Estafa cases in a showbiz world

Pinoy showbiz idols should stop being thoughtlessly (ignorantly?) nice to their supposed friends who request (beg?) them to endorse those friends’ ‘investment projects, which somehow readily assume legitimacy and utmost credibility when showbiz idols are its endorsers.

Parokya ni Edgar band leader Chito Miranda has admitted that his wife, ex-actor Neri Naig, is currently detained at Pasay City Jail following her arrest on 23 November for syndicated estafa and Securities Regulation Code violations.

Naig has to be detained because syndicated estafa is non-bailable. Miranda says his wife’s syndicated estafa case has reportedly linked her to unlicensed solicitation of investments for Dermacare corporation headed by a certain Chanda Atienza who seems to have been sued, too, over some violations of Securities Regulation Code but not issued a warrant of arrest by any court.

In February last year, it was Luis Manzano who was accused of syndicated estafa by investors in the company known as Flex Fuel Petroleum Corporation. He was alleged to be the corporation’s head.

By August 2023, Manzano’s lawyer, Regidor Caringal, was able to prove to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), that Manzano resigned from the corporation long before 2021, the year the 12 complainants invested in the company.

The lawyer was also able to prove to the NBI that Manzano himself lost his P61-million investment in the corporation. Thus, the NBI removed the TV host-actor’s from the list of unnamed persons whom the bureau has charged with syndicated estafa.

In October last year, actor Ricardo Cepeda was arrested in Caloocan City allegedly for syndicated estafa and other alleged criminal cases. He was about to lead the ribbon-cutting in an inaugural event but ended up transported to a jail in Cagayan up north where the syndicated estafa was filed by about 40 complainants.

Cepeda asserted he was just an endorser of the company that deals with energy gadgets. He was allowed to bail only in September this year. He languished in jail for 11 months. One of his brothers openly raised funds for him online while the actor was in detention.

Another actor, Ken Chan, is practically a fugitive of the law. A warrant of arrest for syndicated estafa was issued against him early this November though he and his family have gone abroad about a month before the warrant was issued.

Meanwhile, some showbiz celebrities have expressed their support for the Miranda couple. One of them is former Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan who is reportedly Miranda’s uncle. Pangilinan, a lawyer, took to his Instagram to offer help to the couple. He assured Miranda that if Naig is not an owner of the company and also not an official of the firm but only an endorser, she could not be held accountable for signing up investments into the business.

Pangilinan stressed that the one who must be held accountable is the owner of the company.

Miranda earlier revealed through his Instagram the company’s owner to be Chanda Atienza, who was named by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Enforcement and Investor Protection Department in an advisory for “enticing the public to invest in the said entity under its ‘Franchise Partner Agreement.’”

Pangilinan also informed Miranda that the legality of the arrest warrant must be questioned before the court because Naig, according to Miranda, did not receive any notice with regards to the case prior to the arrest. Miranda admitted that his wife had been sued before and they received court summons for those cases and Naig attended to them with her lawyer.

Let’s all hope Chan and Naig are the last showbiz personalities to get embroiled in alleged cases of syndicated estafa. Pinoy idols, watch out for who your supposed friends are.

Happily, happily, there’s a recently “discovered” warm and loving relationship between two young stars even as they are actually promoting an entry in the fast approaching 2025 Metro Manila Film Festival: Francine Diaz and Seth Fedelin, the headliners of My Future You of Regal Entertainment.

The film is their first teamup as lead actors, their first entry in the MMFF. Directed by Cris Aquino, My Future You seems to be the only General Patronage entry among the 10 MMFF entries. It’s a sci-fi love story between two young people who belong to different decades. They first got to know each other through a dating app.

The 2024 MMFF entry also stars Almira Muhlach, Christian Vasquez, Peewee O’Hara, Bodjie Pascua, Mosang, and Izzy Canillo.

At the media conference held at the Monteverde family-owned Valencia venue on Valencia St., Quezon City, the two lead actors were peppered with more questions about their relationship than about the film. Diaz is 20 years old and Fedelin is 22.

Both are identified with ABS-CBN, and they first gained massive attention as the young lead actors in the series Kadenang Ginto, though they were not paired up in it. Fedelin’s love interest in the story was Andrea Brillantes and they did fall for each other in real life even as Fedelin was found out by the feisty Brillantes to have visited Diaz at home once. That visit eventually caused them to break up.

Diaz was paired up with Kyle Echarri in the storyline. Kadenang Ginto was the breakout into wild popularity not only for the four young stars (known then as the “Golden Squad”) but also for the adult female lead actors Dimples Romana and Beauty Gonzales.

After the two-year run of Kadenang Ginto (from 8 October 2018 to 7 February 2020), Diaz and Fedelin went on to be teamed up in the music videos of recording artists of Star Music, ABS-CBN’s recording division. The Gold Squad topbilled a short-lived series “Huwag Kang Mangamba.” It premiered on 22 March 2021 on the network’s Primetime Bida line up replacing Ang sa Iyo ay Akin. The series concluded on 12 November 2021 with a total of 168 episodes.

Diaz and Fedelin’s first series team up as on-screen sweethearts was last year’s Dirty Linen on ABS-CBN.

At the media conference for My Future You, Diaz and Fedelyn did not actually declare themselves young lovers. What Fedelin announced was Diaz’s parents have allowed them to “hold hands” in public and anywhere else.

Fedelyn mightily announced that he has earned the trust of Diaz’s parents and it was practically the parents that he courted, not Diaz herself. Sitting right beside Fedelin in front of media people (including vloggers), Diaz never took issue about any of the mouthfuls that Fedelin let out about their relationship. She allows him to outtalk her, and no one remembered to ask her if the same situation holds true between them in private--while holding hands or not.

Diaz dwelled more about how her star status now built up from her mother’s patience in bringing her to auditions and tapings and how her mother had to borrow money many times from their neighbors for their transport fares to get to auditions and tapings.

She recalled how her mother would patiently wrap untouched left-over food so they can eat them at home later. “Ni pang-grocery kasi, wala kami. Ganu’n kami kahirap noon (We didn’t have money even for groceries. That’s how poor we were),” Diaz confided.

Diaz admitted that their movie making it to the 2024 MMFF is the biggest deal in her career. “Nagwala ako sa kuwarto ko sa tuwa nung ibinalita sa akin na kasali ang ‘My Future You’ sa festival. Sigaw ako nang sigaw sa kuwarto ko, pagkatapos kong magsisigaw kay Seth sa telepono sa pagbabalita sa kanya na tanggap kami sa festival (I really went crazy with joy when I heard that ‘My Future You’ had made it to the festival. I was screaming at Seth on the phone before telling him the good news),” she shared at the media-con.

Here’s hoping viewers would swarm My Future You starting 25 December and scream in delight in the moviehouses for the scenes together of the young lovers Diaz and Fedelin.