Isabelle Daza: Pride & Pedigree

Gabriel “Bong” Daza departed from this world to move onto a better, happier place, but his passing leaves only a tinge of bitterness and instead, highlights the good he’s left behind.

Although he separated from wife Gloria Diaz — the first Filipina to win the Miss Universe crown in 1969 — more than 20 years ago, he continued to foster loving relationships with his children with her, one of them being Belle Daza, one of TV’s gleaming “IT girls.”

Belle is as lovely as she is today because of a multitude of experiences, but the foundation of it all began at home, with mom and pop leading the way.

Get to know one of the daughters of Bong Daza and see how much she’s grown up, definitely making her dad proud from his newly gained vantage point.

By IAN GARCIA

Isabelle Daza may not be a real princess but she can certainly carry herself like one. A daughter of a former beauty queen and an heiress to the culinary world’s version of a royal family, Isabelle is as every bit blue blooded as one can get.

Isabelle’s pedigree almost automatically signed her up for a fruitful career in show business. Although she started out late, reluctantly, if I may add, she’s now amongst the industry’s prettiest stars. “I enjoy it. I really like working with the people I’m with. It’s a learning experience and I learn a lot about myself in the process,” she shares.

Time is considered a rare commodity for Isabelle nowadays, especially since she’s adjusting with her move from one competing network to the other. Time, or lack thereof, hasn’t stopped her from enjoying the things she loves: food and travel.

Based on her last name alone, Isabelle’s affinity with the culinary arts appears to come as second nature. Aside from enjoying food, she also knows her way around the kitchen. She can bake mind-blowing brownies and roast a mean chicken

She says that some of the best places she’s been to include Argentina, because of the horses there, and Paris, which she visits yearly.

Despite having been to many countries and countless cities, Isabelle’s love for local destinations still far exceeds all. “No place beats the beaches here in the Philippines,” she says citing San Vicente, Palawan, a hidden paradise boasting of the longest white sand beach in the Philippines, as her favorite place hands down. “Nobody’s there. It’s amazing.”

“It” girl

As part of the talk-of-the-town ‘IT girls’, a clique that has filled society pages and magazine covers in recent years, there’s no question that Isabelle has it made. To stay grounded, she keeps her mindset simple and clear crediting authenticity as their secret to success. “I have a group of friends I love and people just kind of coined that term for us,” she shares. “We’re very happy that people have embraced us. I’m not saying that we’re perfect because I think the reason why people really have clung onto what we have is because we’re all real. We each have our own distinct personality.”

Isabelle’s maturity is caused, or is the effect (depends on how you look at it) of being able to keep things in perspective, and that includes handling negativity with optimism. “People now feel a little bit closer to you so they feel like they can express their opinions, and they’re entitled to that. I just take it with a grain of salt and think ‘Okay, you can’t take all this love without some of that hate’. You can’t please everyone, that’s for sure,” she says. “All these clichés make so much sense now.”

Another thing Isabelle now focuses on is making smarter choices when it comes to her finances. As an ambassador of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), one of the country’s biggest banking groups, she’s hard at work in making sure that she places her eggs in the right baskets, with a little help from mom of course. “My mom always tells me that material things will expire and they’re just for instant gratification. So I just strike a balance. I don’t try to buy anything I can’t afford and I don’t want to live outside my means.”

Despite the success, Isabelle keeps an even-keel about where she is at the moment. She’s coasting through her days with the grace of a princess, the grind-it-out mentality of a professional, and the wide-eyed curiosity of a preschooler. “I like to try and see myself as someone who doesn’t take life too seriously. I like to enjoy the little things and pleasures in life.”

(Photography by BJ PASCUAL | PeopleAsia August – September 2015)

Share on Facebook

Tweet