In a night of punch lines, VP Binay had one of his own to throw but didn’t

IF, as the late writer Nick Joaquin once wrote, character is the man plus his circumstances, the Binay proclamation rally the other night told much of it for a number of UNA senatorial candidates. Their catch calls, which in film scripting are known as punch lines, did speak well of what they are.

“Ako po yung nakikita ninyong sumasayaw sa ‘Lovely Ness’ sa Channel 7. Sexy po ako noon, ngayon siksik na.” This was Alma Moreno, of course. As a punch line in her reminiscences on her alluring history, Alma teased: “Pero kahit na siksik, may asim pa.” The men folk were titillated, the women giggled. Just how that “asim” had gone through the years, was depicted in her calling to the stage her entire brood: two, teenaged boy and girl surnamed Marquez, one surnamed Quizon, and, according to her, her youngest whose name got drowned out in the din; no Fernandez was around. Well, the lovely seventeen-year-old Vanessa, who would seek a quiet corner with me where to study her lines in “Daluyong at Habagat,” her first starrer, had gone on to become the President of the League of Councilors of the Philippines, her credentials for being part of UNA’s senate slate.