Ericka sets the record straight

Ericka Villongco wants to set the record straight.

Yes, the singer-actress and Talk Back and You’re Dead star James Reid were in a relationship until March of this year, but no, their break-up wasn’t caused by his leading lady Nadine Lustre. “There was no third party and it wasn’t because of her. Nadine and I are friends,” Ericka says.

So what went wrong between her and James? Ericka clarifies that their break-up was a mutual decision — no one was dumped and they didn’t do it over the phone or anything like that. “We just realized that it was time because we were too in love with each other to the point that we couldn’t do anything else,” she explains. “We had the kind of love that was all-consuming that other things in our lives fell by the wayside. For example, we’d just spend time together watching movies and it was fun, but we realized we needed to focus on ourselves.”

Focusing on herself seems to be a recurring theme in Ericka’s life these days, as she stepped away from the acoustic duo she formed with her sister Krissy to pursue her own passions. Ericka says that while she enjoyed making music — she and Krissy released two successful albums under major label MCA Music — there were other things she wanted to do on her own. But she rules out releasing a solo album, at least for now.

“That’s definitely one of my plans for the future but I put it on the shelf for now. I really want to focus on myself. I want to finish school and learn something new like ballet or something.”

Ericka is currently enrolled at Enderun Colleges where she’s taking up Marketing with a minor in Fashion Design. She’s considering the possibility of opening her own boutique when she graduates in a few years. “I’m actually focusing on the retail side of things more because I don’t really want to do the whole sewing thing. When I was younger, I enjoyed going to Divisoria and Kamuning, buying tela and telling the mananahi what to do. But now, I want to go into the business of fashion.”

Ericka hasn’t completely turned her back on showbiz. In fact, she filmed the Spring Films-Star Cinema teen movie Relaks, It’s Just Pag-ibig in which she was paired with Iñigo Pascual. “I enjoyed working with Iñigo, Julian Estrada and Sofia Andres. We were all very new, we were starting out pa lang when we filmed the movie. We shot it last year. And since we were newbies, there was no tension at all,” she says of her experience.

Her character’s name is Cupcake, and Ericka describes her as the “crazy psycho girlfriend” of Iñigo’s character Josh. “My character is always calling her boyfriend and looking for him. It’s funny because they all said I was so natural in the role. I wouldn’t say I’m psycho but all girls are crazy in a way when they get into a relationship. So I guess I can be like Cupcake to a certain extent.”

That said, Ericka was never that way with James. In fact, even now that they’re not together anymore, she has nothing but good things to say about him. She’s very happy that he’s finally found success as an actor and singer.

“I can’t even explain how happy I am because there was a time when he was so depressed that he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t comfortable doing his workshops and he was having trouble speaking Tagalog. I would always tell him, ‘Just keep pushing, you’re going to get there eventually.’ I would encourage him. So now that he’s doing it on his own, and he’s learned so much, I’m so proud of him.”

For her part, Ericka says that while she’s over James, she’s still not ready to start dating again. When asked to rate how healed she is on a scale of one to 10, she answers, “I guess I would be a seven or an eight. Right now, I want to focus on myself and my plans for the future.”

Romance is the furthest thing on Ericka’s mind at the moment. For now, she’s concentrating on making her own dreams come true — and she couldn’t be happier.