Joel and Jenny Banal’s sacred refuge

It’s been over a month since the Blue Eagles were de-feathered and run over by the bullish Tamaraws, capping another frenetic UAAP season. Finally, we’re able to catch up with Ateneo coach (until December, that is, when his contract expires) Joel Banal, looking not the least bit scarred after a bruising battle for the UAAP crown that pitted him against his younger brother, FEU coach Koy Banal.

"In the beginning, the whole family thought it was going to be fun, brother versus brother, and whoever won, they’d be happy," Joel recalls. "After the game, I called up Nanay (Mrs. Jovencia Banal) to tell her that I was okay, I’d be better because of the hurts and pains from the loss. And she said, ‘I thought it was going to be fine. I don’t want this anymore.’ Usually, you feel more for the loser."

Joel couldn’t go to Koy’s victory party because he had to hear Mass at Ateneo. "We win together, we lose together," Joel asserts. "I was with Fr. Tito Caluag until 3 a.m. and with the players up to 5 a.m. Then I went to Mass at 6 a.m. to thank God for a wonderful season, even if we ended up just runners-up. My only consolation was that from the start, I felt that FEU was the team to beat. They were ready and so hungry to win."

So, is he or isn’t he (being extended by Ateneo, that is)? "It depends on what Fr. Tito Caluag, Fr. Bienvenido Nebres and Manny Pangilinan will agree on," Joel rationalizes, "but I feel I have served my two years at Ateneo – I’ve had two years of experience in win-ning and losing ... It’s not in my hands now, let the will of the Lord be done ... I feel I’m just passing through. It was my mission to break that 13-year drought and give Ateneo a championship, and I feel I have accomplished my mission. I feel I have to move on and focus again on the PBA."

Joel can go on and on till you’re blue in the face. "Koy knows me, he knows I’m very competitive – even against a brother, I would not give my competitor a chance. I think he got that from me, he didn’t give me a chance, he pounded on us hard and fast."

But for Joel, win or lose, nothing beats coming home, after a hard day’s work or play, to good homecooked food prepared with lots of tender loving care by lovely wife Jenny. And catching up on how the day went for his sons Juan, 19; Miguel, 18; Gabriel, 13; and Raphael, 11.

There’s nothing blue in the Banal home that’s brimming with love and happiness. What the first-time visitor first notices as he enters Joel and Jenny’s sacred refuge in the middle of Pasig’s concrete jungle are the white-and-green (yes, as in De La Salle green) walls. Then you catch the soothing melody of water falling as you peer through the glass window at the pocket garden outside.

The only "rose" among the "thorns" in this house, Jenny likes to fill her home with flowers. Luckily, Joel still gives her flowers, like her favorite red roses. "Especially after we fight," she stresses.

"Which is why she always picks a fight with me," Joel says with a laugh.

"We got this house just this year," Jenny tells us. "At first, I didn’t like it, but Joel saw the potential of the house – it’s very spacious and the rooms are squarish and easy to decorate."

It was easy filling up their spacious new house, what with their humongous and heavy molave furniture. There’s something old, something new and something borrowed (some paintings) in this house.

The old things came from the Banals’ old townhouse in Valle Verde where they stayed for 18 years. "It was a house I won at a Christmas party of an agency of the Ministry of Human Settlements where I used to work," says Jenny. "I was still single then."

"That hastened our marriage," Joel remarks in jest. "Ang swerte ko, may bahay na ko!"

Then, as though sitting in the ringside of the Big Dome, we’re witness to a play-by-play unfolding of the couple’s beautiful love story. "My parents (the late Mapua dean Poly Mapua and Mila del Prado of Angeles City) didn’t like him at first because they knew him to be a playboy," Jenny begins. "He was the barkada of my brother."

"We used to party in their house – Jenny was only 12 then and I was 15 and a college freshman," Joel relates. "And then one day, this girl turned into a woman! Her good friend Grace was the girl friend of my teammate Ricky Relosa and I’d ask her about Jenny. She’d tell me to forget about Jenny because I already had a girl friend. So I had to prove to Jenny I was serious by not having a girl friend for six straight months."

"Every day, he was in my school and in my house," says an exasperated Jenny. "Talagang, oh, no, this guy again!"

A month before Jenny turned 18, Joel went to Brazil with the national basketball team. "Before I left, I told her she has to say yes, she’d be my girl friend because if my plane crashed, I’d pull her feet when she was sleeping."

"I think I missed him so it must be love," says Jenny.

"It must be because I told her maraming pasalubong if she said yes," a jovial Joel adds.

Winning Jenny proved harder than winning a basketball game. Joel was up against suitors who were rich, driven and driving Porsches. Then there was the determined Joel Banal coming to the Mapua house in a tricycle.

"I was not after those flashy cars," says Jenny.

"But I promised her I was going to be a millionaire," Joel declares.

Joel and Jenny moved into their new big house just a few months ago with their four grownup (and still growing) boys (just short of one to make a basketball team).

"We brought with us some of our old furniture, remnants of the different themes we’ve adopted in our home," the decorating couple shares. "We’ve had an Oriental-Korean theme and a Japanese theme. Our old house was not that big so we didn’t have to spend so much. When we didn’t have children yet, we had everything in black and white and chrome."

And now, it’s plain, good old wood for the Banals. "Parang nagsawa na kami sa modern," Joel and Jenny agree. "All these wooden furniture you see in our house were crafted by a furniture maker from Pangasinan. They were all made-to-order. And they’re all made of all-weather molave."

And the beautiful news is that everything you see in the Banal home is for sale. You could be sitting on a big wooden chair that’s part of a four-piece sala set that sells for only P25,000. Or you could be admiring a long buffet table with countless drawers that costs only P4,500.

"People who come to our house like our furniture so much they don’t bargain anymore," says Jenny.

"We get what we want from our supplier, enjoy it and if somebody likes it, we sell it," says Joel. "I buy and sell cars, too. I’m a salesman, I can sell anything under the sun. But one thing’s for sure – I don’t sell games."

Even more beautiful news is that the Banals have recently decided to go full blast on their furniture business and they’ve named it Timeless Accent Rustic Furniture (call tel. no. 635-2002). On top of that, of course, super mom and schoolmarm Jenny Banal will continue to run the Banals’ Christ the King Academy for preschoolers.

"We’re renewed Christians, we attend Catholic Masses," declare Joel and Jenny. "Had we not renewed our faith, we would have been separated a long time ago."

You know what they say about a family that prays together. What about a family that plays together?

"Yes, all our boys play basketball," says the proud mom. "Juan and Miguel whose age difference is only 13 months, play for Team B of Ateneo while the younger boys Gabriel and Raphael play for Xavier."

To basketball the Banals must have been born. All 10 male Banal cousins play – among them, the six-footer Atenean Dominic, son of newsman Conrad Banal III; and Jobim Antonio, 6’4, son of Joel’s sister May.

And the passion for basketball seems to grow even more from one Banal generation to another.

"One out of four (sons) in professional basketball is fine," says proud dad Joel. "Two out of four is great!"

And Jenny is making sure Joel sees the realization of his hoop dreams for his sons. "Our food expenses eat up half of our budget," she says. "I make sure the boys eat right because if they really want to grow tall, that’s one of the ways. The older boys eat lots of veggies; they even like ampalaya. I buy them fresh milk by the boxes. They consume four cartons every day."

The boys’ school allowance of P130 to P150 is enough to cover lunch and merienda. "It’s just for food," Joel points out. "If they need to buy something, they can ask us. If they complain, I tell them when I was their age, my baon was only P1.50; my transpo was P1.20, which left me with a loose change of 30 centavos with which I bought bananacue. I couldn’t even buy soft drinks anymore so I’d drink water from the fountain. That’s the telenovela of my life. When I tell them that, they stop complaining."

No matter how late they slept the night before, Joel and Jenny make sure they wake up to send the kids off to school the next morning. "We make it a point to bless the kids every morning before they walk out the door because there’s no telling what’s going to happen during the day," says Jenny.

The two older sons share a bedroom while the younger sons share another room. But then, the boys love sleeping with their parents. Good thing the master’s bedroom is big enough to accommodate four growing boys who enjoy playing video games and watching replays of basketball games. Or just having a ball.

Surely, the Banal family is a team to beat.