It looks like the Kapuso network isn’t ready yet to team up its Pambansang Ginoo, David Licauco, with Barbie Forteza even as she has broken up with longtime boyfriend Jak Roberto, their fellow Sparkle star. 

Some avid showbiz followers think Forteza broke up with Roberto because she was — in real life — falling for Licauco who suddenly revealed he had detached himself from his non-showbiz girlfriend at the time Forteza announced her separation from Roberto. 

About a month or two after both breakups, Forteza and Licauco came up with a spoof social media posting in which they admitted not being attached to anyone, so Forteza quickly proposed to Licauco “Tayong dalawa na lang kaya?” to which he immediately replied “Oo, sige.”

Some showbiz-loving wags thought the posting would be followed by ones showing Forteza and Licauco dating and the Kapuso network announcing that the two have quietly completed a film together. But nothing like those transpired. 

Their first movie team-up, That Kind of Love, was not produced by GMA Pictures but by an independent company.  For some reason, the Kapuso network seems unconvinced that the “BarDa” love team is not worthy of a movie investment. That assessment seems to hold on this year.

Licauco’s first movie with GMA Pictures this 2025 doesn’t pair him up with Forteza. Or with any of the Kapuso ladies. The network bestows on Licauco the lead role in the forthcoming film, Samahan ng mga Makasalanan (roughly “Association of Sinners” in English), and he has no particular leading lady in it. After all, the network’s Pambansang Ginoo portrays Deacon Sam in the film directed by Benedict Mique.

A deacon in the Catholic clergy is not necessarily a would-be priest, though some are. However, at the recent media launch of the movie, nobody revealed if Deacon Sam was on the way to priesthood or meant to be just a layman deacon assisting a priest.

Licauco came to be known as Pambansang Ginoo when he was first paired up with Forteza in the network’s 2022 series Maria Clara at Ibarra, a reimagining of the foremost novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, written in Spanish in the 19th century by nationalist Jose Rizal, who eventually came to be known as the Philippine National Hero.

Licauco and Forteza didn’t play the lead characters in the series; Dennis Trillo and Julie Ann San Jose did. Licauco’s character was named Fidel and Forteza’s was Klay. Both characters were not in the novels but were created by the scriptwriters to lighten the series’ narrative and make it more palatable to young viewers. 

Forteza is not even in the cast of the forthcoming Samahan ng mga Makasalanan, which is branded by its producers as a “satirical comedy.” The one who’s in it is Jak Roberto’s stunning younger sister, Sanya Lopez, who plays one of the sinners out to seduce the young deacon. When the network signed up Sanya after Jak, the big bosses decided to make Sanya use their maternal surname Lopez so Sanya could be known independently. 

In the film slated to open in theaters nationwide on 19 April yet, Deacon Sam is sent to a village known as Sto. Kristo, where life is said to be as sordid as the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. The deacon proposes to the village priest played by Joel Torre the creation of an organization to be known as Samahan ng Makasalanan. The deacon believes he can more easily lead back the “sinners” of Sto. Kristo to God through the organization. 

There’s another Lopez in the cast: Liezel Lopez, not blood kin of Sanya. Liezel is a product of the network’s talent search show Star Struck, which Liezel joined in 2015. Liezel was recently revealed by the suddenly sizzling actor Martin del Rosario as his longtime crush. Del Rosario is widely talked about these days for his frontal nude scenes in the three-character stage play Anino sa Likod ng Buwan, an independent production of filmmaker-scriptwriter Jun Lana. 

Samahan ng mga Makasalanan has other female stars playing not-so-decent women out to attract the deacon. Among them are Liana Mae, Chanty Videla, Jade Tecson and Charice Solomon. Sumaya is also in the film’s cast along with about a dozen of stage and film comedians. Even acclaimed character actor Soliman Cruz is in the cast in a comic role, as well as child actor Euwenn Mikael. 

A major star in the forthcoming film is comedian Buboy Villar who is suddenly controversial these days due to accusations of physical abuse by his ex-live-in partner, Angillyn Gorens, with whom Villar had two kids before they separated. Gorens, an ex-professional volleyball player, flew to the US to work, leaving their two children in the Philippines with her parents. 

Villar recently revealed in an Instagram post that his new girlfriend, Khrizza Mae “Isay” Sampiano, has given birth to their first child. Villar sweetly avoided a showbiz journo’s bait to talk about his new lovelife and Gorrens’ accusations at the media huddle for the upcoming film. It would later surface that before the media launch formally began, Villar had given an exclusive on-camera interview with GMA 7’s 24 Oras news program’s showbiz reporter Nelson Canlas. 

Villar denied to Canlas all of Gorens’ accusations of physical abuse. Villar confided he could not inflict physical violence on any woman because he had seen as a child how his mother suffered physical abuse several times by his father when the man was drunk. 

As for Gorens’ accusation of insufficient financial support for their two children, Villar said even that was settled with Gorens as there were years he wasn’t earning enough as an actor-comedian. 

Villar managed to quickly spirit out of the media launch venue right after the last shot for the photo-op with the cast and the production staff. So, we all did not have a chance to corner the sprightly, diminutive actor-comedian whose girlfriends seem to be always taller than him. 

Former Vigan politician Luis “Chavit” Singson was at the media event. It was announced months ago that he was co-producing several movies to be shot in his Vigan estates. 

The media enjoyed the film’s drawn-out grand launch because of the extensive raffle of cash prices at P5K per lucky winner. It was believed that the prosperous business tycoon Chavit sponsored much of the cash raffle. 

Through it all, Licauco kept cool, if not stoic. He occasionally smiled, but the man adored by fans, including women and male gays, was never seen and heard roaring in delight. Being cool and stoic (solid, too!) must be part of the essence of the Licauco mystique. Forteza seems to be not a part of it. 

And, oh, that media event is only the first that GMA Pictures will put up. The film opens on Easter Sunday.