Only heaven knows

How in heaven’s name did Kris Aquino develop a relationship with a Makati-based doctor when, in the past few months, she kept declaring herself on the brink of dying in a hospital in the US?

No one has dared ask. Not even the (in?)famous vlogger Ogie Diaz who got the story on Aquino’s latest romance episode straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, when he visited her somewhere in the US?

It is obviously a long-distance relationship (the good old LDR!). Which means, the supposedly very sick and emaciated Aquino had been busy on her sick bed holding sweet conversations with someone in Manila all the weeks and months she was supposedly deeply anxious about not making it alive on her son Bimby’s birthday this year.

Or are the details on how that LDR between Aquino and the MD shaped up still on Diaz’s video camera and he would profitably spring it to the public on the most propitious day.

No one in media seems to have dared to ask “how in heaven’s name?” because the world always loves a lover. (But we are Virgo-born, the zodiac sign of the un-romantic, the un-emotional.)

No, we’re not saying anyone with a dire health condition has lost the right to be in love. They are the ones who actually need it more so they can feel good about themselves and, carry over the feeling to the realization that if they do — their happiness does not depend on the high esteem of other people but mainly on their self-esteem, they become healthier.

Wish Date, the unique concert-within-a-movie event produced by KDR Music House three or four times a year since 2022 had its 13th edition on the night of 30 June at the Araneta Coliseum. The highly entertaining event titled Send My Love seems to cater mainly to the Gen Z’s, not anymore to the millennials and the Baby Boomers.

The songs energetically performed last Sunday were not of the trip-down-memory lane variety. They were mostly contemporary rock released within the last few years by Nobita and the solo acts Macky and Jayda. The nostalgic songs were crooned by Jason Dy and the Wish Chorale but the songs did not go beyond the ‘90s.

The film narrated by disc jockey Dr. Clark is based on the most touching lovelorn letter sent by listeners to Wish 107.5 FM where the deejay hosts a program whose title is his pseudonym, though he is actually Daniel Razon who heads KDR Music House himself. The film stars ABS-CBN’s Kira Balinger, GMA 7’s Allen Dizon, indie actors Mark Ian Garcia, Kate Yalung (also a fashion designer), Karen Timbol and Lloyd Garcia. Songs performed live highlight some scenes in the film even as there were three to four scenes in the film that were acted out live on the stage. Its inclusion of began only three or four editions ago and made Wish Date an even more unique as an entertainment event. In this latest mounting of the show, Balinger and Mark Ian appeared thrice on stage while Yalung had a grand one in the finale in a scene-stealing wedding gown.

The concert actually opened with the Wish Chorale belting out what I would later discover to be a piece written by Bob Dylan in 1997 for his album Time Out of Mind. Dylan titled it “To Make You Feel My Love” but “to” was removed when the song was released. Billy Joel did a cover of the song also in 1997 as did Adele in 2011. It’s a beautiful song.

Dy rendered Luther van Dross’ “Dance with My Father” (2003) and Jayda sang Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away” (2010).

The finale song, performed by the Wish Chorale, is Coldplay’s very moving “Fix You” (2005). It is the most touching number in the concert owing to its poetic lyrics. What turned out to be the oldest song sung in the show was Ariel Rivera’s “Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin” released in 1992.

Nobita, Maki and Jayda belted out their hit recordings. The audience sang along to many of those numbers.

The film is about college sweethearts who had to part ways because the woman decided to do graduate studies in Law abroad despite the boyfriend’s pleading for her not to leave the country. She insisted that her earning a graduate degree abroad was a promise she made to her father before he died.

Years after she had come home and has been working in the country, she suddenly remembered her college sweetheart. She will manage to locate him--but it’s too late for them to pick up the pieces of their broken past.

At the concert’s fourth quarter, a guest band of six members sang “Bituin,” which was publicized as the show’s theme. The song begins with the usual exaggerated professions of the silly, impossible things that can do when in love. It’s rendered by a male vocalist almost as a lamentation for love.

The song’s second half, which comes after a long instrumental bridge, reverses the fawning attitude of the first half. The lyrics trumpet a profession of re-claiming one’s dignity and triumphantly moving on towards self-love.

The band’s almost quaint name is Letters From June. “Bituin” was the only song they were asked to do in the concert. It’s actually an existing band recently signed up by KDR Music House which has been existing also as a talent management company.

Wish Date 13 will be aired on Sunday, 7 July, on KDR Music House YouTube channel at 7 p.m.