloat. She and boyfriend Dominic Roque seem to have broken up after she let him announce that they have begun to plan their wedding. 

When queried for details about the event, Alonzo replied that only Roque knows about the wedding, blurting out that she is too busy to have time to bother about details of her supposed nuptials. Oh, boy!

YouTube vlogger Ogie Diaz has let it out that Alonzo and Roque have broken up, quoting an unnamed source, as usual. She’s most likely to get the flak soon for making Roque believe she would marry him this year. Or next year.

Did you know that since Alonzo bought a real estate property in Spain, some tongues have begun secretly wagging that Alonzo allegedly plans to retire there with a female lover? These are whispers among people who suspect Alonzo’s romance with Roque is just a masquerade.

Alonzo, of course, has never talked about any possibility that she is gender-fluid. 

Carla keeping her peace

There’s a Kapuso star keeping her peace despite the return to the Philippines from the US of her ex-husband: Carla Abellana, one of the two female lead stars of the surreal series Stolen Life.

 Her ex-husband Tom Rodriguez is back in Manila, less than a year after hibernating in the US following his separation from Abellana. 

The ex-wife has asserted on her Instagram that isn’t bothered at all by Rodriguez’s return. She says she has always felt it would happen sooner or later because of Rodriguez’s acting career here in the country. 

She has no plans to see him and would just say “hi!” to him if she happens to see him anywhere, including in showbiz events.

In showbiz, it’s fabulous and profitable to “live and let live” as exes.

Another puzzler: Liza-Enrique

Meanwhile, would Enrique Gil change his assertion that he and Liza Soberano never broke up and that they are just both too busy to see each other and be seen together when his comeback film I am Not Big Bird has been shown?

Soberano has been staying in the US for about a year now. Her US-made film Liza Frankenstein is showing in the Philippines on 9 February. 

Universal Pictures, which distributes her movie, has been giving her enough publicity and promo interviews. The film is a horror-comedy. No mention of her relationship with Gil in those interviews.

On her Instagram, Soberano had earlier said she will produce films and series, including those that can be shot in South Korea. There too, she has never mentioned any personal or professional relationship with Gil. 

She seems to be more in communication with James Reid than with Gil. After all, Reid is her manager.

If Gil is lying about his long-ended romance with Soberano, it could boomerang on him. He would be accused of using her. Let’s hope it doesn’t’ turn out that way. He could have simply followed Liza’s non-committal answer about the two of them: “We’re good!”