Korina on Noynoy and Mar, her wedding and the future

Amidst the twists and turns on the road to Malacañang, Korina Sanchez is standing by her man and the man he chooses to be his president.

“I believe they will win,” Korina says of the Liberal Party tandem of Senators Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas. “Their tandem is an idea whose time has finally come.”

It is a calmer Korina who talks to me now. She admits she felt bad when Mar pulled out of the race in favor of Noynoy, but after Mar made his decision, she is standing by him — and by Noynoy. And yes, Baby James Yap, Noynoy’s nephew, is definitely going to be her Ring Bearer when she weds Mar on Oct. 27 at the Sto. Domingo Church. “I wrote Mar a letter and told him I am so inspired by his sacrifice.”

“Noy and Mar are what their names and legacies say they are. It is true that the moral compass isn’t always automatically handed down. But, clearly, for both Noy and Mar, nothing bad could be said of their integrity in governance. They’ve been brothers for a long time and they share a common dream for this country,” says Korina, acknowledging that Noynoy and Mar have known each other for longer than she has known either of them.

Korina once covered politics and voiced an opinion on it for breakfast every day. Now that she is a part of politics, as the soon-to-be wife of, first, a presidential, and now a vice presidential bet, she is learning how to keep her emotions in check and some opinions to herself.

“According to a life coach in Singapore Mar and I consulted once, I am the optimist. This means Mar weighs his options based on consequence and the downside while I make decisions based on aspiration and possibility. This makes him the better technocrat and protector and I the better dreamer and adventurer,” confides Korina. But, she hastens to add, “these are the differences that make our lives more balanced and complementary.”

Mar, for himself, once told me how he makes decisions. “It’s the emotions that fuel me. But it’s my brain that operationalizes or actualizes what I feel. I operate with my brain.”

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Korina is keeping busy with the wedding preparations meantime, a gargantuan task for a bride-to-be who is expecting some 2,000 to 3,000 guests at the reception. She and Mar have so many friends they have decided to hold their reception (as of press time) at the family-owned Araneta Coliseum after the 3 p.m. wedding at the Sto. Domingo Church.

Of her altar date, she said: “I didn’t realize one upheaval can happen almost simultaneously with another upheaval. It’s still a bit of a blur. All I know is that it’s big, gargantuan. It’s unrecognizable from a distance. It’s approaching and if there were any danger at all, it is imminent. And it’s headed right for me staring me in the eye. Hahaha, scary, huh?”

“In many ways, yes, I am terrified,” she said. “When you are young you have no fear balancing along the gutter of your home’s rooftop. When you are older, you think of all sorts of possibilities, consequences. One moment I’m panicking with my self-inflicted paranoia. When it is just Mar and me and we are driving or when he holds my hand in the moviehouse, my life is full and happy. No fear.”

“When I took a leave of absence from work it was surprisingly easy, happy, light. It was on mutually amicable terms, it was of my decision, with my career’s arms open for me to come back in case the situation allows it. But in the middle of a different kind of flurry I am realizing I’m hopping from one carnival ride to another.”

 For now, the adjustments, the hurt, and the acceptance are teaching her what a lifelong commitment is all about. That, at the end of the day, it’s just going to be husband and wife and they better get along with each other. “I think a good gauge for testing whether you can stay with someone till your old age is to assess the most unremarkable days with each other doing the most mundane, boring things. I mean, I imagine that’s what life will eventually be like when you both can hardly walk, right? Mar and I have had many days like that. He and I are both homebodies, weary and spent from having partied and experimented earlier in life.”

Mar told me he likes it that Korina has “his back.”

I asked Korina what exactly Mar meant by that, and she said, “Mar doesn’t like fuss and does not welcome being fussed over. And I’m not a fussy person either. He tends to always think the best of people, hardly believing someone is capable of something so petty or dastardly. Having been in journalism all my adult life I am trained to be suspicious. So I’m the one who’ll say, ‘I don’t think you can trust this person,’ or ‘This is human nature, you can’t avoid that, just be aware of it...’ He calls me Conspiracy Theory. I hate it when he says that. I think that’s what he means when he says, I’ve got his back.”

When Mar was still eyeing the presidency I asked Korina what she would do if she became first lady. She saw a banana peel in that question, and said she did not want to be presumptuous. “I can imagine the usual suspects — those who want to have something to say about me (“Oh my goodness she’s so presumida, que barbaridad!”) — waiting for me to say I’m taking over Arts and Culture or be the messiah who’ll finally clean the Pasig River. I prefer to reserve plans on being the political spouse — which right now are the farthest, farthest from my head — for if and when Mar declares. What I do say is that I think public service and being hand-in-hand with the needy will always be a part of my life wherever you find me.”

Months after Korina said that, Mar has declared his candidacy, alright — for the vice presidency. If he makes it, time will tell if Korina is true to her word. As she also once said, “That’s what wives do, I suppose — support their husbands...”

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